Catholic – Former

Dating Online: What’s in a Name?

Hello my name is

Hello my name is (Photo credit: maybeemily)

Dating profiles are little windows into a person’s psyche.  They say so much while saying so little at the same time.  I’ve tried nearly every service from eHarmony, match.com, OkCupid, chemistry to even Jdate.  I’m not Jewish but I live in New York City so I thought – why not?  So far nothing has worked.  I’m like a curious bystander staring at a crime scene or car accident, no matter how pathetic my online dating experiences have been, I just can’t tear myself away from the sites.  Pursuing profiles is like a huge sociology experiment.  If I have any advice on here to ANY MAN it would be this.

PLEASE HAVE A TRUSTED FEMALE FRIEND, WHO IS NOT YOUR MOTHER, LOOK OVER YOUR PROFILE BEFORE YOU PUBLISH IT.

I would repeat that three times for emphasis but I like to keep my word count under 1000 on this blog.

One of the things I learned quickly in regards to emails on OKCupid – A guy’s name says so much.  I get email all day on those sites. If a guy has a crazy name, I know it isn’t even worth opening anything until the next day.  Sometimes a name can actually ruin everything, in one case a man emailed me with a name that was a creative spelling of spermbank, yet when I looked at his profile he seemed perfectly normal.  I just couldn’t imagine though, going out on a date with a man who thought SPERMBANK was an appropriate name for a dating profile.  I write this with the intention of helping guys who are well intentioned but have no clue about how a name like, HappyHuggerGuy might come across to a woman.  The more extreme names like Slave4URFeet or BigSugarDaddyLvr will always be there, and easy to disregard.  But if you are a guy and you aren’t sure why your profile isn’t getting more email, or if your a woman and want to see some of the most tragic names I could find…this article is for you!  Most names fall into the following categories.

Sexy Names – must contain one or more of the following

  • 69
  • Deep, Long
  • Big, Huge,
  • Pulsing, Thorbbing
  • Girthy, Girth, Thick, Wide
  • Xrated
  • NSFW
  • Beast
  • Pervert, Perv
  • Naughty
  • CunnyLover
  • ThreeWay
  • Casual, NoStrings, Discrete
  • Honorable Mentions:
  • SpermBank
  • WellHungForFun
  • Youlllovemy
  • NiceGuyButNot
  • Longrider888

I Think the only thing I have to offer is MY MONEY 

  • SugarDaddy
  • Richboy
  • Ferrari, Lexxus, Porsche, Benz
  • HighRoller
  • BigPlayer
  • $$$$

I’m a Sensitive guy – these made my skin crawl more than any other category

  • Cuddles
  • Snuggles
  • Sweet4U
  • SensitiveLover
  • Sweetboy
  • Gentle
  • Lover, Loves, Lovey
  • Friendly
  • Huggs, Huggable, Hugger
  • Kisser, Kisses, Kissy
  • Lonely
  • Honorable Mentions
  • GentleLover4U
  • Mr.Cuddles
  • SnuggleBearLover
  • Soft_N_Gentle

The following are subcategories that depending on the woman could work.  After all, we are all quite different and if a woman specifically seeks a squirrel loving guy who is into BDSM and has a foot fetish – A name like SquirrelDomFootLuv – might be just the thing.  If you are into kinky and this is what you are looking for, by all means don’t hide it.  It’s always better to NOT surprise a potential partner

I’m Kinky or a have a Fetish

  • BDSM
  • Kinky, Kink,
  • Slave, Master, Slavery
  • Submissive, Sub, Dom, Dominant
  • Beat Me, Wimpy, Wimpee
  • LoveFeet, LoveBig, LoveCurves, TallChaser
  • Fisty – Couldn’t make that one up
  • Honorable Mentions
  • SlaveMasterDomme69
  • Mr.Wimppee
  • McFisty
  • WhipMeGuy4U
  • SlapSlaveAssMan

Spiritual – Again these would repulse me, but if you are a mystical sort seeking a similar type of gal, they could be perfect

  • Soul, Soulmate
  • Peaceful, Peace
  • Spirit, Spirit Guide, Searcher
  • Hippie
  • Mystical
  • Seeker, Visionary, Visions,
  • Dreamer, Dream,
  • SunGod, Goddess Seeker,
  • Healer
  • Evolved

Alternative Lifestyle Names – Again for the right girl, these could be just the thing

  • Vegan – probably the #1 I see in theis category.  I get it, as they are probably seeking another vegan.
  • Veggie, Veg
  • Yoga
  • Meditate

I might be Dangerous!

  • Rebel
  • Rogue
  • NoRules
  • Fire
  • Danger
  • Animal
  • Pirate
  • Spicy
  • HarleyMan888
  • Untamed
  • Maverick

Proud to be me

  • Geek, Geeky
  • Nerdy
  • Treker
  • Trekie
  • Robot
  • Gamer

The Classics – These are total cliches.  They aren’t terrible, just massively overused.

  • Guy4U, Guy4Ya, YourGuy
  • Mr.RightNow
  • PrinceCharming, Knight, Prince
  • GreatCatch
  • StopLooking, SearchEndsHere
  • I’mTheOne, TheOne
  • Popeye – I have no idea why this one is popular but I see it a lot
  • NormalGuy, GuyNextDoor, FavoriteGuy, Regular, Average
  • Smiler, Smiles, Smile
  • Boy, Boyz,
  • Johnny or Joe – both extremely popular
  • Happy, Nice, Fun
  • MacGyver – A LOT of guys make variations on that joke
  • Honorable Mentions
  • AllUNeedIsMe
  • AverageJoe4U
  • FoundIt
  • DoneSearching

Animals – Used a lot, not sure why.  

  • Ram
  • Tiger
  • Phoenix
  • Dog or Dawg
  • Monkey – extremely common – I have no idea why names like MonkeySmiler would help a guy out, but to each his own.

Inexplicable names – I have no idea what they were thinking…honestly I don’t.  These are all real names, I’m not kidding.

  • TurtleLover
  • SquirrelBoy
  • Beeswax
  • FrankenChicken
  • BreadPudding
  • BloodDonor
  • PumpkinHeart
  • Mudrunner – Could mean you’re into off-roading, but a woman probably won’t get the reference – this one is iffy.
  • Plopgasm
  • PappyAss – Personal favorite, as what the hell does it mean?  And how would it attract women?
  • MarriednDating

Boring Names – Include things like

  • Occupation
  • Hobby
  • Location – NY, SF, ATL
  • Age – 1973, 1984, 1968

I usually get attracted to a photo, and then I read the profile.  Those are the two things that grab me, a boring name will NOT turn me off.  My own name on the site is fairly boring.  However a super cheesy, overly sexual, creepy, cuddly name could hurt you.  So when in doubt just call your self NYCGuySohoDentist – You’ll probably get more email!

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The Pro-Life Fringe: Where Todd Akin gets his insane ideas.

, member of the United States House of Represe...

, member of the United States House of Representatives. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have had several requests from my regulars to blog about Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin‘s remarks about rape.

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,”  “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

As soon as he uttered those words, the firestorm of backlash was overwhelming.  People were shocked that anyone would believe such things about pregnancy and rape, sadly it was not the first time I have heard such theories.   My devoutly Catholic parents dragged myself and my three siblings to multiple pro-life marches and protests throughout our childhood.  I was often singled out at these protests because I was born in 1973, the same year that the Roe vs. Wade case made abortion legal in all 50 states.   So when I heard Akin’s uniformed rants I knew where I could find the source of this misinformation.  One of the loudest voices in the anti-abortion movement is Dr. Jack C. Willke, a one time surrogate to presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the former president of the US National Right to Life Committee.   Willke and his wife are authors of  “Why Can’t We Love Them Both: Questions and Answers About Abortion.” first published in 1971.

The following is a direct quote from an article in the LA Times

It’s  ”just downright unusual” for a woman to get pregnant from a rape, Willke said in an interview Monday. He said studies have shown this to be true, but produced little evidence beyond a few footnotes that cite a handful of decades-old papers. “This goes back 30 and 40 years. When a woman is assaulted and raped, there’s a tremendous amount of emotional upset within her body,” Willke said, adding that this trauma  “can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy.” “No one really knows” how often those emotional effects prevent pregnancy, Willke said, but he estimated that there are just one or two pregnancies for every 1,000 rapes. That contradicts research published in the 1990s in the Journal of American Obstetrics and Gynecology, which found that the occurrence of rape-related pregnancies is 5%. More than 32,000 women experience rape-related pregnancy every year, the research found.  Scientists at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., concluded in 2001 that the rate of rape-related pregnancy is even higher — 6.4%, twice the rate of pregnancy from consensual sex.

I went hunting for more anti-choice propaganda on the internet and what I found mostly was website after website blatantly plagiarizing each other using the exact same language and data most of it misleading and inaccurate.   Here is a quote from one Abortionfacts.com

In a healthy, peaceful marriage, the miscarriage rate ranges up to about 15%. In this case, we have incredible emotional trauma. Her body is upset. Even if she conceives, the miscarriage rate is higher than in a more normal pregnancy. If she loses 20% of 600, there are 450 left. Finally, we must factor in one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that is psychic trauma. Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. To get pregnant and stay pregnant, a woman’s body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain which is easily influenced by emotions. There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one really knows, but this factor certainly cuts the last figure by at least 50%, and probably more, leaving a final figure of 225 women pregnant each year, a number that closely matches the 200 found in clinical studies.

So the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that there are about 32,000 rape-related pregnancies and AbortionFacts.com claims there are around 200.  The numbers aren’t even close, one is an advocacy group intent on ending legal abortion in this country and the other is a peer-reviewed medical journal.   The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology is not a political organization so why would they fabricate the numbers on rape-related pregnancies.  While the pro-life site uses heated language such as “assault” rape and not just rape, as if there is a difference.  Most women are raped by men they know, not strangers on the street or intruders to their home.  According to Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN) approx. 2/3 of victims knew their attackers before the rape, 80% of rapes occur to women under the age of 30 and 44% are victims under age 18.  Simply put most of the victims of rape are in the prime of their reproductive years.  Human beings are designed to get pregnant, even though a woman is fertile for only about three days a month, sperm can stay alive inside a woman’s body for up to five days there by increasing the likelihood of pregnancy.  The anti-choice groups also like to point out that in some rapes the male attacker does not ejaculate inside of his victim.  Pregnancy can still occur from the amount of sperm found in per-ejaculate fluid.   It is also widely known that rape is a highly under-reported crime due to added stigma and shame towards the victim.  So no one really knows how many pregnancies are the result of rape, and we probably never will.  Then there is the issue of a rapist demanding custody and visitation of his victim’s baby.  In 31 states, a rapist  can sue for custody and visitation just like any other father.

In a way though Todd Akin did the pro-choice movement a favor, by pointing out how extreme the pro-life movement really is towards women.  From their perspective even a teenager who is raped and impregnated by her stepfather should go ahead and have that child and maybe even raise it.  So what if her life is ruined and she may have to stay under the same roof as her abuser who might go on to abuse her child as well.  Who cares if she is a minor and has few legal rights to rectify her situation, she should just accept her fate and become even more powerless and dependent towards her rapist.  Ethical dilemmas like these are exactly what caused me to go from the pro-life position of my youth to the staunch pro-choice position I hold today.  I just can’t help but think of worst case scenarios, such as rape victims, incest survivors, abused women, and women with extreme medical complications.  It is not for the government to make these decisions but should be a private matter between a woman and her doctor.

One ethical question I always love asking a staunch pro-life supporter is the following.

If you passed by a burning building and heard a baby crying, you run in to find a baby sitting right next to a container holding 50,000 frozen embryos and you can’t carry both out to safety.  Which one do you pick up and run out of the building the crying infant or the heavy container?  Most rational human beings would choose the baby although I guess there are some that might let the living baby burn to death to save the frozen embryos.

I can’t help but see this analogy played out on a daily basis while so many babies and children starve and suffer throughout the world, where are the pro-life advocates crying out for their well-being?  Where are the pro-life advocates rushing to adopt unwanted children?  If every child could find a home why are there so many in our foster care system?  Why are there millions of children who die every year of hunger, disease and poverty?  There are some in the pro-life movement that might adopt a child from foster care, or become active in children’s charities but you don’t see much of this sentiment on their websites.

And even my mother the same devoutly Catholic woman who raised and took me to those pro-life rallies found Todd Akin’s comments repulsive.  I guess since my mother had four children in the span of five years she knows how easy it is to get pregnant so she wasn’t buying his theory that a woman’s body has a way of “shutting things down”.  Even though my mother is staunchly pro-life, she does believe in an exception for rape and incest, and for any case where the life of the mother is in danger.   Unfortunately for Mr. Akin my mother lives in the state of Missouri and he definitely won’t get her vote.  Abortion is a hot button issue for many Americans, but if the pro-life side wants to be taken seriously they should stop spreading misinformation and lies.  If you have to lie to get your point across there is something seriously wrong with your message.

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The Birth Control Debate and Religious Freedom – Faulty Logic

Birth control pill

Birth control pill (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Catholic church has already spent upwards of $2 billion on child sex abuse scandals so I guess spending money on lawyers for this is nothing new for them.  I read an article yesterday about how some Catholic institutions are suing the Obama administration over the proposed birth control mandate.  As it stands, religious organizations will get exemption that requires health insurances companies to pay for birth control so religious organizations do not have to pay for it directly.  Health insurance companies are not against this, as birth control is more cost-effective than pregnancies.  Birth control is also cheaper than a ruptured ovarian cyst or other complicated medical problem that hormonal birth control is sometimes used to treat.

The thought of my grandmother and other relatives giving money every Sunday to their local Catholic parishes to pay for lawsuits like these, when there are poor and needy people in their local communities is baffling to me.  Not to mention that although there were primitive forms of nearly every type of birth control except hormonal during the time of Christ, it is never mentioned in the bible.  Even though the bible includes restrictions on diet, clothing, worship, and nearly every aspect of life including restrictions on masturbation and sterilization yet female birth control and abortion are not even addressed.

Religious organizations, such as the Catholic church cry foul claiming that this mandate will force them to endorse lifestyle choices that they believe are morally wrong.   The current position of the Catholic church is that all forms of artificial birth control are sinful as are many fertility treatments including IVF.  And of course they are staunchly against abortion the only exception being if a pregnancy puts the life of the mother in jeopardy.

That being said, what are they getting so worked up about?  I fail to see their logic.  The vast majority of American women are already using some form of artificial birth control.  A recent report by the Guttmacher Institute found that up to 98% of American women have used artificial means of birth control including nearly 98% of Catholic women.  Currently a woman can purchase birth control with nothing more but a prescription from her doctor.  She can do this if she works for a Catholic employer, institution or hospital.  She simply has to pay for the medication out-of-pocket.   Many other forms of birth control are available over the counter at a drugstore, without insurance, the cost being burdened by the individual with no health insurance, or employers involved.

So again what is their point?  If the Catholic church doesn’t have to pay for birth control directly, and the women in question are already using birth control, are they just upset that someone other than the woman using the birth control is paying for it.  Because that is the only real difference here.  No one is forcing anyone to use birth control.  And the Catholic church is not paying for it directly.   Women will still use birth control whether the Catholic church likes it or not.  I guess the church just doesn’t want a health insurance company to pay for it.   If birth control was currently only used by a fraction of women, and this new mandate would cause an explosion in its use I might see their point.  But now nearly every American woman uses birth control of some kind, so the mandate only shifts the costs to either an employer or in the case of religious organizations the insurer.  98% of women is nearly all women, so there will be absolutely no change in behavior.

Any woman who is a devout Catholic can still reject any form of artificial birth control and try her luck with natural family planning.  Natural family planning has a much higher failure rate than hormonal birth control and it limits the days a couple can every sex every month.  But it is every woman’s decision to make that choice, this mandate does not change that basic truth.

The only thing that changes with the proposed mandate is who pays for the birth control, not who is using birth control.  An employer does not have the right to force its employees to not use certain medical devices, treatments or prescriptions because the employer doesn’t morally agree with the moral ramifications of those choices.  Religious institutions should not trump the basic rights of anyone including their employees.  Would this even be an issue if the Catholic church was declaring that any medical treatments that might help a woman become pregnant should also not be covered.  After all, most fertility treatments, at least any that fertilize an egg outside of a woman’s uterus are strictly forbidden by the Catholic church.   For the past three decades fifteen states have enacted laws that require at least some insurance coverage for infertility treatments.    Interesting how the Catholic church wasn’t making a fuss over state mandated fertility treatments, but they act as if birth control is a matter of religious freedom.

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Why I am No Longer a Catholic

My family’s Catholic faith dominated every aspect of my childhood.  My mother was so devoted she would drag her four children to holidays that were no longer Holy days of obligation after the reforms of Vatican II.  My favorite obscure Catholic holiday was the holy day of St. Blaise.  We would kneel before the priest as he crossed two unlit candles across our throats and chanted away in Latin.  Saint Blaise was the patron saint of throat ailments.  This ritual was meant to ward off disease, yet we got strep throat every year immediately after this ordeal.   Because it was no longer a Holy day of obligation and it didn’t improve our throat health, there was no reason to attend this mass yet we went, year after year, without fail.

My mother would also drive us to Catholic shrines and Holy relics all over Missouri and Southern Illinois.   We once visited a statue that was on route across the country.  It was making a stop in St. Louis at Lambert International airport, and for whatever reason could not leave the airport.  A tiny group of the truly devoted from my parish went down to Lambert to gaze at yet another statue of the Virgin Mary still half-encased in its shipping crate.  According to its legend the statue had cried once, it didn’t cry that day as we huddled around it, no matter how much we prayed for tears.

Catholics love statues. Special anointed statuary traveled from home to home to multiple families in our parish.  We had statuary in our front yard, we had crucifixes in every room, and at the top of our stairs was a full color bust of Jesus complete with bloody thorns piercing his head.  As a child this confused me as there was clearly a “Thou shall not worship graven images” commandment.  My parents explained that we weren’t worshiping the statue, but the saint the statue represented.  But it confused me because we would go to visit statues that had cried, and bled, so what were we worshiping again?  The saint or the magical statue?

My entire family attended mass every Sunday without fail.  We also went to nearly every parish function, carnival and fundraiser.   Catholics love to gamble, at least in the form of Bingo, and I was an expert bingo player by the time I was five.  At night just as we were tying to fall asleep we could hear our parents chant the rosary.  Their voices muttering the same prayers repeatedly with great speed, trying to get it through the prayer cycle as quickly as possible.  My parents strictly enforced the restrictions of lent, and no one never would even dream of eating anything but fish on Fridays.

My parents gave us illustrated books of the saints complete with more blood, gore and self-inflicted torture that a child could hope for.  I knew by the age of six or seven that St. Peter requested he be crucified upside down, that St. Sebastian’s body became riddled with arrows yet he miraculously survived, and how Saint Lawrence’s tormentors roasted him alive on a grid iron.   Many of the female saints would now be considered sufferers of anorexia, and other forms of cutting or self-mutilation.  In the Catholic tradition this self-inflicted torture was not questioned or a cause of concern, but held up as example of divine holiness.

A memorable story, was of St. Maria Goretti.  The brutal tale repeated throughout my childhood, was a cautionary tale for young girls.  St. Maria was 12 years old when faced with a rapist armed with a 10 inch blade.  She refused him sexually and he stabbed her fourteen times because she wouldn’t submit to him.  On her deathbed she forgave her attacker.   He went on to become a lay-brother who worked in a monastery while her action of forgiveness was held up as a shining example of purity and devotion.  All I got from it was that it was better that she was fatally stabbed than raped.   I didn’t think any 12-year-old would invite a rape by a 20-year-old man.  And did the poor girl have a choice?  Wouldn’t he have just stabbed her anyway?  Most children, Catholic or not, would have reacted as Maria had.  I didn’t think a pagan child would exactly welcome forcible sexual violence.  Or was the lesson – when in doubt remain a virgin for God even if it means your life or your virginity?  It seemed like a lot to swallow for a story intended for children.

Then there were the pro-life rallies.  As I was born in 1973, the same year as Roe vs. Wade my class and everyone younger than myself were known as the children of ’73.  The priest would actually group us together and then speak of how all of us had narrowly escaped death in the womb.  In my case it was a bit absurd as I my mother was seven months pregnant when Roe v. Wade became law.   My mother, always a bit morbid, liked to remind me that during my pregnancy, her non-Catholic friends told since she already had a boy and a girl and times were hard, that she should throw herself down the staircase and induce a miscarriage.  My mother would reassure me that the thought had never occur to her.  Funny though how she felt the need to tell me that story, and tell it to me more than once.  At the rallies bloodied images of aborted fetuses were everywhere.  The most startling image was of a baby doll spray painted red, rammed through a pitchfork held high above the frenzied crowd.   My first rally, I must have been around three or four, marching along with my fellow children of ’73 to raise awareness of the abomination.

Then there was my Catholic school.  The building itself was depressing enough with cracked linoleum floors, poor lighting and mismatched desks.  Every detail of Sacred Heart Elementary was beige or gray.   The hallways were lit by two huge opaque skylights that on cloudy days let little light in, blanketing the entire school in darkness. Coats and playground equipment were housed behind a cinder-block wall in the back of each classroom.  The coats thrown on hooks and our only playground equipment: two red rubber balls and two half-rotted smelly jump ropes, were kept in a over-sized metal trash can.  Once behind the wall there was essentially no light so occasionally children would push and fight among the coats.  Hazing and bullying was also rampant.  Our playground was the parking lot, not even a swing set was available for the first graders.  When we would watch film strips the screen was the window screen complete with holes and stains that would obscure the picture.  The bathrooms hadn’t been renovated since the 1950’s the stalls were all dark wood, and only the girls bathroom had stalls.  The boys bathroom had one long urinal in which everyone would relive themselves at the same time.  One particular priest who would run up and quickly whip his penis out to urinate in full view of the boys some as young as age six.  This same priest was accused and later convicted of child sex abuse.  Yet when my brother complained of this behavior his complaints were not given any credence.

There were no rules it seemed against physical abuse against students with, teachers mildly shoving kids against the wall, rulers slapped on desks, and of course the yard stick that hung prominently behind the desk of our pastor who also our principal.  Directly behind his chair there was a yard stick and a large paddle.  The stories of beatings by both implements of corporal punishment were epic.  The wild tales mostly involved transgressions by boys.  I don’t know how many of these stories were true, or pure fiction, but when we transferred to public school the idea of a teacher or principal hitting a student was unheard of, no one even joked about it.

The girls also had to endure a daily uniform check.  The teachers forced each girl to stand up and lift her skirt in front of the class, if her shorts were not the uniform issued maroon polyester her parents received a letter.  This practice went on until one six-year-old had a breakdown during the hideous ordeal.  It was abruptly stopped after her parents complained.  To further terrify us, it was standard practice that at any time during the class, our pastor, with his paddle and yard stick, would listen in on any classroom via the intercom.  The teachers literally put the fear of the omniscient God or voice of God in the form of our principal watching and waiting for the slightest slip up.

When I was in the fourth grade, my family finally debated removing us from the school.   My younger brother suffered from a learning disability and his teacher’s solution was to shove him in the hallway.   For most of the school day he sat in a desk by himself with nothing to do and no one teaching him.  His cruel and inept teacher had given up, and this was her preferred method of dealing with her problem student.   My mother fought to the point of complete exhaustion to get some extra help for my younger brother and eventually gave up and put us all in public school.

I was once publicly humiliated because I threw away an apple my mother put in my lunch.  The fact that I had braces on my teeth and I wasn’t supposed to eat apples had no baring whatsoever.  My pastor  interrupted and summoned my entire class to the parking lot while a large trash can was drug from the church basement.  As they stood in a large circle they watched as I hunted through the tossed away lunches and half empty milk cartons to find my discarded apple.  Once I found it, covered in garbage and slime, the pastor forced me to eat it before the assembled crowd.  As I stood there humiliated and ashamed I cried uncontrollably while my gums and mouth bled from the torturous ordeal.

When I told my mother about the incident when I got home, she sided with the priest.  To make my situation even worse she would still absent mindlessly give me apples in my lunch.  I became a skilled master at throwing them away before I made it to the lunch room.  Luckily by the end that school year we transferred to public school where no one cared what we ate or didn’t eat.

Then there was the incident during a mass when I was 12 years old.   Our new pastor became bent on building projects, including adding another very expensive statue.  Since my parish was in a poor community the projects could not be built without massive fundraising campaigns.  Every week the sermons focused on nothing else money.   I grew increasingly annoyed by these constant pleas, my frustrations peaked when a deacon delivered an anti-protestant and antisemitic joke involving a “cheap Jew”.  I walked out immediately after the comment and refused to go back.

All of these things disillusioned me  long before I learned of the pedophile in my parish and the pedophile in the neighboring parish, and the life destroying court trials that accompanied the abuse.  Eventually I also discovered the dark history of the Catholic church: indulgences, forced conversions, harassment and assassinations of scientists, the crusades, the inquisitions, the hundred years war, the suppression of women, and the suppression of knowledge, the fear and distrust of human sexuality and widespread antisemitism, and the long line of corrupt popes, cardinals, bishops, monks and priests.

The modern church with its pope, regarded as infallible in regards to church doctrine, who preaches against condom use in AIDS riddled Africa, denounces birth control in over populated impoverished nations as well playing an instrumental role in the cover-up of child abusing priests.  According to Catholic doctrine it is better that six baptized children die before the age of five, that it is to have two children live and thrive into adulthood.   It is not about the quality of human life, but the number of Catholic souls.

The most disturbing quality of my Catholic upbringing was the suppression of free thought and questioning authority.  Priests were held up as being above mortal humans with shortcomings and frailties   After all every Sunday they turned ordinary bread and wine into the spiritual body and blood of Christ.  They were also the only ones who could absolve sins through the sacrament of confession and could even exorcise demons from the damned.  This mentality is exactly why the church was able to cover-up the child sex abuse for as long as it did.  Parents of the victims would think nothing of leaving their children alone and unprotected with a celibate adult male, as they were after all magical spiritual men of the cloth.

The saddest part for me of losing my faith, is that in my youth, I was a believer.  I would pray to the Virgin nightly as the images of a bloodied half-naked Jesus always terrified me.   The sweet face of Mary in her gilded blue robes and her arms outstretched while crushing a serpent beneath her feet gave me solace.  She was my hero, my sweet face in the evening to look up to and to put my life’s prayers and fears into her never-ending loving face.  I would have dreams of her hovering over my bed with light pouring from her eyes telling me everything was good and that I had nothing to fear.  The fighting in my household would stop, the Russians wouldn’t nuke us to oblivion and that one day I would be able to get out of that tiny bedroom and sleep on a bed on which I couldn’t feel springs through the mattress.   I was so proud at my first communion at age 7 when I held my beautiful shiny statue of Mary that I picked out myself at Catholic supply.

The only peace I get now from Catholicism is the music inside the great old churches.  Some of the greatest composers wrote almost exclusively for it.  The music that would fill the church was magical and still leaves me teary and nostalgic for the dream that imprinted in my mind at such a young age.  Huge choirs singing at their fullest and enormous pipe organs playing such beautiful melodies that I could feel them in my bones.

I just can’t forgive the church for its many sins.  The Catholic church hasn’t learned from its mistakes, nuns are now forced to beg for donations for their retirement while abusing priests have attorneys defending their cases paid for by the Vatican.  I can’t stand the hypocrisy.  I can’t stand the dumb blind belief in anything that is not provable.  I don’t believe that telling my sins to a corrupt priest will cleanse my soul, or that chanting verses repeatedly will save me from the fiery depths of hell.  I don’t believe in hell and I don’t believe in heaven either.  I don’t believe in any one being holier than anyone else.   Or in any religion being one true path.  I believe we are human, and we are the smartest animals on earth, but like any animal we have traits and habits that are predictable and we are all very flawed and primal when exposed to the right stimulus and environments.  I also believe that we are both angels and animals.   Capable of great art, music, compassion and kindness but also of great terrors and base instincts.   So despite all of those trips to visit statues, the lovely songs, and dramatic stories the corruption and abuse was too much for me to stomach.  I have met priests that I admire, and Catholics that I truly love deeply within my heart, but I gave up on the institution long ago.

I am not here to tell anyone how to live or what to believe.  If you love the Catholic church and you think it does beautiful things through charity and the spiritual life for its believers, then its your right.  If the church brings you a sense of peace and love, then by all means worship as you see fit.  But it is also my right to reject that faith, and reject it openly.

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