Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Selfishness? Disrespect?

If you have a friend who doesn't have a driver license and their own vehicle that depends on you for a rides and they check with you prior to making an appointment to ensure that the time and date of the appointment doesn't conflict with your own schedule and you tell them that you're open to any day of the week but you prefer the appointment was scheduled for the afternoon simply because you're not a morning person and then after the appointment is over they ask you if there are any conflicting days in your schedule prior to setting a date for a follow-up appointment and you tell them once again that any day is fine and later when you ask them when they scheduled the appointment for you find out they scheduled a morning appointment knowing full-well that you prefer afternoons...

Is it an unreasonable expectation to expect that your friend would respect your wishes to schedule their appointments in the afternoons since you're driving them there? Or is it selfish of you expect a friend to schedule an appointment for the afternoon simply because you aren't a morning person? 

A bit more information...

The morning appointment wasn't set out of forgetfulness or necessity, it was set for no other reason than the friend preferred morning appointments contrary to the preference of the friend driving them there. When inquired about why the appointment was set in the morning the response given was: -To get it over with and when told any date was open they assumed that meant any date or time despite having discussed a preference for afternoons previously when setting an earlier appointment.- When the friend was asked why the previous appointment was scheduled for the afternoon they responded because it was discussed prior to making it that the driver preferred afternoons. So the glaringly obvious question is: If the friend was aware of this fact then why the fuck did they do the complete opposite of what they knew their friend would prefer? 

While a morning appointment is a small thing. Having a friend intentionally do something they know you wouldn't like just feels disrespectful and selfish. 

Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Religious Indoctrination of Children

‎"Sunday School: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents." — H.L. Mencken


I posted the quote above in a status message on my Facebook page and an atheist friend pointed out in the comments that she felt that parents were well-meaning but misguided. 

I have to agree with her. I think "evil" in that quote is a bit unfitting and religious people are indeed misguided but in my opinion I think it's rooted in religious bigotry... religious people are raised to believe that their religion is the only good, true, and correct religion to adhere to regardless of the fact that religious belief is simply handed down traditionally and had someone been born to another family in another part of the world they'd have been indoctrinated with an entirely different worldview... but religious people don't really consider the implications of that and question what they were taught to believe. This was offered as a challenge by John W. Loftus which he called the "Outsider Test for Faith". He explains it in greater detail in his book, Why I Became An Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity, which is the book I am presently reading and it's really quite compelling.

So anyway, religious people are taught that their religion is #1 and everyone else is wrong... on top of that they are taught that people that follow their particular brand of nuttery are the most morally decent and upstanding people on the planet. This creates elitism on top of bigotry and if someone from their flock does something morally objectionable they distance themselves from that person and claim that person wasn't a "true follower" which takes the blame off the belief system and places it on the individual despite the fact that the individual was using their religious beliefs as the motivator for their actions, like Hitler; a devout Catholic exterminating Jews to punish them for the crucifixion of Christ or the leader of the Children of God cult requiring the women in the movement to engage in sex acts with strange men as a method of proselytizing. These are extreme examples of course but they illustrate my point.

So a parent has been indoctrinated by their own parents to believe that their parents' particular worldview is the one true worldview and every other conflicting view is wrong and they are raised to believe that being good, moral, decent, or upstanding requires adherence to that particular worldview. I myself was raised by a strict, devout Catholic family and I remember they used to say things to me like how they desired for me to grow up to be a "good Christian man" as if  "good" and "Christian" were mutually inclusive and it's the only path to righteousness so naturally a parent would want the same for their own children. No parent wants to lead their children down the wrong path.

Problem is everyone seems to think it's a different path and they're all wearing blinders preventing them from seeing their own beliefs and views in the same light as they see the beliefs and views of others.

Therein lies the reason I'm an atheist. The Catholic belief system did not work for me from a young age. In reading about Malcolm X and how he converted voluntarily from Christianity to Islam and further mentored  champion boxer Muhammad Ali down the same path from Christianity to Islam. This was a turning point for me at as a young teen. I had heard of people converting thru marriage by marrying someone of a different religion, but a voluntary conversion? I didn't think it was possible. Certainly no one in my church ever talked about the possibilities of choosing another religious belief. It was actually discouraged and heavily frowned upon. So it came a shock to me that people could convert voluntarily but I didn't really know where to begin at that point. So I started with Islam like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. I found it fascinating, but it just seemed like more of the same shit to me and in a lot of ways worse. No pork? No Alcohol? I already thought giving up shit for 40 days of Lent was bad enough.

I went on to study Judaism, Mormonism (I had a crush on a Mormon girl at the time), Buddhism, Hinduism, and a few others. I didn't study these religious beliefs in depth greatly. I didn't even pick up a copy of a Koran let alone read one, but I did get a copy of the Book of Mormon (mainly to impress girl mentioned above) and I cracked it open and read a few pages and was as bored with it as I was with the fucking bible. In fact it's been awhile and I don't remember the content I read but I vaguely remember thinking that it was even sillier and more ridiculous than what I had read in the bible as a Catholic youth.

But my tip-of-the-iceberg research into various religious beliefs lead me to realizing that many seemed to worship the same god (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) yet had branched out with various different beliefs while other belief systems were entirely different. I was overwhelmed with trying to decide which one was right. They couldn't possibly all be right so how would one decide which is right? The only thing that seemed to fit me even remotely was Buddhism but the whole reincarnation thing seemed almost as silly as the crap I was spoon-fed at home. This lead to agnosticism and eventually atheism.

The reason most atheists and other non-believers have a larger knowledge of religion than that of theists who follow them is simply because most of us were once indoctrinated theists ourselves and in shedding that worldview for an entirely new one wasn't easy. For most de-converted believers it's quite a long journey because changing your entire belief system isn't a simple process at all. The new non-believer is giving up everything from their lifestyle to their community to even their own family and friends. Many even choose to remain anonymous and keep their non-belief to themselves while continuing to go to church and participate and fake prayer out of fear of ostracization. There are ministers and priests who are atheists yet continue to quietly lead their congregations because they spent years in education for a career path which is now a lie but it's all they know and especially in today's economy the job market isn't exactly friendly.

I've gotten off track here but my point is those of us who have abandoned whatever religious bullshit we were indoctrinated into didn't do so lightly and took everything into consideration before deciding to break free... this includes studying in depth in your own religion as well as others. And therein lies the additional knowledge we have. But despite leaving our religious beliefs behind us and moving on many of us continue to study religion and read more books on religion partly as a hobby and partly to further satisfy our own curiosity about religions by digging deeper into our original research.

Introduction

Anyone who knows me well would know that one of my all time favorite films is Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy. Ironically the very first time I saw the film I didn't like it. Perhaps it was due to being raised with a homophobic mindset that I later shed and Chasing Amy was one of the very first gay-friendly films I'd ever seen and at the time I was very much like Banky Edwards (Jason Lee) in the film and I shamefully shared many of the same misguided views on homosexuality that Banky and Holden had in the film. But like the average homophobic male, I still harbored erotic fantasies about lesbians. Somehow to a homophobic straight male the very idea of gay sex between men is repulsive but the idea of gay sex between women is erotic. That being said I had huge celebrity crush on Joey Lauren Adams at the time. That brief topless scene she had in Mallrats is still firmly planted in my spank bank.

Anyway... I've changed... grown... matured a lot since the first time I watched Chasing Amy and today I see it in a completely different light. My favorite character is Hooper X (Dwight Ewell). 

By now you're probably wondering what the hell Chasing Amy has to do with me and introducing myself in my new blog here. It's because even though I'm as straight as uncooked spaghetti, Hooper X is the character I most identify myself with now if you look past the fact that he's gay and black and I'm straight and white. It's due to his worldly yet humorous wisdom on human sexuality but there is one particular quote by Hooper stands out for me more than the rest and it's something I personally feel I can identify with albeit for different reasons than him.

The quote is this:

"Screw that "all for one" shit, alright? I gotta deal with being a minority in a minority of the minority, and nobody's supportin' my ass."

Hooper was referring to the fact that he is black and gay, but for me, I'm deaf and an atheist. Roughly 16% of the US population identifies themselves as atheist, agnostic, nonreligious, or some other similar variation of non-believer, but the number of those that are deaf I imagine that number to be considerably smaller and the number of those who are deaf and female to be even smaller than that.

Yeah, I'm single, surprise fucking surprise, huh?

I've actually given up on romantic relationships and now all I really want is a reliable fuckbuddy who will hook up at least once or twice a week. I had that briefly last summer but she pursued a romantic relationship with another man (since she knew she wasn't gonna get one out of me) and we ended our weekly romps. But if not for that it would have ended eventually anyway for more personal reasons which is a shame really cuz for a 36 year old mother she still had a fantastic body and was a great lay. Seeing her once a week was absolutely cathartic. 

But I haven't always been interested in casual sex. It's only been a bit over a year since I gave up on romantic relationships. It came down to the last 2 romantic interests in my life. The 1st one was my high school sweetheart and mother of my son. There's a long 15+ years story in there I won't get into here but she was my first love and we got back together 10 years later. She divorced her husband to pursue a relationship with me again and in the end it didn't work out for a few different reasons but the biggest one being our religious differences, she simply could not handle the fact that I was an atheist and that the chances of me ever being a religious believer again is extremely unlikely. Jimmy Hoffa's corpse will be found before I find God again. 

Love was not the problem. We loved each other quite a bit and the relationship was great. We got along incredibly and our sex life was insatiable. 

Losing her had me revising my romantic profile. I realized that a relationship with someone who is religious is just not going to work... even if a religious woman were to just agree to disagree with me personally the question would come up about how we'd raise our children... a lot of atheists in relationships with religious people concede and allow their partners to indoctrinate their children with religious bullshit to keep the peace in the relationship and hope that their own influence will eventually steer them out of the indoctrination when they start to think more critically and rationally. This is simply not something I'm okay with although I was going to do just that with my son's mother had we stayed together because I loved her enough to make her happy even tho the idea of poisoning my children's minds with religious bullshit is absolutely repulsive to me.

So my point here is that I realized that I simply would not mix well with someone who desires to infect their entire lives and family with supernatural delusions. Which brings me to the fact mentioned a few paragraphs above here... shortage of deaf atheist women. I can name 2 who are non-believers and only one of those 2 I know personally. She's someone I'd definitely consider hooking up with, but unfortunately she doesn't feel the same way about me. The relationship probably wouldn't work anyway because we're very different in other areas that would affect us. But it's a shame cuz she's one of the sweetest people I know and she's also a very attractive woman. The other one is someone I met online fairly recently whom I don't really know all that well but she shares my view on preferring a good fuckbuddy over a romantic relationship. And since she's an online friend who lives a couple states away she wouldn't be a very convenient fuckbuddy even if we had a mutual physical attraction.

This left me with deciding to prefer a deaf atheist woman if I could find one, but baring that I'd be happy with an atheist woman with normal hearing who shared much in common with me and I found someone online who fit that description and our interest in each other was mutual. To my surprise we had just about everything in common with each other. The only issues I had with her was she was a fairly heavy drinker and a smoker, but she told me she wanted to quit both so I was willing to give it a shot. 

When I develop a romantic interest in a woman it develops quickly. I don't fuck around and I don't really see any reason to take things slow when both partners seem equally enthusiastic. But I was emotionally overwhelmed with how much I shared in common with this woman that when I let myself go things moved faster for me than usual. She seemed genuinely interested in the same things I wanted and we shared so much in common it was uncanny. I joked with her that she was a younger, hotter, female version of me. She was a bit emotionally insecure tho. At the time she was living with a guy she had moved in with that she had romantic feelings for and she thought he felt the same way about her but when she moved in it turned out he just wanted a fuckbuddy. So she was understandably afraid that I could possibly end up being the same way with her. So her vulnerability and insecurity about that actually fueled my romantic interest in her. I tried to assure her that I loved her and truly wanted a relationship with her and not just a regular piece of ass. I loved her enough to really want to make her feel comfortable and secure with me. 

Unfortunately it had the opposite effect. Apparently my attention was overwhelming and she felt that things were moving too fast. At the same time she developed a mutual interest with another man whom she assured me was just a friend but she was raving with excitement about meeting him in a month after blowing off a plan to meet me. At the time I was saving up money for a new TV and was willing to sacrifice that money to help her finance her trip to visit me but she changed her mind about coming. So this attention this other guy was getting from her was painful but I tried to trust that she was truly still interested in me. In fact she even told me in the middle of all this that she really wanted to be with me. So it was all confusing with the mixed signals I was getting from her then shortly after that she told me she was turned off by how fast I moved with her and she was no longer interested.

So these 2 women each had qualities that represented the perfect woman for me... if they were all qualities within a single woman. With one I had a deaf woman that I shared a deep mutual love with but very little in common with. The other one I had nearly everything in common with but love was fleeting. After this I came to the realization that the chances of me finding someone who fills both of those shoes is extremely slim especially at my age where most of the people my age are married or in otherwise committed relationships. So I decided that I was going to stop wasting my life on a pipe dream of foolish romanticism and just live it and enjoy it. So I figured I'd be set if I could just find a decent, reliable, and convenient fuckbuddy. But if I happened to find that and things grew from there and lead to a romantic relationship then I'd go with it, but I've decided to stop actively looking for romantic love. 

But I find it humorously ironic that by dumping me the last woman I was interested in romantically motivated me to become what she feared I would become if she had stayed with me.

This entry has gotten longer than I intended it to be but that's kind of the way I am... I'm extremely expressive in writing. 

I actually have another blog here on Blogger, but it's associated with a Google/Gmail account that I don't use anymore and unfortunately it seems I can't switch emails so I'll be deleting that other account after I notify people of my new blog here.