Insult to injury.

I respect that you have a magnificent brain, filled with chemicals and magic and processes that I will never understand; I love you for living alongside me, however distantly, struggling with game pieces and feeling largely powerless over them but using your uniquely human capability of reason to make your moves. And so the things I am about to say may sound harsh, but I feel they deserve to be said.

I go in and out of phases where I find myself wrapped around the absurdities floating around the collective brain of humanity. The only way I know to sort out my thoughts is to write them down. My words have earned many labels over the years, and there is no shortage of instances when I have been deemed insulting. If you have ever been insulted by my assertions, then it is time to understand why I am insulted by yours.

I find it insulting the sheer volume of art, literature, architecture, history, and life that has been utterly, gorily destroyed in the name of an arbitrary god. I find it insulting that these acts - inspired by texts that remain unchanged and non-acquiescent to the intellectual development of humanity - are quickly forgotten and written off by entire populations. I find it insulting that human culture is often more comfortable with sweeping pious atrocities under a proverbial rug than approaching them and asserting the need for growth; that when the same small handful of books is responsible for untold millions of mutilated psyches and stolen lives few are willing to admit there might be a problem. I am insulted on behalf of every woman whose child has died in a war wrought over somebody's viciously backwards picture of morality. I am insulted on behalf of every child whose parent has died fighting in wars that, in the eyes of the righteous mercenary, can only be resolved by purging of the heretics and wrong-believers.

I find it insulting that every major religious text was written almost entirely by men, and each one spells it out quite clearly that women do not have a place in society alongside their masculine counterparts; that males are the superior sex and will be treated as such. I find it insulting how many little boys and girls have grown up living a lie because who they love or do not love is enough for a life sentence in the bonds of hellfire. I am insulted how many adults (mostly women, of course) and children alike have been harassed and raped because society is uncomfortable teaching its citizens how to fulfill their natural sexual appetites with respect and love.

I find it insulting how much cultural, scientific, and artistic progress has been observably stunted by religious dogma.

I am insulted that there are millions and millions of people around the world who either refuse to acknowledge or have yet to realize that their core and essential beliefs are based on words that were written justifying alienation, abuse, rape, torture, and slaughter in order to control populations in fear of damnation.

I am insulted because so many people walk along down the street knowing that complete strangers and friends alike, including your and my own loved ones, deserve to suffer for all eternity.

And I am insulted because I am supposed to just shut up and be tolerant.