Here's where I secure my position in Hell...

*poke*

"Oww!

*poke*
"Oww! Stop, dammit!"

'I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.' --President George H.W. Bush

...His FATHER said that, y'all.

I have learned to live and let live with the faiths of the world. Religion itself is an abstract concept, and therefore blameless, it's the followers 'ya gotta watch out for. Religion is like anything else in life, you get out of it what you put in. In fact, I will admit that a large portion of it is good and just. Sheep will always need a shepherd, and people generally need to believe in something greater than themselves, I accept this. Whatever gets you through the night, y'know?

But there is that one portion...

...The ones that actually "hear" the voice of God. These people are the most dangerous. Not because they're "on fire for the Lord", nothing like that. It's because they'll literally SET YOU ON FIRE for the Lord, if they think the situation warrants.

Occasionally, I get a God Screamer in my multi-cultural upper-middle class neighborhood, of which I am the only white person within 5 miles. Even my houshold is entirely Chinese. yet somehow, these people seem to have a frickin' radar that alerts them whenever I am both home & near the door, because thier hit ratio is 12 for 12. And the more amazing thing, they never seem to disturb my Malaysian neighbor & his heathenish ways. Just me. And MY heathenish ways.

Usually, they disappoint me. It's not often I meet a worthy challenge and the way I see it, if you're going to be willing to stick your neck out for God, be willing to accept what happens if he doesn't have your back when I verbally rip you. It's not like I came looking for YOU.

I LOVE sparring with these people who knock on my door, professing thier faith along with a liberal dose of thier Peter Pan advice for how I should live. I lure them into my web of logic and coldly dissect thier thology with a little thing I like to call REALITY. To which, they will inevitably start spouting biblical quotes. Why not, it's thier ammunition, right? It's the Word of God.

It's a poor substitute for free thought, though. And it doesn't hold up in broad daylight.

See, one of the unwanted by-products of an insanely religious upbringing in the deep south bible belt is that I happen to have quite a bit of the Bible memorized. As hard as I've tried to forget the whole schmeal, it stays stuck in my noggin' like a holy piece of migraine - inducing shrapnel, with the word "begat" replaying over and over. But one thing it's good for is to flatten the Baptists, Mormons, Jehova's Witnesses and Lutherans that come a-knocking at my doorway to Hell on a Sunday morning. And then it's ON. We get about as far as Leviticus, and then they start pointing thier plastic finger at me as they run for cover to whatever mauve-colored SUV awaits them like a safe haven among the infidels.

The first thing is that they NEVER come alone, they attack in force by bringing the entire family unit with them. One male father-husband archetype, one obligatory female fulfilling the "mother" role, and a snotnosed crumbsnatcher or two, who will be both impeccably dressed and look like they want to stick thier heads into a hole and die rather than knock on my door and feed me this bullshit.

I can usually count on the conversation to run something like this:

"Good morning! I was wondering if I might take up a small amount of your time to bring you some good news today!"

"Unless you're about to tell me I just won the lottery, I'll bet it's not so good."

"Better than that, you can secure a place in heaven for youself today!"

"How would you know that? Are you representing the Century 21 office where the streets have no name, or something? You can't make that claim. Who have you ever heard from that said, "Oh Ralphie, it's just as I always pictured it. The streets are gold! No Negroes anywhere!"

(I really say this, and at this point they start to figure out that they may have bitten off more than they can chew)

"Well, mister, that's not what Heaven, or God is about at all. Jesus died so we could have a connection with God, to bridge the gap between God and Mankind. It's a message of love, not exclusion."

"So, you're telling me that you imagined heaven WITH Negroes? Is that what you're saying? Look me in the eye and tell me that you don't see it as an all-white community. Well?"

(Wife figure will start backing up at this point, and look nevously at the car...They parked so VERY far away if she has to run.)

(Me on a rant) "Furthermore, are you telling me God is subject to physical laws, or something? Why send his son, he couldn't just change things himself? He couldn't bring himself to bridge the gap alone? What, is he a LIMITED God?"

"No, not limited at all, but he does have a PLAN, and he follows it. It's our job to share that plan with you."

"So I can go to heaven, correct?"

(Getting a clue) "...Yes, that's correct".

"What if there is no heaven, and this was all just an elaborate, cruel joke? How do you know for certain that he's up there, watching us now?"

"Well, that's what faith is, friend. The belief in what we can't see."

"Then let me ask you: Can you see the horns on my head, or the cloven hooves I am walking on? Because even if you can't, I assure you: THEY ARE THERE."

"Sir, I think you're making fun of me, and I don't like it. I brought my family here with me..."

"Which will do NOTHING to sway me, I'll remain unconvinced despite the fact that you brought your dependants along for the torturous ride. I'd have been more impressed if you'd had the stones to confront me alone, without your support network."

If they haven't fled in terror yet (I have two on record of doing so), the God Screamers will usually try to fire one last volley before they depart:

"Well, you do know that the Bible has very explicit passages about what happens when you die without accepting Jesus. You may want to consider that, because God help you if you're wrong!"

Oh, puh-LEEEZ. Get it through your thick-assed skulls, people: Threatening me with the Judgement of God is akin to threatening me with Santa's Naughty list. If there's one thing I've discovered, it's that God doesn't guarantee ANYTHING to ANYONE. The BIBLE does alot of that, promises of wonderful things to come on the if-when. You could easily pray to a pair of dice and get the same 50-50 results. Many people do, come to think of it.

I ran a test once, and it changed my life and the way I looked at religion, faith, and God:

For one month, I prayed to Satan. Yep, that's right, I wanted to see if there really would be some cataclysmic change in my spiritual side. So I did something that is typically me, and jumped without looking.

And nothing happened.

No posessions, I didn't vomit green crap all over a priest.

No levitations.

No speaking backwards in Latin. And I can speak Latin, by the by.

I didn't develop leprosy, lose my job, or suddenly lose my erections. In fact, those guys had a record month in sales, as far as sex goes.

And God didn't smite me from the face of the Earth.

After that, I took a real long look at what I was believing in, and how much it was dictating my life.

A common mistake many "religious" people make is believing morality is unattainable without God. Which is typical, the threat of damnation is the motivating factor in good behavior among Christians. But morality isn't something that God bestows on you as a reward for joining the club, it's that innate sense of what is right and what is wrong, and doing the right thing every time, no matter what the consequences, or who is looking. People who believe can be as perverse and amoral as 13th century Romans. Athiests can be as decent and kind as Mother Teresa. And vice versa.

Like I said at the beginning of this, I have no problem with faith in general. As a matter of fact, I admire the backbone faith can put in a man. People will do sometimes ridiculously heroic things in the name of God, I've seen that, too. But it's not the preaching, it's the practice.

Just leave me the hell out of it.