Archive for Religion

Agree to Disagree

// January 24th, 2010 // No Comments » // Books, Comics, Current Affairs, Film, Food & Drink, Music, Religion, Science, Sports, Television

I have a question for you.ebertsiskel

Why exactly do you like the things you do? What makes your favorite music, movie, food, TV show, sports team, author, whatever it is… your favorite? And what do you do when someone tells you what you like is stupid?

Taste’s change. People grow up. I was a huge fan of the Monkees in third grade, but today I’d be hard pressed to listen to “Valerie” without rolling my eyes. Although to be fair, you all are now singing the chorus along with me. I know. It’s okay.

Interests usually get solidified early. For example, I grew up in a house full of awesome silver age comic books. So, of course, I love comics. I also grew up in a house knee deep in St. Louis Cardinals, James Bond soundtracks and Starlog magazine.

For example, I know when I fell in love with KISS. It was 1978 and I learned rock and roll super heroes existed. Come. On. How could I not love that? Especially since one of them looked like he belonged on the cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland and another thought he was from some planet named Jindell. At the tender age of 10, I found something that I’ve enjoyed for 30 years. I bet you have a similar tale.

The real test is how you defend your likes when someone says what you like sucks. Likes and dislikes are all subjective. I may understand why some people like Radiohead, but I just can’t find myself enjoying much of their catalog. Isn’t there a T-shirt with the slogan, “Your favorite band sucks?”

I’ve never been a music, movie or television snob and I think my open-mindedness has allowed me to simultaneously enjoy a serious, well-made, Academy Award-winning film like The Departed along with a not-trying-to-be-anything-but-a-way-to-entertain-you-for-an-hour-and-a-half-movie like Rock Star starring that girl from Friends and Marky Mark doing his best Jeff Scott Soto by way of Judas Priest.

Another good example is how I can’t fathom why anyone is a fan of the Chicago Cubs. They haven’t won anything in years, yet Wrigley Field is filled each summer with fans hoping next year is this year. It would be easy to say (and I’ve said it more than once myself) that Wrigley Field is the biggest beer garden that also happens to have some guys throwing a baseball around in the middle of it all and that’s the real appeal. There’s some truth to it, but I would never tell a Cubs fan they’re stupid for enjoying their team. It is what it is.

Take it one giant step further with topics such as politics or religion and one can quickly see what kind of crazy intolerance is out there. Nobody is born Republican or Protestant at birth. It’s thrusted upon children from the moment they enter the world. In my view, if your religion gives you personal comfort more power to you, but don’t tell me I’m going to hell because I don’t believe quite the same thing you do.

I enjoy debating with my friends regarding political policy especially because my friends don’t treat being intellectually retarded as a virtue. One of my friends is deeply conservative but he would be the first to tell you he’s not a Republican and the Presidency of George W. Bush was a disaster. I’m way more progressive then he is, but neither one of us would slam the other for our points of view – especially if we find some common ground. We always simply agree to disagree and move on. Our whole lives are not wrapped up in finding the right wing or left wing POV of every little detail. How sad would that be?

My biggest pet peeve is willful ignorance. I get a bad feeling around people who are proud of being stupid. I’m no fan of talking heads and other “personalities” who relish in knocking down the intellectually elite because they graduated from an institution of higher learning and studied the world around them. More to the point, you can’t engage these mouth-breathing buffoons in conversation or, better yet, in debate because their “reality” seldom crosses over into my reality. There’s no agreeing to disagree with these people because it’s always their way or the highway, even when information comes along that destroys their tiny little world view. I avoid them.

In fact, it’s more fun debating with my friends whether or not Wolverine is the best post silver age character ever created. Now that’s a way to kill a Sunday afternoon.

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LINKY GOODNESS

SHOUTING AT THE SEA

“I have masturbated myself out of serious problems in my life. The phone doesn’t pick up because I’m masturbating. And I have excused myself at the oddest times so as to not make mistakes. If Tiger Woods only knew when to jerk off. It has a true market value, like gold bullion. [The reason is] because I want to take a brain bath. It’s like a hot whirlpool for my brain, in a brain space that is 100 percent agreeable with itself,” — John Mayer

COLOPHON

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Anger Leads to Hate and Hate Leads to Suffering and Suffering Leads to Lawsuits

// October 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Religion, Snark, Wow

Amazingly, there is an International Church of Jediism. Even more amazing is that there are people who actually subscribe to this pseudo-religion. Of course aren’t they all pseudo? But I digress… 

An adherent of the so-called religion, Daniel Jones, recently accused a grocery store of discrimination because he wouldn’t remove his hood. The store employees asked him to remove the hood and he refused on the grounds of religious reasons and handed them a card proclaiming his religious status. Of course, the store responded with the undeniable fact that we saw plenty of Jedi in the movies without hoods on. A fictional story being used as evidence for a fictional religion. If you put one ounce of thought to this it’s simply ridiculous.

All in all, it’s pretty amusing from the standpoint of look at the crazy dude and his made-up religion making store employees nervous. Come to think of it, if you remove the specific religion (Jediism) and insert any other religion and store employees asked, say, a Jew to take off their kippah or a Muslim to remove their hijab you’d have an international incident.

The true question is why? Aren’t all religions and their made-up rules and regulations just stupid to being with?

The Sickness

// August 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Current Affairs, Religion

Anyone who has any kind of idea about our country’s history with violence against our leaders should be frightened. I don’t care if you are conservative or progressive, Republican or Democrat, right wing/left wing… you should be concerned by the words of this ignorant and uneducated pastor in Phoenix.

Steven Anderson, who preaches from the pulpit at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona has a dangerous sickness. It’s what I call an abundance of religion. Everybody knows someone with the sickness. They’re the ones who want to ban Harry Potter books from the public library because they think it promotes witchcraft. They’re the ones who want Intelligent Design to be taught side-by-side with evolution as if they should be treated equally. They’re the ones who kill abortion doctors and who go to science museums and tell their students the information contained there is all wrong.

I have no use for these people and will actively avoid them at all costs. You can’t talk to them like rational human beings because they aren’t rational. They are to be shunned, ridiculed and ignored.

Pastor Anderson is one such person. One of his more recent sermons is, in my opinion, almost enough to get him arrested for inciting a mob to do violence to the President of the United States.

Here’s a bit of what Anderson said:

Tonight, I want to preach this sermon. And you have probably never heard a sermon like this before. Actually, you probably have if you have been coming to church here for a while. But you know what? Here is my sermon, why I hate Barack Obama. That’s my sermon tonight, because Barack Obama is coming to town tomorrow morning.

And I’m going to tell you something. I hate Barack Obama. You say, well, you just mean you don’t like what he stands for. No, I hate the person. Oh, you mean you just don’t like his policies. No, I hate him.

I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. When I go to bed tonight, that’s what I’m going to pray. And you say, ‘Are you just saying that?’ No. When I go to bed tonight, Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.

Lovely.

According to his website bio he has “… no college degree but has well over 100 chapters of the Bible committeed to memory, including almost half of the New Testatment.” Bully for you Pastor. Now can you tell me what any of it means or is memorization your only trick?

Pastor Anderson is sick. His church is sick. It’s Doctrinal Statement is typical religious garbage that has no basis in reality. His “church” is the poster child for why I’m not a man of religious or spirtual sensibilties.

This man has no formal education and I’d wager he’s quite proud of his ignorance. A freshman at, say, Notre Dame has more religious training and education than he does. I’m certainly not going to say he can’t have these personal thoughts or opinions, but he comes very close to promoting violence against the President of the United States, which is, incidently, illegal.

Still, his congregation eats up this guy’s stupid rantings. They continue to go and listen to him celebrate violence against others who are different or have a different point of view. Why do people go week after week and listen to a man promote hatred against gays or television or the President? I don’t have an answer. I wish they wouldn’t. I wish they would just say no more and stay home. I will not be surprised if sometime in the future he crosses the line and gets a one-way ticket to pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

By the way, his sermon has already earned him a visit by the Secret Service.