The Adventures of Jessica Sideways

I get that phrase all the time. It is the short form of “You are going to hell because you do not believe as I believe”. Or “You are going to hell because you are a male-to-female transsexual and refuse to respect the perfection of god’s work/plan/etc”. Or even “You are going to hell because you had sex with another transsexual and this is an abomination in the eyes of the lord!”. There are a number of other variations that I will ultimately cover below, but I would like to tell you right now that I am not going to hell. In fact, I do not believe that there is even a hell, so telling me that I am going to someplace that I don’t even believe exists is not a way to ‘win me over’ to your side.

You are going to hell because you do not/no longer believe as I believe. - There is a reason that I do not believe as you believe. I found out that it was complete horse shit. In fact, I went to a Bible College to try to resolve some of the issues that I saw in the Christian faith. Turns out that the entire Christian faith is a whole sham and that I was buying into it all of these years. The Christian Bible is a book of faery tales that has inspired some of history’s most blood and gruesome wars. I do not believe that a loving god could possibly inspire his followers to cause such horrific and gruesome damage upon the world.

• That was years ago and the church has reformed - Oh really? Then why is it that the Church has been harassing homosexuals? Atheists? Interracial couples?
• If you do not believe in the bible, then you never really were a true Christian - Oh yes I was. I gave to the Church I belonged to. I served in the church I belonged to. I got baptized, went to sunday school as often as humanly possible and went to summer youth camps that were focused on the Bible. Even before I was baptized, I prayed heavily to a god that I honestly thought existed.
• God is testing your faith. - No, authors thousands of years ago are testing your intelligence. Flunk!

You are going to hell because you are a male-to-female transsexual and refuse to respect the perfection of god’s work/plan/etc - I don’t know about you, but wouldn’t putting a female soul into a male body be a mistake, if not just seriously malevolent? The god of the bible is not perfect, because he makes so many mistakes when forming people. People come out with serious birth defects, people come out transsexual and there is no accounting for it. And furthermore, it does not seem that the god of the bible is willing to or interested in correcting his mistakes. Which makes him malevolent, if you believe in him.

If he does not make mistakes, then he is still malevolent because why else would he put a female soul into a male’s body if he was a loving god? People who have been placed into the wrong body have endured much suffering in coming to terms with their transsexuality or even to deal with their gender dysphoria, if they see no way of compensating for it. Therefore, the god of the bible is either imperfect or malevolent. Or you can just simply believe that there is no god. And that is the hat that I wear.

You are going to hell because you had sex with another transsexual and this is an abomination in the eyes of the lord! - Another WTF thing that I have received bullshit about from Christians. Yes, I had relations with another transsexual, a FtM. And for a while, I felt a strong emotional attachment to him. And while I do regret a lot of things, I do not regret having the relationship with him. It was fun and it was a release that I desperately needed. Even though I cringe a little when I see Willow with other people in that way, I know that he is doing what is best for him. What is true for him is true for him.

He helped me to discover a very important point about my sexuality. I am not just a lesbian, I am a pansexual. I am attracted to people who have attractive spirits. While the majority of people who hold attractive spirits (attractive to me anyway) are female, I will not stop believing the fact that there are also males that have attractive spirits. It feels a lot like being Alyssa Jones off of Chasing Amy.

I pray that you’ll someday find god - This is one of the most irritating things that I hear Christians say. They say it like I am going to magically receive some spiritual lobotomy (which sounds EXACTLY like what many Christians have had). Well, I once believed in God, as I have said a number of times already. But I stopped believing in him. Why? The same reason that I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny - they were figments of my imagination. Oddly enough, some Christians don’t grow out of their belief in a god. This is quite an odd fact about their kind, as they continue to espouse belief in their god despite the fact that he doesn’t exist.

You choose to be tortured forever in hell - No one would choose that path, obviously. But I don’t believe in the Christian religion nor the god of Christianity. But this quote does bear mentioning, since I hear it quite often. Am I going to go to hell for having beliefs that counter those of Christianity? And if so, is the Christian god so malevolent to torture all of those who don’t believe in him for eternity? If I am going to be tortured forever in hell, just because I don’t believe in a god and murderers can be forgiven because they repent while in the chair, then the god of the bible has a justice system that is even less reliable than that of Judge Judy.