The Adventures of Jessica Sideways

You know, while I make time to complain about hatemail and what not, I never devote enough time to the truly ’special’ people. People that irritate the piss out of me because they can’t see that their religion is full of shit make me thankful that I have the freedom of thought that I do. In that spirit, here is a page devoted to one truly special person, Dan Dalzell - the former worship minister at my former church.

9:40:28 PM Jessica Sideways: Hiya Dan!
9:41:53 PM dandalzell: Hey, I’m just checking e-mail and doing some homework.
9:42:09 PM Jessica Sideways: I got the name change date: May 29th
9:42:44 PM dandalzell: I see. . . and the new official name will be. . .
9:43:00 PM Jessica Sideways: Jessica Emily Sideways
9:43:51 PM dandalzell: Do any of those names have any ties to your birth family?
9:43:58 PM Jessica Sideways: No.
9:44:18 PM Jessica Sideways: My birth family is not a part of my life I wish to remember.
9:44:31 PM Jessica Sideways: It will always influence of my life.
9:45:23 PM dandalzell: true. . . whether we like it or not, who we come from is a lot of who we are.
9:46:17 PM Jessica Sideways: Yeah, I have both the perspective of being in the Christian cult and being out of it.
9:49:03 PM dandalzell: It offends me when you speak of Christ-followers as a cult. There are certainly those who use the name Christian who carry on like a cult, but there are many more who are the most honest, decent, caring, loving, serving folks around.
9:49:23 PM Jessica Sideways: They try to influence government to discriminate against people.
9:49:31 PM Jessica Sideways: People who have done nothing wrong to them.
9:49:39 PM Jessica Sideways: These days, it’s homosexuality.
9:49:48 PM Jessica Sideways: 40 years ago, it was inter-racial marriage.
9:50:26 PM Jessica Sideways: And before that, it was racial equality, freedom from slavery and a number of things that fundamentalist Christians wanted to inflict on society.
9:51:42 PM Jessica Sideways: Why is it that Christians want to try to ruin society by subjecting non-Christians to Christian morality?
9:53:08 PM dandalzell: There may be some things that are actually right and wrong, and for those things, a Godly person should take a stand. Then there are other things which may be more cultural issues (in the generation right after Jesus it was the issue of eating meat sacrificed to idols — some Christians carried on about this like it was the main issue of faith, when of course it wasn’t).
9:53:37 PM Jessica Sideways: Do you oppose legalization of homosexual marriage?
9:54:20 PM dandalzell: Yes. . . I believe that homosexuality is wrong. period. all the time.
9:54:20 PM Jessica Sideways: I mean, legalization does not mean that your church would be REQUIRED to perform the weddings
9:54:37 PM Jessica Sideways: But why should over 200 million people be affected by your beliefs?
9:54:45 PM Jessica Sideways: Plus, this is a civil rights issue.
9:56:19 PM Jessica Sideways: I mean, if you don’t like gay marriage, than don’t get one.
9:56:37 PM Jessica Sideways: But this is not just about you - it’s about a nation of 200 million people.
9:57:26 PM dandalzell: As one who works in a public school, yet is a Christian, I’m quite concerned when educators start teaching kids that homosexualality is OK. I would be equally bothered if teachers were saying that heterosexuals should abandon marriage and just have sexual relationships with anyone they want at any time.
9:57:39 PM Jessica Sideways: It is okay.
9:58:12 PM Jessica Sideways: But how does equal rights for homosexuals change how heterosexuals integrate with one another?
9:58:45 PM dandalzell: I believe that either of these practices violates eternal, moral law.
9:59:07 PM Jessica Sideways: That’s your belief though and it shouldn’t inhibit civil rights.
9:59:29 PM Jessica Sideways: Plus, legalizing marriage for homosexuals would help to encourage monogamy for all kinds of people.
9:59:50 PM Jessica Sideways: By protesting equal marriage for homosexuals, you encourage sex before marriage and promiscuity.
9:59:53 PM Jessica Sideways: Is that what you want?
10:00:37 PM dandalzell: I certainly don’t promote sex before marriage for anyone.
10:01:06 PM Jessica Sideways: Then why not promote equal marriage for homosexuals?
10:01:25 PM Jessica Sideways: I would think that you WOULDN’T want extra-marital sex in society?
10:04:23 PM dandalzell: Since I believe that homosexual behavior is a perversion of what is right, then I can’t support making it all legally OK. Not any more than I could make it legal to do anything else I believe is wrong. We live in a time when many are confused about whether or not there are any moral “absolutes”. Is it always wrong to kill another person, or is it sometimes OK? Is it always wrong to steal, or is is sometimes justified? And on and on. . .
10:05:03 PM Jessica Sideways: How about for the issue of equal rights? It may be wrong for you, but how many couples do you know that stay together for decades, without marriage?
10:05:31 PM dandalzell: Do you mean straight or gay?
10:05:34 PM Jessica Sideways: Both.
10:05:46 PM Jessica Sideways: In my travels, I have met many gay couples that have been together for decades.
10:06:17 PM Jessica Sideways: Why should they be denied the right to marriag?
10:06:19 PM Jessica Sideways: *marriage
10:07:10 PM dandalzell: I have a choir director friend who has a very long-term partner. I admire and respect him in many ways and am loving toward him in my actions, but I still think his lifestyle is wrong.
10:07:31 PM Jessica Sideways: But he should still have equal rights.
10:07:43 PM Jessica Sideways: The reason why - we pay taxes like every other citizen.
10:07:55 PM Jessica Sideways: We should have equal rights like other citizens.
10:08:41 PM Jessica Sideways: Separate but equal institution has been proven to be bad for the US.
10:09:38 PM dandalzell: In Oregon, marijuana growers think they ought to have equal rights to raise and use it. Yet, it’s a drug that most of society has still said is harmful and shouldn’t be legalized. I don’t think we’re denying these growers their equal rights.
10:10:40 PM Jessica Sideways: Well, you are not denying them any rights based on unchangeable features of the people involved.
10:11:13 PM Jessica Sideways: To deny people rights based on their gender identity, sex, race, nationality or any other factor that they cannot change is against human rights.
10:11:25 PM Jessica Sideways: And sexual orientation that is something that cannot be changed.
10:12:05 PM Jessica Sideways: People can recover from drug addiction. However, no one can recover from being black.
10:12:09 PM Jessica Sideways: Or gay.
10:12:23 PM Jessica Sideways: Or born in a middle-eastern country.
10:12:56 PM dandalzell: I guess I believe that homosexuals are confused, deceived, or perverted in their sexual orientation. I don’t accept that it is their natural state.
10:13:26 PM Jessica Sideways: Then that’s your problem and your homophobia CAN be cured.
10:14:20 PM Jessica Sideways: However, my transsexuality can only be cured through therapy and gender reassignment surgery.
10:14:39 PM Jessica Sideways: But afterwards, I will be a lesbian.
10:14:48 PM Jessica Sideways: And that is uncurable.
10:15:41 PM dandalzell: I’m not afraid of homosexuals at all. I live around and am friends with many (there are more than 15 gay men in the Portland Symphonic Choir that I sing in). I believe that I should love and respect all people, but that doesn’t mean that I condone all of their behavior. Just like I don’t condone the guys in my choir that openly talk about their heterosexual affairs.
10:16:01 PM Jessica Sideways: Then why do you deny that we can just love another person of the same sex.
10:16:34 PM Jessica Sideways: You don’t recognize the fact that heterosexual love is confused, deceived or perverted. Just homosexual love, in your eyes.
10:17:03 PM Jessica Sideways: As long as it’s between two consensual adults who truly love one another, what does it matter?
10:19:38 PM Jessica Sideways: Sorry - the Sprint SmartView app crashed.
10:20:44 PM Jessica Sideways: Sorry - the Sprint SmartView app crashed.
10:21:49 PM Jessica Sideways: Please let me know if you can still receive my messages, I don’t know if I should restart Adium.
Yes, my Cellular Internet Card Crashed at this point. Had to restart Adium
10:23:31 PM dandalzell: I believe we’re all “sinners” in some ways. I’m tempted by things like materialism, other pretty women, and so on. If and when I give into something like that, I’m not doing what’s right. I think some others are truly, deeply tempted by same-sex desires, or by using drugs, or by drinking too much; these are not things that confront me, yet I know that for others these are their struggles. I think we all have these temptations and we all give in to some (me included). Yet I still believe when we follow any of these “wrong” things, we are missing the mark. BTW, plenty of heterosexual “love” is confused, deceived, AND perverted. I believe Satan still tempts way more people this way (”consenting adults” or not), than he does in homo ways.
10:24:19 PM Jessica Sideways: How is same-sex love wrong but opposite-sex love right?
10:25:00 PM Jessica Sideways: If you feel uncomfortable with loving a member of the opposite sex, wouldn’t getting into an opposite-sex relationship be wronging the partner and starting a relationship destined for divorce?
10:25:04 PM dandalzell: I believe that’s the way we are created! Male and female.
10:25:26 PM Jessica Sideways: But some of us are born in the incorrect bodies.
10:26:08 PM Jessica Sideways: I am not going to go into how a ‘perfect god’ could make such a ghastly mistake, but I will try to continue to approach this from a secular point of view.
10:26:29 PM dandalzell: I don’t buy the whole incorrect bodies thing.
10:26:38 PM Jessica Sideways: I am living proof of it.
10:27:31 PM Jessica Sideways: But either way, we are getting off track. Just because we are somehow ‘created’ male or female (taking a big leap against logic to say that) does not imply that someone could or could not be attracted to someone of the same sex.
10:27:56 PM Jessica Sideways: I mean, 40 or 50 years ago, it was thought that because god created all the races of the world, that they should not intermarry.
10:28:05 PM dandalzell: I would argue that attraction doesn’t make it OK.
10:28:54 PM Jessica Sideways: No, but if two people share love and affinity for each other and they are not with other people - why not?
10:30:00 PM dandalzell: You can scientifically prove that some people have a much stronger attraction to alcohol. Some can hardly resist it and have to really stuggle with it all their lives. Still, I would never say it’s OK for them to go ahead and drink all they want.
10:30:48 PM Jessica Sideways: No, it’s not because imbibing in alcohol has negative effects such as depression, addiction and a lowered state of cognitive abilities.
10:30:59 PM Jessica Sideways: But what negative effects does being in a loving relationship have?
10:32:02 PM Jessica Sideways: Tell me what negative effects there are to being in a committed relationship with another human being?
10:35:17 PM dandalzell: You won’t like what I believe here, but I see widespread acceptance of homosexual behavior as a sign of a fallen society. Not the only sign by any means, but one of the signs. And I believe that with such moral decay will come the eventual collapse of such a civilization. I think that’s what led to the collapse of many great empires throughout history. So, I seem the harm of homosexual behavior as being not physical, but being on the moral and spiritual level.
10:35:52 PM Jessica Sideways: You have not told me how homosexual love is even remotely related to moral decay.
10:36:23 PM Jessica Sideways: You know, years ago Pat Robinson foretold that feminism would bring down society. Has not.
10:37:02 PM Jessica Sideways: But either way, you make comparisons which are not even closely related
10:37:45 PM Jessica Sideways: It’s like saying that 4 plus 3 equals ice cream.
10:37:51 PM Jessica Sideways: Makes no sense.
10:38:15 PM Jessica Sideways: At least, what you’ve willingly told me.
10:40:02 PM dandalzell: I’m not anti-feminist, but I’d say there has been a real collapse of the traditional family unit since men and women are more nearly equal in the workplace. With two working parents, few kids have a parent a home when they come home from school, few families sit down at the dinner table, and so on. I don’t agree with most of what Robertson says, but there has been a societal change.
10:40:28 PM Jessica Sideways: You won’t like what I am going to reveal here, but I see progress in equal rights for all people as a contradiction to your bible.
10:40:46 PM Jessica Sideways: Your bible is being proven wrong at every turn and soon, you are going to have less believers.
10:41:28 PM Jessica Sideways: And soon, people won’t want to be a Christian because they see the inherent homophobia and hate in Christianity. So, with progress in human rights, the bible is proven more and more wrong.
10:41:53 PM Jessica Sideways: Because we now have human faces to put in the picture of the world that the bible hurts.
10:42:30 PM Jessica Sideways: I believe that unless Christians realize that forcing their bullshit on people who don’t believe will ultimately cause it’s downfaull.
10:42:33 PM Jessica Sideways: *downfall
10:43:24 PM Jessica Sideways: Society is giving Christianity an ultimatium. Play nice or fall.
10:44:16 PM Jessica Sideways: You as a Christian don’t realize what I am about to say, but I know that there is an army of people on this side that are tired of being marginalized by religious bigotry and hate.
10:44:54 PM dandalzell: On the contrary, many of rights for people were born out of the teachings of the Bible (in Him there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female; that’s just one example). God is now working in amazing ways in Asia and Africa and S. America where millions of people are coming to follow Christ. Believers in the U.S. will gradually be more and more persecuted as our society falls into more moral decay.
10:45:26 PM Jessica Sideways: I believe that society is adjusting to equal rights.
10:45:38 PM Jessica Sideways: I believe that people are tired of being told what to believe.
10:45:56 PM Jessica Sideways: I believe that people are tired of being lied to and discriminated against, in the name of an unreachable, impersonal god.
10:46:39 PM Jessica Sideways: And there is an army of people like me who are using the new mediums to reveal the truths about religious texts like the Bible and the Koran.
10:48:15 PM dandalzell: I hope they reject an “unreachable, impersonal god”, but after searching for real meaning they may find Him who is close to the broken-hearted, a friend to sinners, and loving toward each to the point of dying for them.
10:48:48 PM Jessica Sideways: Your god is a friend to no one. He/she/it is vindictive, vengeful, hateful, spiteful, murderous, genocidal and contradictory.
10:49:13 PM dandalzell: That’s exactly what Satan wants us to believe.
10:49:25 PM Jessica Sideways: That’s what your bible proclaims.
10:50:20 PM dandalzell: The Bible is full of stories of God acting as a loving Father and going out to seek his children and to welcome them home.
10:50:38 PM Jessica Sideways: Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6 - your god admits to creating evil.
10:51:26 PM Jessica Sideways: Your god favors neither good nor evil - Matthew 5:45
10:52:10 PM Jessica Sideways: Your god created people that he KNOWS are going to hell - Romans 8:29-30; Jude 1:4; Matthew 7:13-14
10:52:57 PM Jessica Sideways: What do these scriptures tell you?
10:53:19 PM Jessica Sideways: They come from your own bible.
10:55:07 PM Jessica Sideways: For me, they paint a picture of a vindictive, evil god. One that my morals and conscience would not allow me to bow to, even if he was real.
10:55:38 PM Jessica Sideways: Of course, the idea of eternal damnation already does that.
10:55:48 PM Jessica Sideways: Torturing people forever is not just.
11:02:26 PM Jessica Sideways: And I doubt there is anything you could say to justify the evil involved in torture.
11:02:31 PM dandalzell: You spout off with words like one deceived by Satan (even he quoted scriptures when he tried to tempt Jesus). God may bring “disaster” as it says in Isaiah and Amos, but only because He is trying to warn those He loves to turn back to Him. He may let it rain or the just and unjust because He gives us all an equal chance to follow Him. Those he “predestined” are all those who will come to Him and the invitation is open to all. “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him!” John 3:16-17. God does not want any to perish, but all to come to Him. Yet, He gives us complete free will to choose. It is what makes me fall in awe before God, He is both totally just and totally loving. He cannot stand with or for anything impure, yet in love He can forgive all our sinful ways and draw us close to Him.
11:03:40 PM Jessica Sideways: You say that just to ignore the scriptures that paint an image of your god that shows him as a psychopathic mass-murderer.
11:04:24 PM Jessica Sideways: You are unwilling to say that the Bible is wrong or that scripture is wrong, but you accuse me of being deceived by ’satan’ because I left the faith.
11:04:56 PM Jessica Sideways: However, if I were to quote from the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms or the 10 Commandments, you would not accuse me of being ‘deceived my satan’.
11:05:32 PM Jessica Sideways: Do you claim that your bible is the source of truth?
11:06:25 PM Jessica Sideways: Do you claim that your bible is the inspired words of your god. If it is, then how could I possibly quote it in a divisive way?
11:06:56 PM dandalzell: God is truth. He reveals it in many ways including the Bible, but also through His Son Jesus, and by the work of His Spirit in people still today.
11:06:59 PM Jessica Sideways: If the scripture is there it’s there because your god intended it to be there.
11:07:09 PM Jessica Sideways: So, do you claim that the Bible is true?
11:07:18 PM Jessica Sideways: The inspired word of your god?
11:08:15 PM dandalzell: Yes, it’s true. I believe that God has spoken through men in the Bible.
11:08:30 PM Jessica Sideways: Then how could *I* quote it incorrectly?
11:08:50 PM Jessica Sideways: If god was perfect, he intended for every word to be in it as it is.
11:09:32 PM Jessica Sideways: If god is not perfect, then he could have made mistakes where I could use to quote it incorrectly to misrepresent his will. Which is it?
11:11:01 PM dandalzell: Lots of people use it incorrectly. Many preachers grab verses here and there to make it say something they want. People sometimes use one phrase or verse to justify their point of view. Satan tried to use scripture to trick and tempt Jesus.
11:11:16 PM Jessica Sideways: Like making it to say that homosexuality is wron?
11:11:18 PM Jessica Sideways: *wrong
11:11:38 PM Jessica Sideways: Or morally reprehensible?
11:13:11 PM Jessica Sideways: And with that, I make my point - how do you KNOW that your religion is homophobic?
11:13:47 PM Jessica Sideways: How do you know that the religious right doesn’t use it to discriminate against a group of people?
11:16:49 PM dandalzell: There’s a huge difference between being homophobic and against homosexual behavior. I have no doubt that Jesus would talk with and hug and care for homosexual people, but still let them know that they had some things they needed to change. And when Jesus loves you like that, you want to change.
11:18:07 PM dandalzell: I have to stop for tonight. I have enjoyed the open discussion and I’m sure we’ll talk again.
11:18:10 PM Jessica Sideways: But how do you know that this part of the bible isn’t just being quoted by some people to as a means to meet their objective of getting people prejudiced again.
11:18:14 PM Jessica Sideways: Certainly.
11:18:33 PM Jessica Sideways: Think for yourself, Dan. Once you are free of Christianity - it all comes into full circle.
11:19:27 PM dandalzell: I’m one of those who have found that I’m truly free. . . in Christ.
11:19:35 PM dandalzell: Good night!
11:19:57 PM Jessica Sideways: But you aren’t. How can you be when every verse in the bible can be quoted by satan?
11:20:23 PM Jessica Sideways: Or… you can free yourself from the belief of god, satan and the bible. And then, learn how to truly see life as an adventure
11:20:33 PM Jessica Sideways: I am going to leave you with that.
Changed status to Offline (11:21:17 PM)