We got your back, Ryan Seacrest!

Meagan still wants a millionaire. And VH1 will oblige.

We’re lovin’ DKNY’s fall collection.

There are lots of songs about balls….

Is God going gender neutral in the Bible?

Cheap, amazing dorm room DIY.

[We all get bogged down with the required reading lists handed to us by our over-zealous professors. When we aren’t laying in bed with a textbook and 3 highlighters, we are resting our eyes (and brains) with a little TV. No one wants to read any more than they have to.

Not so fast, girls. I am here to show you some books that are totes worth reading when the 347 pages of History/English/Psych reading are finished. Books that will make you laugh, cry, and change the way you think. Good books (which I know is hard to believe when you think of the stuff assigned for class). Stick with me and you will spend a lot less time watching Real World reruns, and a lot more time enjoying books again.]

A lot of books aimed at women are chock full of shopping, sex and other things that are stereotypically “feminine.” Not this book. The Red Tent is the most female-empowering piece of writing I have ever found.

If you’re familiar with the Bible or the Broadway musical, you know the story of Joseph and his technicolor dreamcoat. This is the story of Joseph’s sister Dinah, who is only mentioned ONCE in the whole Bible! But even if you’re not religious and have no interest in religious history, this book is still worth your time.

Diamant creates a rich and vivid backstory for Dinah and also reveals the female-worshipping ways of the Old Testament. The history itself is fascinating, and even with the barren backdrop of the desert, this book never gets boring. The writing is perfection, too! Diamant is an accomplished author and has a great hold on the English language. She takes advantage of beautiful metaphors to enhance the story and enthrall the reader. Read More »

If you watched the VP debate last night you heard a lot about Sarah Palin’s BFF, Joe Six Pack. But who is he? What does he like? What does he do?

We don’t know Joe Six Pack personally (though we have hooked up with his cousin, Mark Quarter Barrel…who could not keep it up), but we imagine he’d be something like this:

Description:

5′11, brown hair, brown eyes, some sort of facial hair, big hands and a tattoo of some sort (possibly his kids’ initials) on his upper arm. No actual six pack to be seen behind the slight beer belly hanging over the top of his ill-fitting denim. Read More »

Yesterday, the pundits had their panties in a bunch because James Dobson said Barack Obama was “dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.” But over the past seven years of the Bush Administration, I’ve realized that to know what people are lying about, just listen to what they’re accusing others of doing–which is exactly what Christian-right leader and founder of Focus on the Family, James Dobson has done by claiming that Barack Obama is ‘distorting’ the Bible. His comments come in reference to a two-year-old speech Obama gave in June 2006, while speaking to a Christian group.

Check out video of Obama’s full speech after the jump! Read More »

After growing up in a world where sins absolutely meant Hell and Jesus absolutely meant Heaven, I never want to use the word absolute again. Except to say that I was absolutely mistaken.

I was raised to believe that there was a god, one god, and that Jesus Christ was his son. I accepted him into my ‘heart’ and was baptized at an early age. Then I was taught that anyone who didn’t move forward with those two procedures was going to go to Hell; even if they were a good person. Oh, Hell. The fiery pit where bad people burn with the devil.

I once believed this place was real and I could quote scriptures from The Bible as my own little way of reassuring myself that I wasn’t gonna be one of those bad people going to that bad place. I prayed when things weren’t going my way and I prayed when things were going my way. Come to think of it, I spent more time chatting it up with God when I was young than I did my friends.

I knew nothing about earning money, but I knew you were a selfish person if you didn’t give at least 10% of your income to God and your church. I knew that Halloween was for Satan and witches, that Jewish people believed in the same God that I did but were still going to Hell, and that Pulp Fiction was a very, VERY demonic movie that I was never allowed to see.

When I entered adolescence, I started to embrace my Christianity in new ways. I listened to rock bands who screamed lyrics you couldn’t understand…but they were Christian, so it was okay. I wore punky clothes and was straight edge. A straight edge jerk, judging everyone I knew who did drugs or drank or — god forbid — had sex. Read More »

When I tell people that I was raised with no religion, it’s usually met with a certain amount of skepticism. I never realized what an anomaly it was until I moved away for college, and childhood stories, stories from home, were a matter of course in the ‘getting to know you’ conversations, and bitching about abandoned family religion was a hot topic.

“Never? You’ve really never been to church? What about Christmas? Easter? Seriously?”

Nope, never means never. At the age of 18, I had never sat in a pew and attended a church service. We weren’t high Holy Day Jews, or Easter-only Catholics, or even Unitarians in it for the social aspect (as my Dad was raised, until he was given the option to stop going around age 12). American demographics being what they are, my exposure to religion was haphazard, but fairly broad. I had friends of many religions, though I was too young to really understand what that meant, beyond a weekly time commitment. More importantly, I knew no one for whom it was a problem that I didn’t believe, just as I didn’t care if they did.

Even with this lack of Christianity, Christmas was (and is) a big deal in my home. A tree with an angel and packages and cookies and friends and family, the whole nine yards, the family tradition. Looking back, it’s odd that we had tiny creche figures that we got to remove one at a time from our daily advent calendar, complete with baby Jesus, but it was part of the package. We believed in the story, but that was as far as it went. I knew that Jesus was a good guy, a leader of men, but…he can’t be the son of God if you don’t believe in God. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 98

Mood: Feeling weird

“So, how was your Thanksgiving?” Justin ran his finger over the dark, thick spines of books that looked as though they had been down in the stacks for centuries, the archaic gold writing worn away with age, the leather worn and tearing in places. We were in a far corner reserved for old English texts, big, dense volumes our grandparents were probably bored by in the early 1900’s.

“It was fine. A little weird…” I leaned against the opposite shelf, dropping my backpack by my feet. “Some kid came over accidentally. I mean… I accidentally invited someone over for dessert who I didn’t know that well…”

“Who?” Checking a small piece of paper gripped in his fingers, Justin locked onto a particularly giant volume and pulled it out, leafing through the thin pages. “And how do you accidentally invite someone over?” Read More »

Today, being gay is not such a taboo. But in the utopian Christian world, being gay is still unacceptable.

As a former bible toting, God-loving Christian, I can easily say that converts are whole-heartedly welcomed and celebrated in the church. But now, there is another type of conversion, a conversion from “straight” to gay to “straight” again that is also being welcomed and accepted.

This “conversion therapy” is really behavior modification or simply put, brainwashing.

From the article on ABC News, it sounds much like the movie So You Want to Be a Cheerleader except in real life (and maybe slightly less creepy…remember those outfits??). Making someone participate in so-called straight male activities like football banter with the guys or automobile maintenance aren’t any way to change their inherent attraction to one sex or another.

James Serra attended Love In Action, the largest gay “rehab” located in Tennessee. He spent THREE YEARS in the program and is now a counselor.

Serra said that he sees homosexuality as a behavior, a choice. Although he is still attracted to men, he has not acted on his feelings for eight years. He hasn’t been with a woman either.

I hate to break it to this guy, but that isn’t conversion, that’s a really long sex drought. Read More »

America was founded on religion, right? We hear God in the Pledge of Allegiance, we debate prayer in schools, and we swear on stacks of Bibles. But some of America’s most memorable leaders were, in fact, Atheists.

Politically it is unfavorable, socially unacceptable and statistically unbelievable, but many American heroes wore the scarlet letter. Some people claim that the founding fathers of our nation were nearly all infidels including Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson and even Abraham Lincoln, stating that they had no direct belief in Christianity.

It wasn’t until the late 1950’s that “In God We Trust” became our national motto and was printed on paper currency to counteract “Godless“ communism. So if America wasn’t founded on Judeo Christian beliefs, where did these strong religious undertones come from, and why the hell is there a bible in every seedy motel in America…right beside the vibrating bed? Read More »