Holy Religious Herpes, Batman!

My views on religion have changed drastically over the years, as have my personal and political philosophies. Since I hit puberty, I've gone through several 'phases' where I chose to obsess about something or other to do with religion, such as ghosts, the possibility of life after death and the existence of God. I was brought up as a staunchant atheist by my parents, but I've had the exceptionally good fortune of both my parents turning to me at an early age and saying to me "You believe what you want to believe". Nevertheless, I have always had quite an unorthodox religious environment. While it's less prominent now (but still active), my father has a personal religion that takes inspiration from various occult practices, and incorporates the concept of Egyptian lore into his personal beliefs. While I myself don't really understand his beliefs completely, I'll never forget his main 'speech' to me when ever we discuss religion in general:

I personally believe that we all 'tap into' the cosmic force by exercising our various beliefs and rituals.

Those aren't his exact words, but it's about the gist of it. Pretty profound stuff for a 38 year old ex-teacher from Hull.
My mother on the other hand, who was brought up in a radical socialist background, is a strict atheist. Nevertheless, she finds Christianity to be an interesting religion, and enjoys reading the Holy Bible. As you can imagine, she and my father clash quite often concerning religious views. They discuss it frequently and are always in disaccord with each-other. Then again, such is life.

This unique environment has helped ensure that I have not converted to an organized religion, and indeed am still unsure about how the world works. I have therefore built up a personal philosophy. Please note that this is subject to change in accordance to personal experience. I may become a Scientologist yet.
Anyways, I guess you could call me Agnostic. I truly don't know whether or not there is a higher power, or whether we're all just here for a ride. I don't know if there's life after death, but I believe in a few principles that I try to shape my life and morals around. I wouldn't really call it a religion or anything like that, but some of it does fall into spirituality, I guess.

The Gospel According To James

1. Music is the key to better understanding the world around us. Music is perhaps the ultimate art medium; it is able to provoke and express emotion in such a pure way. Music can make us happy, sad, angry, humored... Therefore it is beneficial for the soul and your mind to build up an eclectic taste in music. This permits oneself to better understand certain cultures and also helps to better balance oneself psychologically.
2. Anything you do that deliberately hurts somebody either physically or emotionally will come back to bite you on the ass. This ranges from talking about someone behind their back, to getting in a fight with somebody. "Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice"? Well, yes it would. It would indeed. So try to be nice to people, else it might come back to you in ways you can't even imagine.
3. All humans are created equal, it is simply their own personal actions and society that creates inequality. The physical aspects of a person do not matter, it is their mind you should be interested in. I also believe that people such as terrorists, rapists, murderers and the like are not "born evil" or born with some psychological defect that gives them a predisposition to violence and pain. I believe it is through fault of their own or through the fault of society that they become who they are today. This is not an excuse for their behavior, by the way.
4. We are all hypocrites. We can try to live according to our principles, but somewhere across the line we will all fail our personal philosophy, whether it's intentional or not. The same applies to criticizing someone over trivial matters.
5. Nobody knows what happens after we die; the only way to experience that is by dying. Of course, this isn't advocating suicide, on the contrary. This is further explained in my next point
6. We (as in each individual) are only here once. Life is a unique experience for each person, and we should all try to live a long a fruitful life where we develop a sense of understanding and compassion towards our fellow man.

So there you have it, in a nutshell. Of course, I don't expect people to agree with me or advocate my point of view. Figure it out for yourself.

Live Long & Prosper
James