I think the above stories do well to explain why humanity as a whole is a fucked-up, twisted mass of prozac zombies.
I've tried to let go of my bitterness toward religion, and can't quite seem to do it. When I really break it down, I wonder how any parent counld conceivably, on purpose, tell their kids that there's a boogeyman who tempts you to do bad things, and if you don't believe in the invisible man in the sky, then you will go down to a lake of fire, where the boogeyman will poke you with a pitchfork as you burn, forever and ever.
I went to a Baptist church for twelve years of my life, and this is the shit that was pounded into my head from the time I was four until I was sixteen. I'm angry over the years I wasted on it. No fun of any kind. If you're enjoying yourself, you're sinning.
Doug Stanhope once said that "that's why they have to pound it into your head when you've got a soft spot, and you're still Santa Claus-eligible." If you'd never heard of Christianity or the Bible until you were 18 or 21, and someone came to you with that shit, you'd laugh in their face.
And I held onto it. I really,
really tried to believe. But the more I looked around, the more I realized all that shit that was hammered into me just didn't jibe with the way the real world worked. So I let it go about 9 years ago. I haven't been back to a church except for weddings and funerals.
I was going to try to make this more coherent, and even a little funny, but talking about it just gets me too pissed.
