Well...we can hope...

Alright President Obama. You're finally addressing the campaign promises that I hoped and believed in you for. You've made some really shotty decisions since you've been in office. Please follow through with these promises...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/29/obama.gay.pride/index.html

To my darling niece, Camilla.

I woke up Saturday morning (June 27th) an aunt for the first time. My brother Josh and his lovely wife Paula welcomed Camilla Calliope Eva-Marie Frances Jerusalem Jubilee Gibbs to the world at 4:54am. She weighed an impressive 8 lbs 5 oz and is, in my completely objective opinion, the most beautiful baby that has ever been born.

I'm ridiculously excited to be an aunt, and am bound and determined to be, "the fun one."

This is the inscription in the card I'm mailing to Camilla and her parents tomorrow morning...personal, yeah, but I feel like it sums up my view on life , so I thought I'd share it...:)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To my niece, Ms. Camilla Calliope Eva-Marie Frances Jerusalem Jubilee ~

A few pieces of advice from your adoring Aunt:

Welcome, welcome beautiful child to this amazing wondrous world. You are already dearly loved by so many people.

You were conceived with thought, passion, and love ~ a perfect combination of motivations and a powerful foundation to build your life upon.

You are blessed to be the first born of two parents who greatly value and respect human life and have already done so much to make this world a more lovely place by creating countless pieces of art that bring joy to all that know them. You are, and always will be, the most significant and precious of these creations.

Life is a gift, as overwhelming in beauty as it is in pain. Pain is necessary for survival; it is an instrument that helps teach us right from wrong, as well as what is important enough to endure it. Beauty is equally as necessary for survival, as it is the physical manifestation of the divine within all things; searching it out within every person and situation can give hope in the bleakest of circumstances. Love Beauty.

Throughout your life, the ever crumbling corporate world will try and convince you happiness is attainable through possessions and social status. This is a lie. Monetary and social success is as inconstant and fickle as the weather, and loving these things will weigh you down and steal your youth. Happiness can always be found in nature. The skies, oceans, rivers, fields, and trees sigh collectively with you as you dream, will always offer refuge, and never be a place of judgment. You will never see a reflection of God in a bank account, but the Divine is undeniable in the shadow of a mountain. Love Nature.

You are the child of two souls who deeply long for peace although you are being born into a world at war. Nations are battling nations, ideals are warring with each other, and the Church would have you bring battles of faith into your home. We are told the things worth fighting to protect are the things worth dying for. Nothing worth sacrificing your life for would ever ask you to do so. Love Peace.

There is a joy unlike any other that is felt when you step back to survey a piece of yourself exhibited through an artistic medium. Clay, canvas, ink, paper, half notes, quarter notes, an arm outstretched to rhythmic beat…the human gift of creating art separates us from the animals and enables us to beautify the world and the lives of everyone we come in contact with. Never limit yourself artistically – adhering to boundaries is the death of new thought and self expression. Never underestimate the power you have to change the world through creating. Love Art.


The dream of a world at peace will never be brought to pass if we do not foster love, forgiveness, and acceptance within our families first. No doubt you and your parents will disagree – there will be times you will be right and they won’t see it. It is always acceptable to question what they teach you, not to ignore it. They want nothing but what they believe is good and right for their extraordinary daughter with an extraordinary name. The power of family is the most underrated, yet powerful force in the world today. Love Family.

Finally ~ I’ve said a lot about the world. It is a wonderful place…even more wonderful because you are now in it. There are things about it you will never understand, hard as you may try. Let your curiosity for the unknown drive you to discovery, not madness. Hunger for insight, don’t insist upon it. Do not create explanations for the unexplainable. Faith for faith’s sake is not beautiful and innocent, it is foolish. Love for love’s sake is foolish – but grand. Do everything in your power to learn and experience as much as you can. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes – life is what happens when you’re picking yourself up after falling down. Take chances. Be brave. Love Yourself.

I love you, precious niece.

Your crazy aunt,
Esther

Choice

Orange lights glow, barely illuminating the dark booths which embrace our bodies and hide our thoughts from outside observation. We are a tedious mistake in the making, formulating excuses in advance to mask this complication which is smoldering more intensely with every drop we swallow.

I recline and make a routine show of affection for the boy beside me, never taking my eyes off your face and the black frames that were the window to my initial attraction. Viewing you through golden wheat poison and heavy coffeehouse beat I could care less about what we are on a road rage drunken mission to destroy. What is comradery in comparison with the heat induced intoxicating question our meeting is posing?

I close my eyes and drift to the pulse of the music, a curious smile plays with the corner of your mouth, head nodding in agreement to my energy. There’s nothing to do but to dance, so we stumble from the cave, and I pause to kiss your friend in assurance of loyalty he’s done nothing to earn.

The question hangs in the air, even weeks later, as springtime evenings chase the breeze into summer nights and mornings full of awkward silences…..

….A question, doomed to be unanswered, when honor, such a forgotten quality, emerges in us both during a stolen moment of complete solitude.

We sleep alone that night, sighing in expectation for the day our integrity will reward us with someone new, unspoken for, requiring little self control and even less restraint. Honor, such a forgotten quality, battles my desire to forgo discretion and attempt another meeting. Long hot nights seem unbearable alone, but disloyalty is an even worse bed companion, so away I drift into dreamless sleep, and wake up to a new day, unsatisfied, alone, still searching, but exhaustibly respectable.

It Can Wait

I lie and wait for inspiration in this sun bathed attic confessional. Tiny miracles of flight sing outside my window, a beautiful break in the silence of early morning hangovers. Contentment is impossible with a mind this full, and I’m raging inside this still room – memories of seconds, made of eternities in glances. I pray for the day I will find inspiration in other’s eyes.

This pathetic kindergarten infatuation propelled by unplanned moments of absolute abandon between sheets in patched walled basement rooms is proving too much. He is the most unwelcome muse imaginable, making it impossible to share the only worthwhile endeavors into our art because absurd devotion, written explicit, is too honest for a Sunday morning.

The leaves shivering in the breeze outside my window beckon me from my cradle of solitude. Tonight is looming before me – my first half hearted attempt of finding something new – in something old – is exhausting. There will be laughter and flirtation no doubt. A brush here, a sigh there, leading him to believe I’m the kind of girl, twelve years junior, that wants nothing more than a silver fox substitute for legitimate attraction to buy her Coach and rail her senseless. I might be cliché, but I’m not that girl.

I feel the sun will not wait a moment longer. I have all day to write. But as I sit up, three hundred words changes nothing and the weight of sighs and undefined past moments is proving too heavy for this room, and this girl, and this house. Having everywhere to go, yet no desire to leave I lay back down. And simply open a window.

5/10/09

Tété

Tété is a French singer who I was introduced to last month by my fabulous friend Brother Dave. I've had this song - Mon Tresor - stuck in my head ever.since. He's coming to Portland next week and playing an uber tiny venue downtown. So stoked. Check out the video for this catchy tune at -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch87tDv3lD4

I find myself humming it frequently - especially on the numerous cloudy (but happy) days that are making up this summertime.

Enjoy!

Cellar Musings

And the girl you believed you knew fades from view, replaced, unexpected, by a woman you never concieved she could be. The distant thunder of future loathing begins to rumble through your chest and your breath catches on the exhale.

The growing realization that she is no longer your instrument to play is strangely unsettling as you lean forward taking your next shot across the green pointless pastime- the roll and clash of solids and stripes set the tempo to the music she is composing with someone new... melody inviting yet unremarkable, new to your ears - finally open to the chord progessions that used to play for you alone.

She is winning at a game that has no rules, chin up- eyes wide- lips parted- heart open. Unaware the first move had been made - you've already lost. At least in her mind. Shake your head like you shook off her affection, concentrate on the new piece, square like you accuse him of being, and stutter like first grade for something to say that steals into her mind and unlocks bolted passages to insecurities.

But the locks are changed. The keys unfamiliar as the eyes that stare through you searching for something you will never be again - an inspiration. Beat your familiar phrases til they bleed, they will never ellicit another sigh of adoration.

Feeling vicious and redeemed she discerns your uncertainty and cruelty that will surely progress as the nights get warmer. Liquid courage, simmering, boiling, will explode and all the previous plans of Renaissance and change will ignite and burn burn burn this new friendship to the ground.

Napkin Scrawls

Every last Thursday in Portland, NE Alberta shuts down and the streets overflow with hopeful musicians, starving artists, and vendors peddling everything from feather and bone earrings to psychedelic mushroom chocolates. The bars are filled to capacity and the Portlanders spilling out onto the pavements can wait their turn for a table while enjoying firedancers or hulu hoop competitions in front of packed stores and coffee shops.

This previous last Thursday, PDX was blessed with an unusally perfect Spring night, and for all my good intentions of spending the evening editing and writing more, I felt something larger than myself beckoning me out. My friend Dave agreed to accompany me across the river after he got off work, and although we were pretty sure we had missed most of the action due to our late departure, we decided to chance it and check it out regardless.

We arrived to Alberta and were relieved to find the party was still in full swing. We walked the streets, not quite grounded, stopping here and there to listen to a lonely guitar or folk band, enjoying the warm breeze and variety of lifestyles on display just for us. Parched, we began the exasperating task of finding a bar with an empty chair or two. We were just about to head back to the car, thirsty and disappointed, when we heard what Dave swore was an accordion coming from the Alberta Street Public House. I was down, so we went in to investigate.

Dave, a composer and lyrical enthusiast, just about had a musical orgasm when he saw that yes, in fact there WAS an accordion - and even better- a Russian folk/ska band rocking out on stage. All I knew is that I wanted to groove and join the mass of sweaty hippie dancers already gyrating around the beer slick floor.

The room got hotter with every patron and before long we were sweating and dancing under the red lights along with the rest of the crowd, ordering round after round of Fat Tire just to stay sane in the heat. I was pretty convinced that meeting this band was what had called me out that night, until I saw the fiddle player for the main act take the stage.

"Oh god," I said to Dave, "THAT'S why we're here."

The Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra (G.T.S.) raged for close to 2 hours and ended by announcing their upcoming concert at the Someday Lounge that Saturday. Having eyed the fiddle player mercilessly from the beginning, I summoned my liquid courage, boiling by this point, and introduced myself...more accurately, accosted the poor guy and rambled about life, screaming with delight upon each new thing we had in common. His smile kept lighting up with what I believed, at the time, was attraction, while in hindsight I'm inclined to think was pure amusement. However, my sincere enthusiasm (read - unadulterated mindblowing drunken adoration) for his previous position as a "Manny" won his interest for a few more minutes, and lead him to ask what I did when I wasn't nanny-ing.

"I'm a WRITER" I yelled, laughing at myself, partly for professing to be a legitimate writer, partly because I realized, even in that moment, how crazy what I was about to do was.

"Oh really?" His smile literally made me weak in the knees.

"Want to read some?!!" Not pausing for an answer, I fished through my abyss of a shoulder suitcase for the napkin I'd been scrawling on some 30 minutes before.

The first one I shoved into his hand was some ridiculous lesbian sounding atrocity about this stunning girl dancing in front of me most of the night - which I could tell within seconds was NOT the napkin I had intended for him.

"Oh god, not THAT one, Sorry!" And I snatched it out of his hand, thrusting a second, more crumpled piece of paper into his hand.


Red lights, sexual only for the music that's about to bring us ecstasy.
Racing thoughts of sweat slick encounters with the man playing the strings like
I want him to play me.
Energy tangible
Desire audible
Heat unbearable
The beat flows through us easier than this poison
And we Smile.


"Wow. I like that one. I really like that one..."

And I went home smiling like an idiot, half a torn napkin, crumbled in a ball to be found at the bottom of my bag in the morning - the other half tucked neatly into his pocket with my cell number that he had requested.

Well, the weekend came and went and he didn't call - perhaps he lost the napkin, perhaps his half also ended up in a crumpled ball, unceremoniously discarded after witnessing me skip, yes, skip out of the bar. Either way, once the sheer humiliation over my actions wore off the next day, I was able to find joy that one by one my inhibitions as a writer are falling away...which I realize now was the real thing beckoning me out that evening, and most evenings now.

Cheers Friends.

Brother Dave and I

Alberta Street Public House

Renaissance

What else is there to live for but this? Breaking boundaries, creating art, sharing ideas-love-bodies-vices. Exploding through the self made ceiling of what I thought I was capable of. Refusing to limit myself and let fear of rejection keep me from expressing what I believe to be the very nature of truth and purpose to the life I’m blessed to be living now.

Relapse

I committed emotional suicide that night. All night. Overdosing on the most potent drug ever taken. Two months of withdrawls and rehab just to end back at Step One. Square One. One moment of weakness lead to hours of relapse.

And now what? The bruises are starting to show. The slightest graze of my collar bone and the imprint of your hand leaps to the surface, aching and throbbing with a dull burn that is the only validation of what I would have considered a dream.

Living in such a way for weeks as to avoid pain if possible- now I’m terrified for when these hurts will fade. Every few moments reaching up to my neck, touching the marks as if they were salvation, not what they are in fact – the very damnation to a hell of my own contrivance.
For now I welcome the pain. It makes each blurred memory clear again, and for two seconds I’m there – your hands around my neck – your lips on my spine – our fevered skin slick with the effort we’re both exerting to escape this reality with the heroin of loveless fucking.
Engaging in an act so blasphemous to the nature of friendship that we have to be seven hours, eight drinks deep to even consider it. Both of us hesitating moments before the necessary sequence is set into being that will lead to me lying here, writing this shit just to cope with my own inability to get over it.

And as the poison courses through our systems, exiting our bodies, bearing testament on your damp sheets there is a pause. Coming down is painful, reality is cruel, and your eyes are not a gentle landing. There is a silent acknowledgment of what is happening and how it changes nothing. And so I spin circles in my head and twist your sheets into knots as I drift off to sleep. Your arms around me a false show of what is profoundly absent and how any attempt at escaping this relapse is futile. So I stay.

Blue Moon Advances

The difference between who I am and who I used to be cannot be learned in one conversation over a sunset orange beer. Knowing that I am the consistent fallback of a twenty something, mid level management accountant who spends his days praying for the paycheck that will catapult him into a one bedroom luxury loft over looking the Pearl is the last thing I needed at the end of this day. Laughing over what used to be, and feeling awkward as our first kiss explaining what my current reality is could not be more uncomfortable. Please, god, yes, take your exit of this bar and this conversation and call the girl you should have in the first place. You know – the one I used to be – the sure thing – and fuck her until she feels better about herself and you feel like half the man you’ll never be. Who would have guessed your shallowness ran so deep.

Subterranean

The hope is tangible in flame flicker dark rooms, an entire movement conceived below ground – brought together by passion- filled pilgrims for the love of beauty and the love of expression – the building blocks of art. We stumble over words in ecstasy, infant ideas and realizations bursting out at the speed of certainty. Nothing born of so much heart can possibly fail. His dream is contagious, spreading from stranger to friend, infecting their hearts and minds and voices to join together and act as one with other artists to create a reality unknown until now. A reality based on the sharing of humanity, emotion, mind, body, and soul. Celebrating the beautiful and ugly, knowing one is impossible without the other. There will be love and revolution and an expansion of our consciousness; we will not take no for an answer. The roar created by our collective plea for a return to emotion will be immutable – the crash of waves on the shores outside our fair city adding a symphony behind this new beat, the back drop for our generation. There is no time like this to be here, cross legged on couches, planning out the course of change like generals before a battle – waging peace not war and art not hate. Thankful for whatever brought us together and fearful of nothing tearing it apart. Our ideas are beautiful and binding. Just wait.

Unlimited Ignorance

Another piece from my old blog...

HPV, or the Human Papillomavirus, is the number one cause of cervical cancer in women – a disease that kills almost 250,000 women a year worldwide. Over half the American population – both men and women – have HPV at some point in their life. (1) In most cases it clears up on its own, and for men, the effects are minimal and curable. But for women it can lead to both cervical cancer and infertility.
Growing up in Christ Church, I remember praying for the end of a lot of different things – world hunger, political strife, feminism (not literally, but might have well since it was preached as "evil" from the pulpit), child abuse, Islam, AIDS (oh wait, can't pray for a cure for that either...God's judgement on the "Sodomites" dont ya know...)and finally cancer. However, it would seem that some Christians are never satisfied unless answer to prayer comes on their terms.
A couple years ago I heard rumblings about a shot that would prevent HPV and was extremely excited (as I figured everyone would be) that a prevention for this destructive virus was on the way. The FDA approved the vaccine in 2006, and Guardasil is now offered to females between the ages of 9 – 26. How wonderful – there's no reason (given the shot works like its supposed to, with a 95-100% success rate) families and friends should lose another mother, sister, wife, girlfriend, cousin, niece, granddaughter, or friend to cervical cancer caused by HPV. (2)
But some are not so excited about this cancer preventing vaccine. Since I didn't make it clear before, one important thing to know about HPV is that it is a sexually transmitted disease, and this is the reason various Christian organizations are not happy about it.
"Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," the FRC's Bridget Maher reportedly told New Scientist. "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex." (3)
How interesting – it didn't even occur to me that preventing cancer and saving women's lives could be a negative or "harmful" thing – for any reason.
"We're going to be sending a message to a lot of kids, I think, that you just take this shot and you can be as sexually promiscuous as you want and it's not going to be a problem, and that's just not true," Dr. Hal Wallace, who heads the Physicians Consortium, said in a Focus on the Family news release. (4)
Call me crazy, but Guardasil is only known to prevent 2 kinds of STDs (HPV and Genital warts) and with proper sex ed (or common sense), I trust the American youth to understand that they CAN'T be "as sexually promiscuous as [they] want" just because of one shot.
I'll be reasonable though, I can understand parents not wanting their teens or pre-teens having sex (protected or not). I don't think most teens appreciate or completely understand sex, and I'm not going to be the kind of parent who encourages my kids to have rampant premarital sex. However, I am going to be a realistic parent who loves their child enough to 1) educate them about sex and their options and 2) do everything humanly possible to protect them from some of the ramifications of their choices (i.e. birth control, vaccines etc.)
The problem I have with these parents is that they are so concerned with their "Christian moral values" they are potentially harming their children. These parents need to face it that they can tell their kids to abstain until they're blue in the face, but in the end, when their teen has sex, it's a decision they'll make without their parents. I do not understand the type of parent that wouldn't want the safety net of a vaccine that would protect their child from the possibly unhealthy ramifications of their "mistake/sin." There's a lot to be said about having a personal set of ethics and morals – but to impose that on your children to such an extent you put them at risk…to me that's the real "sin."
I'll wrap this up with a quote that made me laugh and want to throw up at the same time. This is from Janet Parshall, a staff member of the Family Research Council in 1999:
"Either have sex before marriage and get an STD and HIV, HPV or an unplanned pregnancy, or you save it until marriage and you live happily ever after."(5)
There is no limitation to ignorance.


Referenced Websites:
1) http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/default.htm
2) http://www.fda.gov/womens/getthefacts/hpv.html
3-5) http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=6587

Thanks Craigslist.

I found this posting on Craigslist in Missed Connections....I've never seen anything like it...Love. It.
------
To the woman that crapped in my car. (NE Portland)

We met on Craigslist so I am hoping that this post finds you. I know that it could quite possibly be the most humiliating first date that you have ever been on, but I am willing to look past that.

I thought we had chemistry sitting at McMenamins sharing that basket of Cajun Tots while drinking the Terminator Stout. I really felt like there was a connection there. I found you to be intelligent and witty and looked forward to further conversation with you.

At some point in life, everyone has gambled on a fart and lost. It just happened to be on a first date in the passenger seat of my car. Please don't feel bad. The package I sent you with Pepto the next day and the note that said "First dates are always a crap shoot. Call me" was meant to be funny, not offensive.

I have gambled on a fart and lost on multiple occasions. The first time I did it was very memorable. It happened when I was five and sitting on my uncle's lap. I am lactose intolerant, but love cheese. I probably win 95% of the time, but I don't think anyone wins 100% of the time. That's why they call it "gambling". I'm the last person to judge you for crapping your pants. In fact, I am impressed by your boldness. The timing on the other hand, could have been a tad bit better...like when you're not sitting on a heated leather seat...

What I am trying to say is that if you want to go out again, I would be more than happy to take you someplace where we can get a meal that is high in fiber and less taxing on the digestive tract.

I await your call,
Stout
P.S. - If you shat yourself on purpose to end the evening early.Touché.

------
And I thought getting food poisoning on a second date was bad.....

So you think you’re a Nice Guy.

Back in September of 2007 I wrote a blog entry about the following topic (original post at www.limitedwhitespace.blogspot.com) due to the heavy percentage of "nice guys" that were in my life at the time. A year and a half later I'm in exactly the opposite position, surrounded now by male friends and lovers that are what most girls consider assholes… and rightly so in many cases. As effed up as it may seem to some, I'm perfectly content in this new situation, and have found that I love and respect these guys far more than any of the "nice guys" of my former acquaintance. I realize now that I'll take less patience or sweetness any day if I don't have to worry about sorting through the rose scented bullshit that most "nice guys" create for themselves because of their overwhelming lack of backbone.

So. To the nice guys out there – this post is for you. It is meant to help, not hurt, although I know it may sting a bit…

Ok- so here's the deal. In general I make an effort to reign myself in when it comes to making generalized comments on men and women and/or my relationships with them. Love is hard, and both men and women use each other in horrible ways. Whether you are single, or in a relationship, there is always something to complain about... But this entry is dedicated to the boys, and a phrase that has been used for too many years to validate and bolster the self esteem of your sex :

"Nice guys always finish last."

Really? That hasn't been my experience. My friend Ryan once said, "Why hate someone because of the color of their skin? That's ridiculous. If you got to know them I'm sure you'd find there's a lot more legitimate reasons to dislike them." This reminds me of most men. Why would a woman break up with a guy because he's "nice?" Once she gets to know him she'll realize there's way more legitimate reasons to not be with him than the fact he's such a great guy. During the past two years of my single life, this has consistently been the first cliché out of a guy's mouth when I tell him I'm no longer interested in dating. Unfortunately, my consistent response has been, "I know. You're right. It's not fair." I realize now that I took the easy road in those moments, and did nothing but help cement this lie in one more male mind. "Nice guys always finish last," is nothing more than a crutch that men use to excuse their reason for being single, and that women hide behind as a polite excuse for not being interested.

In my opinion, guys like to buy into this phrase for one main reason. Guys that are stereotypical "nice guys" (i.e. respectful, good listeners, sweet, traditional gentlemen etc etc) like to pride themselves on being nice guys so when a woman turns them down or breaks up with them, they are flabbergasted as to why ANY woman would turn down the ultimate prize that is embodied in his polo wearing, hair gelling, man purse toting, sensitive listening, well mannered self. While in this state of butthurt confusion, they always seem to fall back on the conclusion that women only want to be with assholes, and that is why they are not in a relationship. They are simply too good for one.

Call me crazy, but I have never in my life met a single woman who dumped a guy because he treated her "too well." However I've known many women, myself included, who decided they didn't want to be with a nice guy for very legitimate reasons. To be honest, what many guys thinks is nice is actually a lack of a backbone, opinion, and good old fashioned masculinity – not having a favorite sports team, never having been in a fight, never looking at a Playboy, and "not enjoying" beer does not make you a nice guy – it means you have more in common with most 50 year old women than you do to the dude in the bathroom stall beside you. Obviously, I'm generalizing and I certainly don't speak for all women. Just me.

The point of this rant is this - to all the "nice guys" out there - If a woman doesn't want to date you, guaranteed it's for some other reason than you're TOO nice. Please do her the courtesy of taking a moment of self reflection on what your problem may be before you accuse her of being an asshole chasing idiot.

Cheers.

Ramblings on Religulous

Since I abandoned Christianity several years ago, my life has changed dramatically. For the obvious reasons, of course, but also in ways I couldn't have possibly foreseen. As passionately as I used to wave my salvation banner and go to arms against co-workers and friends in Jesus' name – I now find myself avoiding discussing Christianity at all costs. Many people that knew me believed leaving the church was an easy choice - that was hardly the case. I felt like a child walking out on elderly parents. Abandoning what raised me, taught, disciplined, and loved me; made my existence have purpose, and gave me confidence about my place amid the chaos that surrounds us…and most terrifying of all – abandoning the one thing that I was lead to believe would never leave me or forsake me. All for the luxuries of drugs, sex, and alcohol…or so the envious faithful like to believe.

It was not an easy decision – but like most difficult things in life, ultimately worth the initial pain and heartache since I now live a life more fulfilling than I ever dreamed possible before. It's a beautiful thing to be free to love and surround myself with whomever I please, their worth based simply on their own merit and not valued solely for who they are with Christ's aid.

To get to the point, there are a couple big reasons I avoid discussing Christianity with others. Part of it is sadness over 21 years lost, and the other is the overwhelming guilt I will carry with me forever for the atrocious things I believed about innocent people, and for the god I so vehemently defended. A diety whose words encouraged and exalted my hatred and intolerance for behaviors and people I knew nothing about. Watching programs or documentaries on Christians (of all dominations) reduces me to tears – tears of joy that I live a life unbounded by archaic tradition and superstition, and tears of grief for all the people I know whose minds are not yet free.

Religulous was the first program I have fully watched and soaked in since I "put away childish things" and abandoned my hope in Christ. Its message of doubt encouraged and lifted me up more than I can possibly describe. I will not be content until every person I know has seen it and given its message a moment of reflection.

The following passage is Bill Maher's ending monologue. Read and enjoy. Then tell your friends.

Cheers.

The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people, by irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken.
George Bush prayed a lot about Iraq, but he didn't learn a lot about it.

Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are our intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says: "I'm willing, Lord. I'll do whatever You want me to do."
Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions, limitations and agendas.
And anyone who tells you they know... they "just know" what happens when you die, I promise you, you don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not.
The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble, and that's what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong.

This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves.
And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.
If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a Mafia wife, with the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers.

If the world does come to an end here or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of a religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let's remember what the real problem was:
That we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it.

That's it. Grow up or die.
See you in Heaven.

Who knows?
Yeah, exactly.