religion

I am still a very spiritual person, but don’t necessarily agree with a lot of the things I was taught growing up — or the way it was shoved down our throats. So when Branden came along, we decided not to baptize him, because I just didn’t believe our sweet baby was born in sin. My husband wasn’t religious, and this was the right choice for us.

While the Supreme Court deliberated Hobby Lobby’s 2013 case against Obamacare, I took to social media to stoically announce: “I’m never shopping at Hob Lob again.” But I did. Over time, Hobby Lobby lured me back into its Jesus-loving automatic sliding doors. It wasn’t the weekly 40% off coupon that got me — it was the goddamn specific products that I repeatedly purchase as an artist. (I’m thinking about you, florescent paint.)

We're not saying you need an excuse to have wild, crazy, satisfying and fully consensual sex... But if you did, what could be better motivation than to piss Ted Cruz (and his ultra-Conservative cronies) right the fuck off?

It has also happened to countless others from every culture and time in human history: Sleep paralysis, a fairly common sleep disorder that has almost always been associated with supernatural horror.

I had a lot of well-meaning friends and family searching for the right words to say after my back-to-back miscarriages. So many offered solace by guessing at where my lost babies resided in the ether: taken away to Heaven, perhaps forever, perhaps waiting for a better moment— an unknown, destined time these small souls were meant to break into the world. I accepted these comments silently, because they did nothing to comfort me.

Lent is serious. I mean, it starts with people putting ashes on their faces while someone chants, "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return," and then it ends with Jesus being tortured to death and then coming back to life. Yikes. I mean, I know we don’t have the monopoly on intense religious traditions, but dang, we Christians sure know how to party/freak out 6-year olds.

Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t grow up despondent, purposeless, or lost.

Have you ever noticed how cultish fad diets can be? I didn’t, because I was in the cult. And cult members never think they are part of a cult. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that today’s diets may be filling the same human societal role that religions fill, and not in a good way.