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About Us

If you know our little family well, you know we are a little weird. We run the gamut from wild and crazy to quiet and introverted. Some of us love puns while others prefer sarcasm. We have artists, actors, singers, readers, mathematicians, and poets. Like any family we each have our own strengths and weaknesses but one thing that we can always count on is each other.

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Like any parents we are always looking for ways to teach our children, not only how to be good people, but why that is even important.

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Now for the wrinkle.

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Even though we were both raised within the moral framework of an organized religion (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) we have come to the conclusion that we want to raise our family outside any religious structure. That's not to say we disagree with everything we were taught growing up. Quite the contrary. We both value much of what we were taught and teach our children a lot of those same values. The problem for us comes from wanting to use what we love about Mormonism and Christianity as a whole but discard the aspects that don't fit our ethical and moral framework. That's not really how most religions work. It's kind of an all or nothing deal. So for us it made sense to leave it behind and continue to make our own way.

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It's not always easy since we are often called on to answer the "why?" with "because that's how we feel about it." At the end of the day we see many of our values are reflected in most of the religions and ancient wisdom of the world. The Golden Rule for example is found in almost every major religion and philosophy since written language was invented. It was commonalities like The Golden Rule that inspired the project we are about to attempt to undertake.

Over the next year we will spend each month learning about a new philosophy or religion. The idea is to look for the common beliefs as well as the things that make them unique. What do Sikhs believe? What do Buddhism and Christianity have in common? What values are worthwhile for us to adopt as a family? What values do we already hold that are also found in other cultures? How does that change the way we see people from other religions and belief systems?

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One challenge we are sure to encounter is making the information we share interesting and informative to adults as well as accessible to kids as young as 8. Hopefully you will be able to follow along as we do our best to document our journey in this blog. We will learn how to best do this as we go. We hope you find some value in following along with our journey.

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