When Religion Claims a Friend

Tragically I must report I’m mourning the loss of my oldest and dearest friend’s brain – not to illness or accident but rather to religion. Yes, I’m beside myself with grief over the news that my once logical, sensible, intelligent, parallel-thinking friend has fallen prey to societal pressures and joined a Catholic church. OH THE HORROR! What’s even worse is that she actually believes this is good for her and will make her a better person. I’m still trying to figure out what was wrong with the person she already was. Upon delivering the tragic news ever so proudly, she then audaciously suggested that perhaps I should consider doing the same in order to find ‘happiness and direction in life.’ At that point, I knew her mind was lost forever. Disheartened and distraught not strong enough language for the way I feel over such horrible news.

Routinely, I shake my head at the blind, stupid sheep-like humans herded by what I deem spiritual scam artists who actively con them out of logical thought by the spreading the word of complete and utter bullshit under the pseudo-righteous label of ‘holy doctrine’ which of course makes it true: NOT! I’d told myself that religion was the pitfall for the stupid or non-thinkers who didn’t know any better or chose to live life more easily by following along and readily accepting what they were told without ever questioning it. I mean, if you think about it, that is the only way religions ‘work’ because the main tenet of any organized religion is: ‘DON’T THINK: JUST BELIEVE!’

Followers are not allowed to question anything especially doctrine that makes no fakin sense at all. Discerning minds are not welcome but rather scorned as the lost souls who fail to prove their faith by believing all the BS religious organizations peddle to their flock of sheep. ‘Non-believers’ are faulted for questioning ‘the word’ because how fakin dare we thinking minds question something totally illogical and refute that for which there is no proof? How could anyone with a functioning brain fall for this twisted fairy tale altered ever so slightly depending on which brand of faith you bought from the religious superstore? Logically, I cannot understand how so many could fall for such a pile of crap and be so willing to accept what they’re fed just because someone with manufactured authority(ie priests, ministers, the fakin pope & his big hat) absolutely insists they’re telling us the truth.

While I realized there are many stupid and gullible people in the world, I never imagined I’d have to worry about this particular friend because she and I were so much the same. We both did our own thing and never felt compelled to fit into society’s cookie cutter person mold. Fak, we were proud of the fact we were different than the average American and didn’t care if people thought we were bizarre because we actually read books for fun. However, now, I’m afraid one of my greatest enemies has scored another win in the rather aggressive quest to gain control of personal freedoms – such as this Christian preoccupation with illegalizing abortion - while hindering progress at every turn in such vital areas like disease prevention or cures for cancer just because they feel the need to interfere in everyone’s right to live other than by whatever they think some omnipotent fictional being deems fit and proper for ALL of humanity.

I’m not disheartened. I’m faking infuriated because I feel as if my friend has been victimized by this very society’s pressures to get all of us to conform in order to more easily control us. Now I know what it’s like to lose someone to your enemy because that is exactly what has happened here. This woman was a NON-believer, ladies and gentlemen! She was NOT religious; we’d spent hours, days, weeks collectively during our nearly 20 year friendship poking holes in the bullshit packaged by the religious establishment. We’d shaken our heads together over the horrors this world has seen and continues to see because of religious interference for the sake of a fictional faking creature that is so faking amazing and all-powerful he/she/it never bothered to stop everyone in their tracks for a worldwide public service announcement to say: “I interrupt your daily lives for this brief announcement. HEY EVERYONE, this is God and I really do exist. So please stop arguing over me and soon like those tax stimulus checks my office will be mailing out official instructions to how I want all humans to live their lives. To prove myself, tonight’s winning lottery numbers are: 16, 25, 32, 37, and 41.” FAK, if you’re really as powerful as these churches give you credit for, wouldn’t you at least stop and announce yourself and prove those of us doubting your existence wrong? Wouldn’t God bear the first right of ‘I told you so’? Oh wait, that’s right. He/she/it doesn’t interrupt regularly scheduled programming for this very important announcement as a test of our faith in him/her/it. Yes, sure. Sorry but if you can’t show yourself, go FAK yourself. I don’t believe in fairy tales either.

I should’ve seen it coming. This religious transformation with my aforementioned friend didn’t happen overnight. It was society’s subtle brainwashing taking hold of her otherwise thinking self. First it broke down her individuality by making her believe she was wrong to think differently than most everyone else. Society’s techniques are more subtle and dangerous than a bike-riding missionary in a white shirt and black tie knocking on your door because you know exactly what that salesman is there to peddle. Society isn’t that obvious with its agenda so unless you’re aware of the signs, it’s very easy to fall victim to the pressures to become like everyone else.

With my friend, instead of a rapid transformation, it was a slow regressive disturbing process that became more apparent and disturbing with every development. It closely resembled watching someone die of a terminal illness – knowing what’s coming but all along remaining hopeful she’d make a full recovery back to her former self. I tried desperately to reach her, challenging her attempted justification to maybe spark a thought inside that head to trigger the person she used to be but sadly I failed, and as I failed to reach her at every step, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the tragic day she reported joining a church.

Sadly, today I’ve had to accept the reality that she, in my eyes, is a lost soul and has crumbled to society’s pressures to standardize everyone to the same, non-thinking robotic brainless twits dominating the face of America. Become like everyone else or face scrutiny for ‘not fitting in,’ ‘not being a team player,’ ‘being negative and bitter when you point out how fucked up things are,’ etc etc. I’ve never fit in and I have no plans in this lifetime to conform, and I’m on a mission to talk about it as much as I can hoping to wake other people the fak up before those in charge succeed in the overall plan to turn everyone into a nodding weak fak easily controlled and robbed of freedoms upon which this country was founded. This is serious stuff: democracy is also at risk.

It’s alarming how easily even non-conformists are swept into the mainstream. It all starts with being shunned by society. You don’t watch reality tv, you read books on politics even though you’re not an academic, you don’t go to church because you think it’s bullshit, you can’t talk standard office nonsense because it simply doesn’t interest you and they don’t want to hear about human rights violations in Saudi Arabia or the fact that the war in Iraq does NOT protect our freedom on U.S. soil but rather inhibits it. No. You realize pretty damn quickly that you are not one of them, and even if you’re perfectly ok with it, you also realize it’s very very difficult to find ‘your people’ because we are definitely in the minority especially within the U.S.

So time passes, and people invite you to do things you find more boring than watching grass grow, and you may go once to ‘be social’ but realize you’d rather peel your own skin off with a fork than endure it ever again. You find excuses to avoid the office bunch as not to get sucked into some mindless conversation about American Idol, and you lose a friend to the mindlessness when he/she crumbles to the pressure to conform(ie become like everyone else so he/she has friends to go to the movies or shop with). So now that your friend has reduced his/her standards for social companionship, he/she starts to ride your ass about why you’re not hanging out with him/her and his/her new ‘friend.’

Usually at this point, people suggest the oh-so-popular therapy which you later learn he/she attended secretly at the prompting of one of these mainstream types who pointed out what was ‘wrong’ with your friend. Also more likely than not, the ‘therapist’(ie some person who sits there and offers no actual guidance for some insane hourly rate), then suggests some type of mind-altering pill because said therapist declares the ‘patient’(ie the term that implies the person is sick for not conforming) depressed for not being happy 24 hours per day, 7 days per week which is the new American requirement for happiness to non-happiness ratio. In America, no one is allowed to be unhappy at any time for any reason without being accused of being bitter or depressed. Take a look at the world for 5 minutes through a lens that is not owned by Fox News, and you’ll find good fakin reason to be mighty pissed off over many many things. BUT, as an American, we’re not supposed to be concerned with such things we can do nothing about.

Ok, so there’s step 1 on the road back to religion for my friend – therapy and Prozac when she needed neither.

Step 2 was the societal pressure to marry at the age of 30 because we all know there’s something VERY wrong with you if you are not married to some loser by the age of 30. So, she was getting the push from all of her Prozac-popping pseudo-happy friends around her to find a guy, and I knew what was coming because her discussions of men turned to therapyspeak. You know the language usually indicated by such terms as ‘setting boundaries’ or ‘taking inventory of myself and then doing the same for a potential partner.’ Ok maybe people do those things subconsciously or even consciously but when you start writing yourself notes to ‘be happy’ or writing your personal inventory on the bathroom mirror in lipstick, I think that’s a sign you’ve been over-therapified and in position to become someone’s bitch or worse yet: sheep.

What do you know: the friend married a, I still can hardly say it without getting choked up………a Republican. But wait, it gets worse: a Republican in the oil business although his company likes to call itself an ‘energy company’ while we all know the oil companies really have no interest other than getting the oil, charging lots for the oil, and spreading propaganda as to why we really cannot live without oil in our lives. All of those ‘alternative fuel’ initiatives are just window dressing to disguise the fact that they have absolutely NO intention of ever giving up their cash cow or camel in this case.

I referred to it as marriage by insanity because I damn well knew a liberal free-thinking environmentalist could not make the conscious decision to marry her arch-enemy if she were of proper mind. That Prozac really is some powerful stuff! It even lets a liberal believe a Republican oil man is good for you. Maybe it also lets you eat cheesecake without the caloric consequences??

Little by little, I saw less and less of my friend and more and more of a subservient oil wife who started to refer to some of her neighbors in the gated Texas community as another ‘insert oil company name here + wife.’ She was then proclaiming herself a *hell Oil Wife, I’m afraid but then again, Prozac + therapy + salaries paid by oil companies are mighty powerful things when you lost your ethics somewhere between now and 5 years ago when you had strong opinions about evil oil giants and how they rape the earth and screw the consumer for profits.

She went from independent professional woman to kept woman with an allowance although she does not see it that way. She and hubby didn’t marry in a church because neither of them religious; she and her hubby Slick didn’t want to christen their baby because neither of them believed in such nonsense. Yet, when she told me they did so because of pressure from his family who said they’d blame them if they did not christen the baby and protect her from Satan, I knew it would only be a matter of time before the full-blown religious conversion would occur complete with family trips to church on Sunday and their daughter enrolled in Sunday school where her little impressionable mind poisoned with crap designed to prevent her from actually thinking past her own nose as an adult. Perhaps she too is in training to marry a Republican oil guy one day so she can live in a big house, have plenty of money and say to fak with the world.

When my friend proudly announced that her family had joined the church, I couldn’t help from trying to ‘save’ her just one more time. I had to ask: WHY? When she suggested that perhaps I should try religion because she had realized that we need something to believe in to guide us through life and be better people, I was comically infuriated. I was annoyed she fell to this insane belief but also laughing at it because it’s hilarious to think people actually believe something fictional can guide them. I mean, why not go ask Mickey Mouse for spiritual guidance while you’re at it. At least the person inside the costume is a real person; perhaps not someone you’d take advice from but at least you can see, hear, touch him or her and confirm their existence.

I love how Christians especially believe they’re better people for being Christians. They lay claims to being ‘good, moral, righteous’ individuals as believers yet it seems their bible includes some not-so nice passages about killing people or beating slaves, etc. Funny because the good Christians don’t like to talk about those parts of their great book. If you think about, the most vicious wars are fought over conflicting religious beliefs, people are killed in the name of God, others mistreated based on interpretation of God’s or Allah’s(whichever you happen to prefer) word YET the faithful will hold their heads high and look down upon those of us that don’t believe what they believe or attend church as if we’re lesser humans. Agnostics and atheists equivalent to Satan in their eyes yet, as Sam Harris appropriately points out in his best-selling book Letter to a Christian Nation, show me a war in history fought amongst atheists. Harris also points out that the most peaceful and progressive societies on earth are those deemed the least religious. Isn’t that a curious thing? Yet the believers will blame the non-believers for society’s ills.

I’m sorry to disagree with you righteous, church-going believers but amongst the people I’ve known well, the kindest, most generous, thoughtful people have been/are self-proclaimed agnostics and atheists. My question to the believers is: If you’re nice to me, how do I know you’re sincere and not just doing it because you’re afraid of retribution by your God in the afterlife that I don’t quite believe in? I’d much prefer the kindness of an atheist to a Christian as I can almost bet via the atheist it’s sincere as the atheist tends to answer to oneself, not act because he/she fears punishment from God. So why again do I need to be a church-goer to be a good person?

If I must say so myself, I’m one of the kindest, gentlest people I know, and yes I say ‘fak’ a lot and yes I get very fired up when I know something to be wrong but I don’t hurt people in the process. I don’t inflict my non-beliefs on others. For instance, I believe in a woman’s right to an abortion BUT I wouldn’t force someone who believes it’s wrong to have an abortion against their will even if I think that person is in NO position to mother a child. That is not my right. Yet, the religiwhacks in this country think it’s their right to impose their faked up beliefs on me and everyone else, and we’re supposed to bend over and let them run the show because they claim they know better for all of us because they have a direct connection to the almighty who tells them the proper way to live.

Sorry, I’m not buying it and as long as I live, I’m not going quietly without openly discussing the threat to freedom posed by this frighteningly growing movement towards this forced religious imposition in what is supposed to be a free society. I must say something because I strongly believe it’s FAKING WRONG! I hate to tell the believers but the small number of us that speak against their position feels very strongly that it is our job to stand up against them and our non-beliefs may be stronger than their beliefs because ours are non-beliefs are reached through our own logic rather than mere acceptance of something we’re told as is the case for most believers’ faiths. They have no foundation for their beliefs other than that which they’re told so how strong can that be in comparison? Just because the believers outnumber the non-believers in this world does not mean your argument is stronger. You just have more participants on the wrong side.

We will continue to say FAK NO regardless of their attempts to quiet us or outnumber us. The difference between us is we genuinely believe you’re wrong because we logically deduce the holes in your religious arguments and absolutely refuse to lie down so you may impose your whacky religious beliefs upon our lives. Unlike you, we don’t swallow without being damn sure what we’re being fed is something we want to eat. We didn’t join ‘this movement’ to speak out against religion because our husbands told us it was good for us or it seemed like a good way to pass time on a Sunday morning or because we fear some big man in the sky as comedically described by George Carlin in what is probably the best explanation of religious bullshit I’ve yet to hear.

Unlike the religious, we non-believers think for ourselves, and we feel we exist for many reasons but primarily to make sure the religiwhack faks do not succeed in forcing their shit down our throats. To those who insist religion is the way, I say:

"NO, FAK you, I'm not like you and I never will be so take your Prozac, your religion and your overall mindlessness and shove it up your ass sideways. You are the ones that are wrong and just because there are more of you on the playground does not mean you’re going to win this war.”

I'm really annoyed because I know it's spreading; therefore I realize the challenge that the non-believers, especially in America, face. I cringe to see more and more churches built around me in suburbs of a major metro area that is NOT in the bible belt but rather in close proximity to the nation’s capital. This is supposedly a progressive area with 1 of the highest concentrations of educated people from everywhere in the world yet somehow religion is spreading like wildfire destroying every mind in its path. Somehow despite highly specialized degrees in such progressive fields as aerospace engineering, they hold personal beliefs that contradict physical evidence in their professional lives. Somehow, these large, growing churches get them to come inside on Sunday and stop thinking for an hour or 2 to follow along in the program of pure BS. I mean, even kids eventually realize - once they can reason - that Santa Claus is not real because logically he doesn't make sense. How can 1 man distribute all of those toys to every corner of the globe in a 24 hour period? Think of Santa Claus, then think about what religious establishments tell us of God – same concept yet adults don’t believe in Santa because he doesn’t make sense. Neither does God. So why do so many adults believe in God and not Santa?

Logically as our education levels rise, our religious following should decrease because an educated, thinking mind couldn’t possibly buy into a story with more holes than baby swiss cheese. I ask myself: Why is religion the one thing people will simply accept because they’re told this is the story? WHY?
As you can probably detect by the 2^nd paragraph, I'm on fire especially as this movement has claimed my closest friend or what was my closest friend. It triggered this feeling of hopelessness in the attempts by non-believers to get blind followers to wake the fak up and realize they’re being peddled a great big fakin lie. We realize our attempts may be futile in the ‘us against them’ fight and perhaps we’re wasting our time talking about it and writing stories in the hopes to reach a few minds before they’re poisoned or recover a few we feared lost already. It's like trying to wipe out the plague with a can of Lysol but because we believe we cannot go silently, we will continue to talk about it, write about, and say WHAT THE FAK about everything that strikes us as completely faked up hoping others will start to wake up to the world in which we really live. Only then will we see some improvement.