Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve

Anti-Gay Pastor Responds To Being Called Out By Ellen DeGeneres

http://instinctmagazine.com/post/anti-gay-pastor-responds-being-called-out-ellen-degeneres

Time to air some grievances.  This may contain offensive content, so read at your own risk.

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is a bullshit cop-out way of passing judgement without taking responsibility for the loathing your feel for the "sinner".  As long as you claim to "love" your fellow, then you can condemn their behavior in a 'tough love' kind of way.  Grow a set, and say what you're really thinking.  "You're a sodomite and I can't wait for God to judge you and send you to hell".   Well, I withdrew my membership from that club a while ago, so your idea of sin doesn't apply to me - only you.  Your pathetic attempt to hide your bigotry in love is appalling and stinks of coward.

Next,  your argument against marriage equality based on what is in the bible is again, irrelevant.  It does not apply to me.  I am not a member of that club.  So if you or your clergy, or our church does not approve, I could not give a big rat's ass.

I've been following this very public conversation between this douche-bag homophobe and Ellen, she surely must be banging her head against her dressing room table because she has had to live with the same bullshit accusations just like the rest of us.

Get this through your head.   Your religious convictions has absolutely zero bearing on how I live my life.  I don't care if you eat meat, or not.  I don't care if you go to church every time the doors are open.  I am not bothered if you circle around a fire at the full moon and offer wine and biscuits to one out of hundreds of deities.  If that fulfills you, then who am I to stand in the way of your remedy  for coping with this life, and I would appreciate the same courtesy.  The way I see the world and the way I choose to live in it has nothing to do with you, unless I come to your doorstep and try to convert you to become an atheist, or unless I cut off your head because my faith says your are a heretic.

Personally, I've received 99% support from my Facebook friends and family and I am very grateful.  I did have a cousin say some pretty nasty things, but he was only a click away from being removed from my world (thank god for the delete button).  I went 20 years without hearing from him.  I won't miss him in the next 20.

If you and I ever have a discussion about marriage equality, leave your Bible at home and be prepared to tell me how my marriage affects yours (first, second, or third). Quoting the Bible to me would be about as effective as if I used tarot cards to tell you how to live.   I don't want to hear about Sodom and Gomorrah.  Quoting Leviticus to me will be useless because I know another scripture that will take you straight to hell with me.

Without the Bible as your weapon, you will not have one single solid piece of evidence that would prove that allowing people of the same gender to marry is the cause of 9/11, earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, etc because I got married to someone of the same gender.  Pat Robertsons and Fred Phelps are total jackasses who has lost all touch with reality and live in a fantasy world where they believe they will someday walk on streets of gold as long as they keep people dumb, confused, and under control.

"God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve"  Seriously?  You really believe there was a physical Adam and Eve ... and a talking snake ... and a magic tree?  Besides, that is the lamest cliche ever and speaking it in public will illicit an epic eye-roll at your blatant unoriginality and puffed up pride because "you told me!", right?  Ooooooooh! Burn!

When someone joins the military, or wins an election for office, or take up jury duty, they swear to uphold the constitution, not the Bible. The constitution yearns for more freedom, not less.  All men and women, and other, are equal. Not sinners/saints, or black/white/Latino or gay/straight or anything in between. #alllivesmatter

Founding fathers.  I normally can't help myself from that epic eye-roll when someone starts spewing what they think the "founding fathers" said about why America was founded.  So Stop.  Scholars spend their entire lives studying the words and letters of the "fathers", so hearing an armchair talking head project their ignorance into what the "fathers" intended this country to be make me want to violently purge my entire GI tract from both ends until nothing is left but skin and bones.   Yes,  It causes a visceral reaction that strong.  My first thought - "This person (who is probably a high-school drop out) is a baffoon."

I feel really badly for the decent folks who are Christian but are represented by bigots.  The squeaky wheel gets all the grease. Real Christians love their friends and family, do not judge, and demonstrate their faith by loving unconditionally and without judgement. Do your faith a favor and start denouncing these pseudo-Christian politicians who believes that everyone should live by their moral code regardless of how ridiculous it is.

One last comment.  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Scratch a homophobe, find a queer.  In other words, you show me someone who is vehemently against marriage equality, or waves a sign that screams GOD HATES FAGS, Ill show you someone who is living in torment and the frustration of that life becomes evident when they lash out at the very people they secretly want to be.

http://instinctmagazine.com/post/anti-gay-pastor-responds-being-called-out-ellen-degeneres

"Being gay is not a choice!" ... Oh yes it is.

If you say, "I don't have a choice", then you are admitting something is fundamentally wrong that needs to be fixed.  Living contrary to your nature and lying to everyone that loves you is also a choice.  You choose whether to act true to your nature, against your nature, or not to act at all in a life of isolation.
I chose every day to share my life with and love Patrick, and I would not change a thing.  I am living with the consequences of my choice, but in this case the consequences are unconditional love, honesty and forgiveness.  Nothing about this choice is wrong.  Like the golden oldie croons, "If loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right."
If you love someone who owns their nature, it is your responsibility to love them for it.  Anything less than that is the true abomination.  Choosing to treat them as a pariah because they don't follow the schema of your worldview is the real sin.
Stop saying you don't have a choice. Instead, own your choice.  It is your ultimate right and responsibility as a human and free moral agent to embrace your nature and love yourself.

Test post for twitter

This is a test post to see how it translates to twitter.  Will it start with the first couple of lines and ellipsis off to a shortly k?  Or will I have to copy and paste an excerpt?

Waiting on Florida

Finished massage therapy school Aug 4, passed the MBLEX with a score of 825 / 900, submitted application and waiting for them to process.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

I had an experience to day that got me to thinking about narrow-mindedness and tolerance and the extremes of both.

A friend of a friend that lives in Jackson, MS posted a comment on Facebook. I have been unfriended as a result of my own comment, so I dont remember word for word what was said, but I can convey the gist of it.

She expressed her dismay because someone opened a psychic business in her neighborhood. She indicated that several others have opened up around town and she didn't understand why people would seek answers from 'those' people instead of the Lord.

Several comments followed and the conversation moved into how psychics are fakes and phoneys and are out to swindle folks out of their money. They are able to read people's body language and take advantage of vulnerable people going thru times of trouble for their own profit. She also commented that when she worked in a restaurant, how one of 'those' people would come in the restaurant and would be rude to the staff and looked *evil*.

Really? She just went there?

I have been friends with this person for several months and have read many comments from her about church, god this, and jesus that. Its facebook. It's her Facebook page. Its her opinion. Its all good. I allow people their delusions, just as I expect my friends to allow me mine. If I disagree, I just keep on scrolling to the next person's status update and soon enough I'll forget about the one before it and it's all good.

But this particular status, I couldn't let go by without comment. I found her derogatory use of quotes around "those" people offensive because in a way she was talking about me. It made me feel that I was the ignorant one because I didn't worship at the cash cow she attends every Sunday.

So my reply was "those" people are everywhere, possibly even on her facebook page, and finished by saying that "those people" have been around a lot longer than the Baptists.

I could have went a lot further. As far as the restaurant comments, I've worked enough after church crowds to recognize uptight, rude, high-maintenance, stingy, and self righteous wolves in sheep's clothing. The same people that dropped of 10% of their gross income in the church plate, and then left less than that for a tip.

I also know enough pagan practitioners that are the kindest, most thoughtful, beautifully spirited people I have ever met.

So, back to narrow-mindedness and tolerance, and the extremes of each.

Narrow-mindedness is looking at the world with blinders on. Its where one's ideals are a square peg and the world is a hole. Its when someone completely dismisses any inkling of a philosophy or world view does not exactly line up with their own along with the people that go with it.

I know people that identify themselves as a Christian and are stable enough in their beliefs to understand that not all the world thinks just like they do. They have the mental capacity to allow others the latitude to cultivate their own beliefs and maintain a healthy respect in spite of the differences.

Then, I know people that believe anything. They follow the latest spiritual fad until the next one comes along and off they go on that path. No foundation. No grounding.

So how much is too much, and how little is to little when it comes to tolerance?

What is the 'perfect' Christian? Whoa. Now that is a topic that could fill a volume of books and consume years of study. ... No, not really. One could take every dot and tittle from the Bible and measure how obedient one is to the letter of the law. But if one really looks closely, to live a life that strict, it would be hard to tell the difference between a Christian and the Taliban. Not going to go too much into that. Read for yourself and draw your own conclusions. One can go as far as they want in that direction, but we are products of our culture. We dress, eat, trade, and worship according to our culture's standards, and not by Biblical standards. Some would like to think they do but that is only because they measure their standards against their neighbors.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is the balance. It is a mantra found in many cultures and faith systems as well as business practices. In Wiccan and pagan circles, it is rephrased as 'do as you will, but first do no harm'.

So listen, people. If I've said this once, I've said it a thousand times. It is the responsibility of the individual to find their own moral compass and follow it to the best of their conscience. Our moral compasses evolve daily as a result of life experiences. When an event occurs that challenge our moral compass, we evaluate the merits of it and either incorporate it into our moral compass or reject them. Even those we reject initially sometimes eventually are incorporated.

There are lines that we do not cross. Murder, theft, dishonesty and the like are all concepts that is condemned by our culture and in most cases never make their way into our moral compass, and rightly so. It goes against the golden rule. But when it comes to another's philosophy it should be a live and let live. And those that so easily and completely dismiss people that don't fit into one's own philosophy are weak and afraid and are not worthy of other's friendship.

Cheap Champaign on new years eve 2010

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6

God and Magick

Been thinking a lot about what it means to be an atheist. does it mean that the atheist has no spiritual inclinations - at all? Are prayers, sending out good energy, or having any kind of religious experience out of the question? Do atheist completely dismiss psychic abilities altogether? The reason I ask these questions is when it comes to the existence of god, I believe it is a question that cannot be proven with any imperial evidence. Besides, there are so many of them that are now completely dismissed as myth; who is to say any of them exist? All each of us have experiences that we describe as religious experiences. But science has proven that these religious experiences are the result of a release of chemicals on the brain - the same as getting swept away in a mob mentality. So does that mean that the connection we feel with each other is nothing more than a chemical reaction? Being a Reiki healer, I act as a port for a 'universal life force' to flow thru me in order to bring healing to the querent. But if I question the existence of a universal life force, does that make my Reiki practice a fraud? Picking and choosing what we believe isn't an ideal method to me. There has to be some universal constant - like the law of gravity - that guides us in our spiritual quest. The "pick-and-choose" method is as futile as choosing what objects fall to the ground and what objects float. Everything is subject to the law of gravity. As I present these questions, I know no one will be able to provide a satisfactory answer - only their opinion which is just as unfounded as my own. I hereby make an official request to the gods/goddesses to show themselves to me and make themselves known to me and share the solutions to these mysteries with me. A

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.4