Saturday night my dad and stepmother came up for a surprise visit. We went out to dinner. Towards the end of our meal I went to the bathroom, when I came back from the bathroom my husband had started a discussion on politics. Grrrr... I hadn't even been back for a minute before my Stepmother was spouting off some conspiracy theory about Obama being put through law school by the Iranians in order to infiltrate our government. She said that she thinks he's in league with the enemy and cried when he won the election. She went on to talk about how wonderful Sarah Palin is and that she hopes that she runs again in 2012. This somehow led into my stepmother telling me with a straight face that evolution only applies to animals.....

The creep out continued when we were in the car leaving the restaurant and when my husband asked my father what he's been reading lately. My dad went on to explain that he's been reading a book about biblical prophecy, and that it's coming true. He said that the prophecy says that Russia and the Middle East are all going to join forces and attack Israel sparking the apocalypse....

I'm starting to get worried about them. They're a step away from dancing around in the streets with a cardboard sign screaming “The End IS Near!” Lately when going home to visit them I've noticed my Stepmother talking about the apocalypse more and more and how excited she is to go be with god. This isn't good, I feel as if they've crossed the line between their delusions being something I can shrug off as relatively harmless to something harmful.

The thing that turns my stomach the most is that my stepmother wouldn't be stating these outright paranoid statements as fact unless it's something she heard from her idiot pastor. I really hate that guy. I've seen him get up there before and preach about how we need to choose between the religion of god and the religion of science! I can't stand it when people say things like that and then go on to take advantage of modern technology and modern medicine.

I think I need to write my dad a letter about this. I know that I'll never be able to convince him that he is wrong about these things but I think that he needs to understand where I'm coming from. Maybe I can point him towards christians that aren't quite so kooky.

I also need to come clean with him about the real reason I don't want to come see them on holidays. They don't seem to understand how disrespectful trying to get me to hold hands with them when they pray is. They know that I don't believe but seem to think that I have neutral feelings about all the god crap going on in front of me. The truth is that I'm resentful because their church requires them to live in fear, haterd, and judgment of others. It requires them to be willfully ignorant about the natural world.