Keyes has joined those who want to meddle in the affairs of other countries, muddle the ideas of which war is against whom, get in the middle of foreign wars, and think it moot it’ll actually increase the size of al Qaeda.

I think it fit he will have to answer to the Champion of the Constitution on Constitution Day.

I just want to know where his faith-shaped conscience was when he kicked his teenage daughter out into the streets because she wasn’t straight.

Can you just imagine if Keyes won the Republican primary…?

How? By taking South Carolina? Orange County? The only way a black person would get the Republican nomination would be for them to have been the concubine of one of the Bush brothers, and Condi’s damaged goods.

For Keyes a presidential run is a money making scam and nothing more. Just like his religious posturing is.

“Without my faith-shaped conscience, I have no conscience.”

That does seem to be a recurring theme, doesn’t it? So often you read of people who used to be alcoholics or drug addicts, until they found god. They often describe it as having an emptiness inside that they were trying to fill with whatever they were addicted to, until they found religion, and now they feel whole.

I’ve also known a lot of spiritual types and seekers that seemed to have the same feeling, but in a less desperate way. My best friend in high school was one of those, and it just drove her nuts that it didn’t bother me that I didn’t know the ultimate truth of the universe, and didn’t think I needed some transcendent purpose in life.

I wonder if that emptiness is something that’s inborn or developmental, psychological or physical, why some people have it and some just…. don’t.

And oh, crap – does this mean I have to feel sorry for people who need religion, like it’s some sort of disability? I would so much rather just view it as a moral shortcoming.

Double crap – I’m starting to sound like a Republican. Shoot me now…

About a week ago I went “public” with my lack of faith. I cannot believe how different things feel now, just a week later. I wasn’t a believer, I’ve been “not a believer” for a long time. However, I still had the feeling of “I am supposed to be a believer”. I suffered under the belief that I should believe, even if I didn’t actually believe.

Things look so completely differently from a non-believing perspective, which is what makes it so incredibly hard to communicate over that gap. You have to talk to believers from their perspective… there are people out there that do not want to believe, but feel they are supposed to. These are the people we could help out. If we know how. I’ll blog about it later this year, right now, it’s back to finishing my studies. I have two weeks left.

Yesterday I wrote nearly 2300 words describing my journey, titled it “In Too Deep“. Sorry, this is maybe a bit of a cheap plug. This site gets good traffic though, and I suspect people are interested in this kind of story. Unfortunately less helpful stuff in that post, just a description of my journey, to explain my context. The helpful stuff will come, give me some time.