I'm curious?!

I'd like to know what you think of my blog, please write comments or click the reactions checkbox below each post to vote. Thanks!

Confessions of a Former Fundamentalist Christian: Part 2

So to get away from the pressure of the Christians and at the same time remove myself from “temptation” I transferred to a tiny Bible college in Pennsylvania. And yes it was surrounded by cows. I went from a school of over 20000 to a school of around 1200. It was a big change but I think it was the best decision I could have made at the time. A friend of mine from my youth group days was also going there. So I at least know someone else there. And the people were very accepting. I was still not out of the closet, but I was learning to be myself more and more. The professors were much more liberal then I think the students. They didn’t want you to believe something just because your parents did, they wanted you to discover it for yourself. I met some good people who I hung out with, whom I felt comfortable being myself around. There wasn’t that pressure to be the perfect Christian around them.
Many nights I would stay in the computer lab working on papers and such and one night I stumbled upon someone’s stash of gay porn on one of the computer lab computers. It was hidden pretty well and this was in the early days of the Internet so to get pictures you had to get them from a newsgroup in a text format then use some program to decode them and view the images. Not as simple as it is these days. I copied the files and figured out how to decode them. Then viewed them in the graphics lab. I had never seen pictures of guys having sex. I remember in one picture a hairy guy was fucking another guy on a towel outside on a beach. The most I had ever done with a guy was a blowjob, (although one friend did come close to it when he dry humped my ass crack). The pictures also meant something else; they meant that there were other people like me out there. That even other Christians were gay.
I began to accept my identity more and more. I finally accepted that I was gay. The first person I told was a friend of mine, Mark. I was so scared to say the word. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought he was actually very cool about it. He said he used to think that he might be gay too, but he was dating this other friend of mine at the time (a girl).
I was going to tell my roommate but before I could tell him he said something about how disturbed he was by his previous roommates, how he had found KY in the fridge and how they had been so blatant about having sex with one another and he could not take it if I told him I was gay. So I let the mater drop. But I think I had found whom the porn belonged too.
I stayed at school one summer to work and became good friends with Dave, I eventually told him I was gay, he was totally cool with it. I still considered myself to be a Christian but I learned that maybe I could be gay and a Christian too. In one of my classes we learned around the civil rights movements and there was even a part about the gay rights movement and stonewall. I did my senior paper was on homosexuals and the holocaust.
I returned to my old school one time to visit my old friends and I told them I was gay. It was like I had some kind of disease. Most of them did not talk to me after they found out. I think it was then that I started to question being a Christian.

So where does a good "Christian" boy who once vilified "new age" as the work of Satan go to work after college?
As a missionary?
A health food store and a "new age" newspaper?

Find out in the next installment!

If you are wondering what school I went to, here is a link to site set up for gay alumni and students.

Strip Poker 6

It's cold outside... think warm thoughts!

Confessions of a Former Fundamentalist Christian: Part 1

We went to lunch with some friends today and the issue of religion came up. My friend said when she was in college she went through a time where she stopped being a Christian, her parents split up and she became a bisexual. The question was, "so now what do you consider yourself?"

It got me thinking about where I was and where I am now. I guess you could say I'm a post-christian. Although I don't really know what that means, saying you are not something doesn't really define you. To really understand who I am now you have to know who I was before. I used to be a real wacko Christian. The whole nine yards, praying for sinners, speaking in tongues, singing praising Jesus, oh and loving dick. I was one mixed up bunch of conflicted sinner and saint.

I grow up going to church. I was part of the youth group, sang solos in front of the whole congregation that the old ladies still talk about when they see me (which has been very little in the past decade). I once played Judas in an Easter musical, (kind of fitting looking back), it was very moving. I was always the first go to alter calls.
To everyone I was the prefect Christian boy. But they didn’t know the real me. In youth group was where I had some of my earliest sexual experiences. At an all night “lock-in” I and another boy in the group had a bet to see whose dick was bigger. I one $5, and he was three years older than me. As an added bonus we traded blowjobs. So being a saint and a sinner seemed to be two sides of the same coin for me.

I did all kinds of things that should have gotten be struck down by God, like coming on the alter at the front of the church! Or having sex in the AV closet while church was going on. Strip poker and skinny-dipping at bible camp and so on. This double life was catching up with me though. The more things I did the more ashamed and guilty I felt later.

I went off to college, a big VA school with over 20,000 students. I joined the Campus Crusade, and hung around with the Christian groups. I even wrote “Epistles” to back to the youth group and friends I had left behind. At the same time I masturbated every day and got off on looking at the guys in the shower. The bathroom downstairs in one of the common buildings was a tearoom (not that I really knew what that was at the time.) People would leave messages on the walls to try to hook up. I would go there and write responses, but not to try to get sex (which I secretly wanted) but to try to “convert” these perverts. I started attending these groups run by a Pentecostal church. I read all of the Frank Peretti books, (books about spiritual warfare, which seem to center a great deal on how New Age was the work of the devil) it is therefore all of the more ironic that after college I ended up working at the new age paper. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I started attending a that church, everyone had like 8 kids and they always seemed a little too happy. They preached about the evils of society, abortion, homosexuality, etc. They had tracts (cartoon books) for every occasion (even homosexuality) I went “evangelizing”, sometimes door-to-door.

I had friends, a purpose, something to believe in, you think I would have been happy, but I was not. After two years there I needed to get away from it all. I needed a safe place to go and sort out my feelings. So where did I end up going?

A. A liberal arts college in a big city near gay nightlife.
B. A tiny bible college built in the middle of a field of cows.

Find out in my next exciting installment…

Octo - the master spy

TMBG 2

Shadow Government


I'm Impressed


Birdhouse in your soul (My favorite TMBG song of all time)

The Sky is Falling!

Strip Poker 5

Strip Poker 4

Very Revealing look at Bill O'Reilly

Notice at the end of this bit, he calls his teddy bear a panda bear, (which any 2 year old would know it is not) and refuses to admit he is wrong. This says so much about him, he is so wrong about so many things but thinks he's right and tries to convince everyone else that they must be wrong.

"Carma" is a bitch!

"I had a random thought about the auto industry bailout being discussed. What if instead of bailing out the industry, the U.S. government decided to replace not only its entire fleet of roughly 400,000 cars, but also fund the replacement of most state and local government cars -- and gave the contract to U.S. automakers?"
From The Jed Report

I like the idea, but better yet why not invest in companies that really are innovating in the auto market, like Tesla Motors! Help them and other innovative companies working on electric cars scale up their efforts. The "Big Three" have too long stifled innovation, maybe it is time to let them die with their beloved internal combustion engine, and allow someone else take the lead.

Cute!

As seen on booxhy

TMBG

The Mesopotamians


West Hollywood


Never Go to Work

Strip Poker 3

festival verde

We just got back from the Green Festival in DC. As with other years there was lots of hemp clothing, organic fair trade chocolate, and organizations for the protection of animals, green snake oil salesman, etc. The things that interest me most are the solar installers and green builders. The people that installed our solar panels were there. I spent some time learning more about geothermal heating and cooling, it would be cool to have but it is very expensive and might be hard to install in our location. We also went to a talk on vermiculture (Worm composting), something I've also been interesting in doing. The place was packed, so I guess that is a good thing, people are more interested in all things green these days.

So many Christians, so few lions

76.5% of the US population is Christian, so how come they think they are an oppressed minority?!

Latter Days

In light of how much of the support for anti-gay measures like prop 8 in California comes from the Mormon church it seems only fitting to post this movie we saw a while back. It was very powerful, if you have not seen it I recommend it.
If you are angry about how this cult gets away with not paying taxes and gets to influence state law with that money, check out http://www.mormonsstoleourrights.com.

Green Stimulus

Not that kind of stimulus, but it did get your attention. I have an idea on how the government can provide a stimulus for states, that provides jobs in the short term, is good for the environment, and pays for itself in the long run. Sound impossible? It is very simple, invest stimulus money in doing energy efficiency retrofits to government buildings. The construction industry that has been most hit by the housing bust would get a much needed shot in the arm, and help put people back to work. It would also help kick start interest in these green collar jobs we hear about so much. By making government buildings more energy efficient it would save on energy cost which would lower the cost to tax payers to operate these buildings. In the long term these saving add up and pay for the upfront cost of the retrofit. Using less power means less emissions which helps the environment. Everyone wins. So instead of sending everyone a check that they will just go and spend at MegaLoMart on more crap they don't need, invest it in real solutions to long term problem, that can also give us short term benefits.

Colors

"I am green today, I chirp with joy like a cricket song,
I am grey today, gloomy and damp like a morning fog,
I am orange today, loud and messy like finger paint on the wall
I am red today, hopping mad like a playground ball
I am black today, strong and tall a great big bear
I am purple today, bright and happy like a butterfly in the air

I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world are in me

I am yellow today, I shine my light out like the sun
I am White today, soft and quiet like new snow
I am Blue today, calm as glass and cool like the sea
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world are in me."

The lyrics to Colors the happy little song from the Dell commercials and from the children's album Dance for the Sun by Kira Willey

Hello... Yes!

I voted!

The Communist Threat!!!

What is so wrong with socialism anyway?

During this election the right wing has tried to suggest that Obama is a socialist or worse communist and so by association something bad or dangerous. While I’m not suggesting that he is one, I wonder whether this socialist boogieman is real. Is socialism a bad thing? How about communist, is that bad? Why are people so afraid of it?

“Socialism: Economic and social system under which essential industries and social services are publicly and cooperatively owned and democratically controlled with a view to equal opportunity and equal benefit for all.”
Encarta Encyclopedia online addition

Doesn’t sound so scary to me, maybe if you own one of those so called “essential industries and social services” and want to profit from it you might not be able to do so under socialism. That might scare some heath insurance companies that make a profit at the expense of the health of the people they are supposed to be taking care us. Groups like this want people to be afraid of this idea because it takes power and money from them and gives it to everyone.

When my Sister was on holiday in England right after high school she got sick and had to go to the hospital. She didn’t have insurance or money to cover the stay, and even though she was not a citizen of Great Britain all she had to pay for was some prescription medication. In countries like Great Britain where they have socialized medicine, the cost is lower per patient and the quality of care is higher. When people in this country are asked what concerns them the most, many point to the cost of healthcare and problems with insurance companies. Providing all people access to “Social Services” like heath care is a socialist philosophy but few would argue that it is a bad thing. Our private healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, yet we are less healthy then in countries where they pay far less for healthcare? So is capitalism in healthcare making us healthier? Clearly not! So what makes people who could benefit from socialism fear it?

Is there a religious reason to fear it? Since much of the fear comes form conservatives who often identify themselves as religious. But how could that be possible since even a cursory reading of the new testament shows Jesus giving to the poor, (redistribution of wealth), the early Christian churches were for all intents and purposes communes. They gave up all of their possessions and shared what they had with the group. Jesus saying, “whatever you do to the least of these you have done unto me” sounds communist to me. Maybe it is when the government does it, that is somehow wrong but when churches do it, it is ok?

But if we are a democracy and the government is by the people and for the people, then we are all doing it. So why is it moral for the individual to care for people’s needs but immoral if this aid comes from the government. If the government can do good in the world who should pay for it? The rich

Is cutting taxes for the middle class a form of socialism? If Bill has $100 dollars a week to, feed his family, pay the mortgage/rent, pay for his healthcare, etc. Then he needs every dollar to provide for himself and his family. And if the government takes 20% that means I only have $80 to do all that. Now if John has 10,000 a week to do the same things he would have plenty to cover all of his necessities. If the government takes 20% he still has 8,000 a week to cover his expenses and still have plenty left over to be comfortable. The $20 the government got from the Bill is very little to the government but it could be life of death to Bill and his family. Whereas the $2000 from John can do a lot more good and does not hurt John’s ability to provide for himself.

What does the $2000 provide. It pays for defense and police, which benefits both Bill and John. If pays for roads and transit which both use, it pays for a fair legal system which helps John keep his business safe. It pays for schools that helps Bills kids and helps John have a better-educated workforce. It pays for healthcare so that Bill can stay healthy and put his skills to work. It helps John because he doesn’t have to pay for healthcare for his employees and lose his competitiveness. It pays for protecting the environment and since both Bill and John need to breath air, eat safe food and drink clean water, this is a win for both as well. If John had to pay for all of these services himself he would be paying a lot more then $2000.

In some key areas socialism makes sense. In providing for people’s basic needs, like basic food, shelter, education, and a host of things the government does for the common good. When people’s basic needs are not met and they see others with great wealth they turn to extremism. As we have seen with terrorism, extreme poverty and lack of opportunity and inequality allows anger to turn into violence and extremism. It is not only our moral obligation to reduce inequality but it is in our best interest in the long run to do so as well. When we reduce inequality we helping to bring peace and stability to the world, we help ourselves by helping others.

So maybe the idea of socialism is not bad but somehow the word is? Could it be that for half a century something calling itself the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics caused fear around the world. Was this really socialism? Or was this totalitarianism in socialist clothing? Is it this deception, this distortion of communist philosophy by the likes of Mao and Lennon, the heart of this fear of the word socialism? The idea of socialism is a good one, but it has been used to justify great tyranny. The same can be said for many things, Christ’s teachings leading the Inquisition and the Crusades, Einstein’s theories leading to the destruction of Hiroshima. The idea was a good one but in the wrong hands used for evil.

If so maybe we need to let go of these fears or the idea and shift them to things to really be fearful of. Poverty leading to terrorism, religious percussion leading to fundamentalism, apathy leading to totalitarianism, deregulation leading to un-fettered capitalism and market colapse, nationalism leading to fascism, racism leading to hate crimes. These are some things we should be fearful of and be vigilant against, not an idea that is rooted in the principle that if all men are created equal, then all men deserve an equal opportunity, an equal chance, and an equal hope.

Do Easy