Some Mistakes of Moses by Robert Ingersoll

After hearing about the book through a video series on youtube, I decided to purchase a copy and read it for myself, "After all," I thought, "I might as well gain some insight and credibility for my newfound beliefs." Little did I know about how one book could rock your entire world and cause you to now understand life in an entirely new light. It verifies my ideas about the bondage religion has on people, how religion causes hatred and war, and also how Christianity is not realistic nor logical and to be believe in it asks you to throw away your brain and "have faith".

I'm a very deep person. I like when things make sense. As a child, I was given significantly more spankings because I was always questioning, wondering, and asking "Why?". Curiosity defines me.

At the time when I had defined myself as a Christian, my walk with God was kinda like this:
Your mom and her friend both have daughters the same age, you and...let's call her Jessie. Because they are such good friends, they know the two of you will just have a blast together. They set up numerous play-dates and sleepovers, forcing you two to spend endless amounts of time together. Jessie may be content spending time with you, but you're not really sure about her. She says strange things and often times makes up ridiculous stories that she wants you to believe.
That's essentially how I feel about God.

He is merely a playmate forced upon me by my parents that I would rather not have any part of. Now to tell them would a horrendous thing. "How in the world could you not believe in God? How could you dismiss the miraculous healing of your sister's eye and the many times you have spoken in tongues? What about the day when you were saved? Huh? What about that?" I have found reasonable evidence and concluded that all of these things were possible without there having been a god. Plain and simple. Miracles have taken place through having a particular mindset, speaking in tongues is a delusional, forced habit people experience within the perfect atmosphere, and the video about missionaries in Africa, yeah, the love and compassion for others, humanitarianism appealed to me, and I was just told that that thing that appealed to me was called salvation. At five years old, what did I know the difference?

So thank you, Robert Ingersoll, for consoling me throughout this lonely hardship. It's nice to know there is someone out there, dead or alive, that agrees with me and has the balls to announce it to the whole world through the written word. You rock.

The Dead-End-Job Blues

Teens are taught to get the shittiest fast-food job, work precious hours of their childhood away for minimum wage, and never expect to enjoy a single minute of it. Why? Who knows. Apparently it builds character, like Purple Nurple's and Wet Willy's. For whatever reason parents may have to convince their children, it's completely and morally wrong for them to do so. Our lives are precious, our time as young people limited, and there is no reason that you as a parent cannot take care of me. While I do admit going to bbt.com and seeing my bank statement read $519.00 is nice, knowing that I'm working at Buddy's Barbeque all day labor day for $7.25 an hour doesn't seem all that worth it when I could be enjoying the off school with all of my friends. I just want to be a kid while I can.

Or, do something I want to do. There are plenty of things that would seem worth my time, but teens are assumedly unqualified (assuming makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me").

Some time has passed since I started this post and I have decided to stick it out, knowing that the money is not completely worth it but semi-necessary to maintain my quality of living (also I've decided that I'm going to France next summer, hollah!). While I will be working this entire Labor Day weekend, somehow I'll learn to cope.

Touching

This is the part I love most about
your newness.
The slightest touch gives me shivers.
Feeling your finger tips gently brushing my arm,
I can feel it in my toes.
Butterflies fly chaotically through my stomach,
but I don't mind.
Your touch is beautiful,
magical,
innocent.
It pleasures me in a way that nothing else can.
It enthralls me,
how can the slightest graze of my skin shock me so?
It leaves me almost breathless.
Such a wonderful feeling.

Days Like This Remind Me of You

As the heat of summer fades away to the coolness of fall, my excitement continues to grow for the season approaching. I love fall. J'adore l'automne. There's a little French for you. From the colors to the way the cold air smells, I just can't get enough. It is absolutely beautiful.

Most good memories I have were made in the fall. It's the season with the best holidays, football games, homecoming dances, ect. Oh! And bonfires. How could I forget?

He came to me in the spring,
But he left me in the fall.
With him
Pieces of my soul went.

Now when I smell subway in my sister's car or listen to Weezer, even feeling the cool breeze against my skin, I can't help but think of him. That fall hurt the worst, pun most definitely intended. I came away from it more bruised and scarred than any I can remember. I hope to forget it eventually, but it is very much a part of who I am, as if I carry him around like a weight in pocket, a constant memory of what was lost, and almost lost. You know it's bad when you nearly lose yourself for another. It was bad, bad bad. Please help me forget, or accept, the past and move on. Help me Autumn.

Do you ever feel that you were born to the wrong family, wrong area, wrong time period? Well that last one, of all those things, I feel the most. I love the 60's.

"Dearest, though you're the nearest to my heart

Please don't ever ummm yeah ever say we'll part

You scold, and you are so bold

Yes together ummm yeah our love will grow old

Ummm yeah our love will grow old

You may-ay-ay-ay be a million miles away

Please believe me ummm yeah when you hear me say

I love you, I love you

Come ho-o-o-ome, keep me from these sleepless nights

Try my love again ummm yeah

I'm gonna treat you right, ummm yeah, I'm gonna treat you right"

Listening to Buddy Holly sing this, I feel as though he sings it to me. The quality of the music, you can hear the difference in the recording systems and for me, it just takes me back, back to the days where pedophiles and kidnappers were the least of everyones worries, back when children rode their backs around the block and played kick the can and hopscotch, back when life was more simple and wonderful. I desire so badly to go back there. 


P.S. I tag this with nostalgia, even though its not my own nostalgia, I still claim it...

Lately I've felt a stupendous amount of pressure to make decisions. Do I date him? Do I date him? Do I work and miss the party? Do I miss the party to get a car? Everything is piling up and I just want to stop and ask aloud the question of, "Do I have to tell you right now?!" But the world doesn't stop for me, doesn't stop to sit and wait so I can ponder all these thoughts. I do have a time frame, maybe not precise one for all of these things, but there comes point when the boy needs some answers. 

Now I'm scared. "I guess I'll just have to ask you in person :)" I'm seeing him tomorrow. Not good. he better not ask tomorrow. I don't want to say no, but I can't say yes just yet. We just met and I barely know him. Another thing is that he's really nice. Luckily he's not innocent cause I've found that EXTREMELY difficult to deal with. I just hope it's not like the last relationship, a failed attempt at recreating something else in the past. I desire to have that again so badly that worry nothing will ever be good enough...but this is one of those moments where I just have to tell myself to step back and breathe...and move on. And for now that reassuring load of crap will have to do.

Little Girl - Robert Francis

Alvy Singer [addressing the camera] "There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly. The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women."

One of my all-time favorite movies is Annie Hall. I recently stumbled upon this gem but let me tell you, it instantly stole my heart.

"But he'd just smiled - almost sadly, it seemed to her - just smiled and said that détente was a balancing act, that he was the only one who knew how to walk that line."

-- David J. Williams, The Burning Skies

Light and Reflection

During a church worship service, I was inspired to write. When it was over, these words spilled over the page and continued on for the next hour, or so. This is my {revised} version of the inklings:

[In confusion, yet feeling a small peace, I wander down the path towards the truth, whatever that may be. I sift and shuffle through the facts. The earth is here, the skies are blue, humans {inevitably} do "wrong", and we all need something "spiritual" to fulfill ourselves. I'm going to try and dissect my thoughts by topic. Maybe it will make more sense that way. I'm not saying that I know these things to be true, or even that I thoroughly believe they are. These are just my ideas to help me try and make sense of life.

Religious Experiences - These moments typically consist of heart-felt music, prayer {to "God"}, and wet eyes. Christians {tend to} gauge how {close they are to God} based on how often these instances occur. Typically  in "dead" churches, these events occur less often, {if at all}. You may {argue} that these churches consist of bad Christians, unfaithful to God or lacking faith, period. However, if you visit a "dead" church, you yourself, the good Christian you are, will also feel "dead" and the religious inspiration that is usually so present {is very absent}. Atmosphere has {an impact on} this. Think back to a time where you listened to a song, {maybe secular, maybe religious}, and felt {overwhelmed by emotions to the point of becoming teary eyed}. Does "My Heart Will Go On" from the Titanic ring a bell? Christian music is created and purposed to play with your heart strings {and, hopefully, causing you to feel as if you had a moment with God himself}.

God - We all desire something, one thing that no one {really} knows what it is. We want to know how we got here and why we live. We want to be reassured that our life has purpose and meaning Ever seen The Invention of Lying? Ever heard theories that God is a made-up man in the sky? He makes life make sense for us. "He created us, gave us all an unknown purpose, and whatever it is, it gives him praise, or in other words, it gives us a reason to live, which is the 'why' to why we are here." The rules "he made" to keep us happy and protect us are {merely a human's use of  logic and reasoning} to create, or try to create, a more orderly world.

Cannibals - They have a "god" that {once told them to eat each other}. Do you think perhaps that they started eating each other first and then created a "god" to help justify their actions? Food for thought. 

Adam and Eve - The beginning of the Bible has many holes. There is an entire Earth waiting for them, but it is {supposedly} awful and the garden in which they live is perfect. Therefore, they never leave, {by choice}. Adam and Eve have two kids...both male...(how does this help to populate the Earth?) One kills the other, now theres only three people on Earth. But wait! What's this?! Cane leaves his family and marries another girl??? Where did she come from? Was she his sister? Ew...incest. Or maybe another bellybuttonless human? Nope. She was from the land of giants, a breed of human-demons. WTF. I really need to read more of the Bible because I have a feeling that this is not the only place that doesn't make any sense. And the fact that this book is regarded as an important historical document {insults the reputation of all historians}.

 I've had dreams before where I was a child in the dream and the world was very realistic, even when I awoke. Sometimes I've wondered if these instances were real, if they actually occured in my life, {and via a dream, I was remembering them}. I've added some of them to my list of "memories". My mom has told me she doesn't remember some of them happening. I don't care though. To me, they did happen. With this said, I don't think the entire Bible {came into existence by these means}. Many accounts are basically journal entries written by followers of {the Christian faith} that believed so strongly, they may have added "memories" to their list of life happenings {because, based on what they believed, those "memories" made sense}. 

Satan - We all search, wonder, question, and desire the truth. For some, it's a daily struggle. As a Christian, one battles the Devil, who feeds one lies, telling them that God isn't real, or that he doesn't love them, or that maybe this thing isn't really all it's cracked up to be. The Devil is called reason. Human intellect. And don't call me a Devil Worshipper. He doesn't exist.]

The irony in this being written is the setting: I was at church; sitting with my family; with my dad nodding and quietly "Amen"-ing in agreement to what the pastor said; with the sound of overwhelming music swarming through my head; surrounded by people so inspired by one man's empty words. Every now and then I would chuckle to myself and think, "If they only knew..." But they had no clue. They still have no clue. Where I live, Atheism is not embraced as individuality or the right to one's own thoughts. I live in the south, in a small town where Southern Baptists rule the religious scene. I am a minority everywhere, but here, even more so. So the internet will be my sanctuary until I feel it is safe to come out of hiding. When I am more secure in my new identity, then the truth can be revealed. Until then I wait...