Tuesday, December 8, 2009 by admin.

Ho ho ho! Kids, have we got a treat for you! Just in time for XXXmas: Here are some HOLY holiday treats you and your heterosexual monogamous marital partner won’t want to miss!

For all of your fundie fetish needs you can visit The Christian Fetish Site. Just to whet your sleigh bells how’s about a quickie: The Christian Fetish Site has you peeing like a virgin, decking your anal halls, nursing your partner while you role-play your own nativity scene (be sure to relactate!), enjoying porn and sadomasochism the way God intended, and much much more. Don’t you worry your pious little hearts - there’s no homosexuality here! Just good ol’ fashioned hetero humpin!

Next on our list for you ho-ho-horny holy-rollers this XXXmas is The Christian Nymphos. This blog helps you transform yourself from homely housewife to salacious sex machine, to the honor and glory of Christ (of course). The Christian Nymphos takes their cues from the sexy Song of Solomon, a book in which the main character deflowers his lover, comments on her hot sister, then leaves her. Nothin’ like a little abandonment to steam up that marriage bed this winter!

Feel like your sizzle might fizzle this XXXmas without a little help? Say no more! Get all the tools you need to be Santa’s Little Helper at The Christian Sex Toy Shop.

If the manger’s a rockin’, you know what to do.

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Tuesday, December 8, 2009 by angel.

I have been accused of many things by my old fundie cohorts. Among those are placing myself under demonic influence, rebellion, promiscuity, masturbation (guilty!), changing my opinions out of spite, talking to the Devil himself (usually over mimosas), alcoholism, drug abuse, and (my favorite) intolerance.

All of the above have little connection to my version of reality save intolerance.

“Why do you hate Christians?” my mother asks. There is no answer to that question. In it is an already developed determination about my feelings, complete with a judgment as to their validity.

But here, in this forum, there’s no injured mother blinking tears back and blocking out my words even as they are formed. Here, you are my anonymous friends, and to you I will offer my answer - shocking as it may be.

I do NOT hate Christians.

I don’t hate anybody, really. Give me a second to search my soul… Yup. No hatred. Not for anyone. I see the world as a collection of hapless beings mucking their way through the best they can. Sometimes they hurt each other in the process. It’s an illusion of perspective that we have created this idea of right and wrong. Everyone is the hero of his own journey. Even the worst bad guys tend to think they’re somehow good or misunderstood. For the record, I want to note my belief that there are very good people who are Christians, fundies even. Just like there are very good formers and very good muslims and very good buddhists and very good atheists. Shall I go on?

What I take issue with is ANY belief structure that values ignorance over knowledge, that offers people an excuse to act out on their darker inclinations carte blanche - without the stark light of reason to guide them, that does not allow for criticism, evaluation, or evolution of doctrine. In short, I take issue with fundamentalism itself.

The formers I’ve met through the years of my reincarnation fall along a continuum, from intellectually amused by their foray into fundamentalist evangelical Christianity to deeply damaged by the abuses they have endured at the hands of their brothers and sisters in Christ. Like anyone else, I fall somewhere in that continuum. Like all of us, I have heartwarming stories about how my relationship with Jesus Christ helped me hurdle this or that life trauma. I have fond memories of the wonderful people I met and times I shared with them. But, I also bear the scars of not having developed healthy coping mechanisms for issues that exist outside the scope of the tiny evangelical box.

That last part is something a lot of us have in common. A moment in which the neatly packaged box of fundamentalist Christianity failed.

Perhaps it was in crisis. Perhaps during study. But at some point, the facade crumbled, and we were left with a giant conflict between our faith and our reality. We also had a choice: to ignore the problem, will it away through some wild circular logic OR to bravely acknowledge its existence and dig deeper.

We chose to dig.

Keep in mind, if you’re a fundie and you’re reading this - We don’t hate you. We’re not persecuting you. This isn’t about YOU. Keep playing your games with your imaginary friends and pretend spiritual battles. We’re just trying to recover and get on with our lives. With this life.

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Thursday, July 23, 2009 by angel.

Once upon a time, I taught preschool at a Baptist church.

Preferring to retain my creative liberty in washing their little brains squeaky clean, I generally ignored the assigned curriculum totally… however, there came a day when I was strapped for time and pulled out the fateful pre-packaged visuals in a mad dash for the classroom. So armed, I began giving the kids their lesson.

We were learning the story of Noah’s ark. The 18×24 cards depicted the biblical characters after the flood, skipping happily off of the ark whilst joyous animals frolicked all around them.

As I told the story, I would hold up the appropriate card for the innocent eyes to behold, taking a quick glance for my own reference. It happened, however, that what I perceived in one particular glance registered in my brain at the selfsame moment as the collective gasp of terror from the children.

Following the fanciful frolicking, was an illustration of Noah thanking G-d for safe passage through the flood. Front and center stood an enormous rock alter on which lay a child-sized lamb, with its throat slit open, tongue hanging out, and blood streaming down in velvety serpentine threads. Noah stood behind, arms outstretched toward heaven in joy.

This may have been my first step toward vegetarianism.

Most of the children eventually went to rehab for various drug and self mutilation addictions by the 1st grade. I hear that some of them are doing fine now.

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Thursday, July 23, 2009 by angel.

It was the summer before I went into the 3rd grade, and my friend whose name I can’t recall was at my house. We were covertly jumping on the bed and talking about school. While we were excited about being in the same class for once (at the time the 3rd and 4th grades were combined because our Christian school was so small), we were also very nervous to be under the tutelage of Mrs. Heckle. She had a reputation, and not a good one by our standards. I was more anxious than my friend, who rolled her eyes at my quivering lower lip and told me, in all the wisdom that her extra year of life afforded her, not to be silly. Still quietly jumping on the bed as she spoke, she explained that “at church they said Jesus was coming back soon, and we won’t even have to go to Mrs. Heckle’s class anyway!”

We both stopped for just a moment and pondered the possibilities of the second coming of Christ. We’d never have to go to school again! After giggling hysterically at the prospect, we jumped on the bed with sweet wild abandon, knowing that even if we did get in trouble, it wouldn’t be for long… Jesus was going to be here ANY SECOND.

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Monday, July 13, 2009 by admin.

I knew at three weeks. I was pregnant. How. Why. We had taken precautions. This shouldn’t have happened. But it had. And it was right there in front of me. A pink plus sign leering from the white plastic handle. Just as certainly as I knew I was pregnant, I knew I wouldn’t keep my child.

A few years earlier, while picketing outside a women’s health clinic with my youth group, I noticed a girl walking inside. The shouts of the protesters became a low murmur behind me as our eyes met. She couldn’t have been too much older than I was. Short brown hair. The Smiths t-shirt. Vans. She looked at me. My braided hair falling well below my waist. WWJD shirt. Simple flats. We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. I nodded. “You’re going to be fine,” I found myself saying. “I know,” her lips formed the reply. She walked inside then. I lowered my sign and walked away to wait on the bus for the others. I understood something that day.

She was me.

As I walked into the clinic years later, my friend squeezed my hand. “You’re going to be fine,” she said. “I know,” I told her. And I was.

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Monday, May 25, 2009 by angel.

a submission to the coming out g-dless project.

my ascent to a humanist perspective has been a slow and painful journey. raised independent fundamentalist baptist (IFB), i very deeply believed in jesus, the virgin birth, heaven, hell, a literal creation, and a literal translation of scripture all of my life. basically, if it was in the king james bible, i soaked it in. i was saved at 4, baptized at 7, led my first convert to christ at 10, and attended bible college at 18.

after bible college, it made sense to me to study scripture from the jewish perspective; so i enrolled in the judaic studies program at UCF. i must confess that a big part of the draw was to learn how to better convert jews. don’t listen to what other evangelicals may tell you, we totally get extra points for the chosen people.

instead of finding a community of people lost and empty in their own self-deceit, everyone seemed dispappointingly normal. what’s more, a lot of them were atheists, and no one seemed to have a problem with that. i had been brought up to believe that “humanists” and “atheists” were under literal demonic influence and part of a vast evil plot by satan to destroy humanity.

imagine my surprise when the exorcisms failed.

i’ll spare you the details of my lengthy discussions with professors, rabbis, pastors, physicists, and my cosmically important friendship with a reformed jew turned atheist over the next few years.

intellectually, the evidence was clear. a fundamentalist view of the world stops working the minute you look beyond the few resources approved by your tiny sect.

emotionally, this was all very hard to accept. i had to take the chance that this was some elaborate scheme of satan’s to deceive me. in the end, it seemed to me that a religion worth believing in should stand up to a little objective scrutiny.

from beginning to end, it took me 5 years to drag myself out of fundamentalism completely, and another 2 years to tell anyone about it. i was 27. when my mother found out she cried, fumed, prayed, and kept my atheism as her shameful secret. i led a double life to save face for her.

the election in November changed that for me. for the first time in a long time, i cared about something. i liked the feeling and decided it shouldn’t stop. i will no longer feel like an outcast because i’m not religious, and i refuse to be quiet about gay rights, stem cell research, evolution, abortion, or anything else i’m passionate about because it may offend someone else’s beliefs.

it seems to me that there was some unspoken rule i had agreed to. that because i don’t have a g-d or imaginary elf associated with my beliefs, they’re somehow less important. that’s simply not true. i do not need a g-d to validate me. i do not need a hell to scare me into being a good person. i handle that all on my own.

i’m g-dless, i’m out, and i’m proud.

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