What's In a Name?

After Judas' betrayal, the disciples drew lots to determine who would take his place among Jesus' twelve chosen Apostles. Matthias was the one who took that position.

And now you know why I named the blog the way I did: because my namesake was, in a sense, the thirteenth apostle.

I was raised Catholic, you see. I still practice. Go to Church every Sunday. I suppose that's why the Timberwolves anger me so much. They believe in a god that is, essentially, an Anti-Christ. It does not love us, it sees us as tools. It does not allow us the luxury of choice or freedom or even life: it demands our deaths, and it demands them now.

In Catholic dogma, Hell is not a place of fire and brimstone. It is not a place of punishment where God throws the unrighteous. It is simply an existence where God's light does not shine. It is an existence without God, and therefore it is an existence without happiness or meaning. It is an existence we choose. When we reject God, we push Him away from us and choose a world without Him. We choose Hell. He does not. Heaven is the opposite: it is existence with God.

But the Archangel is different. There is only one afterlife, and it is an existence with "god," but it is not an existence of happiness and contentment. It is an existence of pain and of slavery.

The Archangel is the antithesis of everything I believe.

But I do not hate the Timberwolves. I understand them perfectly. My God is a subtle god. He works in mysterious ways, and does not reveal Himself. Their god is an overt god. It takes the forms of the dead and appears before them. How can they not believe? How can they not turn their backs on all other religions and worship this demon before them?

I understand why the choose to follow the Archangel, and I don't begrudge them for it. But they go a step further: they bring pain to others. They harm others and they kill for their god.

That is something I cannot allow. That is something I cannot turn my back on.

And so I fight.