Part of this was cross-posted to the Wobblies community, because someone was mentioning recruiting red-staters to become liberal, kind of in the fashion that Evangelists recruit people successfully. So I shared my story about some people I find particularly vulnerable. I remember this one guy I talked to on IM had an ex-girlfriend who had a weird Mormon fetish. He said he thought it was their innocence and vulnerability. Exactly my point.

True story: At a bus stop in Berkeley, CA (where I'm from), I noticed a few young men dressed in beige suits and ties, and thought they stood out more than anyone else on the street. One of them approached me, probably because I was wearing a Celtic Cross at the time, and I think they try to get Christians. He asked, "Have you heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?" and I said, "Yeah, Mormons, right?" Then I went on to talk about how I'm fascinated with religion, and love to learn about all kinds, and said I'd love to read the Book of Mormon some time. I said that at my church (the Unitarian Universalist Church), in our youth group, we get to study all different beliefs and religions, to find out which ones are best for us.

I love to post my messages and emails to other people, because most of my writing talent comes out in my letters. Just kidding. I hope. Anyway, as an OKCupid freak, I take a lot of tests, and I am especially attracted to the ones with spiritual or political content. So it turns out that the questions on the test seem to assume that you believe in a very Christian or at least organized religion god, which irritated me. So, in response, I wrote this irritating, knit-picking email that is so respectful and politically correct that it makes it even MORE annoying. I'm just so cool.

1. Do you believe that God is a force or a being?
I believe that what some may call god is actually the relationship between everything in existence, or what I call the interconnected web of existence. This mostly comes from what I've read about quantum physics, although it is a very animistic belief. Therefore, god is ALL beings, and ALL forces. So I cannot choose outright.

3. Do you have a personal relationship with God?
Since I am part of god, and so is everything else, it is impossible not to have a personal relationship with god. But it is not me relating to one other entity, it is me relating to myself and everything in existence.

5. God's existence is revealed by many of the mysterious things that occur in life (such as miracles, holes in scientific theories, and so on).
God's existence is revealed by everything mysterious and non-mysterious that occurs in life.

7. The world was obviously designed, because evolution is a flawed theory.
The world was obviously designed, because evolution is a great and well-proven theory.

9. Religion explains the things that our senses cannot.
I am not religious; therefore, I don't believe religion explains anything except why there's so much corruption in the world. However, some of my spiritual beliefs explain things that our senses cannot, as well as things that our senses can.

As you can see, I don't think that science and spirituality are mutually exclusive; quite the opposite. I believe they both strengthen each other. The theory of the Big Bang was first thought up of by a priest, who was trying to bridge the scientific and religious questions of how the universe began. Unfortunately, we see a lot of Christians, as well as others, knocking the Big Bang theory to prove themselves right, when in fact the Big Bang DOES prove them right.

Peace,

“So you think you can tell…heaven from hell, blue skies from pain.”

“Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?”

A veritable blend of all the pantheons and perhaps a dash of a few other religions as well, you're the versitile Ecclectic Pagan. You have no problem wearing an ankh while setting an offering to Herne on your alter just below your image of Hera. You don't believe in coloring within the lines, and are a bright free-thinker. While you respect the views of your fellow pagans, as far as you're concerned, religion is the sky, and there's no one about to clip your wings with lines and limitations.