I'll Be Hating Religion for Lent

Every year it happens and every year I can't believe it. People you never believe would do so start lining up to get ashes swabbed on their head and making "resolutions" to refrain from doing things for several weeks for the Catholic ritual of Lent. It's like when you find out someone cool is ... well, participating in something you consider very, very uncool. Which brings some very uncomfortable feeling to the forefront.

Some people say they're participating in Lent for the challenge of giving something up and staying away from it. That's as bad as people going to church for loving support of community through Jesus. More over, a pair of gays getting married in a church that honors a religion that states they are going to hell. You do not participate in an organization that you disprove of. If you do not approve of priests getting away with rape, the banishing of persons for sexual preference or centuries worth of lies to control the populace then you shouldn't give them the time of day. Isn't that hypocritical? I would not participate in any Christian religion because I firmly believe it ruins more lives than it saves. That's enough reason for me. It didn't even have to get to the way they conduct business or rape your children to make up my mind.

For me it's more of a difficult decision to keep liking these people than wondering why they have decided to do the things they're doing. I've always been out there with people and I happen to like knowing everyone. Plus ... people just freaking adore me. This fills my world with a very broad spectrum of people. And yet it still twists my mind into a billion pieces when I find out someone I thought of as pure awesome is a conservative-thinking Sarah-Palin-Supporting Catholic-church-on-Sunday-going individual!

How does that happen and how should I feel about it? I don't know if I'll ever have the right answer. There is no conclusion to thought of understanding how you can love someone and absolutely hate their views and choices. To most this is easy to deal with because you may feel that people are people and are allowed to get behind some pretty stupid business. To you it may feel like a matter of personal opinion and some sort of diversity. But you need to understand to me it's as drastic a comparison as finding out your best friend is Adolf Hitler. Not the same thing? I don't think so. Killing Jews is bad, but so is supporting an organization who has made gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people (to name a few) be outcast, murdered and generally treated like shit.

Would you support the KKK if they presented you with a challenge to lay off chocolate or saying "the F word" for a month? Probably not and probably because you don't agree with the whole bothersome "black people thing" going on in their organization.

As much as I'd like to continue thinking people participating in religion are as cool as I thought they were, I can't. I can still agree that they are "nice people." You can be a nice person outside of your affiliations but quite frankly we are our affiliations! A nice girl who knits is a knitter. She's not just a nice girl. She's a knitting nice girl. I am an artist and a writer. If people forgive the things I say and choose to like me detached from everything I choose to be a part of then they may seriously be misguided in that decision.

There comes a time when we have to tell people what they are doing is not helping. Just because you're nice and maybe even awesome is not going to stop me from asking why the hell are smearing ashes on your head in support an organization of old men who have enslaved people for over 2,000 years? That and think just a little bit less of you for your decisions to do so.

More Closet Dwellers Than You Thought

Recently I came across The OUT Campaign while browsing through the site of scientist Richard Dawkins. I had to click on the link because my first thought was what is this straight atheist scientist doing creating a campaign to help homosexuals? Come to find out it's a campaign about coming out ... as an atheist. It's true that many people need to come out of the closet for many things, but we rarely think of anything else but the coming out of the homosexual variety.

This all got me thinking about how much pressure an atheist has coming out in comparison to a gay, bisexual or transgendered person. Could there be even more social stigma and black sheepery cast upon an atheist than that of a closeted gay? It's a tough call to make. In the end it's all pretty damning depending upon the when and where. At the moment it may be worse to be an atheist than gay. As sexuality begins to be less of a horror, believing in God is still mainstream The Way to Be.

As a teenager it was difficult to come out of the closet as being bisexual or gay. (I did both.) While I never believed in coming out to everyone as particularly necessary, I do see it important today. For one it just makes life more simple. You shouldn't have to go through life protecting pronouns when you talk about your ... significant other. Clawing desperately throughout each conversation to talk about the one you love or the places you go, trying your best never to be completely clear and out yourself. It's a pain in the ass. When I talk about my husband I don't want anyone to raise a brow. On the other hand I still don't come out. I just am. Those who can not tell my sexuality from my personality likewise don't become surprised when I inadvertently come out in conversation. That's thankfully the world a lot of us live in today. Few people are surprised to find "a gay" among them.

Which is exactly it. We're finally in agreement that there are gays everywhere but how many people assume that there is an atheist among them? Just about as many who think there is a wiccan or satanist among them. Unfortunately it's yet another something that few people are thinking about. It's uncool. It's out of the ordinary. It's not on TV. Hit and miss throughout society you will find people who can accept you for being an atheist, but there are very few who aren't nervous about the conversation.

I am an atheist. I find that I can't discuss it much. I am also gay. I find that I can discuss that - a lot. People will accept me talking about my partner as my husband. The state will give us equal rights as those whom are married. They will all smile and nod throughout the entire gay situation, but not the atheist situation. Just the other day I was having an open conversation in a room with several folks discussing what each of us believed. One was Mormon, the other Lutheran and the other was non-church attending Christian. I noticed that when the conversation swung in my direction and I stated I had no interest in God, religion and was an atheist it got quieter.

It wasn't until I brought up my opinion that I don't care what people believe or think as long as they keep it in their back yard and allow me to think what I want for my own life. Then everyone was in agreement and continued on discussing freedom of religion. Isn't it odd how they felt an atheist point of view was included in freedom of religion? Freedom of religion is no religion, that's for sure.

Perhaps why it gets quieter when an atheist is discovered among the God fearing is that no matter how you slice it, you can't help but realize the atheist most likely thinks you're an idiot. There they are talking about feeding a unicorn and I'm in the same conversation saying unicorns don't exist.

While I don't believe in God I do believe in a lot of things. I can agree to a lot of cosmic theories and such things because they are universe-based. But I certainly do not believe in the existence of an angry sky daddy waiting to send me to the fire pit. I don't believe in churches or books written by men pretending they are the word of a god. If we want to talk about how everything is connected and there is beauty everywhere, then we're good. That's not religion, that's science and reality. It really is the truth as it's right there in front of us. The religious God has no proof backing his existence. If you want to discuss the stars in the sky and how we are all linked in some amazing way then let's, because we are.

Nature is beautiful. The galaxy is amazing. Our link to everything and what consciousness may be within that is incredible. Eternal life on a cellular level is something all by itself, let alone what more there may be to that. It is what it is without an unknown oracle in a golden chair upon a cloud.

One could go on forever discussing their beliefs and that's why it's such an enormous can of worms. But like most cans of worms it is important to pop that top. We're left with this hard to discuss subject that needs to be discussed as to lose it's ridiculous shock value. Just like men having sex with men and women transitioning to live their lives as men. Yet there are so many different personal definitions of "atheist" just like there are of a religious person or a gay person. And unfortunately when someone says they are atheist everyone assumes it is a black and white Gothic angry statement saying they believe in nothing.

Therefore I'll leave it there with the statement that it is not black and white. It is not Gothic or angry. I'm an atheist, but that doesn't mean I don't think there's something to life. Just not God.

Strange Land

Sometimes I look at myself from across the room. There I am on the suede chesterfield watching odd documentaries with my husband about Adolf Hitler's sexual fetishes. My husband whom is in a corset. I am in my pajamas and high heels. Odd canvases slobbered with my imagination cover the walls. Strange artifacts and photos of odd people from around the world fill the shelves. Sipping on some of the best bourbon ever made. How lovely.

To think this is not how the people live. To think they have to hide out under disguises of normalcy when no one is really all that normal. To live shielded by a job, religion, particularly plain clothes and accessories. To come home at night and watch what everyone else is watching. All in the home furnished from the store that everyone else goes to and purchases a duplicate of the same thing.

No, it's much better to be myself with all the other people who want to be themselves. The domme queens and plumbers in sissy uniforms. The midgets who like to dress up like pirates. The metal heads relieving themselves on loud. There's no shame or guilt in a true lifestyle. There's nothing wrong with daddy wearing a diaper for kicks or your climbing a mountain to worship no body. 


It's always been a circus that I've slaved my way towards. A good release of personality into a Rocky Horror Picture Show life. To think they'd want anything else. Jesus on a crucifix and a three piece suit life? They'd prefer it. It was death to me. Death to a great imagination and death by a non-existent shameful guilt. Yet they run towards that because they're scared. Too scared to be who they want to be. Whatever that might be. Maybe because it's a little too hardcore and nobody gave them their safe word.

I'll stay up here. I'll keep watching the Sheeple move along and think it must be some odd Sci-Fi series. No one needs to tell me it's real. Surely no one in their right mind would want the things they say they do. Crazy is sane and sane is crazy down here on planet Earth.

Zodiac Killer

I found it a bold move to change the zodiac signs (LINK) even though grounds had been found to do so. Growing up in a zodiac-obsessed mindset I know how important it is to know, "What's your sign!?" Changing it all of a sudden must have really sent some people into a tail spin. Telling a Leo they are no longer a Leo is like telling a Catholic that the church is a fairytale and Jesus killed their puppy.

In fact I was so surprised by the announcement because I was of the understanding that no matter what inconclusive evidence stood to change a tradition, people just don't do that. It's right up there with religion and politics. Even though we know some political agendas are a horror, that doesn't stop us from thinking people ought to hold fast to them due to tradition. Just because Grandpa voted for a Republican means you should too, it doesn't matter what that Republican may stand for. Just because science has disproved the existence of a Sky Daddy and history has exposed religion as a scam, you are expected to continue to subscribe.

Like an adult forcing their children to believe in Santa Clause we stick to the zodiac we know as much as we believe the horoscopes we read in the paper. Although there is something to be said about the truth to falling under a certain constellation, however on the other side of things you can fit into a lot of the zodiac descriptions just as much as any horoscope could be tailor-made to suite what happened last week.

Honestly I did breath a sigh when I found I made the cut off for Leo. I am a fiery rapturous angry creature who thinks he or she is king of the jungle. Knowing other Leos who are now Cancers makes me think they must be awfully pissed. The kings and queens have been dethroned and that is exactly what it's going to feel like for any Leo.

Looking around at the articles that have popped up the titles say it all. Zodiac Change Causes Panic, Zodiac Shift: A Real Mood Killer, Changes in Zodiac Cause Identity Crisis... On one hand I can say that if you needed to be defined my traits connected to constellations - you didn't have an identity to begin with. On the other hand we align ourselves with what we want to be. And telling me I am no longer labeled a Leo by society would be telling me that my name isn't really The Artist D!