There is perhaps nothing more difficult for the fundamentalist than believing in him- or her-self. It is, simply put, forbidden. Oh, perhaps not in so many words, but the idea of thinking you can do whatever you want to do runs directly afoul of the idea that you are grossly imperfect.

Evil, born in sin, corrupt, backslidden, incapable of doing what is right -- those are all ideas that are firmly ensconced in fundamentalism and applied to each and every person. "We are all sinner." "We have all fallen short of the glory of God." -- I could go on, but if you have ever dealt with fundamentalism you know all of the things I could possibly put in here, and if you are actually a fundamentalist yourself, you know them first hand. You have been taught to wallow in the guilt and the shame and the self-loathing. Your body is dirty and you, my friend, are disgusting.

Bullshit! All of that rhetoric, and the brainwashing through repetition to get the individual member, or particularly, the individual child of a member to accept it, is false. It is false because it is based on a false document (the Bible) and a false view of spirituality in general. A destructive view that has been causing children to hate themselves, gay teenagers to kill themselves (or so it appears) and adults to live out miserable, self-recriminating lives for as long as it has existed.

You are wonderful. You are unique. There is no one quite like you, and that is a wonderful thing. You have insights to offer, a viewpoint to stress, a vision that is uniquely yours that all of us need to know about. True Religion and undefiled is, as the Bible actually manages to mention among the orgies, murders, genocides, cannibalizations and other assorted horrors, to visit the widow and orphan and care for the strangers in your city. True religion is love, love of one another, love of god, and love of yourself. If you choose to be religious, and that is the religion that you follow -- you will be better off in this world, and in my opinion in the next world -- than you would be with the religion of the fundamentalists.

It doesn't matter what spritual faith you follow -- whether it be some mainstream form of Christianity or Islam or Judaism, or for that matter Buddhism or Hinduism or Paganism. It only matters that you love yourself, and that you love others.