Good Friday always makes me think back to the First House of Clocks. One of the more notorious parties we had there was the Be Bad on Good Friday Party. We crucified Ian and played Pin the Nail of Jesus. I remember someone shouting "the beer's on fire!" and rushing to put out the flames. You know it's a real party when you have a beer fire.

We had music in the old tinfoil covered playroom. The old playroom was crazy. I mean, really crazy. Tinfoil walls, strange paintings along with random items screwed into the ceiling. I had written on the walls and the floors. Blissfully hopeful things and abysmally awful things. The pictures on the walls didn't match up spatially with their frames. A Twister mat was the table cloth. It was me. Me then. Strange, cluttered, mismatched, bright, stark, broken, glowing, and scary. I'm different now. I am no longer that room. I am breaking out of a chrysalis, not sure yet of what I have become.

I took this picture in the fall. I haven't posted it until now because I've been so nervous about the amount of drama potential of posting it. Fear of being shouted down and demonized for a simple picture. I'm not pro-life, just thought this shot was interesting and had turned out well — but that I am required to explain myself and my reasoning for posting a photograph says something to me about the political climate and what it says isn't good.

Poll #989414
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Due to it's graphic content, should sales of the Bible to those under 18 be banned or restricted?

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life. The game, slated for release by October 2006 in advance of the Christmas shopping rush, has been previewed at video game exhibitions, and reviewed by major newspapers and magazines. But until now, no fan or critic has pointed out the controversial game's connection to Mr. Warren or his dominionist agenda. ... According to Mr. Warren, the establishment of this earthly kingdom requires "foot soldiers." As part of his plan, Mr. Warren said he would encourage laypeople to "adopt" needy villages overseas in order to plant churches, expand business opportunities, educate children, influence governments, and overthrow corrupt political leaders, whom he described as "little Saddams." Mr. Warren said his purpose is to enlist "one billion foot soldiers for the Kingdom of God" in the developing world. And the stadium crowd roared its approval. Celebrants included Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, a tiny east African country that lost hundreds of thousands of people when it suffered genocide in 1994. Catholic and Protestant clergy have been convicted in connection with that genocide. Yet Mr. Kagame announced that he would allow Mr. Warren to turn his country into the first purpose driven nation. The following month, 16 Rwandan religious leaders arrived in Orange County to begin religious training at Saddleback Church. Mr. Warren has said that his global initiative was developed "underground" and in "stealth". Presumably, this was done with the assistance of Mr. Carver, who directs the Purpose Driven Church in all its activities outside North America. full article

I hear time and time again the Islam is the religion of violence. Islam is the religion that endangers the world. The only reason the fundamentalist Christians have not resorted to terrorism more then they have (and, yes there have been plenty of terrorist attacks by fundamentalist Christians) is that they often have access to more "acceptable" avenues to pursue their agenda, as carpet bombing civilian populations with white phosphorus is deemed more acceptable than a suicide attack. If fundamentalist Christians lose their political prestige you can expect a series of terrorist attacks from their ranks. "Last Days Crusade" would be a likely organizational name.

I'm not saying all Christian are violent, the same as not all Muslims are violent. What I am saying is that Christianity holds no moral high ground over Islam. Both have factions that want to kill all the infidels. Fundamentalism is the problem, not any particular religion.

A group of more than 80 powerful evangelical leaders have defied the Bush White House and called for federal legislation to curb global warming. The statement marks the first time that leading evangelicals have taken up the green issue. And it has caused splits within the religious right. They have embraced the environment in recent years, most notably with a "What would Jesus drive?" campaign against sports utility vehicles. But this is a new departure. The statement - signed by mega-church pastors like Rick Warren, author of the bestseller The Purpose-Driven Life, heads of Christian colleges and missionary organisations - puts saving "God's green earth" on a par with traditional evangelical concerns like abortion and gay marriage. full story

There is danger in blanketly labeling any group as "enemy". Even groups that generally have restricting our rights as part of their agendas. We are all part of humanity. We are all part of the Happening. Returning the hate does nothing but keep it going. If we love the Fundamentalist Christians as Christ has asked them love us, maybe they will learn by our example the peace of the message they hold sacred.

Forgiveness is a powerful thing. So powerful that it can truly startle people. The bombings and attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq were expected. While they may have scared some into submission and angered others to fight, they did not surprise anyone. If instead of attacking, the Christians in charge of the United States instead followed Jesus's advice and said "We forgive you.", it would have utterly shocked supporters of Al-Qaeda and other like-minded groups. Forgiveness would have completely baffled them, and made it very difficult for them to motivate others to kill themselves in a similar attack. September 11^th was intended to motivate the wrath of the United States, and was only made successful by the providing of that wrath.

This does not mean that if persons who aided the act are caught in the course of law enforcement that they should not be brought to justice. Rule of law must still exist, but invasion of other countries is not in the course of law enforcement. Forgiveness of the transgressions upon us by those outside our laws would keep us far safer than all the weapons in the United States arsenal.

gacked from lady_babalon and sophiaserpentia:

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again." "The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God." -- 15-year-old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series-- From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America's all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of the last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go berserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower. Jesus -- who apparently has a much nastier streak than we have been led to believe -- merely speaks and "the bodies of the enemy are ripped wide open down the middle." In the book Christians have to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted corpses of men and women and horses," even as the riders' tongues are melting in their mouths and they are being wide-open gutted by God's own hand, the poor damned horses are getting the same treatment. Sort of a divinely inspired version of "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." This may be some of the bloodiest hate fiction ever published, but it is also what tens of millions of Americans believe is God's will. full story

These people are dangerous. Very very dangerous. They have money, numbers, and power. They are the reason that silence is not an option. Those still capable of free and intelligent thought need to get these people out of power before we are all fighting the in the right wing's homegrown version of Armageddon.

One way I've taken revenge on bandwidth thieves in the past is to change the name of the file they're leaching (as well as all references to the file on pages I own) and put an obnoxious file in it's place. I haven't done this trick in years, but it is oh-so-fun. What I put in the file's place depends on who's doing the leaching. For example, when a bdsm site was stealing my backgrounds, I changed the background of their site to a tiling high contrast "Jesus Saves" image with a large orange cross; when someone on a message board added the caption "He's so sexy" to a image they stole of John Koviak off a friend's site I was hosting, I replaced the image with a picture of Barney; when a conservative christian site was stealing another one of my backgrounds, I splattered their website with some, well, material they certainly didn't appreciate. The possibilities are endless.

I should check my logs, I bet I can find some people to have fun with.