I can tell you directly what matters the most to me and give prime examples of how it impacts my studies here at IUPUI. I am creating a hybrid-social network that allows niche groups in cities and local areas to have one centralized place to find information, business, events and people. My Capstone is a result of one of the things I hold dear and I don't talk much about in public: my spirituality.

I don't say religion, because I haven't found any religion that is the perfect fit for me, but I do identify myself as a pagan. Religion is when you read a prescribed book, follow someone's rules and show up once (or more) a week to a gathering. I believe people should live their religion, not set it aside only for certain days. I love and respect all religions on this earth and have nothing against anyone because of their faith (or lack of). 

Anyways, I'll get back more to that later. Believe it or not, Indianapolis has an active pagan community. However, there's a lack of a cohesiveness because of the varied paths and traditions the umbrella word pagan contains.There's no one spokesperson or organization that represents us or our best interests. As a result of this, there's no real central place people can go to find out more information about what's going on in our city.

This problem was expressed from the members of the community itself and I took it upon myself to try to answer this because well... I know how to build websites. I did my best with Drupal to build a site that has everything I think it should contain. However, I wanted to have a custom built site that didn't use so many extensions and rely solely on their upkeep to keep my site up. I quickly discovered that what I wanted to build would be perfect to replicate and make available to other groups that have a similar problem to this community: local gamers, ethnic groups, hobbyists, grass roots movements, and underground culture to name a few. Any group that's large enough to have a footprint in their area, but small enough to not have an organization representing them all. The possibilities are endless.

I don't believe I've ever publicly sated my religious beliefs before, and it's not hard to understand why. There's so much stereotyping and prejudice that goes on, even with my own parents. It goes back to the lack of information, so people are afraid of what they don't understand. Pagans are seen as devil worshipers and into demonic evil deeds. Well, we're not. We're just like you with normal lives and normal problems.

Think about this. In every religion that isn't yours, who do you remember the most - the crazy fanatic people who scream death and destruction in the name of God, or the peaceful truly spiritual people who do good every day? At the end of the day, it's about leaving this world a better person and the world a better place because you were in it.