I'll Believe What I Want To Believe

I was just sitting here working, occasionally checking my email, and realized that I'm tired of people trying to tell me what I should believe or how I should feel about something. I got some email from one of these groups that was all up in the air about Sam's Club putting out advertising about the "holidays" instead of "Christmas", and they wanted me and everybody else to email Sam's Club to tell them not to do this, to keep the word "Christmas" in all their advertising. Well, I guess that's all well and good, except I could care less how Sam's Club does their advertising. I like to go there, and I will continue to go there whether they say "Christmas", "holidays", or "go jump in a lake". I don't care. AND I'm tired of getting emails from people with these stupid stories about someone having extraordinary experiences and then telling me to send this to 10 people so I will get blessings myself. Well, I feel like I'm being blessed every day of my life WITHOUT having to send some stupid email to 10 other people. 30 years ago I joined the Mormon church because I felt like it was right, and I still feel that way. I don't need other people telling me what I need to believe in, what I need to be praying about, what sites I need to go to for spiritually uplifting stories, etc. You get the idea. I feel very comfortable in my beliefs, and I DON'T NEED OTHER PEOPLE trying to force THEIR beliefs on me. I don't care about prayer in school. I think everyone can pray to themselves WHENEVER AND WHEREVER they want to. They don't need to have some kind of organized prayer in the classroom every morning. In fact, I don't think they should do that. Does that make me an atheist? I don't think so. And why have a "moment of silence" at ballgames? That, by the way, has taken the place of prayer. Years ago they would always have some preacher go up to the press box and give a prayer before the games so no one would get hurt. So now they do the moment of silence. Last year at the Starmount football games I noticed the chorus would be down there getting ready to sing the National Anthem, and during the moment of silence they would all together, out loud, recite the Lord's Prayer. What was up with that? And another thing. Concerning all these experiences all these people supposedly have (for example the little boy stuck under the garage door and seeing the angels). I know that some people DO have spiritual experiences. I have had many of them myself. The thing is, you shouldn't be talking about them to everybody in the world. You keep them to yourself - they are sacred. I'll admit there are some times when you feel like you should share them with someone else, but it would be at an appropriate time and in an appropriate place - not on the internet going to who knows who. That just cheapens the experience. I also feel that if you do this, you stop having these experiences, and personally I don't want that to happen. So, I hope I haven't made anyone mad. This is just the way I feel about some things.