Happy New Year! Let's make 2016 the best year ever!

Happy New Year, O gentle Dot Calm Readers!

For me, the end of 2015 has been a time to lick wounds and grieve, weep, wail, and mourn. There are few people on this planet who matter to me as much as Dot Calm, so it's no surprise that her passing destroyed me, just as it devastated and destroyed so many others who knew and loved her.

I had a dear friend named Sheila who, for me, embodied everything a True Christian should be and nothing a True Christian should not be. She passed away in 2008 from complications of breast cancer. She was only 50. It took three years for me even to start coming to terms with her passing. But I can look back now and see, more than anything else, just how grateful I am for having known this beautiful, intelligent, wise, loving, funny, and FUN lady. It reminds me that healing from such a powerful loss is possible. As I grope in the dark to rediscover my joy after losing Dot Calm, I remember that, somewhere, someday, I will see the tiny little light at the end of the long, winding tunnel. And I will hear the birds singing, beckoning me back out into the sunlight once again.

It also reminds me that Christianity per se is not what I have been attacking of late in this blog.

You see, I have a Tea Party Christian friend who likes to accuse me of attacking Christianity.

By "attack," he means "point out what the Bible says and what Christians do."

Apparently, he does not define Christianity as I do: the belief that God came to earth as Jesus Christ, Father God's only begotten Son, and saved humanity from original sin and hell by dying on the cross.

Apparently, my Tea Party friend defines Christianity as the claim to believe the Bible literally while uncritically, unconditionally condoning institutionalized hypocrisy and abuse, preferably while living like royalty yourself. You can make Hitler look like Pope Francis, but, if you believe, you still go to heaven...and Christians will think you're aces unless you're a Black kid from the 'hood...in which case, you're a thug--and "no angel"--even if you are a Christian.

Friends, I don't make up all the sh_t that Christians do, and I sure as hell didn't make up the Bible. It's all there in black and ink. "Pointing out" is not the same as "attack" unless you're defensive because you know you're wrong...unless you have weak beliefs...unless you know you don't believe what you say you do, but you haven't admitted it to yourself yet.

What I am attacking is a belief system that institutionalizes hypocrisy and abuse--and greed--striving to spread like a mind-virus from generation to generation, leaving a trail of destruction from all its hate, fear, bigotry, and greed. I am attacking it along with the delusions that make it possible.

Forgive me for being unchristian by attacking the sacred American institutions of hate, fear, bigotry, hypocrisy, delusion, and greed.

To me, the proof is in the pudding.

My Tea Party friend is so verbally abusive that he drove two wives out of his house--and he is so ashamed that he can't even admit what he did. In contrast, if the Jesus of the Bible had shown up while Sheila was still alive, He would have recognized and embraced her as one of His own.

There isn't much in what Tea Party Republicans call "Christianity" that I think He'd recognize.

Would my Tea Party Christian learn to be more honest with himself...would he become a better person...if the delusions fell away? Would Sheila still have been such a wonderful person if she had done good for goodness's sake instead of for God's sake? Perhaps she did do good for goodness's sake. Maybe she simply loved and acted out of that love. What would be so wrong with that--why inject everything with woo? To frighten and control people, of course....

My friends, 2016 is born today. This is a new year in a new century. Can't we educate ourselves to understand and learn what truth really is based on observations that make sense and can be verified and reproduced by people around the world, no matter what their languages, cultures, or beliefs? Can't we base our behavior, our choices, and our governments on that information rather than ancient superstitions, rites, fears, and rituals? Can't we work together to help ourselves and our children become more open and accepting of each other's differences instead of rooting ourselves further and further in hate, fear, and bigotry? Can't we all just reach across the Internet and join hands as one human family?

As Dot Calm loved to say, "Can't we all just get along?"

I think we can.

It is what I will be working toward in 2016.

Hope to see you there!

If you don't have time for Seth Andrews's whole presentation, which is funny as hell, then at least watch the last five minutes--Seth's wonderful video narrated by Nathan "Nate" Phelps, whose father led Westboro Baptist Church. It is a wonderful statement on the power of love over hate. I hope to shake Nate Phelps's hand some day.

And don't miss Adam Savage's talk at the 2012 Reason Rally--well worth watching and rewatching. I hope to shake Adam Savage's hand some day, too.

Happy New Year, one and all--may 2016 bring you everything you desire and protect you from all grief and calamity. May 2016 truly be better than 2015--let's work together to make it the best year ever!