"By the way, if you see your mom this weekend, would ya be sure and tell her... SATAN!"

What is it with people's tendency to assume you're a Satanist or anti-Christian because you listen to music other than country, or find odd things that are totally unrelated to religion fascinating, or because you don't take Rush Limbaugh's words as law, or because you like to use critical thinking about things?

You read Stephen King? Oooh, Satanist.

You find the beliefs and practices of different theologies interesting to study? *cough* Satanist, dude.

You listen to Marilyn Manson (who, contrary to what people like to say, identifies as agnostic, has never promoted any subversive theistic beliefs, and is not anti-religion, but anti-bastards-using-religion-as-a-tool-to-frighten-and-oppress)? BURN SATANIST BURN!

Fuck you, people. I may not be a traditional Christian but I am spiritual and quite comfortable with it. I may not go to church on a regular basis, but I like to dream of tolerance and brotherhood, which is likely more than can be said for a lot of religious leaders. I may not pray every night, but I will gladly look upon the cross as a symbol of unity and love, whether a certain hippie Jew was actually nailed to it or not, and whether people nowadays who do pray actually care about those things or not. As a character from one of my favorite films once explained...

The brilliant idea made to defy the institution has become noticed by the institution, and now the idea is the institution and its meaning seems to be lost on too many people who follow it. It's a shame...