Responses:

To Silvanus:  Yes, you’re right, it would be more effective if done under an icier tone.  Much of my poetry is that way.  I may indeed rewrite this, or write an addendum to it, if I feel like putting forth the effort.  As for my attitude towards Christians – I’ll state again that I’m not condemning all Christians.  Just the idiotic, close-minded ones.  I’m not anti-Christian, I’m anti-stupidity.  I promise you that if I ever witness someone of another faith being as condescending, arrogant, and intolerant as the Christians I’ve encountered have been, they will get a rant as well.  But thus far, I’ve only had Christians proselytize at me, tell me I’m going to hell, and be prejudiced against me because of what I believe.

To Raekwon the Kid:  Ditto what I just said to Silvanus.  I know extremists exist of every faith.  But I’ve only had personal contact with Christians.  Next time a Buddhist comes up and lectures me about my sins and the evils of my ways and informs me I’m going to burn for all eternity, I’ll be sure to let you know.

To I tried to write:  You’re a Christian and a Wiccan?  How does that work?  I’m honestly curious – I would think one would exclude the other.  But I don’t profess to know all that much about Wicca.  I think the phrase you’re referring to is “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”  Which is actually inaccurate – up until the King James version of the Bible, the verse was “Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live.”  But King James I was paranoid about witches, and so when he had the Bible updated, he ordered the phrase changed.  As for the Harry Potter thing – I’ve written an essay about that, too.  It’s under “Confessions of a Harry Potter Addict.”  If you’re interested.

To No Trust:  You’re right, I should’ve been more specific.  I wasn’t referring to any specific constitutional rights, but more the basic tenets of human civility.  Which a lot of people ignore most of the time.  And no, I’m not “confusing tolerance and coexistence with acceptance and moral sanction.”  Tolerance means you let us do what we do, and we let you do what you do, and you don’t mouth off about how superior your religion is.  Many Christians I’ve encountered (nota bene, not all Christians, but many I have encountered, I’m not making a generalization about the religion as a whole) tend to have nothing but disrespect for other faiths.  To me, tolerance and respect should go hand in hand.  Am I asking you to believe as I do?  No.  But I’m asking you to respect the fact that I believe as I do.  Too many Christians don’t.  And as for my open-mindedness – it’s not Christianity I have a problem with.  It’s its followers.  (Once again, many of them, not all of them).  I have to disagree with you about the whole “who’s in office” business.  I’ve been a pagan under the Clinton regime and under the Bush regime.  And the fundamentalist Christians have been just as annoying and just as disrespectful the entire time.  And no, I’m not advocating any policy.  I’m not a politician.  I’m terrible with diplomacy and stuff like that.  But that doesn’t alter the fact that there ought to be a societal change – social evolution, really – that would create an environment in which everyone could practice their religion without feeling discriminated against.  That’s what we’ve got in theory in this country, but in practice… hardly.

To Unfinished Author:  is a satire site.  Just though you’d like to know.

To C Shot:  Did you even read the essay?  For one thing, I’m not an atheist, I’m a pagan.  For another, I believe I stated that I wasn’t condemning all Christians as having this condescending attitude.  Though it is true that Christianity as a whole is pandered to in this country, not all Christians are fundamentalists like the ones I rail against.  And no, my father wasn’t an atheist.  He’s a god-fearing, Church-going Methodist.  And my mum’s what I like to call a perfect Christian – she doesn’t necessarily put stock in the religion, but she believes in acting like Christ.  You know – loving your neighbor, sharing wealth with those less fortunate, just basically being a good person, regardless of dogma or worship services.  Yes, I’ve looked at the Christian faith.  I was baptized as an infant and again when I was eleven.  I was a Methodist until I was twelve.  I was then agnostic for four years before I found a faith that suited me better.  And as for the extremely mature “FUCK YOU” that you put in the end of your review… darling, I don’t make a habit of copulating with mindless drones who can’t think for themselves, much less form coherent sentences.

To French Pony:  Actually, I have no personal problem with the displaying of Christmas trees every year.  The Christians stole that tradition from the pagans.  Actually, they stole most of their holidays from the pagans, but that’s a rant for another day.  But the tradition of decorating a tree definitely belonged to Yule (winter solstice, for the unfamiliar) before it belonged to Christmas.  But I can see how other non-Christians could be offended, unless they decided to take it as symbolic of the season and not any religion in particular.

To Alexandra I. Spears:  Blind hatred?  Alright, I can accept that.  I blindly hate people who are willfully stupid and ignorant.  I’m not blindly against Christianity – read more carefully.  I specifically said in that essay how I wasn’t railing against all Christians.  Just the intolerant, stick-up-their-righteous-ass ones.  As for your Catholic argument… up until Henry VIII, there were exactly two kinds of Christianity.  Eastern Orthodox (which had it’s own problems), and Catholicism.  So for the world west of Russia, Catholicism was Christianity for three-fourths of its history.  So that takes care of the Inquisition and the Crusades.  As for the Holocaust, I believe it had the Pope stamp of approval but wasn’t actually conducted by the Church.  I seem to recall some guy called Hitler running most of that one.

To StarofDawn:  First of all, I had the damnedest time figuring out if your review was positive or not.  Rather unclear.  Secondly, see above notes (as well as the paragraph in the essay) about how I’m not painting all Christians with the same brush.

To James Jago:  Nope, they stole them.  Trust me, I’ve done a lot of research into this.  What originally happened was that the Christians couldn’t celebrate their holidays out in the open, so they sort of moved their holidays to when the Romans were having holidays.  Christmas coincided with the Saturnalia, Easter with a bunch of coming-of-spring rites.  This way, the Romans were all too drunk to notice the monotheists celebrating.  Meanwhile, over in northwestern Europe, the Celts were going about their merry business and having their Sabbats, some of which were popular with the Brits and some which were made popular when the Nordic folks came on over, but either way, the Christians didn’t show up there for a few more centuries.  Now, we don’t have very good records of what the Christians did to celebrate their holidays for the first few centuries, because they had to do it in secret.  However, when they got to Britain and brutally subjugated the Celts, they just sort of started adopting the old rituals in an effort to placate the minds of the peasants they were dominating over.  And this habit spread backwards to the rest of Europe.  The Feast of St Lucia in Sweden is almost directly taken from the Sabbat of Imbolg.  I could make the argument that the entire concept of the Christian Easter, what with the son of god really being one with god but being born on earth and then dying and being resurrected in the spring, is stolen from the pagans, but that’s a full-blown essay in of itself (and one I have every intention of writing someday).

To Moonstrike:  1)  This essay was based on the situation in America.  I don’t live anywhere else, therefore I don’t think I’m really qualified to comment on what’s going on there.  And I try (I do not always succeed, but I do try) not to comment on things that are outside my scope of knowledge.  2)  I didn’t say shot or even really harmed – rubber bullets, hoses, the sort of things the police use to keep rabble-rousers under control.  I think they’d be a lot quicker to take such measures against non-Christian protesters than against the Christian ones.  3)  Once again I have stated many times that I am not including all Christians under this canopy.  4)  Darling, that wasn’t a literal statement.  Of course they don’t own this world – but some of them seem to think they do.  5)  They think they’re doing it in the name of religion.  They claim to, regardless of whether or not it’s in the true spirit of that religion.  5b)  (since you misnumbered)  You get branded hypocrites because most Christians are.  Very few live up to the standards set for them in the Bible.  And yeah, I get nervous around people who are hardcore Christians – generally because they usually launch into a speech about how I’m going to hell and they need to bring me back to the light for my own good, because they’re worried about me.  Well, to put it simply, fuck that.  I didn’t ask them to worry about me, and I think they’re pompous and overstuffed when they say things like that.  And why on earth would you be announcing your religion in the shopping center?  Poor analogy.   Finis)  I have to thank you for your sensible tone.  You’re a great deal more palatable than most of those who come after me.

To Agent, call me:  The style of your review reeked of condescension and self-importance.  Come back and talk to me when you can speak in such a way that doesn’t.

To crow08:  I’ll write that essay.  It’s funny how similar some pagan and Christian beliefs are.  The whole resurrected and reborn deity thing – wouldn’t you agree that’s what the Christians worship?  Easter is supposedly their most significant holiday.  And it’s an entirely pagan concept.  When I’ve got the time, I’ll write a full essay to elaborate and prove my point.

To Fallingofftheworld:  Your review was so completely condescending and insulting that I can’t think of much to say to you, except perhaps that people like you make me cry.  Quite honestly just make me weep.  Open your eyes, darling – your kind doesn’t control the world.  But thank you – you proved my point entirely.  I’ll be sure to point to you as a prime example of the self-righteous, arrogant prats that rear their offensive heads so often within the Christian faith.

To Medea3:  That’s interesting about Lincoln.  I hadn’t heard about that speech.  In Jefferson’s defence, though (as I’m a good Virginian and feel I ought to say something on his side), he wanted to free his slaves.  He intended to do so after his death.  He was just so far in debt that his estate couldn’t afford to emancipate them.

To Guesty Type Person:  Thanks.  I’m glad someone got the point I was trying to make, and understood what I was getting at, rather than flying off the handle and only paying attention to the parts of what I said that they wanted to criticize.  And you’re right about the pro/anti thing.  Saying that is as dumb as saying being pro-choice means you’re anti-life.  Thanks for the support!

To  LuvLuvG:  You know I adore you.  You know I think you have good sense, which is one of the highest compliments I give people, especially since it’s a rare virtue on fpc.

To saintchris:  Isn’t that name sacrilegious in some way?  Ah well, no matter.  As you’ll notice, in the essay, I admitted I was using the term “Christians” generically, and took pains to state that I did not mean all Christians.  My readers need to be a little more discerning.  I think too many only read the parts of my essay they want to criticize and ignore the rest.  As for Christians getting pandered to, no, it is not just the vocal minority.  Christianity as a whole is the favored religion of this nation.  That doesn’t mean all individual Christians are guilty of encouraging it, but some still are, and either way it’s a simple fact.  The vocal minority encourage it, but the entire country feels the effects, whether they realize it or not.

To Shadow 3013:  Thank you for your support.  It’s always nice to see people who have the intellectual capacity to understand the point I’m making.  What’s interesting about the “in God we trust” on the coins is that it wasn’t added until the 1950s, same as the “under God” in the pledge of allegiance.  Those things aren’t there for any true religious reason, they’re there because during the Red Scare the conservatives wanted to prove that they were as different from those godless communists as possible, and used religion as propaganda for their cause.  And you’re completely right about everything else as well.  Rock on.

To Musings:  You know, this talk of “falling prey to false doctrines” is sort of what I was talking about with the Christians being so bloody condescending towards other faiths.  I could tear into your doctrine and point out all kinds of fallacies, contradictions, reprehensible mandates, and things that just plain don’t make sense.  But I don’t.  Why?  ‘Cause it’s none of my bloody business what you believe.  And it’s none of your business what I believe.  America’s not going to fall because your god’s left the country; it’s going to fall for the same reason nations always fall.  Greed, power struggles, the eventual development of more powerful foreign forces, internal conflict, et cetera, et cetera.  So many people like you seem to be under the delusion that this is a Christian nation.  Not in the eyes of the law, baby.  Never has been and with any luck never will be.  The whole connection to Israel thing I’m not even going to touch, because I think it’s half-witted right-wing dogma.  As for your hope that I’ll read the Bible and accept your truth of the universe, don’t hold your breath.  I’ve read the Bible.  Large sections of it.  I think it’s a very nice book of mythology, but nothing more.  And if you’d like to know what I think about sin and your acceptance or rejection of it, check out my poem “Trespass Sweetly Urged.”  Your idea of sin is very different from mine.  I live a good life, I don’t steal or lie or cheat, and I’m more morally upright than a great deal of people who claim to be Christians.  And yet I’m a sinner?  Fucking ridiculous.  But at least you can admit to being narrow-minded, though I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than denying it, seeing as you seem to conceive it as a virtue.  As for your god blessing me and keeping me, that’s his own business.  I couldn’t care less.  I’m thoroughly relapsa, darling.  I was one of you once, a good church-going girl who sang in the choir and served as an acolyte.  Until I was about ten years old and realized that none of it made sense, and that the things being preached at me weren’t things I considered true in my heart.  If you do, good for you.  Everyone needs something to cling to.  But your faith does not hold any sort of appeal to me.  So many Christians want to chain the rest of us down to a faith that chokes out our spirit.  It enhances yours; it suffocates mine.  Please, for the love of whatever anyone holds holy, try having a little more respect for the 5 billion people on the planet who don’t think like you do.  This condescension and arrogance is the reason so many people have such a poor view of you and your fellows in the first place.

To Tiffany:  Thank you for your good sense and kind thoughts.  They are, as I’m sure you can see by the other reviews, quite rare.

To Cata Maran:  I think you’ll find I have the nerve to do a great many things someone with less spirit wouldn’t dare.  Now then, I introduced this essay as informal.  Had I not, I could understand your attacks for my not backing up my claims, but since this was a rant and nothing more, and I noted it as such, it’s hard to be wounded by your denunciation.  And mercy heavens, do you honestly believe that writing to my congressperson would do one bit of good?  If you’ve got that much faith in our government… I almost want to cry for you.  It’s touchingly naïve.

To Clark:  ::points one dainty, manicured finger at every other comment she’s made to people who didn’t bother to read that she wasn’t blaming all Christians::  Do try to read the entire essay next time, and not just the parts for which you want to condemn me, won’t you?

To Cerulean Dawn:   As for the statistic: mea culpa.  Last year my religions professor cited the 1 billion thing to me, but his information was apparently out-of-date, or he was rounding in the wrong direction, or something.  I’ve since double-checked that, and you’re right, it is two billion, Heavens help us all. 

It’s not hypocrisy.  Obviously you don’t quite comprehend the meaning of that word, since you’ve misused it.  That woman wants to eradicate all signs of other religions from the face of the earth.  If I said I wanted to do the same, only for my religion, that would be hypocrisy.  But I believe in tolerance and diversity, unlike so many people.  As for the Christians being the most numerous… does that automatically mean they’re right?  Of course not.  Once upon a time, the majority of the people in the western world thought that slavery and witch-burnings were great ideas.  This country was founded on ideals that mean that everyone got equal treatment.  People like Madison wanted to protect less popular viewpoints from the “tyranny of the majority.”  Go check out Federalist #10 for a lark if you’d care to hear more about that.

If you’ll note, I said they would probably get rubber bullets shot at them.  That was my hypothesis; not a conclusion or a cited fact.  And I’m not claiming it any other way.  As for other groups being primarily Christian, that’s because those groups rose out of societies and cultures where Christianity was predominant.  They were also societal or racial minorities, not religious minorities, a fact which I think is rather pertinent.

And I’ll “drop the oppressed act” when certain Christians stop oppressing me.  Good day.

To r o b e e:  Thank you for your support, but careful you don’t lump the entire religion into one group.  If you do that, you’re no better than they are.

To Witty:  Thank you for your insightful and supportive review.  It’s so nice to hear from one of those Christians I try to be careful not to slander – the ones who aren’t trying to convert, belittle, or insult me.  Logically, I know they’re out there, but sometimes I wonder where.  Unfortunately, I think your intolerant counterparts are often more vocal than the Christians like you.  Would that they could all be so open-minded.

You’re also one of the few people who actually understood the point of that rant, which seems to have escaped a lot of my readers, so you get bonus points for intelligence as well.

To fugiguru:  That wasn’t what I intended, but I recognize that the essay wasn’t as clear as it might’ve been.  As I’ve stated before, it was more of a rant than anything, and I don’t make any pretenses of it being very well-written.  It was emotional, and that often doesn’t make for the best composition.

To the third eye:  I find your review quite ironic, really.  And you’ve missed the point.

To kris x:  Never let it be said that I can’t admit when I’m wrong.  I just very rarely am so, I’ve found.  And you are apparently on the list of people who missed my disclaimer about my rant not being directed towards all Christians, just the arrogant, condescending, insulting ones.  My, that list is rather long.  Seems a lot of people need to brush up on their reading skills.

To draganess:  I’m glad you enjoyed the rant.  It’s true that so many of them whinge about being persecuted, but generally – not always, but generally – the ones suffering for their faith are the missionaries and evangelists who have gone to non-Christian countries with the intent to convert.  I’m aware that horrible things happen to Christians, and no one should have to suffer like that, but it isn’t as though they weren’t aware of the danger.  It’s quite different than someone who minds her/his own business and is hunted down, singled out, and persecuted.

To They Call Me Fishst…:  Glad you enjoyed it.  Thank you for your support.

To Arianrod:  Believe me, I know how you feel.  One of my best friend’s father is convinced I’m leading his daughter into hell, just because we happen to share beliefs -- never mind that she converted to paganism before she even met me, her father still blames me.  Of course, he also thinks we’re lesbian lovers, and while there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, I’m also certainly not, and neither is she. 

To Nemomen:  I take a certain amount of pride in searching my own soul on a frequent basis, and I certainly try very, very hard not to commit the same crimes I condemn others for.  I’m not saying I never do – no one’s perfect – but I at least admit that there’s that possibility.  I get angriest at people who can’t even admit that there’s the slightest possibility they might be wrong.  I allow for that.  I’m human, and I’m fallible.  Of course I have to believe that I’m correct, but I’m not saying there isn’t a chance I’m not.

To __ :  It’s not for me to decide who’s a Christian and who isn’t.  Anyone who claims to proscribe to the Christian faith, I will call a Christian.

To Outside the Sqare:  Thank you for your support.  It’s so good to see a Christian who lives up to Christ’s real intentions.  You’ve obviously a great deal more sense than

To GiantRobots:  Did you even read the essay?  I somehow doubt it.  It’s more likely that you saw something that you decided to disagree with, and went off on a rampage.  For one thing, you seem to think I’m an atheist, when the essay makes it rather clear that I’m not.  Your attacks on me are unbiased and frankly laughable.  Prejudiced?  I allow that everyone in this country is free to practice his or her religion as they see fit, but that doesn’t mean they get to integrate it with our government.  If you’d actually read the essay, you’d have realized that pretty well near everything you said about me or the piece was unfounded and incorrect.  I should dearly love to know how anything I said advocated “restricting the culture of others” or was imposing on anyone else.  That’s actually rather exactly the opposite – I don’t think anyone has the right to restrict or impose on another’s faith, and that was the point of the piece.

And you don’t know what Christians they’re talking about?  Open your eyes, my dear.  Go take a look at some of the works over in the religion section.  Many Christians seem to feel that the only way they can express their faith is by disparaging someone else’s.  I don’t understand this, and I think it’s despicable.

As for my use of vulgarity, I admitted at the beginning of the piece that it was a rant and nothing more.  Could I have avoided swearing?  Sure.  But I didn’t feel compelled to, because I wasn’t trying to write a cool-headed, rational, or persuasive essay.  I was blowing off steam.  Please don’t try to convince me you’ve never gotten so angry that only curse words seemed to fit your mood.  (I also find it interesting – and ironic – that you chide me for that, when in your opening sentence you curse as well).  Perhaps you should consider more carefully before you label me as an unexperienced teenager, as I am neither.  So shake your head all you like, darling, but you still seem like nothing more than an angry fool.