Ok, I wasn't sure if I was going to write about either of these topics, but since they kinda mesh together I've decided to throw caution to the wind.

Those of you that have seen me do that before know that you should start feeling scared now.

The second part of the GWAR story will have to wait a bit.

See, Mike D. had been bugging me for years to start going to church with him. He's a Unitarian Universalist. For those of you unfamiliar with the Unitarians, they are a religion, but a religion that doesn't maintain a lot of the trappings of other more 'traditional' (for lack of a better word) religions and he therefore figured it was a perfect fit for me.

Problem is, the Unitarians are still enough like a 'traditional' religion to set off my flight reflex. See, I've come to realize that my aversion to religion has been developing into a full blown phobia. Given how successfully (and happily) I've been avoiding it all these years I didn't realize just how bad it had been getting except for the few times I did accompany Mike to a church function or attended a wedding. On those occasions I managed to deal with it, but churches make me EXTREMELY uncomfortable. To put it in perspective, I would rather lay in a tub full of cold vomit and have a bucket of live spiders dumped on my head than spend any length of time in a church.

I liken it to the Bill Hicks routine about the “People Who Hate People party”:

“There's a new party being born: The People Who Hate People Party. People who hate people, come together! "No!" We're kind of having trouble getting off the boards. Come to our meeting! "Are you gonna be there?" Yeah. "Then I ain't fucking coming." But you're our strongest member! "Fuck you!" That's what I'm talking about, you asshole! Fuck off! Damn, we almost had a meeting going. It's so hard to get my people together.”

I would try explaining to Mike that I really dislike religions and basically everything that goes with them and he would counter with “That's fine, the Unitarians are a group of people who have that in common with you!”

“A group of people with common interests who meet together on Sunday in a church to discuss it?”

“Yes!”

“Well they can goddamn do it without me.”

Having said all this, I have attended the Unitarian church in Columbus a couple times in the last few months. I've done this mainly (at first) because K also attends this church and invited me and I think it would have been extraordinarily rude of me to not go, even without having explained my preference for vomit covered spiders. She didn't know how strong my aversion was because largely I didn't know myself, so please don't get the impression that she did anything wrong by 'making' me go. She didn't make me go, I chose to go and even had a good time apart from the creeping waves of unease that I couldn't suppress. I chose to go back because that's how you get over a phobia, you confront it.

Again, they're a nice bunch of people, nice ceremony, but it looks like a church, sounds like a church, smells like a church and that's enough to wind me pretty tight. It's strange, but it affects me on a level that, frankly, I thought I was above.

So that brings us to the other topic I didn't know if I was gonna write about. The election.

I wanted to get moved to Columbus in time to register to vote up there so that if I chose to vote it might mean something. Unfortunately that didn't happen and I am still registered in West Virginia where, even if McCain loses EVERY other state, he'll still win by a landslide.

I remember in the primaries.

Hillary won West Virginia by 70%.

People had the nerve to act surprised.

“She won by 70%? Wow, I wonder how that happened?” To which I would charmingly reply “Lying fucking asshole! You know EXACTLY why Obama lost West Virginia! You LIVE HERE! You can't live here and not know why he fucking lost here!”

And when it comes down to it it seems that the people urging me to vote for Obama are using essentially the same argument as the people that try to talk me into being a Christian: “What if you're wrong?”

What if I'm wrong? Let me tell you something, if the reason you go to church is fear of what will happen to you if you don't go to church then that's not faith nor spirituality, it's fear, and if your religion's primary motivator is fear then you can fucking keep it.

When I express doubts about Obama and/or voting at all I get hit with the same argument. “What if you don't vote and it comes down to ONE VOTE? Then your vote would make all the difference.” To me this is the same as “What if you don't worship Jesus and it turns out he's really, really real? What then?” Well to that I say again that if your faith is just a way of hedging your bets so you can get into fucking heaven then it isn't faith, in fact, I'd go so far as to call it spiritually deceitful and I hope Jesus kicks you in the nuts.

See, I have two rules, I don't believe anything the government tells me and I don't think spiritual/religious enlightenment can be taught. Any spiritual views you didn't form on your own are worthless at best and damaging at worst.

I mean Jesus seems like a pretty cool guy and so does Barack Obama and, if you believe the stories I guess Jesus did do some pretty cool things, but he could do miracles. If Obama wins West Virginia then I'll believe he can do miracles too. Another thing they have in common is I don't know how either of them planned to do anything, they just both talked a lot about 'hope' and shit like that the big difference is that Barack Obama is poised to be (arguably) the most powerful figure in American politics and Jesus got nailed to a tree.

I think I had a point in that comparison... oh well, where was I?

Right. Hardcore Christians, the ones that believe that every word of the bible is absolutely, literally, true as written are to me like that kid in the second or third grade that's the last one to give up their stubborn belief in Santa Claus. It never ceases to amaze me that people can read the bible, in which their protagonist tell people allegorical stories, and can't believe that maybe the whole book is allegory?

If you look at it as stories written by people who didn't know how the world worked and they were trying to explain what they thought was going on there might (MIGHT) be some value there. When you look at it like people really did live to be 2,000 years old and built a boat and filled it full of two of every animal and together they watched the sodomites drown or whatever and you BELIEVE IT, you're fucking insane.

Just like you are if you believe that Obama can do everything he says he can do. Yes, if you believe everything Obama claims then you're really no better than fundamentalist christians.

I'm not knocking him, mind you, I'm just not making him out to be Jesus like a lot of his supporters are.

Frankly, quite despite myself, I like Obama and I think he will do a lot of positive things for this country. Problem is, I know that the more a politician is liked, the more they're lying. Given how much people love Obama he's quite possibly the antichrist.

Not that I'm saying McCain is any better. In fact, I don't want him anywhere near the White House, especially with his dumb-ass running mate. I'm not supporting McCain at all. In fact, if you do vote, I think you should vote for Obama as the far lesser of two evils.

Yes, he's evil.

He's a politician and politicians are evil.

Yes, ALL of them.

I voted for the lesser of two evils once. Back in 2000. And he won. And that's why I haven't voted since.

Given that, do you people REALLY want me to go vote tomorrow?

Anyways, go vote for Obama Claus and maybe he'll bring you that hope you've all been wishing for.