Thought I'd take a moment to acknowledge the Number of the Beast.

I was something of a visual artist growing up and my parents used to force me to go to CCD (Sunday school for Catholics). I used to bother my teachers and some of my more pious classmates with sketches of Satanic-like imagery and constant atheistic pronouncements. I'd also make up and share stories about fellow young people who worshipped the Devil and partook in sacreligious rituals. I really couldn't stand CCD.

Anyways, cool Iron Maiden song.

This post is kinda lame reviewing it. I'd like to be more like TroyOblix, with all his inventive wit and humor, but I save what little of that I can muster for my screenwriting these days.

Same here. In fact, I was a CCD drop-out.

Yeah, I only went for a few years before my parents asked me if I wanted to continue and I decided to stop going.

The experience was always alien to me. The behaviors and language from the teachers and classmates were always eerily soft-edged. Like a neutered, G-rated public school experience.

But I remember mixing things up when I brought in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls on some kind of movie day.

Thanks for the compliment, I run a clinic on the weekends. But it's primary focus is on getting me laid so I cannot vouch for it's effectiveness in any other areas.

I was born into a Catholic family and I went to Catholic school for a while. I too as a young person thought of such things and tried to go against the grain as it were. Looking back it just came off as creepy, which if you will refer to the statement above was counterproductive to my overall goals. I get the spirit of it, but being irreverent in a religious sense is something which needs to be handled delicately to be really effective. I still go to church, when I'm not working on Sundays, but I go mainly for the atmosphere. Our church is gigantic, and so ornately decorated it's almost gaudy. The huge sculptures and the ancient brickwork towers of the place transport me to another mental zone, one where religion is secondary and appreciating all of the work that took place and the design of it takes over.

I never went so far as to become interested in Satanism though. The entire concept to me seems so, I dunno', just stupid. I don't believe in a hell, or a devil, or a heaven and a 'God' for that matter. It's so wishy washy to me that humans think there is a 'balance', that in the end there is judgment. Nature, space, and the universe laugh at us for thinking we are so important. If there is a god, they are laughing at us too. I try to follow the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you; a sentiment which predates all of the Abrahamic religions. And whatever gods may be have given us a massively powerful neocortex, an evolved brain capable of fantastic and world-altering ideas, along with a limited amount of time to work with it. If there is a god, they should be pissed that we spend so much time thinking about them and so little thinking about what is right in front of us. At any minute, it could be all over. In those last few minutes before the light behind my eyes blink out into nothingness, that's when I will give the subject any more of my thought. Until then, I'll watch the modern 'Divine Comedy' play out as if I were watching Professional Wrestling. Modern 'faith' all seems as unscripted and socially-generous as the WWE, in my mind.

Besides, I like to tell people that the reason I'm not dead yet is because god doesn't want me, and the devil is afraid I'll take over. When my time comes, I'm going to try to prove that right.