Life is so lonely it hurts to stand still.

Sick of the emptieness inside.

Everything is going downhill.

My soul cannot abide.

How cruel is it to know someone else's love.

Left empty-handed alone in ways undreamed of.

No hopes or dreams of finding another.

Force will not provide a beloved.

So a week from now I have a christian retreat. Not just a 4-6 hour retreat at school I have once a year, but a big retreat for seniors that last ten hours: 8-6 at some church by my school. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to pass the time or topics to bring up with the priest. I'll probably end up buying and wearing a shirt from DoubleDoh! and maybe i'll rip into him a bit if he mentions any mythological characters. Perhaps I'll read letter to a christian nation when I get bored. It's just a thought.

Hey! Yes, Im deff new to this site. =D lol...HI EVERY ONE!!!

I'm new to the site and I just thought I'd say hi. So far this site rocks....I guess its just because I'm always feeling that I don't belong and I know I'm not the only one who is atheist. Its just BS that my professors look at me differently because I'm not one of the "common religions" that dominate our society today. I feel that it is completely wrong to discriminate against those who have different views than the rest of the world. And the I suppor the war on christmas shirts...they're f'n awesome!!

Jaleesa

Love is dead. Impersonation of what love was once was, if anything. Prove me wrong. I'll take the arguments as they come.

So someone I know posted this as a note on Facebook today, and I felt it worthy of a rant. (Format edited for improved readability!)

"Love vs. Sexby Joe Garry (notes) 10:28pm Wednesday, Oct 11
A teenage girl about 17 had gone to visit some friends one evening and time passed quickly as each shared their various experiences of the past year. She ended up staying longer than planned, and had to walk home alone. She wasn't afraid because it was a small town and she lived only a few blocks away.
As she walked along under the tall elm trees, Diane asked God to keep her safe from harm and danger. When she reached the alley, which was a short cut to her house, she decided to take it. However, halfway down the alley she noticed a man standing at the end as though he were waiting for her.

A girl cuts her skin to feel alive, while another cries her eyes out when her boyfriend finally confesses to never loving her. A guy is broken-hearted when he learns his girlfriend has been cheating on him, another guy hangs himself because he has no one. A girl forces herself to throw up to feel a sense of control, while another does cocaine for the same reason... And these are supposed to be the best years of our lives?

Stop right there, that’s exactly where i lost it
see that line, well i never should have crossed it
stop right there, where i never should have said
this very moment i wish i could take back

personally i think this song is an amazing peice of lyrical work and that it applys to so many people originally written by John Lennon and more recently heard on the eMotive CD by A Perfect Circle here are the lyrics for Imagine:
[b]"Imagine"[/b]

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,

I have found myself wondering how people can be catholic after all the damage that the catholic religion has done. How do people follow with such blind devotion a group that has plenty of past corrupted leaders, a treacherous past, and such irrational beliefs. The church itself has to be full of people who either don't understand the religion to its fullest or are just plain ignorant, perhaps even arrogant.

The church has been known throughout history to have a wealth of issues involving keeping celibacy. Multiple popes have been known to sneak off and have intercourse with some nun or other female. They have also been known to go off and torture people. Even give orders to kill someone because the do not agree with the church!! The first pope ever, the churches beloved Saint Peter. The one they all cherish. He himself was in my opinion the worst. Not many people are fully aware of what happened with him. They just know he was the first pope and decide to accept him as holy. He is the only apostle to ever been called "Satan" by Jesus, and the only apostle EVER, to deny even knowing Jesus, UNDER OATH while he was being judged by the Sanhedrin. He was the only one to abandon Christ at Calvary. He would fit perfectly under the term of traitor. According to Dante's inferno he would go to the ninth dimension of hell. Where Satan himself tortures them. But of course, he ended up being a pope. The first pope and the most revered pope. Where is the sense in that? That is the equivalent of making me pope. "Christ promised that he'd protect His Church and the Pope from officially teaching error. He did not guaranty us that the Church would be never be ruled by corrupt men. "(Matt.16:19, 23). Even so, even if that is true, they still taught error. The corruption of the bad popes, eventually went down the chain, and the priests are corrupted also. There have been multiple claims, and multiple cases against perverted priests who have done sexual acts with young students, even older people. Nuns have been known to be involved also. The church is a horribly corrupt group of men.

I'm Becca. Always as a kid I grew up in just about every place except a church. I was a kid in a plain jane family just like many other people, I just didn't go to church. God never appealed to me. And now that I have grown to be older and more mature, the thought of a character having power over me is not too thrilling. Some people strive for a relationship with God and sure, that's cool, doesn't effect me. I just have always chose to live my life in a different light. Instead of living for God, I live for others and myself. I sometimes think that christians miss out on a lot of life because they spend so much of it asking for forgiveness for their sins and trying to please this imaginary man.

Im caught up in:

COMMERCE

In a world that trades currency that is of perceived worth , not actual value, a world were wealth is retained in “banks” , “holes in the walls” and distributed electronically for countless miles yet it hardly travels a breath when the idea of worth seeps longer down into this, our “sacred“ inheritance , the one we don’t question as to why?

In a world where the distinction between the “ethics” of business and entrepreneurialism are cut so thin in reality it is a choice of words that distinguish the difference of both to the common man.

Yet isn’t it entrepreneurial to prey on the weak? And financially ruin a man who is the same as any other man just down on his luck ina system of what once was a great system of knowledge, and that grew wealthy through all it shared, and we mammals are president to the evidence of that today, but nowadays instead of that we have in place a system of hierarchy and retained knowledge…

wtf is a lable really? jus a reason not to like sum1? STOP LABLES THEY EFFIN SUCK! IM ME N ONLI ME!!! i act like my own unique person...so leave me the hell alone!! n dont call me emo or country or skater or w.e

As most others who share my beliefs, I've often been asked why I am that way. I officially labeled myself as an atheist when I was 11 years old. I've also been asked how I was so sure at such a young age.
Since I was 6 years old until I was 11, I've been in and out of the foster care system. Before then, I was never formally introduced to the idea of religion. My mom considered herself pagan, and I hadnt met my dad. I remember the very first weekend I arrived at the home, me and my little sister were brought to a big church to "ask god into our hearts". I was asked to go up front and pray. I never fully understood what was going on, but they made it sound like it was good thing to be doing this.

I respect dresscode rules. I think that they are slightly necessary because frankly, I really don't want to see a bigger girl in next to nothing (though for them it usually isn't enforced. Which is sad to see them degrade themselves in such a way.) However, when I wear a shirt that doesn't violate the dresscode in any way, I don't appreciate it when some teacher tells me to change my shirt simply because he doesn't like it. "The First Amendment guarantees many things, it doesn't guarantee that you won't be offended." I forget who said that but whomever did, thank you. I feel like my rights are being squashed simply because some jerk of a teacher (and that is me being polite about him) doesn't like it or me for that matter. Personally, if I didn't like what someone was wearing and it wasn't violating anything in the dresscode, I wouldn't let it get to me. Perhaps this seems small but it bothered me for awhile so I thought that I would write it down.

I put this on my myspace page.. and im still getting shit about it (people asking my why im athiest) i mean, seriously if you dont get why from this, then i dont know how else to explain it, ... so any advice as to how i can make people who dont get the hole athiest thing would be REALLY helpful?

Although I don't think it is fair or even right that i have to defend my role as an atheist, people keep bothering me about it, so here you go...
The Reasons why
To be atheist is being free from religion and superstition...it is to live free of the confines of having to have faith - that is a belief in something for which there is no evidence.