Religion & "the Sordid Topic of Coin"

Yes, if you saw the movie Death Becomes Her you will recognize my use of that phrase. A little observation on this whole link that if you're not prepared for, you may want to sit down for.

We may be familiar with religions in the Northeast having their beliefs and participation in faith contingent on your socioeconomic status. You have to pay for tickets to go to major religious services like Catholic Mass, you apparently can't be a nun if you don't have a perfect credit rating (per a story I read about this a few years back & shocked me) and I know there's more harassment toward people who don't have money to spend as it relates to religious stuff but I'm not an authority there so I can't speak on it.

What I can speak on is the money grabbing going on in Christianity, at least in the Southeastern US where I grew up. My adorable & smart nephew recently expressed an interest in going to a private Christian school; despite his family, like mine as a child, having no means they apparently don't quality for any financial aid despite him and his family passing a rigorous "are you holy enough?" test required to attend.

I still have reservations about my nephew going to a Christian school considering I went to a religious private school myself in my younger years along with my sister. For one thing, I've found those environments to be incredibly judgy & draconian. They also like to either ignore the principles of sex ed or make kids think you can get a girl pregnant by kissing. I think I actually made my sister promise to have meaningful sex ed talks with my nephew since I refuse to have him go to college thinking sex is shameful or that even thinking about kissing a girl will get her pregnant. That ilk loves to demonize sex & if I still followed that teaching, they'd have me shipped off to Hell despite my ex-husband choosing to throw me out and being emotionally abusive toward me. I really don't want to have to go to that arena or deal with that aspect of the Christian faith; the school I went to was also headed by a racist who is a far distant cousin of my mother's (he long since left but he outright said once he didn't want black students in "his school"--this was decades after the civil rights movement).

Ironically, my sister & I were borne of a legacy that permitted us to easily get into the religious private school we went to (our mother & grandmother attended the church associated with that school). I also learned one of the teachers from this school is teaching at the school my nephew is supposed to be going to; last I heard from my childhood best friend years back, his daughter (another classmate of ours) was teaching at the school we attended ages ago. I can tell you that chick definitely did not express Christian love or tolerance toward me considering she actually told me one day when we were 7 to "Go away! I don't like you." When you're 7, you just want to have friends & be liked. That bitch didn't help my social issues with the little worthless morons I had to attend school with in NC, whether it was a public or a private school. If I saw her today, I'd probably call her out on it if she had the nerve to try being nice to me.

But aside from this mass hypocrisy, which my nephew apparently hasn't experienced from these kids (and he's apparently a lot like me in personality & is being tested for Asperger's so if he has it, I very well might as well) is the idea of religion in general infusing the sleazy topic of coin. When my sister told me about this financial aid thing with the school (the reason we ended up not continuing in our private school--my mother couldn't afford tuition & these fucks didn't give a damn about my academic record or our being good kids or anything like that nor tried to do ANYTHING to help keep us there), I blew up & said that is a reason people get turned off to religion.

It's this idea that "We love you but only if you can afford to be here," like God's love is conditional on how much money you give to this school or religion & to Hell with whether you'll be able to pay for food or rent or electric this month. Never mind if you actually deserve it based on your grades or your intelligence--I expect that shit from some godless university but I don't expect it from some place that's supposed to be based on teaching God's word. Doesn't God's word tell us about using our gifts & helping the less fortunate and all that? Where the fuck are the scholarship programs for smart kids? Where is the true financial aid looking at people's actual income & expenses?

One thing positive I can say about my religious private school experience is that it was academically good. I didn't feel bored in my classes b/c of the work being too easy or slow for me. You couldn't be some moron & succeed there; the teachers there DID teach vs. babysitting thugs & tolerating disruption. I remember going to public school later on & my school was ahead of where they were in 4th grade.

They also had a policy of allowing the principal to smack misbehaving kids. I found out from my sister that this school my nephew will be going to also has this. I have no issue there since most principals don't spend enough time with individual students to develop preferences or hatred for them. Teachers certainly do & I think giving them corporal punishment privileges is a terrible idea since they'd end up beating a kid they hated & going easy on one they liked; we have enough problems with bullying teachers without them getting to do this. Yeah, I know I have a BA in Psych but some kids get zero discipline at home & if some parent wants to bitch about a school authority figure imposing some on the kid they refuse to set limits with I think that parent ought to be smacked (not in a sexual way). There's a big difference b/t reasonable & unreasonable authority and if some parent refuses to stand up for reasonable authority, they are raising a savage and condoning savagery.

How do we normally deal with savages in modern society? Okay, how did we deal with them before the PC Police whined & cried about mercy for animal torturers, pedophiles, rapists, terrorists, etc.? I'm talking being anti-death penalty, not directly saying "let's show mercy" to these people but you get the general idea. I feel if you act inhuman, then you don't get to have the cover of human rights. Just saying & I do like Donald Trump's idea on handling terrorism (among other BS going on in society).

I also know what my nephew experienced in public school & I like the idea of a place where adults don't tolerate that type of fuckery from little redneck brats who'll never rise to the heights my nephew could get to since they are from bigger rednecks with zero respect for things outside their little bubble. Yeah, it's totally classist but I'm probably right. Most of the kids I went to school with in NC aren't Ivy League graduates or Nobel Prize winners or presidential candidates. Many stayed in the same town & merely had kids (who I hope they aren't trying to force to do things they never got to do since that's wrong)-- not the path that would have suited me or made me a fulfilled person.

I think some of those same people would have gotten pissed at me if I'd stayed in my hometown & done that, probably going into a speech like the one Ben Affleck gave to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting where Will wants to ignore his mathematical genius & stay in South Boston with his friend and the people he knows. His best friend tells him if he doesn't leave, he will personally kick his ass b/c he'd be throwing away an opportunity the rest of them will never get.

We already see this notion of "a dumbfuck with money can be a doctor or lawyer while a smart kid with no money has to stick it out in the trailer park" in colleges & other corners of society. Why the HELL are we seeing it in the one place that proclaims "blessed are the poor?" Religion is one of those things Obama claimed uneducated, poor people cling to b/c they have nothing else going for them in life.

I take a lot of issue with that & it's probably a major reason I don't follow a faith even though I believe God exists and there's punishment for wronging innocent people. Maybe I view it as a betrayal? It's just one of the many hypocrisies I've seen in the Christian faith & sorry, I don't care to belong to some club whose value of me as a human being is conditional to how much money I have to hand over. Lots of people in my college bitched about sororities b/c they viewed joining one as "buying friends." How is the money grab in religions NOT "buying God's favor" or "buying religious fellowship?" Care to explain that one to me?

And if we're going to talk about helping the church/entity be financially solvent, what about all those tax breaks they're supposed to be getting & non-profit perks? And what about me having the time to decide for myself if that church/entity is one that I care about enough to determine if I want to give them anything? There are some corrupt bastards out there, including plenty of Christian churches were pastors were raping children, raping women, stealing from the church and doing other scuzzy things the average Atheist, Pagan, Satanist, other religious faith fundie Christians deem "scary" would be against.

Sometimes I think I'm just too intelligent for a lot of things. Maybe I can't do organized religion b/c of being too smart to buy the contrary nature of it. I saw the hypocrisy of certain teachings back when I was a little kid. The generalized money grab is a big thing for me & it really bothers me in the academic context. Want to be a church I respect or regard? Try doing actual outreach for the poor & putting your money where your mouth is. Go do things locally to make people's lives better. Give non-judgmental guidance and advice. Then I'd be okay with giving you offering or "donations." Heck, maybe the performers & subway beggars could take lessons from this whole construct.

Embarking on the Mythical & Insane: Going to a Hooters

For those who don't already know, I grew up in this strict religious household. My mother kept us far away from anything remotely hinting at sexuality. I remember her almost not letting us watch Just the Ten of Us when we were little b/c she felt it was not appropriate. Hearing someone in this Biography special on the Nightmare on Elm Street movies call that show "wholesome" & squeaky clean made me chuckle at this contradiction.

By the time we were teenagers & attending public school, my mom had loosened up some. Or so you thought. I still had to deal with the damn clothing battles over my shorts, skirts, tank tops and the like but she was picky about something else.

My father got a job laying cable for a company that sent him in distant places in the state. One time, he was staying at a hotel near Charlotte. This was when my parents weren't living together but my mother couldn't simply just cut ties; she still saw the man even though I felt she should have gotten a divorce eons ago.

Well, my father had this shirt from Hooters & my sister wanted it. She wanted it really badly but my mother said she couldn't have it. It wasn't one of the tank tops the servers wear or something tacky & revealing, just the simple older logo everyone in the US might be familiar with & the name of the city on the shirt (in this case, "Charlotte, NC"). She was like "Why can't I have it?" I remember asking my mother this myself. She was essentially "I am law & say no on this."

There's also the famous lore of how Hooters girls flirt with guys to get tips & all that. You've seen South Park with the Raisins restaurant & those girls, you know what I'm talking about. Or the actual term people use is "breastaurant."

Things to know about me:

1. I'm NOT the kind of woman who gets jealous of other women. Someone else's power doesn't mean I don't have power of my own. Other women with looks are my peers, my contemporaries, chicas who get it in a way other girls can't understand.

2. I applied to work at the local Hooters when I graduated college & was in NC hoping to earn some extra money before embarking on the next adventure of my life. I think I got rejected for being too smart, despite being pretty & making sure to wear a blue halter top that show my boobies quite nicely. Dress for your audience, you know?

3. One of my exes, Vampire Boy, apparently went to Hooters with some goth friends but not me. The image of him in this "breastaurant" getting hit on by women who look more cheerleader than goth chick (his type) has always amused me. It's just not something I see him doing or really getting into. God help the woman having to do that for her tips; maybe she should get an Oscar if she's forced to lay it on thick.

I've always had this curious fascination with seeing what that experience is like myself. I'm sure not going to care about some server hitting on a guy taking me. If that actually worked, I'd have gotten Psycho Boy to Hooters STAT & been eternally grateful to any woman working there who got his fixation off of me; maybe even paid her some money for her inadvertent service in saving my life. I could do that for other overly clingy guys & never had problems again.

Hooters: the place for women to take their lovesick admirers so they'll bug someone else.

Recently, the opportunity posed itself for me to go with a guy friend so I went. It was NOT the pickup scene I expected; our server hardly noticed us. I expected some flirtation on my friend but that didn't happen. He said those girls are probably in high school & told me about having taken a male friend of his to that particular Hooters before. Unfortunately I didn't buy a shirt but maybe I should ask my sister if she wants that for her birthday. I should get myself one as well. A lovely rebellious statement against my mother & "the faith" I have not belonged to in forever. Maybe it's even just a symbol of rebellion for me in general & me owning my whole model thing. Hmmmm...

So More Death Comes to My Immediate Family

Over the years, I've had a lot of relatives die. Some were people I'd never met, some died when I was too little to remember or only have a few memories & one was someone I actually knew well. Now comes another death, the one I didn't expect in the manner it happened: my father. I still can't bring myself to call him "Dad" but I can call him "George" as my mother referred to him (no part of his name is "George" by the way; my mom's just eccentric--part of the mystery is solved, I know).

I've lost aunts, uncles, my grandmother & the most recent big one was my brother in law weeks before I was accepted to law school. That one was particularly bad since he & my sister had only been married a few months, she'd just had their first child (who was 3 weeks old & had bonded to his father in the womb) and he would have been eligible for health insurance in a few months.

My parents just got out of bankruptcy & my mom was happy he was getting a full paycheck. He'd just recovered from a knee injury & to talk to him, you'd never think of him as "old" or "boring." He hated the slow drivers on the road just like everyone else. He wasn't even 60 years old & this happened. The doctor said apparently this kind of thing happens often; people just drop for mysterious reasons, slip into comas & don't recover. If it happened to my father, I wonder, what's to stop it from happening to anyone else? Me, you, the guy down the block? We're not promised tomorrow. He's now been declared brain dead & they're only leaving him on life support until I can get there to say goodbye.

I already learned about the fleeting nature of life after my brother in law (my sister's first husband) died. I just wonder why the fuck God is pissing on my family. It's been that way forever for them; what the fuck?!?!?! Since when is my mother Job? She and my sister are totally devastated over this. I've been emotional over it but not sure if it's just the tragedy of the whole thing or actually caring. I definitely know it's not making life easy on my mom. Father's Day & major holidays are going to be a total bitch, even for me not living there. At least we had last Thanksgiving, I keep telling myself.

This "praying" stuff also bothers me. God is the one who decides it's your time, right? It's infallible & set in stone. So what good does praying do? You can hope, you can try to be optimistic but there's the element of realism to consider. If your number is up, isn't prayer just a waste of time or is it like getting clemency from the governor or something? Guess I'm also getting crotchety about it like the hard core atheists. I've known people are just saying it to be nice but I'd rather you just say you're thinking of me or sending good vibes my way.

A few things about my grief process:

1. I don't eat much. I wouldn't be shocked if I lost a bunch of weight if my mom or sister died. Really, I wondered why people kept giving us food when my brother in law died since I had no appetite? I figured drugs would be better: something to make you want to eat or not feel depressed would be the ticket. Note I didn't say illegal drugs since there are legal drugs that can do this stuff.
2. I won't want to cry but when it hits me, it hits in a huge way. Last night, it hit hard when I was telling people I was now going down there to say goodbye. It also hit hard when I saw my cat Oswald (we thought he was a girl but when the vet said he was a neutered male, Ortensia became Oswald). George will never get to meet him. When my brother in law died, it hit me when I was in my supervisor's office & realized that my oldest nephew would never know his dad. At least he's got my sister's second husband now & he's been a good Daddy to him.
3. I can't be surrounded by it 24/7. I need respite from time to time, hanging out & interacting with people who have nothing to do with it i.e. not related to the person who died & suffering the same sense of grief or worse than me.
4. I need human contact. Ideally, someone to hold me who won't let me go before I say so. Now that I have him, my husband is ideal for this but a guy friend who won't try taking advantage will do in a pinch. I'm upset my husband can't be with me until the funeral. That will be tough. Yes, I did get laid the night my brother in law died (with an ex I happened to run into that evening; it lead to a brief reconciliation) & that's one reason I need my husband with me now. I don't dislike sex anyway but in grief, I crave that human contact & that connection. You need something to counteract the pall that comes over you. It's in your stomach, your throat, your face, your movements; it's like you're wearing a heavy cloak you have no clue how to remove.
5. Don't pray for me. Say you're thinking of me or sending me good wishes but don't try to convert me or tell me about how great Jesus or God are. Spare me the sermons. You aren't going to convince me to go back to the puritanical Baptist faith I ran from.

Yeah, I'm damn upset right now. I'm not in a good mood & crossing me is bad enough on a normal day. This is rage times a trillion. I'm also not very happy with people who've been told about it who've said not a word to me. No "I'm sorry" or "Hope you feel better" or even "That sucks." I think I'll be cleaning some house when I get back to town. You don't get to be a "friend" in my life when you can't even acknowledge that my situation sucks.

I've reached out to people more on things, remembering what my mom says about how if you want friends you have to show yourself friendly. Well, I figure you can't call someone a friend if you never give them the opportunity to actually BE a friend to you. Me talking about this is most definitely the opportunity to show me what you're made of in that sense. Are you a friend or are you worse than a stranger on the street? Most strangers have at least enough compassion to feel bad for you if an immediate family member is dying or dead. The hospital is also apparently damn anxious to pull the plug before I get there. I told my mom to ask them why they needed to do it this second when I wasn't going to be there at 3 a.m. If they want to get on my bad side, I said they can go right ahead & see where that gets them. I think I deserve my goodbye time considering I never got that with my brother in law.

Not sure which is worse: instant death or this waiting around stuff. I think waiting around seems worse since it's false hope & all this build up only to get disappointment in the end. At least I know the things to ask my husband about & tell others of in case he goes first. I also worry this will kill my mom from depression. Studies show that dead people's spouses usually die not long after the dead person died. We're just too young for this.

I warned my husband my family lives to their 60s & my father didn't even get to 60. No one will live long enough to be a burden but still. It just sucks all around.

I know I'll be shitty company for a while but frankly, I don't give a damn about that. Talk to me when it happens to you if you've got a problem with it.

Tradition for Tradition's Sake: How Stupid!

So you've read about how my husband has a faux union, right? If you haven't, well pretty much any employee who works for NYC except maybe the MTA has a faux union (as I learned recently). He told me that when this union next had a meeting, he'd be showing up.

No sooner than he gets notification of it (which is incredibly short notice in lawyer/film exec land) being next week that he decides not to go.

Here's where I think there's some conspiracy here: it's at 7:45 p.m. at an area of NYC that is in a transit dead zone. You have to take 2 buses from the nearest subway stop in Flushing to get to the location. I've spoken before in this blog about how I feel the location of this meeting is a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability to the membership for the shitty behavior this union engages in (that is, ZERO advocacy).

Are we aware that ALL the librarians are now forced to work until 7 p.m.? Oh, and it takes 1 hour & 12 minutes to get there from my neighborhood where there are 2 library branches.

My husband pointed out this time issue in the private union social media area where some hot shot claimed that 7:45 meant 8 p.m. I want him to point out to this pinhead that it doesn't do shit for the people working at these 2 libraries in my neighborhood. That tells me that they're trying to freeze out the majority of people in this system.

Maybe some of my husband's co-workers are weak willed, spineless & stupid (in fact, I know some of them fit one or more of these categories as one of them was stupid enough to think she could try & censor ME of all people; don't think you won't be getting yours, Little Bitch). But guess what? I'm NOT stupid! My husband isn't stupid either. Nor are a good chunk of his co-workers, some of whom aren't little bitches to the system.

I asked my husband why he's nice to these fuckers who are supposed to be his "representatives." He doesn't work for them! They are not his bosses! They work FOR him & all his co-workers. They need to stop rolling over & be effective advocates. I swear, if I encountered them as a business owner I would laugh my ass off. I told my husband that I will happily pay money to someone in this faux union to get in their faces & not back down.

One justification these people offered for keeping the no strike clause was "tradition," claiming some of the clauses have been in the contract since the '60s.

Well, you know slavery was legal for hundreds of years as well. Should we bring THAT back? How about exempting members of Congress from insider trading laws? The lack of stock market regulation before the stock market crash that caused the Great Depression? What about continuing to deny marriage rights to gay people or having no regulation on our foods? Maybe we should also bring back child labor since that was tradition for centuries before modern times!

Tradition is the shittiest argument for doing anything, if you ask me. Using "tradition" as your argument for doing something or not doing it just means "I'm too much of a lazy & fat fuck to do this differently. I'm also too small minded to bother giving your idea any speck of credence, even though you're probably right."

Just because something is a tradition doesn't mean it's right, fair, useful or efficient. Times change, people change, communities change. Some "traditions" should be extinguished permanently. We don't have afternoon tea anymore, do we? Women aren't property & we don't have segregated bathrooms anymore.

Don't tell me you do something because of tradition. Tell me you do it out of respect or because a policy is sound, efficient, etc. I'm sure if you were alive during segregation you'd have been an anti-integrationist since integration was violating tradition. We can't have that! Oh, God forbid your stupid tradition isn't allowed to be used as an excuse to engage in hate crimes.

Whaa, whaa! Look how sympathetic I am to you & your "tradition." Nope, I'm not a religious follower in case you really wondered. Growing up in a religious family & seeing hypocrisy all the time tends to disillusion you from religion. Working with a would-be lobbyist who is trying to get clergy members to help him who tells you he has to engage in legalized bribery to get them to do anything instead of them being willing to do anything b/c it's "right" or the "Christian" thing to do hardens that cynicism.

If anything, people like Romney or Ryan or Akin are doing more to create atheists & agnostics than any atheist or agnostic leader ever could. I'm sure they're also helping build the ranks of the Satanists, pagans and followers of other religions the Christians hate.

The next time Todd Akin says something stupid, I'm tempted to mail a tube of super glue to his offices & enclosing a note suggesting he use that on his lips since they look so dull on TV. This happened on a episode of Designing Women with Susanne gluing her lips shut to where she couldn't talk. How I wish it would happen to him and all the other nutjobs that have taken over the Republican party.

Speaking of other stupid traditions, it's very fucking stupid to only vote for the white guy because all the other presidents have been white guys. If you're voting for people based on this, why don't you at least vote for the best looking white guy? What attractive ones have been there other than JFK? I mean, a good contingent of the population doesn't vote with their brains or based on a candidate's intelligence (if they did, people like Akin would never be in public office) so why aren't they voting for the pretty boys?!

If I ever got thrust into politics in some way (since I have gotten thrust into many things in my time since I opened my mouth to object to something or point out the shortcomings so why should politics be any different), I would go toe to toe with any of my so called "prettiest" local representatives. I know I could win that contest hands down. I'd also want to win the "loudest, scariest bitch" contest. That would be one I'd wear with pride & let's face it, you're not going to beat a natural redhead at that one.

Oh, and another time "tradition" is used as an argument to do something? Fraternity & sorority hazing. Do we find that acceptable? How many news stories do you see & hear about how horrible it is? How many TV movies have portrayed the evils of Greek life with hazing as a starring role or outspoken co-star?

My chapter didn't do it. Let's face it: if they had I & most of the members would have left and I'd have ended up doing bad things to any tormentor; I tend to be vindictive & hold grudges that last a lifetime. I also go for the jugular so think of messing with me like you would messing with a tiger or other wild animal that kills humans.

So, in sum if you're in favor of doing something because it's "tradition" then you must also favor hazing, slavery, no rights for women, no food safety standards & child labor. After all, a tradition is a tradition is a tradition. If you don't examine your own for rational purpose when someone suggests change, then you are at best an idiot & at worst an animal who should be put down with some well placed bullets.

Hey Female Lawyers! Want to Be a Stripper??

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"Jamie" deserves some points for his originality & forward thinking. He's apparently read the law school scam blogs or realized that being a lawyer is not what TV shows make you think it is. Bravo!

However, I do wonder if he's going to pay these female lawyers more money than he would to the women who aren't. You know the clientele won't & that's got nothing to do with the environment where the legal advice is coming from. It has to do with people generally being assholes who feel entitled to free services.

You know, maybe that sort of idea could be franchised. That would get under the skin of the state licensing board, eh? Even if you heavily banned & cracked down on drugs, prostitution and other bad things associated w/these kinds of clubs you'd still get the whiny religious types moaning in your face. At least you'd be helping solve the attorney unemployment problem since lots of new ones can't get jobs.

Funny part is I would have become a stripper if I'd had to in law school & came pretty close to having to do it at one point (no one was going to make me have to go back to NC & a life I'd have hated). My undergrad sure made me feel like I ought to become one with all the charging money they knew my family couldn't afford. Anyone daring to stop me, I'd have said "What else can I do to pay law school tuition of tens of thousands of dollars in a few weeks?" If you don't have an answer, you get to shut up. When someone's in dire straits & you've never been there, you don't get to subject that person to your pious comments, especially about God's condemnation of their soul.

However, if you're not stripping for the money, I wonder about your mental state. Everyone knows it's not a glamorous job & there's lots of degradation. Why go through that if you're not desperately poor? Drug addiction, perhaps?

I have many more rants but this I just had to point out.

The Divide Between the Religious and the Non-Religious

So I just heard about a real life situation that illustrates the massive divide between the religious and the non-religious. For those not aware, I grew up in a religious household. I was even in a religious private school from 1st-3rd grade. The religion was Baptist, specifically independent Baptist. Woodland wasn't part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is a good thing because its policies really piss my off inner feminist. If you aren't familiar with what I'm referring to, perhaps the statement "Wives should submit graciously to their husbands" will jog your memory.

That bone of contention is for another day. The story I have will really illuminate things.

My sister is getting married in a few months. She and the groom are not multimillionaires; they have a 4 month old and a 7 year old to take care of plus money is tight. They are trying to save up to have a nice wedding. This time, my sister wants a nicer, formal affair since her last wedding was, in her words "thrown together at the last minute." We finally sorted out the dress debacle with my sister agreeing not to pick bright shades of yellow and orange for dresses and considering her sister's appearance as much as anyone else's in bridesmaid/matron of honor dresses. They looked at the color match on me so that's been settled. She finally picked out a flattering style yesterday that I now just need to get measurements for. She even finally found her wedding dress, another long ordeal.

Now she's trying to find a venue. They tend to be too much money, costing anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars. My aunt, in the spirit of Christian kindness, suggests they have the wedding & reception at her church. She is a member and this church does hold some significance to the bride and the groom: my sister & I attended Girl Scout meetings there in middle school and the minister performing the ceremony (a relative of the groom's) did preach there once.

So my aunt goes out of her way to speak to the people at this church & the pastor apparently offered a very generous rate to them. My sister is told to call the church secretary.

When she does, the church secretary greets her with attitude & proclaims in a smart alack tone "Well, YOU'RE not a member." They send my sister paperwork on their rules, policies, etc. We get it: it's a church so you can't have alcohol. That just saves us from another potential fight anyway considering the groom would be okay with it but my sister is not so keen on having it. We also understand basic courtesies and standards of proper behavior.

So my sister gets this paperwork, where she's nickled and dimed to death. This brings the total to use the space to...$850!! This is much, MUCH farther away than the figure my aunt tells her. Both my mother & I say she should speak to my aunt.

Others have offered alternative sites but my biggest issue is making sure no one attempts to convert me or my spouse or hassles us for not belonging to a particular church or faith. My mother assures me that won't be a problem.

With conduct like this church is pulling though, where is the so called "Christian love and charity"? These people do not have $850 for this; why don't they just sell the space on the general marketplace and let ANYONE use it regardless of their faith??? Attitude like what I heard about and this whole scheme definitely doesn't inspire me or my mother to join this church and in my view, makes the atheist cause even stronger.

You can get attitude like this without any church association or religiosity involved. I expect better from "people of faith" so when you add this to other instances I've encountered of shitty behavior from "Christians", is it any wonder many of us aren't interested in joining people's churches or affiliating with a membership? This expecting better also extends to not being forced to pay a clergy member to support efforts they should support anyway because it's the right thing to do and God would agree. That also bolsters the atheist cause & is why I consider churches headed by powerful ministers to be complete contradiction to what God would want. If you have to pay these ministers to do something, then they are no better than politicians and should renounce the title of "minister", "reverend" or whatever they use to claim spiritual superiority over the rest of us.

This is not to say I haven't met some good ministers who aren't utter hypocrites but generally, if the person's church isn't nondenominational, Pagan, Jewish or some faith that isn't Catholic, Baptist or an off shoot of one of them I will have massive distrust for that clergy person. I judge a lot of this on how they treat people who are different, what they say about people who are different and if they go around condemning people or saying "you're going to burn in Hell." Telling me that my husband & I shouldn't be together for the sake of religious faith or being rude to him in any way because of his views is definitely a huge black mark against you.

I was also never a member of any church, even as a child. Despite the fact that I was in a sorority, a ton of clubs in high school and some bar association committees today, I'm not really what you'd call a "joiner." Most of the time, I've not felt like I was "in" with any of these groups. There's being a name member & then there's actually being part of things and feeling included. The feeling of inclusion tends to elude me. Even when I was in my sorority, I started to feel like a fringe later on and only stuck it out because I'd been there so long already. I've been a fringe in most places and not always because I'm a private person or have problems trusting people. I haven't had many people make me feel like my contribution was appreciated or that they were happy to have me around; honestly, I've had to strong-arm my way into things because if I didn't then I would get excluded.

I feel like church membership would be the same thing and I could get that without the shroud of religion over everything. The fact that I expect more from institutions that tout certain messages and ideas probably makes me idealist, naive, whatever.

However, if I should expect hypocrisy and the same bullshit in a church membership then what is the point of belonging to one at all? I'm better served keeping to myself and practicing faith in my own way; this is precisely what I've done. I believe God exists but won't follow an organized religion since hypocrisy is far too rampant.

And guess who ruined good peer relations for me??? The jerks I knew in religious private school. Some grew up to be decent people while others are still jerks. If my best friend at the time hadn't been around, I'd have been far worse off.

Can't READ the Bible Now??? Come On!

Just saw this & it requires a mini-rant:

This teacher deserves to be punished/get some kind of repercussion (say unpaid suspension) considering it's not like the kid was preaching on the playground or trying to convert people. If they didn't, I'd be making sure the school knew I was considering a 1st Amendment lawsuit if it was my child. I would also seek to have my child transferred out of that class.

I grew up in a Baptist home & even went to Christian school from 1st-3rd grade but these days, I don't follow any organized religion due to corruption concerns far beyond pastors living large while their congregants live in squalor (though I do believe God exists). How dare anyone tell someone they can't read a religious text in their off time? Should this child read a book on how to make bombs instead? Maybe she should be reading that infamous "How to be a Hit Man" book; I'm sure that would make this clueless, intolerant teacher happy & no one would try banning those.

Seriously, though I side w/the family since not wanting to be converted doesn't = suppression of others' rights to quietly pray or read religious texts.