Thursday, July 02, 2009

I’m 79% Traditional Catholic, haha!

Guess that shit stuck in my head better than anyone could’ve imagined!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

“The God Strategy” Has Divided Us

Repost from MySpace

(Repost of my comment on AASHOM’s blog, “The God Strategy: The Religious Right in America”. Check out the videos of the interview with David Domke.)

Great interview… I must get this book!

This “Strategy” is precisely my beef, because I’ve watched it happen while most people I know have remained blissfully ignorant and worse still, fell right in line with the increasing god-talk in politics and the media.

Looky here - an ad from 1981:

(The full-size should be legible)

That ad was in a magazine I helped put out when I was 19.

When I was 29, I worked as an assistant to a stockbroker who had James Dobson & FOF as a client. Jim was kind enough to put Skippy the Broker on his mailing list, so the heathen w/IBD and First Amendment activist leanings became intimately acquainted with Focus on the Family’s mission during many and extended shithouse visits. And saw how very profitable it was to sell salvation to Americans in the 1990s. Burnt-out yuppies in need of a replacement for their drug habits, a “new life in Christ” that allowed them to act as though their previous “sinful life” had never even happened. Allows them to claim a superiority and righteousness they hardly deserve, but they feel their due since being washed in the blood of Jesus. Poor white trash flocking to a church amongst their own “kind,” not one full of immigrant papists, where they’re told that if they pray hard enough and tithe enough, they too can share in the glory of the Lord in the form of earthly abundance and wealth. It disgusted me.

I’m 47 now, and here we are. It’s worse than it’s ever been, even though anyone with half a brain and one eye can see how religion has been used to manipulate and dumb down the populace. So fuck YES, it’s time for people to stand up and tell these religious people to get the fuck out of our political process, and the government to stay the fuck out of the business of religion. There is no “happy medium” outside of clear separation and absolute neutrality. That was my position as a Christian in 1981, a pagan in 1991 and it remains my position as an atheist now.

My moral and philosophical issues with what the American Evangelical movement has done to define Christianity are an entirely separate argument, but one I’m equally as passionate about. My views have cost me more than one relationship over the years, but in the end it’s worth it if at some time, somehow, someone learned even ONE thing from me that helped them make their life better in some way. Knowledge is power.

It’s my duty as an American to participate in the governing of my country, and I’ve chosen to throw in my lot with those who know that the First Amendment is what makes us truly free and fight to defend it against all enemies. Those who use God to divide “one nation indivisible” violate the principles of Liberty and we have a duty to shine a bright light on their misdeeds.

[Well shit, now I may as well copy this over to my own blog, too!]

Friday, May 15, 2009

Seek and ye shall find…

Repost from my Myspace Blog

I suppose you can see it coming in this picture:

Off to my First Communion, the pseudobridal outfit accessorized with a dirty cast mending the arm I broke falling out of a tree (after having been forbidden to play on the monkey-bars at school). I suppose in my imperfect state I didn’t make much of an impression on Jesus… before I ate him, heh.

My eventual apostasy started with one simple question two years later. Having been blessed (or cursed, depending upon whom you asked) with intelligence and cognitive abilities far beyond my years, I asked the first of many questions for which I’d be given the most unsatisfying of answers, that is, “It’s a matter of Faith.” As Sister Jeannine told us the tragic story of Abel’s murder and Cain’s banishment for fratricide, the question came to me and I simply had to know… “There was only Adam, Eve, Cain & Abel. When God kicked Cain out of Eden, he said, ‘Surely Lord, someone will kill me.’ Who else was there?”

And so it began.

By the time I was in my 20s I knew that there were all sorts of people nearby that Cain might need to be concerned about (and find a wife among). Turns out all that Genesis stuff was just one story from one sect among a great many, there & then. It’s just that the Jews (and their later step-children the Christians) insisted their god was the only true god, and as his chosen people they wrote their stories as if they were the center of the universe. In studying the myths and legends of people other than them, in periods of history both before and after what’s known as the Bible came to be, one gets a better sense of how and why it is what it is… and why some people are happy with non-answers like, “It’s a matter of Faith.”

Trouble is, I could never be one of them. It was explained to me thusly: “Your intellect gets in the way of faith.” Perhaps… like the dirty cast on my broken arm when I “met” Jesus for the first time, my inability to ignore what I know in favor of what I’d prefer to believe is the imperfection - the sin - that keeps me from ever “knowing” God, or any of the thousands of other deities who are, in my opinion, far more worthy of my acquaintance to say nothing of adoration and obedience.

In spite of not being a believer myself, I remain ever curious and talk to those that do. I want to know when, why, and how they came to conclude that their particular brand of Christianity, or any other belief system was “the one.” Cuz all of that matters! The evangelical Christian who got “saved” at a West Coast megachurch in the 80s is far different than the Catholic college kid from New England, or the Jehovah’s Witness-turned-New Ager. Different life circumstance, time, geographic placement; it’s what we experience up til now that makes us who we are, that shapes our thoughts and dreams. Add in a liberal dose of ideological and theological “education” and beliefs are sure to come into play. I want to know what makes people tick, and why they picked the path they did.

When it comes to religious beliefs, it truly IS a conscious choice. I admit I’m especially baffled by biblical literalists. For whatever reason, some people feel a need to walk a path wherein they are told every step of the way that they are creatures unworthy of the life they were “given,” that all the suffering they endure in their time on this earth is their punishment for the mistakes of characters from an ancient legend, or that it’s just “God’s plan.” All they need do is have faith that after they’re dead, they’ll finally be worthy and everything will be happily-ever-after (as long as they’ve picked exactly the right way to please the guy-in-the-sky AND called him by the right name, that is). They see scientific knowledge as a threat, and even go so far as to deny accepted fact as the work of the devil and invent controversy or words that are meaningless to anyone but the people they indoctrinate and propagandize.

What I’ve learned by studying religion and acutally living in the real world for 47 years is that in fixating on the “happily-ever-after,” reality becomes disappointing and meaningless; it doesn’t measure up and it sets in that so much of life is wasted in the futile pursuit of something that doesn’t exist. And it’s never going to simply because we’d wish so desperately for it to be so.

I’m ok without a happily-ever-after, whether before or after death; because like tales of gods, demons, angels and zombies, it’s a myth. A fantasy that serves no purpose but to take us outside ourselves and perhaps give meaning to our trials and tribulations, spurring us on because “it will all work out in the end.”

Ultimately, the end is death. It comes to us all so of course it “works out.” The best I can hope for is a life well lived, people who will remember me because I somehow made a difference, and maybe even some who’ll love me warts and all. Even though I’ve insisted on embracing reality in all its ugliness, including making bad decisions and suffering the consequences, but always living as honestly as I know how. No gods to thank or devils to curse. Just one fallible human being who seriously screws the pooch now and then, but no worse than many, many others do or have…

This is the life I have. I’ll be who I am, say what I say and do what I do and hope I get at least some of it right. It’s all I can manage for whatever time I have left, so enjoy it while you can. Argue with me, tell me why you think I’m wrong if you do, and if I’m being pig-headed or bat-shit insane by all means call in reinforcements to talk me out of the trees. If you care enough about me, or get to know me well enough, you’ll know what’s really me (sane or insane), when I’m playing Devil’s Advocate or when I’ve donned my alter-ego in preparation for a good dust-up. I never said I didn’t like to create a stir! In fact, if there is some sort of “purpose” that’s exactly why I’m here.

“Seek and ye shall find...” Well, it’s not the finding that matters after all. It’s the seeking in and of itself that makes life worth living. Even when others would prefer your seeking not test the bonds of their own faith. It’s a risk you take in pursuit of knowledge. The rewards are totally worth it.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Going Under - Evanescence

Damn, I just love this band!

Now I will tell you what I’ve done for you -
50 thousand tears I’ve cried.
Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you -
And you still won’t hear me.
(going under)
Don’t want your hand this time - I’ll save myself.
Maybe I’ll wake up for once (wake up for once)
Not tormented daily defeated by you
Just when I thought I’d reached the bottom

I’m dying again

I’m going under (going under)
Drowning in you (drowning in you)
I’m falling forever (falling forever)
I’ve got to break through
I’m going under

Blurring and stirring - the truth and the lies.
(So I don’t know what’s real) So I don’t know what’s real and what’s not (and what’s not)
Always confusing the thoughts in my head
So I can’t trust myself anymore

I’m dying again

I’m going under (going under)
Drowning in you (drowning in you)
I’m falling forever (falling forever)
I’ve got to break through

I’m…

So go on and scream
Scream at me I’m so far away (so far away)
I won’t be broken again (again)
I’ve got to breathe - I can’t keep going under

I’m dying again

I’m going under (going under)
Drowning in you (drowning in you)
I’m falling forever (falling forever)
I’ve got to break through

I’m going under (going under)
I’m going under (drowning in you)
I’m going under

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Am I Hammered? Sure!

Am I hammered? Sure! But that just means I’m feeling free to say some things I’ve held back for one reason or another. And maybe that’ll serve as a suitable justification for anything that might be hurtful…

Someone who’s been my friend forever, and my lover a few times over the past 20 years, has decided he’s never speaking to me again. One can only hope that someday reality will set in and such drastic and dramatic measures won’t be necessary. After a bit over a year of being in each other’s company every waking moment, it’s clear there’s no way in hell we could possibly live together. I’m bipolar. I’m also a raving atheist with a foul mouth, and every now and then I go off on a tangent. In doing so, I guess I offended my other-half-by-default when my ravings included some things that insulted certain beliefs and world views he holds dear.

Since he recently came up with another example of my ravings during a meltdown, I realized that it was in some way a very passive-aggressive method of trying to elicit SOME sort of response from him… if he actually LOVED me you’d think he would have made his feelings known; let me know it bothered him that I was saying things that make him feel or look bad. Knowing something pretty much requires the knowledge being shared, and I could never get a straight answer as to what he felt for me. As I went into my insane, absurd comedy routine about how things were so bad I was considering making myself a commodity, a simple, “No girlfriend of mine needs to think like that,” would’ve gone a long way. As would having stood back, let me do my bit and then tell me how that doesn’t need to happen because YOU have a better plan! Is it really so much to ask to be told, or at least shown that you’re loved? The words ARE nice to hear every now and again, especially when it’s well known that they’re not uttered indiscriminately.

No matter now though. Guess I’m once again free to be the obnoxious bitch I’ve lost touch with in my attempts to censor myself so as not to be so “in-your-face” with my activism, thereby annoying or insulting someone who has to live with me and grit his teeth. Hopefully we can have a normal adult relationship once again, because I really do miss him as a friend. You can’t know someone for 35 years and let all of that history be destroyed by a short-term clusterfuck that didn’t work out as planned. We’ve done the friends-to-lovers-and-back routine before, and I don’t see any reason not to make this the last time and just be friends. That, however, is up to the person who holds the grudge. Everyone knows I’m always here and ready to listen…