christianity. the lesser of two evils?

I'm smack-dab in the middle of my synopsis and I'm finding current events filtering in--like the grey areas of religion and prejudice. Every time I stall out I think of 4000 tireless guys in Iraq searching for their three missing brothers in Iraq. This same thing happened nearly a year ago and the bodies were found mutilated and murdered. It makes me wonder: What's happening to them? Will they make it? Are they even still alive? And mostly, how can someone do something like that to a fellow human being? I also worry what will happen if the kidnappers are found. Will our soldiers simply kill them? Could you blame them? How does that affect the scheme of life? Does it really make us any better than them?

This only heightened my worry over the soldiers: a young Iraqi woman was stoned to death for falling in love with a guy from a different sect. No, they didn't say what happened to the guy, but the entire stoning was caught on cell phone video and broadcast on CNN. (For future reference--chunks of cement are amazingly effective murder weapons.) Yes, this is one event, but these sorts of incidents seem pathetically easy to find in the Muslim world. I don't think Christianity has the corner on women's rights, by any means, but this is incomparably disgusting--right up there with hanging. Again, she is, was, a human being, and Islam seems to have a shocking lack of regard for such.

side note: I'm against execution in any form, for any reason. Two wrongs do not make a right. We all face death, but I think it should be in God's hands. We aren't old enough to play with such a grown-up toy--maybe we never will be.

When you compare Islam to recent Christianity (The Crusades notwithstanding) Islam as a peaceful religion doesn't quite add up. Islam teaches that Christianity is a bastardized form of Islam. Perhaps, but maybe it was time to give up the family name.

Not that Christianity doesn't have our nutcases and intolerance (just as Islam has its peace mongers and a majority of decent supplicants). I always cringe when I admit I'm a Christian. I'm profane, I'm not prayerful (except lately for our missing guys), I don't go to church often, but that's not why. Despite my faults, I love my fellow man and I'm tolerant, which Christianity seems to lack in the public eye. God forbid anyone identify me with such hatred. When it gets down to it, I think homosexuality is another flavor of love and abortion is just sad. I believe AIDS is a curse, but not from God. My God doesn't curse people. I can't feature Him condemning any form of love, be it between sects or the same sex.

After Jerry Falwell died, I heard someone on NPR saying how he stole Christianity from GOD and gave it to the GOP. I agree, though I hardly think Falwell single-handedly corrupted Christianity. He did his part, but it wouldn't have been possible without the millions of idiots out there. Case in point: the woman quoted as saying that since Massachusetts legalized gay marriage it's influenced what's taught in schools and now more kids are coming out as bisexual.

Huh??

My guess is that plenty of us are vaguely bisexual; it's just we're talking about it more lately.

I'm, er, bisexual by definition, if the definition includes experience and/or attraction. There. I've come out. (Actually, anyone who knows me at all or has read this blog for any length of time knows this. No, my mom doesn't know this. She's happier not knowing, just like she was happier before she learned I smoked in HS.) Obviously, I lean toward men (seriously, have you SEEN my husband? He's freaking hot. Who wouldn't lean toward him?)

But my education and religion have nothing to do with it. I was schooled largely in Kansas (they don't even teach evolution, for crissake, and don't get me started on the Phelps) and I was raised in the Methodist church (choir, youth group, gundy ghool-even my first kiss was with a preacher's son). And yet, despite all that wholesome upbringing, I'm attracted to girls and in my younger years I explored that attraction.

Huh. I'm on pretty shaky ground with most of Christianity. I wouldn't have a prayer of making it in Islam.