Dear God, Please Tell my Dad that my Other Dad is a Heathen

I knew I was an atheist at twelve years old. It's not the most interesting of stories...not compared to those of gays raised Mormon or Catholics who had an abortion, nonetheless, I knew. My beliefs have proven to be loyal for a good 13 years now.  I did have a brief experimentation with Hinduism which transcended into Zen Buddhism.  The latter of which still somewhat lingers today. In the overall scheme of things however,  I just don't care for anyone or anything that may in any form be referred to as God.
Every month local "active" atheists get together in town and have meetings. Many folk could easily critisize this and call it churchy. Yes, we sit around and listen to someone talk and we donate money for that person's time and for the space facilitated to have the meeting.  What those people don't understand is that we are not against belief.  We are against God. We all have beliefs of our own and we come together and share them. What mostly makes these meetings not churchy at all is the fact that the person speaking is a scholar, a philosopher, a scientist, or often its only a regular person with legitimate doubts and facts to back it all up. Most of us probably passed biology and chemistry with flying colors, and we talk about it.  There's debate and there's always something new to learn.
As an active atheist last night I attended oh-so-sleepily one of these meetings. The speaker was a local freelance writer who had spent time undercover as a homosexual christian and went to extensive therapy programs and even retreats which were offered by radical christian groups to help "cure" him of this horrendous affliction.  I was immediately alert when he spoke of how the unlicensed evangelical therapists often asked participants to cuddle and cradle each other, telling the other that there was no need to act out or to put themselves down, but that ejaculating in a woman's vagina was natural...and it is what God wants. But wait, isn't that what they call original sin?
I'm often baffled by much of what is revealed at these meetings.  In the last meeting I attended we discussed historical studies on chapters of the bible which reveal how the "telephone game" came into play when it was written.  For example: "John told Jonah  that Muhammed was the brother of a guy who said Judas knew his mom and that her neighbor, this guy Jacob, or Jethro, or Jesus something or other was the son of God!"
Last night however, the focus was mainly on many religious affiliates' sheer intolerance for homosexuality.  Here in California this has become a major issue. What with the Mormons funding almost the entire campaign to pass prooposistion 8 last year which made it illegal for same-sex couples to be joined in wedlock. It is still legal for them to declare a domestic partnership but this binding doesnt allow for them to share health insurance or to claim social security or any funds for that matter in the event of the other person's death.  This is the key catch to it all, money.  But how can they not tolerate homosexuality? What if one day an intolerance to people who enjoy fine cheese becomes common practice? I'll be screwed.  I wont be allowed to marry anyone one else who likes cheese (which always turns me on) and then what?  I feel deeply for gays who have suffered any kind of disallowance from their own religions, families, and lives. I can't even begin to express my disappointment in people for disowning somone because of their sexual orientation.  The saddest thing about the whole lesson was that many of the participants believe at the end of these therapies and retreats that they are no longer gay! "God has shown them the correct path, and they are cleansed of the demon." Yes, they exercised the gay out of people. They also gave them intensive electroshock therapy and forced them to look at pornographic images much like a scene from 'A Clockwork Orange'...He had videos. Many of these "survivors" went on to marry and have children. This is the most disturbing to me because that woman, if she loves that man,  will be eternally devastated when she realizes her husband is gay.  Those children will be mocked forever causing irreversible psychological damage.  Why on Earth would anyone allow people to live like this and affect other people so negatively?
All in all last night's meeting only further supported my personal opinion that religions are really just hate groups manefesting hate crimes together and enacting hateful deeds toward people who are different from them and whatever jibberish hullabaloo they chose to make up and try to force on other people.  It re-supported so many things I learned that summer at church camp when I was twelve...

Recycle, You Bloomin' Idiots!

I hate to be the one to be jumping onto any bandwagons. I also hate to be the one to say "I was into [such and such] before it was cool." Regardless of both of these statements I have to say that I am now, and have always been...on the green team. My father first taught me to compost when I was seven years old. Now I look left and right and see people making the green team into the cool kids. And so be it! If that's what it takes to persuade our generation's ever growing apathy for the planet (paired with their apathy for overall life in general) to subside so we don't all have to watch our children die a slow painful death from an accumulate inhalation of excessive carbon emissions, I'll wear your "green is the new black" t-shirts made from organic cotton.
What actually upsets me about the whole situation is the people who think they are too cool to go green. WHAT? Oh, it's trendy so you wont do it? The recycling bin is two feet away from your ignorant face and you throw your used Gatorade bottle into the trash can fully aware of the recycle-ability of your unnecessary waste because you "aren't into that." It would take about 4 calories of energy to toss the bottle 2 feet to the left but nay, we mustn't because that would cramp our style. I'm sure you have bigger problems to worry about like ugh..finals, or why hasn't he called?
A key example of this attitude reared it's ugly face at me today while I was working when a vehicle too monstrous to compare with any modern machinery(unless Optimus Prime really exsists) pulled up next to the building in which I was working. Did this person want to show the beast off? Is that why they couldn't put it in the parking lot? Or are there no parking spaces, even RV sized that she could get it into. It was a Dodge something or other, twice as tall as myself, raised, rims, turbo, extendo cab which probably acheives, on a good day, about 8 miles to the gallon...of deisel. I'd estimate a output of about 545 pounds of CO2 in a week a if it's used daily. There was no one else inside the vehicle. Just one 5'2" chain-smoking middle-aged Harley enthusiast who needed to come by and grab someething she forgot on Friday. Unfortunately I know this person. I know they're proud and they care not for what goes on outside of the specific realm of their own self unless its someone or something getting in their way. Much like most of the people who just can't seem to get on my side about this. This thought led me onto a long train of thoughts about the general selfishness and evil instincts in most of society today...which isn't a beef I want to even try to explain right now.

The fact is...people need to put their pride aside. How? I have no idea, I wish I could concoct a plan for all Americans to denounce the Darwinian instinct of the survival of the fittest and stop trying to be the one toughest, hottest, richest person on the planet. Pretty soon there wont be a planet for you to be the King of. Please. The arrows that go round and round in that funny little triangle, those mean recycle. That little tiny silhouette picture of the earth, that means you should feel guilty. And no, I didn't ride my bike to work for 6 months because I needed to work off those extra ten pounds but thanks for noticing.

One Can Only Hope

Things my mother used to tell me in her thick sarcastic overtones: "One can only hope...." Followed by whatever the incident at hand had not yielded.

Now I sit at home and I tell myself...one can only hope...

I can only hope the next time someone tells me they love me, that person actually knows what love is.

But what is it then?

I was lucky enough to witness love from the sidelines of my parents' happy 23-year marriage. It would have lasted longer had not death parted them. Thus now, I seem to live my life in search of something more powerful than most people ever feel. Will it ever surface? I've tried twice to love a man. They both knew how to say the words but neither knew what it meant.

The first was a treasure. Young, sweet, with skin like the clouds. I knew he was all I would ever need. I didn't know what he would need. Timing and circumstance came in the way along with the unrefutable need he had to find sexual solice in a fantasy world instead of in me. I thought we would spend our lives together. I found it to be romantic that he would be the only sexual partner I would ever have in my life. He found it to be a curse that I would be his.

Upon conclusion of this five-year passion I had (give or take a year) my mother decided, as she often does, to forcefully offer her advice. She told me I should look for a man whose parents had loved eachother the way she and my father loved eachother. Knowing this was virtually impossible I disregarded her now so logical words. Instead I set guidlines for the next man. If he wasn't confident, opinionated, older, more experienced, and active, I wasn't interested. Unfortunately, I found him. `

My second was thrust into my life by complete accident. Timing and circumstance coming into play once again. As soon as we exchanged words I knew he was the one for me. That charm, that charisma and extreme confidence! I guess most women fall for a man like that at some point or another. It's a primitave intuition we have to mate with the male eminating the most potential to succeed. The winner. And of course, winners are usually those with the most confidence and drive. I read an interesting article at psychologytoday.com called The Biology of Attraction that describes pretty much how I met this man and how our "chemistry" was very similar to that of baboons. http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=19930301-000030&page=1 Of course he was at least seven years older. He was into extreme sports. He minored in speech and debate in college. And very...very...very experienced. Now I'd even call him a slut. Unfortunately with these attributes seems to come psychological disorders, extreme baggage (children, ex-wives, polygamy, etc..) and the unconquerable instict for infidelities. Yes he said he loved me...and her, and her, and her and.....In my apparent very rare experience of seeing true love it seems that if I loved someone I would never feel the need to cheat. Why would I? They would be my rock. They'd be all I needed. Unfortunately my second is too old to change his ways, to alter the concept that "I love you" are three words that should be thrown around as loosely as possible just to give the appearance that he has a heart. And my first, well I can only hope that his current belle is teaching him the ways of love better than I did.

Okay okay mom...maybe you were right. She tells me to find a man my own age, my own race, my own sort of up-bringing, whose parents never got divorced. Though I've always believed that opposites really do attract. Both of my attempts at love had parents who were divorced before they reached the age of ten. I think from this point forward I'll be listening to her a little more intently. My heart can probably only take one more breaking before it becomes completely dysfunctional.

So what can be done?

How can society learn to love truly and deeply? Or will they? Will people continually abuse the term till it becomes less valuable than the U.S. dollar? I think we all have a lot to learn before love is saved. Real love, the kind you find only once in a lifetime, twice if my good friends timing and circumstance allow it. After all...one in two marriages now end in divorce in the U.S. I wonder what our children will grow up to feel. I wonder if love will even be in the dictionary in the future. One can only hope...