what's your spiritual type?

i got this from mara. it's pretty good. i got a 41 from a scale of 25-100 (how does that work?), classifying me as an active spiritual seeker - spiritual but turned off by organized religion.

the possible answers were well thought out. almost every question had an answer that fit my thinking pretty closely. it's so sad, though. there were many answers that just screamed intolerance and righteousness. sai occasionally puts up links in her profile to the latest ridiculous christian goings on, and they are really upsetting. such as the christian science fair that had these ludicrous exhibits... i remember one was something along the lines of: a 2nd grader puts a carrot in a case for 2 weeks. it does not evolve into a potato, therefore evolution is disproved. i'm exaggerating, but it was almost as preposterous.

and there are people that really believe in these teachings with all their being. mary said before that she sometimes can't sleep at night because she thinks the devil is coming to drag her to hell, so she just curls up into a ball and hides under her blanket. people somehow think the passion of the christ means something, when it's just a gruesome torture spectacle. people think it is right to kill the doctors that perform abortions. people believe bush is a good president. i could go on forever.

i have my own firm ideas of what is right and what is wrong. for example, i believe in the death penalty. it just seems impractical to me to house killers at the taxpayers' expense. hell, it seems impractical to kill them with lethal injection when it would be much cheaper to take them to an alley and shoot them. is it china that charges the family for the cost of the bullet?

in high school, nancy would get into debates with people about abortion (other things too, but this one gets me the worst). at parties. with alcohol. they'd get drunk, and start debating about an issue that is rooted in one's soul. no one changes their minds about abortion. it's part of one's most basic belief structure, religious or secular. i could never see the fucking point, and i'd always go downstairs and play ping pong or pool so i wouldn't blow up at her. it was so futile, debating it.

god, marynia, in college, comes in a close second. let's get some wine and some cheese. let's sit around talking politics. let's pretend we're smart fucking shitheads, and not a bunch of pretentious snot-nosed well-off college kids who know nothing about the real world.

i started this post in a much more mellow mood. but yeah, i wish religion was more about the tolerance than the intolerance. devout christians make me angry. it's all right though, as long as they keep letting their children die because they refuse actual medicine (hurrah for christian science), they won't overrun the reasonable-minded people.