I like these titles. Reminiscent of chinese textbooks and philosophical essays.

So anyway, m dad and I trashed it out verbally, we settled on an agreement -- basically I'll do whatever he says until I turn 21. How sweet it is, breaking the chains and graphite-sketched boundaries of childhood or adolescence!

Well somehow it involves going to church and cathehism and being confirmed and all that shit, as well as "not bringing embarassment to the family" because I didn't go for confirmation camp last year due to CAP (the best five days of my life, and not because of religious reasons, but rather because I heart writing and we ate, breathed and slept poetry all day long).

What I found hilariously funny was that the priest personally pointed me out to my poor cathehist teachers and asked why I didn't go. Obviously, they weren't too happy at being arrowed, and the little chain of vendettas expanded and swelled. Like Buddha's teaching about a poison arrow hitting a man, who wouldn't let the physician medicate him until he found out the caste, name, poison and so on and so forth. In the end, the man died before even getting the answers to his questions.

To be honest, though no religion is perfect, I think Buddhism makes a helluva more sense in its texts.

My dad also told me to exercise more, instead of getting endorphins stuck to my arse, not that I'm fat or anything. Well, I might as well do so, maybe running to release all the pent up stress and anger I've been channeling into prose.

Okay, so confirmation is basically another wonderful aweinspiring promise we have to make to God and say we're all part of his lovely brethen and would serve him until the earth persishes or something along those lines. Wonderful. Assimilation into a group of people I don't believe in or share any common interest in, (and in this case, assimilation equates announcing to the whole wide fucken world that you believe in that church's particular interpretation of who and what God is. I won't say God is a who, because a mighty force cannot be contained in a physical body. I'm saying what, as it dehumanises him both positively and negatively. I would explain it all but I'll never finish writing this post).

If I am confirmed at the end of June (right on my O's year too, wonderful isn't it?), then it means I have to pretend I accept this belief for, what, *counts* 5 years?!!!!

OH FUCK.

5 years is half a decade wasted. 5 years is one-third of my age now. Five years to waste away like a corpse.

And in the end I suppose when I turn 21 I would no longer be who I was in the beginning. I changed a lot throughout the years, maturing, growing distrustful of people, learning to fake-smile, smirk, changed from a girly girl to a slightly unconventional one, but all along I kept the one thing I felt defined me the most: My ability to keep a sincere promise.

Looks like I have to break that soon. Oh well. Breaking holy promises, commence!

Oh wait. I just realised something. 'Sincere'. Goodness gracious, I do love language. Hail language! My confirmation 'promise' is jsut empty words if I don't mean what I say or believe in it. The priests can flail about in indignation and wave documents certifying I am Catholic-- it doesn't matter because 1) I didn't mean the promises, and never fulfilled it, and hence I am not a 'true' Catholic and 2) Words only are significant if we attach meaning to it. If we don't and just treat them like mere alphabets and sounds, just 'lip service', then it has no meaning, therefore I cannot be accountable for it. The whole 'free will' thing, and the faith comes to bite Faith back in its ass. Delicious irony. I think, for the sake of pissing a few priests off, I shall stay and pretend I am a good Catholic, before wrenching tehir hearts apart when I skip out of church happily at age 21, throwing a convenient middle finger to it, who never supported me thus far.

If God exists and I am damned to eternal hell for being a wolf in sheep's clothing and thinking poisonous thoughts about religion during prayers and whatnot, I'll tell him that it was daddy dearest' idea.

The priest wants to convert me? Hmm. This should prove interesting, very interesting indeed.

Too bad Border's was out of 'God Delusion' and 'Letters to a Christian Nation'. Shall request these as birthday gifts. To balance it all out (I'll say it is good to expand one's horizons and see what people have to say about religion) I'll get them to buy some religious book that I would accept with (fake) smiles and tears of immense gratitude, which I would throw in my bookshelf, unwrapped, and proceed to forget I even had the book.

Since my passive resistance has proven futile, I shall begin Operation: Piss the Priest off enough to make him give up on me. Frankly, I don't really care how I do it or if the damned family name is besmirched forever in human memory (there's too much emphasis placed on names anyway...who the heck still remembers who discovered atoms or electrons, aside from students taking Science and scientists? Not many I'd bet.) Happily, I still have 'The Brothers Karamazov'. Shall figure out how to read that infamous passage of the cardinal killing Jesus and being an asswipe in general out loud.

I shall do my best to be the most irritating student ever seen in the vernated halls of The Holy Family Church. HAHAHAHAHA. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE A 9-SUBJECT STUDENT WHO COMPETES WITH PRCS. I can ask so many questions, and place loads of doubt...ooh, Maybe I can ask the teacher's opinion on the Spanish Inquistion and Hitler.

Speaking of my all-time favourite war hero/villian, I am really serious about my religious name being Hitler. Or Adolf. Or Salazar, but the sad, sad thing is, he's not a saint, although Salazar of portugal was a dictator, a priest and rabidly anti-communist. Did he support facism? Can't remember.

Ooh, the bible is so interesting to pick apart and analyse. So many cases of human rights abuse, slavery, anti-feminist ideals, and blood and murder and violence in general. A lovely, lovely book more on the Awesome Glory of God instead of his good deeds (I wonder if historians have done a reliability test on the bible? I highly doubt it is accurate, considering that there is plenty of room for exaggeration and etc.)

I realise I am probably gonna piss off a lot of good Christians and Catholics here, who might jump the chance of suing me for promoting ill will and tension amongst Singaporeans by spreading discord through lambasting religion, but oh well. I didn't condemn the religion, I just stated my views, you're welcome to have your own (: Dictators are terrible. Promote humanism!

Okay, maybe it would be a stretch to say I don't belive in God, but the term 'God' is quite confusing. In language 'God' is a powerful, omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent superbeing that seems too good to be true, but then again we humans are restrained by our patheticness. Hence the current God=Allah debacle in Malaysia. I say I believe in a greater force, (which can be interepreted as me saying I believe in God), but I don't. I don't believe in other people's intepretations of what the divine and who God is, I believe in my own interpretation of what God is. Make sense? What I am disagreeing with is the church and its corrupt congregation, its attempts to potray themselves as being the Chosen People and all pious and highhanded-- face it dudes, no matter how great your god is, this is the power of God. You cannot confuse his/her power with your own. In reality, in society, we are equal, in a parallel dimension of faith and belief and stuff maybe you're elevate beyond us, I don't know. But don't pretend to be perfect.

Another contradiction. God is supposed to love children because of their innate goodness and innocence and stuff, but this doesn't make sense because children don't know if there is a god or not if they weren't told by your parents. If, as an infant, you had this sudden great epiphany that 'Holy mother fuck, there is a God, and he loves us! I'll be a devout Christian all my life!" you're either lying or a poster boy for the church. Whichever, because I doubt infant can think beyond primal instincts like sleep, hunger, anger and etc. Hence, if God condemns the heretics and those who don't belive in him, why does he not condemn the children? WHy does he love them still? Because of the goodness? Yet, perfectly good people who don't believe in god are still regarded as sinners. WHy is that so? Bias? Favouritism?

You could say, "Dudette, He's God. He can't be explained by us," but, well, you might as well say "The Earth was created by a crowd of squirrels who attained enlightenment from dunnowhere and they preside over humanity and control wheter you go to heaven or hell. They sparke in the sun -- which was created from their farts." This is an acceptable reason for creation, because, obviously since these are divine, magical squirrels, their behaviour and bodily secretions are beyond our puny minds and therefore we cannot rationalise it. Funny. God might've been created through our need to explain and rationalise everything, yet now it itself is impeding rationalisation. The Greek gods were created from this need -- right now in your Science paper when the examiner asks you why the sun rises and sets, you don't answer, "It because this fella in a golden chariot rides across the sky everyday, and by the way you cannot give me zero because that will show you're insulting my belief in my religion."

Religions can be discredited and cast away, they are after all all about the human mind. Master religion and you can unlock the secrets of the human mind.

So interesting. If I become a psychologist in the future, I think I would like to try and psychoanalyse God for fun. It is, after all, always interesting to try and rationalise something complex.

Let me cap this post off with the list of things I want to do when I turn 21:
1) Drink alcohol.
2) Make changes to my IC, particularly the 'religion' field.
3) Sashay out of church.
4) Write an antigod poem.
5) Buy or rent an apartment, and get the hell out of there.
6) Can't think of any yet.

Things I gotta do before I turn 21:

1) Amass a collection of pagan accessories and wear them to church.
2) Or wear the rosary and say it's for fashion. Nothing insults a priest more than insensitivity to religious objects. It could backfire badly though, with me being seen as a convert due to their labour and 'the mercy of God'.
3) I. Need. More. Black.
4) See if I can somehow worm in a funeral dress to confirmation.