Saturday, September 18, 2010

there's probably no god. now stop worrying about it and just enjoy your life!!!

with the girls back in school, mama is able to roam about freely during the day. aaahhhhhhh!!!! please don't misunderstand. i LOVE my girls and totes enjoy spending time with them, taking them to see new and exciting things, spending quiet moments, watching their eyes widen with amazement at all this awesome life has to offer. those cherished moments are what i live for. it's like having a second chance at being a kid again, their experiences spark little memories buried deep within me. i love it!!! nevertheless, mama needs mama time.

monday i took advantage of just that! after shuffling the darlings off to school, i came home to put on my clothes. no, i don't drive my girls to school in the nude, but i often take advantage of the fact that i have a pretty responsible 9 year old who walks her little sister to class while i sit in the warmth and comfort of my vehicle, watching to make sure they aren't kidnapped in that 50' walk between me and the classroom. and i do this in my bathrobe. knock on wood that i never have an accident on the way. that might be a tad embarrassing. anyhoooooooo...i was simply delighted that i could scamper off to grab a manicure, all by myself. now i have the best little mani/pedi place i go to over in sw portland. it is, by far, the cheapest pampering around! $12 for a manicure which includes a full-on massage from my fingers to my shoulders, as well as a neck and upper back massage. it's heaven! when the gal was done with my massage she asked what color i'd like. black. i love black nails. and with autumn settling in, perfect! as she painted, i noticed the lady next to me staring at my hands. this woman was easily 80 years old. her hair was the color of bozo the clown's. i shit you not. bright, flaming orange. her painted on eyebrows were the same shade. she had a horrified look on her face as she watched the glossy black being painted onto my nails. i looked at her and smiled, ever so careful to not make obvious my complete amusement in her choice of hair color. no smile was returned. "black??" is all she uttered. "excuse me?", i said. she repeated herself..."black? are you a devil worshipper?" again i said "excuse me?" she then went on to say that only devil worshippers and punk rockers wear black nail polish. really? i'll alert the fashion police. the gal doing my nails rolled her eyes and chuckled. i told bozo that i was neither a devil worshipper nor a punk rocker and then suggested that she might want to leaf through a vogue magazine or something to bring herself up to date. after muttering something under her breath about "young people" (thanks, bozo!), she left. i guess her salmon colored nails were dry. all the gals who worked there giggled. according to them, she is crazy and often offends people. but it got me thinking about christians and their skewed version of things.

i don't believe in god. my husband is a recovering catholic and feels the same way. i guess that makes us atheists. i think a lot of folks feel like atheists and agnostics must be terrible, horrible, hateful people without morals. nothing could be further from the truth. we do, in fact, have morals
. we just don't need a big, scary man in the sky to tell us to follow them. i believe in karma with my whole heart. just be good...it's as simple as that! be good, be kind, be loving, be giving. the more good energy you put out into the universe, the more good that comes back to you. it's pretty simple. now, i have gotten shit from my mom about this. "they need to believe in something!", she has said about raising children. they do. we have raised them to think freely, to love, to be kind. THESE are the important values. i think i would be doing my children a great disservice if i didn't teach them the freedom of questioning and thinking. this allows one to self~evaluate and correct one’s own errors without apology to an imaginary friend. one of my best childhood friends had a religious mother who had to be one of the most hateful, mean people i have ever met in my entire life. yet, virginia scampered off to sunday service every week, hammering home, in my mind, just how hypocritical christianity truly is. most of the rotten, beastly people i've had the displeasure of meeting are die~hard christians. THIS is what the church teaches???? now, i am not saying that all christians are beastly, i have wonderful friends who i love with all my heart who are christians. but i remember going to church and sunday school with christy and her mom, virginia. i always felt so creeped out being there. i remember at sunday school on a particular day, the teachers told us all that they'd be baptizing those who'd never been baptized, the following sunday. i remember vividly the teacher saying to us "now remember, children, if you don't get baptized, you will go to hell." wtf!??? I was totally petrified that if i missed sunday school the next week, i would be damned to eternal flames!! i fretted all week. i think back to that and realize what an awful thing that is to say to a little kid. from that young age, i could tell that this wasn't right for me and it made me terribly uncomfortable. what is it with folks that they need to feel controlled by some unseen force? and how dare us have the audacity to question!!??

so we do our best to raise our girls to think freely. they spent a week in july back in atlanta visiting their aunt becky, uncle joe and cousin norman. they had a great time, but jaymes was a little confused by the saying grace thing at dinner. she brought this up to me when she got home. she was clearly baffled as to why they were thanking god for the meal. "why don't they just thank becky for cooking it? or joe for buying it?" "doesn't THAT make more sense?" she asked. amused, and beaming with pride, i told her that yes, it seems that should be the way it goes down, but some folks just feel like god is responsible for everything, therefore, thanking him is what they do. she was thoroughly bewildered. we spoke of how neat our version of "grace" is at the dinner table. our version starts by saying "we are happy, grateful, respectful and in love" to each other. then we tell each other our "highs and lows" of the day. jaymes then asked why some people believe in god and some don't. (the same reason some girls wear black nail polish and some wear salmony pink polish) i simply told her that some people feel like they need an invisible super~hero to keep them in check and by believing in said super~hero, one has a free ticket to live in the clouds forever after they die. i then offered to take her to church, if she is interested. no matter what i happen to believe, i want the same choices for my girls. i said to her that if she was curious about it, we could find a church and she could feel it out for herself. she looked at me like i was insane. "mama! i don't want to go to church. why would i? i don't believe in god." i told her that she doesn't believe because her parents don't believe, and that it's all she's ever known. "maybe if you go to church and something clicks there with you, you might decide that you do believe. that would be your choice. i want you to have all the options available to make these decisions for yourself." i said through gritted teeth, offering the option because it is the right thing to do. she followed up with "mama, i don't want to go to church. there is no god. i know this, i mean, hello? (eyes rolling) i've been in an airplane!"

i will never understand how some folks believe in this crap. christians have a terrible ego problem. they are not content to be human and alive, they need to be of a god and in his image and live forever. it's bizarre to me. christians have no trouble believing that mary got knocked up without having sex?!?! really? i'm proud that i do not believe in “virgin births”, “six day creations”, “walking on water”, “feeding a gang of people with 5 loaves of bread and two fishes” (btw the plural is fish, not fishes) and dead people rising after three days aka jesus zombie. the ignorance kills me. religion serves no purpose, i know of people who go to church and they have no morals. it's said that one gets morals from church but i must disagree. the so called religious people in this country commit more acts of sin than the non~religious by a large amount. according to christians, humans are supposed to be "god’s children". then why does he allow suffering of children from hunger, sexual abuse, violent beatings, kidnapping and murder. some have never known an ounce of happiness since being born. where is the loving god? couldn’t he give them some miracles? just one, maybe? christians believe all that is required for atonement is having the “jesus, forgive me” card. that lack of accountability is bullshit. why are they not required to directly ask the person they have wronged for forgiveness? christians are the worst example of morality, discipline and accountability. people who would make excellent parents can’t conceive a child, but drug addicts, killers and assholes give birth to children everyday. the rich get richer, the poor poorer and everyday hard~working, law~abiding, tax~paying people have lost their jobs, their homes and almost the shirts off their backs. this so called god is not a fair and loving god. if god is the almighty creator, he should be able to do something about this. christians say of god "if you don’t believe in him, you’ll perish"...hhmmmm... sounds like dictatorship to me. so he gave you free will, but only as long as you use it according to his rules?? come now! intelligent adults should know better. so sad for them and their small, closed minds.

to christian churches i must say, pay back all the money you receive from taxpayers to maintain the luxurious life style that you present as a model of upright living. remove the tax deductions that you take from your personal income tax. and churches should absolutely pay corporate taxes. elimination of organized religion from our country would be the beginning of a better life, or at least of a life that does not accept superstition, witchcraft, demons, satans, gods, demi-gods, proto-gods, crypto-gods and all supernatural crap, in general.
the more i look at the the way things really are in life and this world, the more i believe that there couldn’t possibly be a god. we’re born, we live and we die. there are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven and no hell. there is only our natural world. religion is myth and superstition. it hardens hearts and enslaves minds. pride comes from living a life based on reality, not wasting it believing in lies, fairy tales and illogical, irrational, invisible cloud-being beliefs.

be good for goodness’ sake and leave the world a better place for your children….because this really is all there is.

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