Clouded Minds, Sunny Skies

Ok, here is where I get serious. There are no poems or pictures, no neat little rhyming schemes or song lyrics of how I feel. No, this is where I'm trying to save a friend from brainwashing and filth being taught to them...

I was raised a legit, go to church every Sunday Catholic. I went through CCD, I went to confession and honestly, I was a very religious person. I helped out around the parish and did work to clean up and such. Right up until the parish I attended was slated to be closed, I was climbing my way up to the top of the religious rollercoaster. The day that my parish was closed and all of the parishioners joined together and went into vigil (directly because of the whole sex abuse scandal, whether they admit it or not), it made me question anything and everything I'd ever been taught. I stuck it out with that vigil and I slept up there at least three or four times a week to make sure I was a part of keeping my church open. the day the church reopened, I lost all of the faith I'd ever had. This story goes on for a while, but I'm trying to illustrate the faith, love, heart, and soul I put into my religious beliefs and how it was futile to continue on with.

Now I would NEVER tell anyone what to believe or how to live their life, but when something like this happens and a friend is obviously being brainwashed, I have to at least vent my frustration. It started a few months ago when I really started to understand how close-minded some of these religious teachings have become. We had a conversation about how being gay was condemned by the Bible and that if you are gay, you must pray to be cured. This made me furious, especially because if God loves everyone no matter what...how can it be justified that sexual orientation is wrong? it makes me sick to think that anyone would believe that being gay is a disease, or a sickness or a choice people have made. Honestly, if you believe any person would choose to be gay, especially nowadays where the world's perception of "alternative lifestyles" is so warped and jaded that people are scared to death to admit they're gay, then you are (in the nicest possible way) a fuckin' ignorant prick. I could go on for hours on why "religious" views on being gay are so ridiculous, but that's not why I'm writing this.

Here is the straw that broke the camel's back. I was told today that this friend of mine was told that she could no longer read this series of books because her pastor told her that the books were spiritually unhealthy and that they were part of the occult...and apparently they were instilling some bad mantra into her and she had gotten a heightened sense of fear. She went on to cite having a panic attack over a spider and that she was told she was arguing lately as the reasons she asked about the book... Ok, first of all, do you hear what you're saying? You're claiming that a book written by a stay at home soccer mom, about the romance between a teenage girl and a teenage vampire (That is my understanding at least, I could be off) is letting loose bad spirits and thus making you a little irritable?...really?...a fucking book? The kicker is she was so excited and had gone to a release party for the last book in the series and had a great time...and then I hear she is no longer gonna read these books because a woman who lives "by the Book" says it's got some bad juju surrounding it? Does anyone else see how fuckin' dumb this sounds? Ok, I'm going to stop there before it gets personal and I begin to attack the integrity, morals, ethics and character of a person who I don't know.

I'll conclude with one last thought I have.

If you live your whole life by a book (that has been passed down and translated into so many languages that it has very possibly lost the original meaning written in it) in hopes that it gets you into heaven and you can enjoy your afterlife...then why bother living your present life at all?
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Final note: I'm not an atheist by any means, although I'm not sure if you'd call me agnostic either...but I do have a brain and a heart and I'd prefer to use those to make my own decisions along with common sense.