I'm not going "home" for Xmas this year, primarily because I fucking hate holiday getogethers and partially because I am simply not up to the meltdown that will come when I refuse to attend Christmas Eve service with everyone.
I was raised in a very religious home. It did little more than convince me that religion was simply a means of populace control back when Rome was the center of the universe. I mean think about it. You got a bunch of uneducated fuckers running amok. What will control them the most, with the least amount of effort? Appeals to their better nature? Common sense? Or a threat of burning in an eternal lake of fire if they don't settle the fuck down? Yes folks, you live in a mud hut and burn cow shit to stay warm and you eat dirt NOW, but if you kiss our asses and pray to our God then you'll go to heaven and get some nifty wings and jam with the angels! Or you can go to hell and fry. Your choice.
But hey whatever, it works for the rest of my family so I'm ok with that. I don't go around proclaiming them all backwards bible thumpers. I think religion is a good thing for a lot of folks. We all need something to believe in. But goddamn would it KILL them to fucking allow me my beliefs?
I got into an argument with my mother once over the river of religious magazines she kept subscribing me to. I said stop sending me this shit. She said, but I think it's a good magazine. Finally I said, fine I can play that game. The next time you subscribe me to Guideposts, or Christianity Today, or ANYTHING even remotely religious, I'm going to subscribe you to Hustler.
The magazines stopped.
The constant badgering to go to services, however, will never cease. My option now is to go to the family gathering and be constantly harassed and pestered to go to service, or stay home with my dogs, grill up some ribeyes, and watch movies.
My only real decision here is Japanese or American Kobe.
