mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Losing My Religion Disclaimer: You are welcome to believe whatever you want to in your
life. This entry is not meant to be an attack on anyone else's belief system.
I respect an individuals freedom to worship whatever god/goddess/animal/vegetable/mineral
works for them. I ask for your respect in return. Please do not try to preach
to me or send me hate-mail. If you are sensitive about religion and dislike
other points of view, please skip this one, okay? This, morning while sucking down my third cup of coffee and trying to motivate myself to put on some clothes, I watched the Benny Hinn show (not to be confused with the Benny Hill Show) on Entertainment Television. For those of you not familiar with Hinn, he is a very popular Tele-Evangelist with his own ministry and a carnival act called This Is Your Day. Hinn heals people by theatrically laying his hands on them and having them faint from the power of God. He presumably pulls these people right out of the audience with no prior knowledge of their background, lifestyle, etc. This morning he pulled two punk rawk kids from the crowd. The boy, clearly in his early twenties, sported the most fantastic mohawk and wore a wife beater and plaid bondage pants. His girlfriend wore a dog collar and a Bad Religion T-shirt (the irony of this was completely lost on Hinn). Hinn embraced these youths and said a bunch of spiritual hoo haa and then gave them a $1000.00! He told them that they should go get cleaned up, buy new clothes, take out their piercings, and stop having sex. He was particularly concerned with the mohawk though. He must have told guy four times that he should go get it cut. I had no friggin idea that God was such a fashionista! Then before Hinn did his knocking them in the forehead deal, he had a bunch of kids come out from his Youth Ministries division and they too showered the punks with extra cash. By the time the whole shindig was done, those kids must have had about $1600.00! That translates into a whole lot of cheap booze and generic smokes. I wish I'd know about this gig back in my teens. In case it isn't completely obvious, I feel the need to state that I see myself as an atheist . I attended Parochial school from first through twelfth grade which definitely contributed to my current belief system. My grammar school felt the need to force us to attend Sunday Mass by requiring we have a slip of paper signed by the priest post-ceremony. Apparently, the Catholic Church has real trust issues or something. In the fourth grade, I was called into a conference with Sister Mary Josephine to discuss my father being Jewish. This was a huge problem, she told me. It meant he would definitely spend eternity in Purgatory. When I later relayed the message to my dear old dad he advised me that he'd rather rot in Hell than have to spend even a moment with that old hag. I had to agree with him there. In the fifth grade I was slapped across the face in front of my entire class by Sister John, a nasty ass nun whole claimed I rolled my eyes at her. I still maintain that she's lying. I attended a Catholic Youth Summer Camp run by a priest who it was later discovered molested young boys. It recently came out that the pastor at my all girl high school also molested young boys back in the 70's (thus the transfer to the all girls high school - leave it to the Catholic church to effectively deal with a situation). So yeah, I decided that the church was not for me, period. Still, I am fascinated by people who do believe in established religious institutions. I find the Trinity Broadcast Network hilarious (probably not their goal). I love the youth programming. Skateboarders praising God as they ollie down the street. Godrock, a show specializing in spiritual music videos. Teen Talk, a round about forum where funky and alternative teens can discuss how often they should worship. This is just comedic gold! I was most fascinated by the Left Behind series, a group of books geared at teens and young adults, which describes in great detail the upcoming Apocalypse. The deal is that the nonbelievers get left down here on earth and everybody else ascends into heaven. Certainly, I'd like it better down here if we could send a few of those fanatics up to heaven but what appealed to me even more than that was that my childhood sweetheart, the uber sexy Kirk Cameron, was cast to star in the movie version of these literary works. You all remember dear Kirk, of Growing Pains fame, right? Until he came along, I was a C. Thomas Howell girl all the way but then I thought, what has he done for me lately? So Kirk took over my walls with his Teen Beat centerfolds and a new day dawned. Anyway, much like M.C. Hammer, Kirk has found God but in this movie I believe he plays a lavacious sinner. God, doesn't that make you hot? Okay, so I've never seen the movie but it's on my list and I was particularly obsessed with the idea of seeing it in February of 2001, back when the Seattle area was hit by a 6.8 magnitude tremblor. Now, up until that time, I had never experienced an earthquake or at least not one of any magnitude. We don't have those kind of things back in New York. I was at my office, with only two other coworkers. Their offices are a good ten feet down the hall. When the quake first started it was just a noise, like the kind you hear when a large truck drives by, but the shaking soon started. Frightened and unsure of what was going on I dashed down the hall. My two coworkers had disappeared entirely! "Ann," I called out. "Gary! Where are you guys?" For an instant, just a moment or two, I was certain that they had ascended into heaven and I, a sinner and a total nonbeliever, had been left behind! I almost sobbed out loud! I am sure you can imagine just how relieved I was when Ann climbed out from under her desk to drag me back down. "This is an earthquake," she said to me. "Now stay down." "Ann," I cried. "It's so good to see you. I thought you'd gone to heaven." Luckily Ann just told me everything was going to be okay. The earthquake passed and we all went home early where I partook in many strong adult beverages. So I guess twelve years of religious training hasn't left me entirely unscarred. I am hoping another decade of sinning will undo the damage. 11:41 a.m. - 2002-09-27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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