A life in juxtaposition

Get in the sack!

2012-01-26T22:08:00.000+02:00

My previous post shows where I am right now with regards to giving a response when someone praises the irrational. Clearly I still have a lot to learn when it comes to expressing myself well without it devolving into angry ranting. My elders and betters tell it's good to have goals. Very well then. Here is mine. To one day be this good at addressing the irrational:

Wish me luck!

Into the darkness

2012-01-25T23:12:00.003+02:00

Yesterday someone posted an article on Facebook called "The Science of Faith". Reading it was not good for my blood pressure. The message was basically that science is overrated and that there are other ways of finding truth that works just as well if not better. This type of mealy mouthed mysticism triggers me to no end but what to do about it? I could vent in the comment section but experience has taught me that my incoherent rage at proponents of anti-science usually just leads them to shake their heads at me condescendingly while making comments like "Your blind adherence to scientism blinds you to larger truths, don't be so close minded!" or even worse, "I'll pray for you". I could simply avoid all articles like this but where would that leave me? To avoid everything I disagree with and only read things I already agree on will just leave me stagnant and trapped in my own conformation bias. No, it's far better to engage with the things I disagree with. There is always a chance I'm mistaken and this way I can be corrected. If I'm not mistaken I can still gain a better understanding. The problem is that when I try to engage things that piss me off I have trouble expressing myself clearly. So then it's better for me to learn how to respond to articles like this with less blind rage and more sense. But how to do that? I guess I could wait for someone out there who is smarter and more informed than me to tell me what to think but that doesn't seem like a great option. How much would I really be learning from that after all? So I decided to instead work out a proper response here on my blog. It may be a little rough and clumsy at times but I can't really think of a better way for me to learn how to give a clearheaded response to things I disagree with. After all, that was what my New Year's not-resolution was all about!

By the way, I welcome all input in this whether you agree with me or not.

OK then, here is my response to "The Science of Faith" by Nico van der Westhuizen. Original article in bold my response in [brackets]. All pictures added by me.

I am not necessarily what you would call a “Scientist”, [up to here I agree completely but it quickly goes downhill from here...] but I am an avid student of all things unexplored and mysterious [He uses "student" in the loosest sense of the word only]. Science in many ways has become the root of all things that steer our lives in the modern world [the what now?]. And at the core of all human investigation is the yearning to explain the unexplained.

That brings us to my point of question for this discussion, the Naturalist. As I was flipping through the numerous useless and unentertaining channels of my very expensive television subscription, I came across a scientific program explaining the Naturalist view of the world. [so far so good]

Despite being an enthusiast of science I have some reservations about what was being said during the broadcast. If I can recollect correctly the presenter claimed that he was a Naturalist by heart, one who believes that we can only know what can be scientifically tested. He based his belief on the fact that since we have made much progress in science over the last 300 years compared to the fields of Arts, Theology or Humanities, it is therefore vastly superior to other ways of “knowing.”

The very statement that we can know only that which is scientifically testable is in itself a self-refuting statement. No scientific laboratory in the world could perform any kind of experimentation to prove this statement as fact. [See this is why I have such a hard time taking Mr vd Westhuizen here seriously. He calls himself "an enthusiast of science" but he clearly doesn't actually understand what science is - something that's going to become much clearer as we keep going. It seems that he thinks that the only way to verify something scientifically is with a test tube and a microscope. Wrong! We can totally test this scientifically using a little something called The Scientific Method. The question is, which is the most reliable way of knowing the truth - Science, Theology, Arts or the Humanities? Now let's observe and gather data. On a wide range of issues, which of these has been correct most often? Much like the unnamed Naturist, the data is bound to lead you to the hypothesis that Science is the best way of separating fact from fiction. Now we can test this over and over again. Science says bacteria makes you ill, Theology says it's demons. So lets give some sick people antibiotics and some other sick people exorcisms and see who gets better. Repeat as many times as you'd like and make some predictions using this model and see if it's accurate. This is both repeatable and falsifiable and therefore scientific]

Famous physicist Stephen Hawking wrote the following in his latest book ‘The Grand Design’. He writes, “Philosophy is dead. It has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly in physics. As a result scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”

This avowal is clearly not a scientific statement; rather it is a philosophical statement about science. It is a logical inconsistency, because what he claims to be inapplicable is what he is using to prove his statement. [Did he read past the first page? I did and I seem to recall Dr Hawking backing that statement up with lots and lots of scientific evidence, not philosophy and handwaving. So no, it's not logically inconsistent at all. Science says the side with the most evidence wins, Hawking gave evidence so he wins]

Science creates many assumptions while producing its own experiments. [No. Some assumptions are necessary but not many. In fact to practice good science you have to make as few assumptions as possible] So much so that many experiments cannot begin without assuming certain things. [Yes, for example we have to assume that we exist and that reality is not some kind of computer simulation a la The Matix. We also have to assume that our senses are mostly reliable and that the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't tampering with our results as they are measured] These assumptions guide experimentation and are themselves not the result of experiments. So the assumption that all things are scientifically knowable and nothing is supernatural is itself a belief which can neither be asserted nor defended by the Naturalist position that all things are scientifically testable. [WTF?? This is just wrong on so many levels! These assumptions scientists make are not just random bullshit they pull out of thin air. They have to be pretty well grounded and defensible because other scientists are going to check their work (peer review) and the first place they are going to try to poke holes are in the starting assumptions. There is a reason science makes a naturalistic assumption rather than a supernatural one - supernatural claims have been tested over and over again and each time the answer turned out to be a natural one. Assumptions like these are actually based on other experiments. Go check out the James Randi Educational Foundation, they regularly run tests on alleged paranormal and supernatural claims and they have yet to find someone who can demonstrate such a thing for a million dollars]

So I believe that a naturalist’s assumptions are as much a matter of “faith” if not more than that of a believer who believes in the supernatural. [No, assuming that you should trust in evidence does not take as much or more faith than it takes to believe things happen magically. For example believing that Jesus turned water into wine takes faith. There is no natural, scientific mechanism by which to do that and no rational way to prove it therefore if you want to believe it you just have to take it on faith. It does not take any faith on the other hand to believe that the world is round though - we can fly around it, we can send up satellites and spaceships to take a look and see for ourselves. One of these things is not like the other]

In light of this it can then also be concluded that other forms of “knowing” are equally certain and sometimes even superior to science. [Credit where it's due, here he demonstrates what it would look like if things really worked the way he thinks they do. If people make nonsensical assumptions and then just run with it they end up with crazy conclusions like this one. Do tell, how are other forms of "knowing" superior to science?]

To use an example: Mathematical knowledge like 1+1=2 is inescapably true and I don’t need any experiments or any of my senses to guarantee that it is true. Similarly, the basic laws of logic are self-sustaining and don’t need any support from science. [Here's the thing. This example actually proves the opposite of what you think it does. You don't know that 1+1=2 via osmosis or magic. You know it the same way you know the basic laws of logic are true, through science. The only reason it feels like these things are second nature to you is because you have been doing the science on this all your life. You are NOT born with the knowledge that 1+1=2 or with the knowledge of cause and effect. Instead you learn these things by observation, experimentation, testing and prediction - science. At the very basis of what you know about math there is the observation that there are things and things come in amounts. Pretty soon you learn that you can make those amounts more or less. You learn this with toys, marbles, stones, whatever is available to you. If you were born deaf and blind and lived alone in an empty room, you may never have any concept of basic math or logic. Sorry but you don't know this via magic, you know this via science]

Certain universal laws of ethics are applicable and accepted without having to be proven to us through scientific tests. We “know” that abusing our children is wrong and those concepts such as mercy and kindness are virtues. [Who is your "we" kimosabe? Have you seen the crime statistics? A LOT of people don't seem to "know" that abusing children is wrong. There are also no "universal laws of ethics" to speak of. Ethics can and does vary wildly throughout time and space. Your morals and ethics depend mostly on where (and when) you live and how you were raised, they certainly don't get magically zapped into everyone mystically. I did a fairly long blog post on this a while back using Sleeping Beauty as an example but for now, consider someone born into an organized crime family who grew up in a culture of violence and cruelty. Do you think they see mercy and kindness as virtues or weaknesses to be exploited?]

I do not wish to offend anyone by writing these words, [only actual fans of science will be offended at this point, don't worry about it, I doubt you know any] but I believe that we [we? srsly?] fans of science and the yet unexplained are too engrossed in finding the mechanism that works a system and are confusing it with whomever or whatever set that mechanism in motion. [How about no? The one does not preclude the other. There are plenty of scientific fields - physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology - that are dedicated to investigating both the mechanism and whatever set the mechanism in motion. If you were an actual fan of science you would have known that. Both are fascinating. You know what's not fascinating? Closing your eyes to the wonders of the universe and shouting "You can't explain it! It must be magic gnomes!"]

Let’s look at another example: Birds have wings in order to fly. Because we want our own set of wings or developed that same mechanism to make an airplane, we sometimes stop at the mechanism as the ultimate explanation to that phenomenon. [I'm not sure what that last sentence is even supposed to mean! However when I think of how human beings - a species of flightless mammals - managed to overcome our biology and mastered flight (which btw, not everything with wings can even do!) I am overcome with awe and wonder! Think about it! We can fly faster than the speed of sound! We have flown to the moon! We dreamed it and we did it! Yet somehow all that leaves him with a profound sense of "meh" because that's just boring mechanics and not the divine purpose of wings or whatever]

Rather we should also pause to think who gave those wings to the birds and for what ultimate purpose. [Ohhhh now I get it! All that ultimate purpose stuff was about God somehow. Well I for one would LOVE to know the ultimate God given purpose of wings and remember, it can't be something stupid like "flying" because that's besides the point somehow] Because we are only interested in technology and not the whole truth we have gotten our languages confused. We are beginning to treat the natural world or the mechanism as the agent who contains the ultimate purpose. [This just seems like a case of weapons grade projection to me. Creationists and other proponents of anti-science are always telling you how much they love science when all they really love are the fruits of science - all the technology and advancements that make our lives easier and longer. They don't like science itself. Because science doesn't care what you believe or what you would like to be true. Science is a process that can find the truth no matter what that truth is. You start messing around with science and next thing you know all that cool, mystical "ultimate purpose" stuff may end up not seeming so profound anymore. Real scientists on the other hand aren't in it for the tech, they are in it for the journey of discovery]

How do you test the love between a mother and a child? [Well thank goodness not everyone was satisfied with that Hallmark card drivel. See not all mothers love their children. Some mothers go a little nuts sometimes and drown their babies. Good thing then science didn't just chalk it up to "mysterious ways" because now postpartum depression can be diagnosed and treated] How do you explain the spontaneous explosion of matter into what we now call the universe? [Work in progress. There may be much we don't know yet but scientists are actually working on that over at CERN. Fun fact, it's thanks to work on particle accelerators that we ended up with things like MRI machines and the internet] Sometimes we should just accept that some things are better left unexplained and mysterious. It’s more fun that way too. Imagine a world in which all things were revealed to all men…not that magical anymore is it? [You know that world you're fantasizing about? The one without all these stupid "explanations" and "scientific inquiry" where everything was mysterious and magical instead? We had that! It was called the Dark Ages and it wasn't a great time to be alive. No one had the slightest idea how the world worked but hey, at least they had art and philosophy and theology! But don't fret, I hear that in parts of Nigeria they reject science in favour of the supernatural so you could always move there if you don't mind occasionally having to torture and kill a child for being a witch! I'm sorry, was that rude? Am I being offensive? Good, because this was an offensive article! You know what rejecting science in favour of "other ways of knowing" gets you? People people being robbed of potential happiness, suffering and even dying needlessly. Our supernatural superstitions landed us in the deepest, darkest holes humanity has ever been in and it was only by the light of reason and science that we managed to claw our way out of it. To suggest we turn our backs on that and return to the darkness is a deeply offensive notion. Oh, I know you don't mean it like that. You just think talk of "other ways of knowing" and "deeper ultimate meanings" make you sound oh so damn deep and thoughtful and spiritual. But it doesn't. It makes you sound ignorant and clueless. The world is incredible and the universe a place of infinite wonder but you can't see that. You miss the true beauty of your garden because you would rather imagine it has fairies in it than learn of it's true magnificence. You refuse to see the awesome wonder of reality because you would rather believe in the smallness of magic and superstition]

I think it is for that reason that C.S. Lewis said “Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator”. [Right, scientists of old like Newton, Kepler and Galileo assumed that if God created the universe then it followed that the universe would make sense and therefore they should be able to understand it. Modern anti-scientists do the opposite. They say that since God did it we shouldn't try to understand it or bother investigating it. We've come a long way baby!]

OK so I lost my cool there for a while but at least I managed to get through the whole thing without once using the word "fucktard" so there's that. It just upsets me when people act as if science takes all the mystery and joy out of the world. Have these people ever listened to someone like Carl Sagan or Brian Cox (the rockstar scientist, not the curmudgeonly actor) talk about science? Science doesn't steal the mystery away, it gives us the tools to appreciate it in full! The more we explore the more we find, each question we answer leads to countless new questions! Science robs you of nothing, it gives you the keys to the castle. You know what does rob you? Closing your eyes to all that by making up your own ignorant bullshit and calling that "a different way of knowing". Sure, that way you can get to live comfortably in your own little cave, blissfully unaware of the greatness that is right outside (but at least your little pet beliefs will be totally safe so there's that). You would be missing out on so much though! The self made prison world of superstition and fairytales will rob you of all the wonder of the universe while offering nothing but a tiny portion of pathetic mysticism. Trust me, once you get a taste of the real mysteries of the world, it's hard to go back!

All things to all people

2012-01-24T23:03:00.001+02:00

I just played the funnest game and got really upset with the English language! But first the game. Thanks to my awesome new blogging friend Ali I found an online game called Bible or Qu'ran. Basically you are given a verse of scripture and you have to say if it's from the Bible or the Qu'ran. It's a lot of fun to play and you can learn a lot!

Go give it a try before you read on, otherwise the rest of this post won't make that much sense. My final score was 156 (178 correct, 22 wrong), think you can beat me? If you're not the type who enjoys a challenge then highlight for some spoilery tips: FUN FACT! Verses talking about "Paradise", "Hell", "the hereafter/afterlife", "Satan" and "unbelievers" are almost always from the Qu'ran. As I've pointed out before, these things - though popular in Christian dogma - don't play much of a role in the actual Christian Scriptures. Islam does seem to resemble Medieval Christianity quite a bit which coincidentally was the time when Islam got started. Not saying the Prophet did any cribbing, just saying it's interesting...

Now as soon as I finished it I knew I had to blog about it but I needed a good title. I can write pretty much anything if I have a title I like but if I don't I just can't get started! Hence my frustration with the English language, specifically its lack of idioms! But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

If you did the quiz (and I really hope you did it and didn't just skip ahead) you will have noticed that they didn't use any nice, happy, fluffy verses on love and peace. No, these were the horridly hardcore verses that most believers either don't know exists or have to bend over backward (twice!) to explain why they're not actually as bad as they seem. Apologetics exist because of verses like these. Seems to me that if the Bible was written today then every Christian Family Watchdog group and all the self appointed morality police would tell you to stay as far away from it as possible due to all the questionable content. But, because it was written thousands of years ago it's somehow OK to hand it out to kids in primary school! Is it just me or is that more than just a little weird? He-Man and the Turtles are too violent and immoral for your children but a book full of rape, slavery and genocide (and that's the mild stuff) is not only OK, it's highly recommended! Somehow these Holy books have become famous as sources of extremely enlightened moral teaching despite their actual content.

And yet, most of the people who claim to follow and obey these books, don't look or act anything like those ugly verses. Most people read these books and find the good while mostly ignoring the bad. This is where English fails me. In Afrikaans we have a saying that fits nicely: "Vir elke ketter is daar 'n letter", which translates roughly to mean any heresy can in some way be justified with a quote from the Holy book. That sounds about right to me. People find what they need from their scriptures. Doesn't seem to me your morals - or lack of them - depend on the Holy Scripture you read. Seems more like people who are good and kind and peace loving find scriptures to support that lifestyle in their Book while people who are cruel and violent find excuses to be that way from the same Book. Seems more like people use their Books to justify what they already believe and then retroactively claim that their beliefs are not their own but that it comes from their Book.

I once read this interview with some of the survivors of David Koresh's cult, 18 years after the tragedy at Waco. This one part always stuck with me:

"[Clive] Doyle says his daughter started having sex with Koresh when she was 14. Koresh fathered at least 13 children with sect followers and engaged in sexual acts with underage Davidian girls, according to the Justice Department, numerous affidavits of Davidians and interviews CNN conducted...

Doyle knows that trying to justify Koresh having sex with underage girls incites nothing but outrage from nonbelievers. And, initially, when David began preaching a message that his holy seed must be spread to any girl he preferred, married or in pigtails, Doyle admits he was bothered by it. "I wondered, I asked, 'Is this God or is this horny old David?'" ... But Doyle's concern didn't last long. "I couldn't argue because he'd show you where it was in the Bible." "

Scripture really can be all things to all people...

Operation Spider Karma backfires badly

2012-01-21T09:30:00.001+02:00

This morning I found my study has been invaded by another big spider. What are the freaking odds?! Here is a blurry photo as proof, I didn't feel like getting much closer...

He knows what I did to his cousin...

So with my recent embarrassing spider encounter still fresh in my guilty conscience I decide to try a more humane way of spider disposal this time. When I was waiting at the Frankfurt airport there was this annoying ad on a loop for some kind of helpful hints website (I think. It was in German) where a little girl saves her shrieking parents from a spider by trapping it in shaving cream and taking it outside. I thought this would be perfect since I had both shaving cream and an outside! I even had a spatula! This was going to be easy! And humane! This totally wasn't going to be another story about a spider who hates me!

Riiiiiight...

Turns out the fucking Germans deceived me regarding just how easy this is. Long story short - shaving cream is everywhere except on the spider and the spider is missing!

The best laid plans of mice and men...

So right now the spider is somewhere inside this study! This super tiny study! And I don't know where! Although it's a fair guess that it's watching me with its wee beady eyes as I type this and figuring out the best way to strike at me...

What I'm saying is that if you don't hear from me in a while, tell the cops the spider did it!

--------------------------------------
UPDATE!
--------------------------------------

Sweet Spider Spatula Success!

I owe the Germans an apology, I did it! One spider safely trapped and humanely relocated to the garden. I even hosed off the excess shaving cream because, lets face it, I seriously need some karma points with the local spider population.

Suck it Gumby!

Schrödinger's Spider

2012-01-20T09:32:00.002+02:00

The Altoids box of spidery doom!

In this box there is a spider. The spider could be alive or dead but the only way to actually know what state it is in would be to open the box to find out. Until that happens the spider can be thought of as being both alive and dead. Which is far more preferable at this point to me than opening the box and finding it to be still alive because if that spider is alive it is going to attack me like a rabid rottweiler!

Here's the thing. I have something of a complex and layered relationship with spiders. I really love and respect them for their ecological niche - killing things like flies and mosquitoes that I so passionately despise. I think having spiders in the garden is great for that very reason. In fact, as a child I used to catch grasshoppers and throw them into spider nets just to watch them feed. I think spiders are totally cool. However ALL of that changes when they come inside the house. Especially if they come into my bedroom. When that happens I lose my shit. I'm not proud of that fact but that iss never going to change.

Look there are exceptions. I don't care if there's a Daddy Long Legs in my room. Those guys are cool, welcome even. The worst thing about having a Daddy Long Legs in your room is that it means that the cleaning lady is totally ignoring you on the whole "dusting" thing. But like I said, I don't mind that much since they are totally harmless except to small annoying insects. Therefore any Daddy Long Legs is welcome in my room.

So last night I'm getting ready for bed and I hit what feels like a tripwire. Suddenly I feel like I'm covered in pieces of sticky string which I quickly realise is not string but web and not your average thickness for spiderweb so clearly not something as innocuous as Daddy Long Legs webbing. Does anyone else ever have that feeling when they've hit a spiderweb that there is a spider on them? I do! So I spend some frantic minutes in front of the mirror checking to see if I have a spider on me. I didn't. Just some really strong webbing that felt like it stayed on me even after I removed it. In fact I kind of still feel it on me right now. Spiders just make me feel violated like that. Alright so after I made sure there is no spider on me I turn around and look up and see this on my bedroom wall:

At which point my rational mind shut down and the only voice left inside my head was just screaming a stream of profanity. As I'm writing this now I have deep shame and regret for what happened next but honestly I don't think there is any way it could have played out differently. On some level I know that these spiders offer no threat to humans (I think) but on every other level I was going "AAAAAAHH FUCK there is no fucking way I'm fucking sharing my fucking room with that fucking spider!!" OK I also regret my unimaginative use of expletives but once adrenaline takes over the poetry in me dies. Like I said, I'm proud of none of this. So I ran to get the Raid with the alleged "Fast Killing Action" which mostly just seemed to make it angry. There was no fast killing happening, that was for damn sure! Eventually the spider ended up convulsing towards my heap of laundry and shoes (you are probably judging me by now anyway so whatever) and I realised I had to dispose of this spider before it crawled in somewhere we would both regret. And by we I mean me.

Raid, you have failed me for the last time!!

So I got some pliers and tried to pick it up at which point the spider levitated! Again, rationally I know that it probably just went up a bit of its webbing but at that point it seemed more like that spider defied the laws of gravity to lunge at my neck! At which point trying to get it out of the window was no longer an option for me and so I grabbed the nearest container I could find and maneuvered it in there before it could challenge the laws of physics again to attack me. I refuse to live in an anime!

And that is how I ended up with a dead-alive spider in a box. And I think I'm OK with never knowing whether it's alive or dead. I'm willing to live with that mystery so perhaps I will just go bury it somewhere...

My first clue

2012-01-17T21:08:00.000+02:00

I saw this video on Scotteriology today and I just had to do whatever the blogging equivalent of retweeting is. This played a very large part in making me what I am today. Not this specific video but videos, articles, books and sermons just like it. It's why I'm the lovable heretic I am today. I'll explain after you've seen the video.

My formative years were filled with and shaped by this kind of propaganda. All the shows, toys, music and comics I liked the most just happened to be the ones I weren't supposed to like because they were "demonic". Good Christian kids shouldn't even watch that or the devil would get a hold of you and mess you up! No, I'm not joking, they really tell stuff like that to kids in church. I was a very pious little fundamentalist so on more than one occasion, fearing for my salvation, I tried to rid myself of some of these "occult" toys and comics. But then I got a little older and started noticing something. These people didn't know what the fuck they were talking about! They were mixing up different stories, they would add a ton of embellishments that made no sense and sometimes they would just plain make stuff up. Mullet guy in that video is a shining example - there was no magic in TMNT of any kind. Splinter didn't use white magic and

Demonic!!

Bebop & Rocksteady didn't use black magic either. Now it would still be years before I would be willing to start asking serious questions about my faith but this really laid the groundwork. These guys preaching to me about the Turtles and Rock music were my first clue that people in the church could talk with great conviction and certainty about things they knew absolutely nothing about. Once I realized that people could stand on a pulpit and talk out their asses (without blushing!) it was only a matter of time before I started questioning more things.

Oh, and this also led to my first publicized rant! Sometime in early High School I just got so fed up by the BS on "evil" kids shows I wrote a letter to Die Huisgenoot, a local tabloid style family mag (only in SA!) calling them on all the nonsense they were publishing. Sadly when they printed my letter it was heavily edited - they left out all the bits where I pointed out that their "reporter" was a sensation seeking moron who clearly never spent 5 seconds checking out the shows he was criticizing and the part where I pointed out that they were making false claims to rile up parents - but still, it was my rant and it was out there in public. It felt good! That probably had some effect on me eventually taking my rants to the internet. Even though their hatchet job on my letter made it seem like I claimed Bugs Bunny was also a bad influence on kids. Actually what I said was that children's entertainment had always been violent, using Bugs and Tom & Jerry as examples to show that Power Rangers didn't invent violence in kid's shows. But I guess that also gave me my first clue on how far to trust the media...

Us, Them, Here & Not Here - A Language Lesson

2012-01-16T22:27:00.001+02:00

If the apocalyptic topic of the previous post was something you are interested in at all, then you really should do yourself a giant favour and check out The Slacktivist's weekly dissection of the Left Behind series. Its a lot of fun and you will learn a lot about Evangelical End Time beliefs and Evangelical beliefs in general. One post in particular has always stuck with me. Without being hyperbolic it's hands down one of the best blog posts I have ever read on any topic. In it he talks about the weird idea some Christians seem to have that all non-Christian people are basically exactly the same. While he only discusses a very specific topic here I think this is actually applicable to many instances of groupthink, whether it be religious, cultural or racial. I strongly recommend you click on the link below and go read the entire post:

TF: Not Xianity

Tribulation Force, pp. 274-277

"Well here I am and there you are. Since you're not here, you must be elsewhere.

This kind of basic binary distinction is a necessary and useful tool for making sense of the world. We need words to mean things, meaning we need them not to mean everything else too. So if you're not here, you must be elsewhere because this is what "elsewhere" means. (It's also, in a way, what "here" means, i.e., not elsewhere.)

But while such necessary distinctions can be useful, they can also produce confusion if we forget the rather important ways in which the categories they create are different. "Here" is singular and particular while "elsewhere" is vast and diverse. (You're all, plural, reading this elsewhere, but I shouldn't assume that means you're all crowding around a single monitor somewhere.) "X" marks the spot, a single spot, but "Not X" marks everything else. "Not X" is the rest of the universe.

Of course. No duh. Why, you may be wondering, am I wasting our time with such an elementary and obvious discussion? Who could possibly be confused about something so simple?

Who else? Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. And any of their readers and fans who manage to get through this next section of Tribulation Force without laughing hysterically at the crazed absurdity of it.

This weirdly laughable confusion is the premise of this section and of much that follows it. LaHaye seems to believe that "elsewhere" is a single location. He believes that "Not X" marks the spot. He believes, specifically, that all of those left behind — every believer and non-believer who subscribes to anything other than his very specific variety of real, true Christianity — believes one thing and the same thing. All of them. All of us. Christopher Hitchens and Muqtada al-Sadr and you and me and the Dalai Lama — we all believe Not X and so, to LaHaye, we are all the same and must agree wholly on every other point.

This singular uniformity of Not X is essential to the plot of LaHaye's story because it is essential to the fulfillment of his supposed prophecy. If his prophecy is true, then we must all be identical and uniform.

That also means, of course, that if we are not all identical, then LaHaye's prophecies as described in these books cannot be true. That makes this a rather important section of these books, a passage that provides the opportunity to disprove LaHaye's claims without having to wade into the deep weeds of the Bible's apocalyptic imagery. We don't need to become experts on Daniel and Revelation to demonstrate that Tim LaHaye's reading of them is bogus. All we need to do is to show that, for example, Tom Cruise and Richard Dawkins don't share a uniform belief system."

Apocalypse Apocalypse

2012-01-15T16:54:00.001+02:00

No, that title is not redundant. As my friend Tim reminded me on Facebook, the word "Apocalypse" has 2 meanings. These days we use it to refer to the end of the world but it's original meaning was "revelation", literally "lifting of the veil" in the original Greek. I want to lift the veil off of what is commonly believed about the End Times.

This quote from The Slacktivist on Tim LaHaye (co author of the Left Behind series) tells you everything you need to know:

"Tim LaHaye has been an influential power-broker in the religious right and the Republican Party for the past 30 years — this despite the fact that he has also spent those past 30 years assuring us that Jesus was coming back any day now and that the signs and prophecies make it clear that there’s no way we’ll still be here for more than just a few years more at most.

Those who took LaHaye seriously in 1982 would have been surprised that the world was still around in 1992. Those who took LaHaye seriously in 1992 would have been surprised that the world was still around in 2002. Those who took LaHaye seriously in 2002 must be surprised that the world is still around in 2012.

And those who take Tim LaHaye seriously in 2012 must be overlooking everything he’s been saying since 1982."

First off, it doesn't matter if you don't care about Christian eschatology. It doesn't matter whether you believe in the Rapture or not. It doesn't matter if you have never heard of Premillenial Dispensationalism. What matters is that these people both wield a lot of power and have great access to those in power. This belief system influences culture and politics in any country with a large amount of Christians - most notably the USA. It has a profound influence on foreign policy, especially regarding Israel and the Middle East. It also has a lot to do with the resistance amongst many Christian groups to environmentalism and their refusal to acknowledge the reality of Global Warming. After all, why save the planet if God is just going to destroy it all really soon anyway*?

Jesus loves you. Love Him back or He will do terrible things to you!

The second thing you need to know is that these people are massively wrong. They are as wrong as can be. They are wrong about it all. Every single thing that they believe about the End Times is utterly and demonstrably wrong. So in keeping with my New Year's not-resolution to sharpen my skepticism, here is a concise guide to why they are wrong. Feel free to use it if necessary.

Images from the Chick Tract Here Comes the Judge!

Right so the exact details of the End Times may differ slightly depending on which prophecy guru you follow but generally the belief comes down to this:

After the Rapture of the Real True Christians, the whole world will be united under the Antichrist who will form a One World Government with one currency and one religion. The Antichrist will reign for 7 years during which he will persecute the (new) followers of Christ, culminating in the battle of Armageddon where Christ and His followers will defeat the Antichrist and his followers. The slaughter will be so great that the blood will flow as high as the mouth of a horse for 300 km**. This may seem unbelievable but we can know this from a simple literal reading of Revelation.

Here are some of the problems with that:

There can be no One World Government. Have you ever traveled outside of your own home? Have you met people from other cultures? Do you watch the news? Then I shouldn't have to explain to you why there can be no One World Government. Despite the best utopian ideals of some, the world is headed to more disunity, not more unity. Countries are splitting into smaller countries. People are getting more nationalistic, not less. Imperialism is over. I realize that some conspiracy nuts think the UN is some kind of super government and that the Secretary General of the UN is actually the president of Earth, but that is wildly out of touch with reality. There is simply no way you can everyone to just set aside their differences and unite under one flag, totally abandoning their national and cultural identity in the process. And I'm just talking about all the parts of the world that kind of get along. What about all the parts that hate each other and have feuds going back generations? How do you imagine getting Iraq and Iran, North and South Korea, China and Japan, not to mention getting all the war torn and lawless bits of Africa to all just become BFF's overnight?

There can be no One World Currency. Just look at how well the Euro worked out. Look I understand economics about as well as Charlie Sheen understand self control but even I know that our entire system of international trade is based on different currencies having different values. Some economies are based on export so they have low value currency and others are based on import so they have high value currency. Give everyone the same currency and the entire system collapses. You can't get cheap third world labour and goods if your currency has the same value as theirs.

There can be no One World Religion. This may be the most ridiculous thing to still believe in a post 9-11 world. If you find it even remotely plausible that all the people in the world - who have been killing and dying for their faith, who have built their national and cultural identities on their religion - are just going to agree that they were wrong all along and accept a whole new faith you are an idiot. There is no other word that describes someone who thinks that all the Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Pagans, New Agers and Atheists of the world (plus all the Christians who aren't Real True Christians), not to mention all their various sub-sects and denominations who have been persecuting each other over minor differences in doctrine for centuries, can all just put aside their differences overnight and start agreeing. If people who worship the same God and read from the same holy writ can't even agree with each other, how much less will all the wildly divergent religions of the world be able to do that? Only an idiot would think that! Or someone who actually thinks the world consists of only Christians and Not-Christians and all the Not-Christians all believe the exact same thing. But I repeat myself.

Oh and don't forget, all of this unification has to happen in under 7 years. That's less time than it takes an actual government to build a bridge or tunnel in the real world. Does that seem realistic in the least to you?

This is not even in the Bible. Anyone who claims that they got this End Times playbook from a simple literal reading of the Bible is either deluded or lying. It's easy enough to test, just give the Book of Revelation to someone who has never heard of the Bible and ask them to read it and write down exactly what it tells them will happen. I can pretty much guarantee it will look nothing like any prophecy guru's End Time checklist. In fact the very fact that there are so many End Time experts in the Evangelical sub-culture should have tipped you off that there is no such thing as a simple, straightforward and literal reading of Revelation. That is why any attempt at a cohesive apocalyptic scenario always ends up as some kind of Biblical Frankenstein monster. You tend to end up with something that has a verse from Thessalonians stitched to a chapter at the end of Revelation, glued to a chapter from Daniel, sowed to half a chapter from the middle of Revelation with a verse from Matthew awkwardly hammered in between.

So no, the Apocalypse many Christians are expecting any day now cannot and will not happen. Not in this world. Not with the actual people populating the world. For the best proof of this, read the Left Behind series. You can't help but notice how incredibly out of touch with reality it is. That's because it has to be. The Premillenial Dispensationalist Apocalypse cannot exist in our reality.

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*Or as Evangelist Ray Comfort put it: "We don’t value creation as though our life depends on it. That’s because we know and trust Him who made all things, and if humanity wrecks this earth, we have His immutable promise that He is going to make all things new."
**Revelation 14:19-20. Feel free to do the math on that one but at around 5 liters of blood per person, that's one shitload of people bleeding!

The end is never as nigh as you think it is, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

2012-01-13T15:01:00.001+02:00

When people fail to learn from history it's usually because the lesson they were supposed to learn happened a very long time ago. This could (and does) happen to almost all of us. If on the other hand you fail to learn from history that happened just the other day, you must be a special kind of stupid. There's really no excuse - excepting brain damage - to not learn a big history lesson that happened a couple of weeks ago. And yet here we are, just a short while after Harold Camping's spectacularly failed Rapture predictions, with another "prophet" giving an exact date for the Rapture.

You would think people would learn. You'd think no one would be that stupid. You'd think they would wait at least a year or two after the last spectacular FAIL so people can forget about the last guy who tried it. You'd think all of that but you'd be wrong. In fact it turns out you will be about as wrong as any prediction for the Rapture's date will turn out to be, which experts agree is as wrong as humanly possible.

The new date on which the Rapture won't happen is 27 May 2012 so at least we won't have to wait long to point and laugh. This time the prediction is being made by one Ronald Weinland, self described Prophet of the End Times and leader of a small Christian denomination called The Church of God – PKG (Preparing for the Kingdom of God). Much like Harold Camping's little group, this is also a small group of believers who are convinced that they are the one true church of God. The only reason I even know they exist is because recently I've been flooded by Google ads on every website I visit inviting me to find out more about this one true Christian church originally founded by the late Herbert Amstrong. In case you're wondering how this date was calculated, you'll be happy to know that it's far more scientific than Camping's numerology and features far less maff. As Weinland explains:

"January 7, 2012, is another important occurrence for the timing of God’s work and end-time events. This date is an important crossroad in time as it ends a prophetically historic portion of time in Daniel that consists of a prophetic measure of “time” and “times” that began after Trumpets of 2009.

January 8 of this year begins the final “half-a-time” of this full prophetic period known as “time, times, and half-a-time.” That day is the start of the final period of 140 days (half-a-time) that leads up to the very coming of the Messiah spoken of in those same prophecies of Daniel. This post will also address a newly revealed final fulfillment of the 70 weeks prophecy that has a dual fulfillment of both Christ’s first coming and his second coming.

The final “half-a-time” that begins January 8 will be the prophetic period when the Trumpets of Revelation will finally be heard (witnessed and seen) throughout this world, along with the Thunders of Revelation that will progressively escalate in a dramatic manner. The period of “time, times, and half-a-time” consists of seven segments of time (seven half-times). It can be likened to God’s plan covered in the weekly cycle of seven days and the 7,000 year plan where the last 1,000 years is when God takes control and gives mankind the ability to know His ways."

I believe the most apt response to this would be from the movie Happy Madison: "what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. "

Now you may wonder why I'm taking the time to point out one more insignificant group of religious nutbags who believe the world is ending. The haven't been as vocal as some of the other groups so they are really easy to ignore. Except for this:

That makes it impossible for me to ignore them. When he threatened anyone who mocks him with cancer he pretty much forced me to mock him. I grew up predominantly in the Pentecostal and Charismatic wings of Evangelical Christianity and I've seen this happen too many times to be OK with it. Far too often, some charismatic gasbag will make ridiculous claims and/or demands in the church and then claim to be speaking on behalf of the Lord God Himself. Therefore anyone who questions or criticizes is actually opposing God and will be dealt with harshly by the Allmighty. If you weren't ever part of that subculture it may seem transparently ridiculous but trust me, it works better than you could ever imagine at making all dissenters submit to this so called "authority". I used to be one of those. I am not anymore. So I'm calling Ronald out. I think he is a false prophet, a fraud and a liar and if he's not then he can hit me with his best avada kedavra. I'll be right over here calling bullshit on his fake prophecy and feeling great doing it.

Look, I know that I'm a nobody with a small blog that pretty much no one actually reads. But that is kind of the point. Weindland and all the other spooky shamans of the world make all their followers cower with fear at their alleged authority from on high. So if a nobody like me can challenge them without dire consequences from above that proves that these guys are just blowing smoke. Besides, the somebodies of the world probably have better things to do with their time. So, underachievers of the world unite! If more of us can reveal to the followers of these charlatans that they are shooting blanks then soon they will lose all control they have over the minds and wallets of their flock. Sometimes it takes a nobody to show that someone pretending to be someone is actually a nobody too.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:30:00.000+02:00

I have come to realise that New Year's Resolutions are nothing but an Illuminati plot to keep humanity feeling dispirited, downtrodden and defeated so that they may carry out their nefarious schemes with impunity. I am on to their game (I know too much! And now you do too!!) and I'm refusing to play along. So this year, no resolutions that will only make me feel bad about myself later on.

Having said that, there is something I would like to work on a bit in the new year. This piece by Tim Minchin will explain:

It may have been pointless to argue with Storm but it's not pointless to argue against woo. I know because I've been on both sides of that table. Once I was like Storm, I believed all kinds of weird and wonderful things that had no basis in reality and I believed them with all my heart. But I don't anymore. I've come a long way and I've learned a lot and now I'm starting to find myself on the other end of that conversation more and more. The problem is that I'm not yet as ready as Mr Minchin here to lay out my argument in a simple and logical fashion at the drop of a hat. I plan on changing that in the new year.

Obviously there is no point in moving from a fuzzy believer in magic to a fuzzy skeptic. Either way you just end up sharing a dogmatic belief you cannot back up when backed into a corner. It's far better to know exactly what you believe and why you believe it. That way lies illumination - not some woo-woo mystical kind, but actual illumination, i.e seeing the world around you clearly.

This works better for me than some traditional New Year's Resolutions would. I enjoy learning and skepticism and critical thinking is fun! 2012 can be a great time for me to get to know my Skeptic's Dictionary a whole lot better! So I won't try to change or reinvent myself in the new year, instead I will just do the things I enjoy so I can organically grow into the version of myself I would like to be.

So may you, have a great and interesting 2012. May your life be free from illusions and may you find all the truth you seek. Say no to the Illuminati, embrace illumination! Happy New Year! (Unless you follow the Chinese or Hebrew calender in which case, happy January I guess)

Eugene's fun night of blood and terror

2011-12-31T08:48:00.000+02:00

Protip: If you're taking advice from Insanity Wolf, your life has gone very wrong somehow.

If you are taking recommendations, I would recommend that you do not spend the last night of the year covered and blood and too worried to sleep.

First off, I'm OK, thanks for asking. The blood wasn't mine.

Let me start from the beginning. So last night (around 2 am) I'm happily sleeping like a drunk baby, snug between Suicide Dachshund and my big pillow when I'm rudely awakened by a loud and disturbing noise. It was something to the effect of THUD! groan... *pause*, THUD! groan... *pause* THUD! By the third THUD! I had gone from dreaming soundly in bed to being out the door in a hyper adrenaline state. What had happened was that Oom Eddie (for reasons unknown) decided to exit his room at high speed in the dark and walked into his door face first. This in turn set off a chain reaction of him trying to get up, losing his balance and falling again, then trying to get up again and slipping in the big pool of blood by his feet and hitting his face on the doorframe again. I have no idea how long this cycle would have continued if I didn't run over to help him up. Probably for the best that we didn't find out. I don't see that playing out well in court: "No your honour, I did not beat Mr Language to death. He just slipped and fell. Fourteen times! No your Honour, I'm not trying to be funny..."

Anyway, so I helped him to the bathroom, stopped the bleeding, cleaned up the bloody floors and walls, got him back in bed, frantically googled "concussion symptoms" (srsly, how did anyone live pre-internet?), checked for a concussion and got him an ice cold coke (for the shock) and some headache tablets (for the pain). Then I spent the rest of the morning worrying that I missed something concussion wise (because getting medical info off the net is risky, duh!) and worrying that perhaps giving him aspirin was a stupid thing to do because its a blood thinner and I had just stopped him from bleeding like a New Years Eve goat sacrifice. To top it all off, I got an empathy headache and kept smelling blood even though I washed myself like Lady Macbeth and bleached the floors. It occurs to me just now that I forgot to wash my feet and I did step in a lot of blood so I guess I'll be washing my bedding today too since that means I got back in bed with bloody feet. Awesome.

Long story short, Oom Eddie seems to be fine apart from looking like he lost a knopkierie fight. He's on his way to the doctor now to get his wounds looked at because one or more of those gashes are probably going to require stitches.

On the bright side, provided there is no more bleeding of any kind tonight, things can only look up in the new year!

Persecutor Envy

2011-12-27T19:36:00.000+02:00

Some time ago I did a blog post on a Munchhausen syndrome type malady that plagues many Western Christians called "Persecution Envy". Persecution Envy causes the sufferer to live with the deep need to feel persecuted at all times, causing them to go to ridiculous lengths to find ways to make themselves feel as such. These ways tend to be so inanely pathetic that it's hard to believe they actually take themselves seriously but since these people are usually folks who have never known actual persecution in any form I guess it could be possible that they just don't really understand the term "persecution".

There is however another strain of envy, spreading amongst Christians* in the West that is related but significantly different namely "Persecutor Envy". Persecutor Envy causes the sufferer to live with a deep seated jealousy of all religions that stifle criticism and satire through violence and terror, most notably Islam. In fact, one would be perfectly correct in calling this condition "Fatwa Envy" or "Jihad Envy" I think. It almost always tends to manifest as passive aggressive statements on how no one who makes a joke or criticism regarding Christianity would dare make the same comment about Islam. It will usually also be pointed out that this only happens because Christians (unlike the heathen) are sweet, gentle souls whose longsuffering nature allows them to silently** bear these vicious verbal assaults with grace and humility. Despite that, I have to say it is rather difficult to listen to these statements and not get the feeling that they wish people would fear them the way they fear reprisals by radical Islam. Whenever they wax on about how Muslims can do and say whatever they like while everyone gets to make fun of Christians without reprisal it's hard not to feel that they are dreaming of how wonderful the world would be if they could fire up the Inquisition again!

Now much like Persecution Envy, I'm not sure that Persecutor Envy can be cured but I nevertheless prescribe a healthy dose of truth.

Firstly, anyone who claims that the critics of Christianity are loathe to similarly criticize Islam is talking out of their ass. I'm sorry, there is no diplomatic way to put it, a claim like that is absolute bovine excrement*** and only demonstrates one thing - that the person making this claim didn't even spend 5 seconds of fact checking before pulling this winner straight from their nether region. Any critic of religion in general and Christianity in particular I can think of - from Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens to Myers, Brayton and Thunderf00t - have all spent plenty of time criticizing Islam. Anyone who claims differently just never bothered to look. If there is a difference in the amount of criticism leveled at Christianity compared to that leveled at Islam and other faiths then the reason is simply geographical. Someone who lives in a majority Christian country would be dealing with Christianity for the majority of their time, I don't know why it should even be necessary to point that out.

To be fair, Persecutor Envy usually just responds to criticism in the form of "OK sure what we did was bad but did you see what that Muslim guy did? It was super terrible! Why don't you criticize him instead?". What really gets the condition to flare up in full blown "Oh if only we could still burn people at the stake!" mode are jokes at the expense of Christians. I have a theory that your sense of humour is inversely proportional to how much of a fundamentalist you are.

Just recently the Saturday Night Live cast did a sketch about Jesus visiting Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos and Pat Robertson did not care for it at all (for your convenience, you can check out both clips here). Not only did he see this sketch as an example of bigotry against Christians, he also took a moment to reminisce on how high the death toll would be if SNL produced such a sketch featuring Mohammed. What Pastor Pat and others like him do not grasp however is that "fear of bombing" isn't really the reason why comedians don't have much Islamic material. Actually it's far more pragmatic than that.

It's simple really, if you don't understand something then jokes about it won't be funny to you. I didn't find that Tebow sketch terribly funny because I don't follow American Football and I had to look up who Tim Tebow is. Rule of thumb, the more reading you have to do to understand a joke the less you will laugh at it! But don't take my word for it, here, listen to an actual comedian:

Get it? We have fun with the things we are familiar with. That's why I, having grown up a fundamentalist Christian, find blogs like Stuff Christian Culture Likes and Scotteriology really funny - they are written by fellow recovering fundamentalists talking about this particular Evangelical sub-culture I know all too well. If I grew up Buddhist, I don't think I would find jokes about terrible Contemporary Christian Music acts all that funny. We can hardly joke about things we know nothing about now can we? Also, I think there is an unwritten rule that you don't joke about those outside your own group. A poor person can tell jokes about being poor and it's funny - a rich person telling jokes about poor people just comes across as cruel. Telling (and laughing at) cruel jokes about other groups you don't know or understand lessens you as a person. Most people understand that.

So instead of wishing there was a way to make everyone who says things you don't like shut up forever, why not ask yourself why people are saying the things they do? I know this isn't the easy way, Persecutor Envy will make you make that they're simply doing it because everyone is evil and controlled by Satan and therefore they hate you because you have the One True Faith. Fight that impulse and try to see if there are other reasons. Is that thing you're being criticized for maybe something you need to work on? Perhaps you're being called an ignorant bigot because you're being ignorant and bigoted? They could be wrong of course but what's the harm in reevaluating your position? And those people laughing at you, any chance that maybe they're making fun of you because you're being ridiculous? Look at that Tim Tebow sketch for instance. Wouldn't you agree that believing in an all powerful Creator who cares so deeply about the outcome of a regional sporting event that He actually intervenes because of the prayers of one of the players is maybe an extremely ridiculous thing to believe? Also, didn't Jesus have a lot to say about how He disapproved of public displays of piety? Maybe no one is mocking Tim Tebow because he's a Christian, maybe they're mocking him because he didn't listen to Jesus!

Look, power is seductive. Not the good kind or seductive either! Historically the more power Christians have had to censor and control others, the worse it turned out for everyone. So don't envy those who use their power to prevent others from laughing at them. Take a moment and think about what that says about them. Think about what that says about their beliefs. Now think about what it says about you that you wish your world could look more like theirs. If you have to force people to respect you through fear and threat, can your beliefs even be considered remotely good? Can you? If people are laughing at you or critizising you because you are doing stupid things then you only have yourself to blame. If they are mocking you for doing what is good, then they are the tools and they will be the ones who will end up looking stupid. You don't have to take my advice, though it is in the Bible too:

"If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name." 1 Peter 4:14-16

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*I'm focusing on the manifestation of this disease amongst the religious but a good case can be made that you will find this amongst the members of any group losing their grip on absolute power over society and culture.
**It's worth noting that when Christians in the West suffer in silence, they do so rather loudly. There is after all no point in bearing hardship if no one is going to admire you for it!
***I'm trying to class up my blog a little. Is it working for you?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T07:56:00.000+02:00

To all my friends, followers, lurkers and complete strangers passing by, have a very merry Christmas! Wherever you are, I hope you are having a great time that includes a room full of loved ones and at least one food coma. I know that's my plan for the holidays!

If I may may take a moment, to suggest a really great gift this season I would like to suggest giving the gift of Community. I don't mean human interaction and togetherness I mean ... OK woah, that came out horrible! You know what, you should totally give people the gift of human interaction and togetherness this season! Reach out to people, talk to them, listen to them, spend time with them - this is a really good thing! But while you're doing that, also share the TV series Community! I love this show and it's currently in serious danger of being cancelled and I can't just sit by and watch another great comedy go the way of Arrested Development!

Here's the thing though, you can't just start anywhere. I saw a couple of episodes from season 2 last year and I thought it was OK but I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. That was my mistake though. You don't just show up to the Greendale Community College study room and sit down with the group, you will feel left out. You need to take the journey with them from the beginning. So get season 1, sit down (with some friends and lots of food) and start watching it from the beginning. If you think the first couple of episodes are pretty standard sitcom stuff, just stay tuned. It will win you over and by the time you reach the first paintball episode you will wonder why you ever watched anything else! Unlike say Big Bang Theory, this show doesn't just point at nerds and geeks and go "Nerds, right?! They so weird!!" This is a show by nerds, for nerds and if you stick with it you will be greatly rewarded.

Merry Christmas!

Intro to Eugenics

2011-12-20T21:11:00.002+02:00

So you're considering an eugenics project? Need some advice on how to get it right? Well you've come to the right place! Here is the only thing you need to know about eugenics - you have no business messing around with eugenics. There. You can forget everything else and just remember that. But that's not going to be enough for you is it? Fine, I'll elaborate.

You have no business attempting an eugenics program for one simple reason - you are too stupid. Trust me, I mean that in the kindest way possible. I'm not talking down to you, please don't look so offended. It's really nothing personal, really. Look, I don't know you but I don't really need to. If you are a human being (and I'm assuming you are) then you aren't up to the task. You may be the best and the brightest human to ever grace walk this pale blue dot but when it comes to eugenics you may as well be as smart as a small bag of rocks for all the good it will do. OK so now you feel offended and you're still not convinced that you aren't supposed to meddle with eugenics. Fine! Here's the long answer.

Look, no one is saying you can't do it, I'm saying you shouldn't. We clearly can do it and we've been doing it for thousands of years. I have living proof that we can get some pretty interesting results via eugenics sleeping right next to me as I type this actually.

Pictured: Eugenics

My sweet Suicide Dachshund here is the very embodiment of why we as human beings suck at eugenics. First of all, we don't know when to quit. Look, I will grant you that eugenics gave us all our domesticated farm animals, crops and pets. If we just turned a wolf into a dog and then stopped everything would be fine. But we didn't. We couldn't. It's just not in our nature! That's why we now have the Chihuahua and the Sphinx cat. It probably won't end there either, eventually someone will breed something that is even more of an abomination.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder right? What I see as an unholy abomination others may see as a thing of beauty. That's true. Which brings me to my second reason: we value all the wrong things. Evolution can be a messy process but it works like a charm. It may be a blind watchmaker but it builds watches that work dammit! Human beings on the other hand are less pragmatic than nature. When we practice eugenics we focus on eye colour, hair, ears perking just so and tails curling in a very certain way (dogs, I'm focusing on dogs for now). That's how we end up with animals that have trouble breathing because we just had to have pets with flat faces. Our pets suffer from hip dysplasia and intervertebral disc disease because we would rather have them look a certain way than for them to have healthy and long lives. Great Danes have the shortest lifespan of any breed (according to Animal Planet's Dog Breed A-Z) and suffer from a horrible condition called "bloat" or "gastric torsion". See, their stomachs aren't attached to their ribcages so if they run around with a full stomach, their stomach can flip over and basically knot their intestines causing a very painful death for the animal. Natural selection would never tolerate such a condition. Artificial selection (aka eugenics) on the other hand totally would because we would rather have a certain shape of head and a certain length of leg than an animal that won't live a short, pain filled life. This is really bad when we do it to our pets. It becomes infinitely worse when we try do do it to ourselves.

See the third way in which we lack the intelligence for successful eugenics is the tiny issue that we do not know the future. Combined with our tendencies to value the wrong attributes, this spells certain doom. Let's run a little thought experiment for an example here. Imagine for a moment that the Nazis won World War 2 and that they then instituted and completed their eugenics program. Everyone on earth is now a 7 foot tall, blonde Adonis with a body like Mr Universe. We all have blue eyes, white skin and we can run faster, jump higher and bench press more weight than any humans ever. How useless would that all be? We don't push plowshares through the earth anymore, we don't stride across battlefields waving giant swords and axes at each other anymore! Unless everyone on earth is going to be an underwear model, having big muscles and wavy blonde hair is pointless. None of that is useful in the information age. How does being tall and handsome help you when you're stuck behind a computer all day? How does being strong and fast help you work in a cubicle? None of that would help you get into space either come to think of it. In fact I'm pretty sure there is a reason astronauts aren't built like Eastern European bouncers - in a space shuttle, space is at a premium! So if Hitler had his dreams come true, we may have very well bred ourselves right out of the space- and information ages entirely.

So there you have it. No matter how smart you are, you are too stupid to be good at eugenics. There is just no way you can understand enough or see far enough ahead to not screw it up for everyone involved. Evolution may not be perfect but it still does a better job of adapting species to their environment than we have ever managed. Actually someone said all this much better than I could way back when Eugenics was still the great white hope:

"The history of the race shows endless examples of the pain and suffering that men have inflicted upon each other by their cocksureness and their meddling.

We know something about biology. We know a little about eugenics. We have no knowledge of what kind of man would be better than the one that Nature is evolving to fit the environment which he cannot escape. We have neither facts nor theories to give us any evidence based on biology or any other branch of science as to how we could breed intelligence, happiness or anything else that would improve the race. We have no idea of the meaning of the world “improvement.” We can imagine no human organization that we could trust with the job, even if eugenicists knew what should be done, and the proper way to do it. Yet in the face of all this we have already started on the course, and the uplifters are urging us to go ahead, with no conception of where we are going, or what route we shall take!

In an age of meddling, presumption, and gross denial of all the individual feelings and emotions, the world is urged, not only to forcibly control all conduct, but to remake man himself! Amongst the schemes for remolding society this is the most senseless and impudent that has ever been put forward by irresponsible fanatics to plague a long-suffering race."

Extract from "The Eugenics Cult", an essay by Clarence Darrow that appeared in The American Mercury, Volume VIII, Number 30, June 1926 (available in full online here)

Remedial Class Warfare

2011-12-16T17:30:00.000+02:00

I stole this from Leaving Alex Jonestown. Go read her Christmas countdown series , it's scary and hilarious!

I don't think I could work for Fox News. It's not just because I'm not blonde a pretty enough either. Having to constantly act outraged at the most trivial bullshit imaginable would just take too much of a toll on my general wellbeing, I don't think I could handle that. If I had to spend my days acting like a new type of lightbulb is the worst thing in the history of anything I would have to fucking kill myself before the inevitable aneurysm puts me into a permanently vegetative state. I don't know which is worse either, having to constantly pretend that the most trivial nonsense is worse than Hitler or having to ignore the genuinely terrible things out there because you're paid to pretend it's the best thing since the discovery of cheese.

In a season where many in the media are even more nonsensically outraged than usual, Fox has once again managed to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack with its current outrage at The Muppet Movie:

That's right, the fact that the bad guy in the movie is a rich oil tycoon means that the Muppets are teaching class warfare to kids. Fox totally calls it like it is there, liberal Hollywood is totally demonizing the rich! It started way back when with classic movies like It's a wonderful life. Basically every Bond movie ever along with all Superman movies that featured Lex Luthor had evil rich villains. Of course there are also horror movies like Hostel where evil rich people pay to torture and kill young people and sci-fi movies like The Phantom Menace where the Trade Federation (a group of interplanetary job creators simply protesting a tax hike) are portrayed as the bad guys. Also, when the A-Team got hired it was usually because some rich guy was trying to muscle out a smaller competitor. In pretty much any period piece or Western I can think of the bad guy is almost always the rich landowner/tycoon trying to destroy the hard working poor. Actually, come to think of it most villains tend to be rich and powerful people oppressing the poor and disenfranchised. It makes sense though, having the protagonist be richer and more powerful than the antagonist just wouldn't be good storytelling, why would anyone root for someone like that after all? This is another reason I can't work for Fox, I don't think I can pretend that I think Ebenezer Scrooge should have been the hero while holding a straight face.

Of course while Fox I knows all about the infamous liberal bias of Hollywood, they may not realize that this evil liberal bias against the rich is everywhere. Not just in movies and the media but also in books! And not just in radical fringe works like The Communist Manifesto either, I'm talking about the world's favourite all time best seller - The Bible.

The Bible is just class warfare from cover to cover*. Well by Fox standards anyway. You have Jesus commanding a job creator to redistribute his wealth to the welfare cases. There is the socialist setup of the original church which is portrayed in a positive light. Jesus even told this one parable in which a rich man goes to hell because he was rich and a poor man goes to heaven because he was poor - not because of their creeds, dogma or belief systems, riches and poverty are the only things mentioned in the parable. Also that whole thing about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven didn't seem very pro-capitalism at all! It wasn't just Jesus being all hippie either. As The Slacktivist pointed out recently, the prophet Nathan once used a story about an evil rich man who took from a man who had very little to illustrate to King David just how evil his actions have been. In fact, demonizing the rich seems to be a running theme with the prophets. The Bible has lots to say about money but it rarely has a good word for those who have a lot of it. It has plenty of really bad things to say for those who make their money by exploiting others, those who don't pay their workers fair wages (promptly) and especially those who foreclose on widows (See Deut 24:15; Isa 58; Mark 12:40 for but a few examples)

Clearly the Bible is one long piece of anti-capitalist propaganda and I bet Fox would be outraged that it is taught to children. Of course they can't be outraged by it since they've clearly never read it.

*To be fair, Fox is also wall to wall class warfare but unlike the Bible, they side with wealthy.

Vindication Videos

2011-12-06T19:14:00.001+02:00

Every once in a while I come across something that totally vindicates something I blogged about earlier. I won't lie, it feels good to be right. Sure, I always try to put my facts on the table when I post something so it's not like I just pull these posts out of my ass but still, it's nice when you find something that corroborates your original thesis. Usually I resist the urge to do the "I told you so" dance but this is the season for giving is it not? Now I could do a separate post on each one but that seems a little bit like cheating to get my post numbers up. So instead of doing three separate short posts, here they are all rolled into one:

Most recent first. In my previous post I talked about being a better person than the generations before you. I found this old PSA that shows that we are indeed managing to do that. Sure, there are still plenty of people out there who consider homosexuals to be mentally ill predators intent on infecting young people with gayness but those people are fast becoming a minority. While they may still be a vocal minority they at least don't get to be as vocal as this anymore:

See? It really does get better.

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. When I blogged about Christians saving their first kiss for the wedding day I'd wager some people didn't think I was entirely serious. Surely such a thing doesn't happen in real life, right? Oh but it does and now I have video to back me up. I did my best to describe the practice in my post but I don't think I could ever hope to accurately relay the awkwardness of it all the way this video does:

OK, so maybe that wasn't quite a thousand words. More like three - Hard. To. Watch. (Especially that kiss.)

Finally, did you catch Lady Gaga's Thanksgiving special? If you didn't then you missed out on something truly amazing - and I'm not just saying that because I'm a huge fan. It was a thing of beauty, pure and simple. If her talent didn't bowl you over then you are dead inside! And the waffles! ZOMG the waffles!! But I digress. Remember when I said that Lady Gaga was the last of the Nazirites? If not, go back and read what I said there and then watch this video:

Did I nail it or what?

It's OK, you don't have to answer, we both know I totally nailed it. Her speech at the 6:30 mark was exactly what I said being a Nazirite is all about.

Vindicated!

Be a better person than the Pilgrims

2011-11-30T08:09:00.001+02:00

"Be a better man than your father"

I heard that line on Fringe some time back and while I have forgotten the episode, story and original context that the quote first appeared in, I have never forgotten the quote itself. To me it was just so beautifully profound I wanted to translate it into Latin and put it on my family crest. It's a great motto for any individual and certainly for any family. Even more so, it would be a great motto for a country to have wouldn't it?. OK sure, it's a little patriarchal but the sentiment is about more than sons and fathers. It's about honoring those who came before without living in their shadow. It's a reminder that each generation can reach higher by standing on the shoulders of the previous one. It shows no disrespect to your parents and grandparents - if they were bad, you can be better; if they were good, you can be great. Instead of stagnation, everyone can move onward and upward, even if it's just by the smallest increment at a time. "Be a better person than your ancestors". There, I washed off the patriarchy and now everyone can enjoy it! Happy?

Well turns out not everyone agrees with me that this is a good motto to live by. I'm specifically referring to the massive crapstorm that hit the airwaves when President Obama's Thanksgiving proclamation on Youtube failed to explicitly thank God. I'll let Jon Stewart run you through the story:

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On a day commemorating their history, these Fox News pundits and their fellow umbrage junkies ended up being no better than their forefathers. Guess it's true what they say about those who do not learn from history! So lets look back.

Everyone knows that the Pilgrims left England and sailed for America (after a bit of a detour in Holland) to escape religious persecution. Worth noting though is the nature of this religious persecution. It's not that these people weren't allowed to be Christians in jolly olde England. On the contrary, Christianity was compulsory! What made these Christian Pilgrims feel so persecuted was the fact that they had to be Christians the way the official state church mandated - with harsh punishments for anyone who tried to be a different kind of Christian. Now interestingly enough it turned out that these Pilgrims weren't really opposed to the idea of religious persecution, they just didn't like being the ones getting picked on! After settling in the New World they established a system identical to the one that drove them from their homeland, only this time they were the ones deciding how Christianity should be practiced and punishing those who would not conform to their ideas.

Luckily for everyone, subsequent generations of Americans did turn out to be better men than their fathers. Over time Americans didn't just embrace religious freedom, they became the example for the rest of the world on what freedom should look like. Once the First Amendment arrived on the scene, it pretty much set the standard for everyone else to try to live up to. It's sad then that those talking heads on Fox didn't seem to get the memo. Instead they still seem to be stuck in the mindset of the Pilgrims, namely that everyone should not only be Christian but that they have to be Christian in a very certain way and anyone who fails to conform must be persecuted as much as possible. They use the word "freedom" a lot but I don't think they really understand what the word actually means! I'd like to believe that they represent the exception rather than the rule though.

Look, I get it. By its very nature the past will always exert a stronger influence on us than the future could ever hope to. I don't know about yours but my forefathers invented Apartheid! I have to live with that legacy and I have to try to do better. Maybe our forefathers did the best they could with how they understood the world but if we know better then we have to do better. What good parent would not want their offspring to reach greater heights than they did? If our forefathers are worth the reverence we afford them, would they not want us to exceed them too? I'm not saying that just because your ancestors were imperfect you have to be perfect in every way. But if every generation can just take one small step forward, who knows where we could end up going?

Missing Uncle Sam

2011-11-24T15:24:00.001+02:00

Today I am doubly wistful. Not only is it the 1 year anniversary of the first time I set foot in the glorious US of A but it is also Thanksgiving today which is my favourite holiday of all time that I don't get to celebrate because my stupid ancestors knew how to hunt, fish, farm and survive in a new world and didn't need to be rescued by helpful natives bearing delicious poultry. Thanks a lot ancestors!

Anyway, I guess all I'm trying to say is, Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US! Wish I could be there again. I did find this little ditty that expresses my feelings really well though...

Politicians vs Truth

2011-11-22T19:54:00.001+02:00

So today many of us in South Africa protested unsuccessfully against a proposed bill on the "protection of information" which many fear will become a tool for the government to silence media reports they dislike. The government swears they would never use it to censor the media though. Somehow I'm less than convinced. Lately it has become very clear to me that politicians as a species very much dislike the truth.

Now I'm sure you just had a very sarcastic thought after reading that last sentence of mine. I know how naive it must sound, expecting honesty from politicians! A politician telling lies is hardly breaking news after all, it's business as usual. In fact it is probably the earliest entry in the big book of lame cliches and I get that. I promise you I'm not as naive as I sound, I understand that politicians have never actually been honest. It's just that they seem to be getting worse lately. Much worse.

First there was Senator Jon Kyle who told a whopping lie about Planned Parenthood - nothing odd about that. The really crazy part came a few hours later when he was confronted with the truth and his office responded that his words were "not intended to be a factual statement". I'm pretty sure I'm not just looking at the past with rose coloured glasses here, this isn't par for the course! Pretty sure that traditionally when caught telling a big fat lie politicians at least bothered to come up with some lame excuse for it or at least doubled down and tried to defend their statement. To basically tell everyone else that they are actually the dumbasses for expecting a politician to tell the truth in the first place seems like a brand new twist on dishonesty! It's not just me right? Pretty sure this was the first time that a politician blamed the public for stupidly expecting his facts to be factual! Sadly, that was not the last time...

Just the other day I watched presidential hopeful Herman Cain start a discussion on the Occupy Wall Street movement by saying "I don't have facts to back this up". Since when is that a way to start a discussion? Am I the crazy one for thinking that is how you end discussion of a topic? "I don't have any facts to back this up" should be how you excuse yourself from discussing something you don't know anything about. It should not be offered as a license to share any crazy idea you just pulled out of your ass! Maybe I'm wrong but my parents raised me differently.

Speaking of parents, Michelle Bachmann is a proud parent. I've often heard her bring up the fact that she is a mother of 5 and foster mother of 23 to illustrate her conservative, pro-family credentials. Yet, lately she has started doing something I'd bet she never let her children do. First she went on national television to tell the world that the HPV vaccine causes girls to become mentally retarded. Now this claim is utter bullshit as any doctor would be able to tell you but Mrs Bachmann had a great source - some woman she doesn't know told her that. Now I'm not sure what kind of a parent Mrs Bachmann is but I know what my parents would have told me if I came to them with a wild story I heard from a complete stranger; They would have told me to stop passing on unfounded rumours and to check my facts before I start spreading lies that could potentially hurt people. I may be out of line but I'm reasonably sure that Mrs Bachmann would have told her children the same thing. So why is it OK for her to spread false rumours? It's not like it was a one time thing either, she recently told how "Obamacare" prevents doctors from helping the sick because they have to check with the IRS before they can treat someone. It's not true at all but she shared it anyway because an anonymous 7 foot tall doctor told her that story. Surely she knows better? She must know she's spreading rumours and telling lies, right? She can't not know, people keep telling her these aren't true and she keeps doing it anyway!

What's going on? Is this normal now? I didn't even have to go looking for these stories, these are just the ones that made the headlines so who knows what else is out there! Like I said, I'm not really this naive, I know politicians are dishonest but this goes way beyond simply telling lies. This is a new level of brazenly disregarding the truth. It's like they don't even have the decency to act honest anymore! They're not even pretending to tell the truth anymore, they are just openly lying and getting upset at people for not being OK with that. It's gotten so bad that I can't even enjoy the irony of seeing the same people who rail against the dangers of moral relativism be openly dishonest when it suits their campaigns.

Am I the crazy one? Am I wrong? Surely it wasn't always like this? When did politicians openly declare war on the truth?

Waiting for no one

2011-11-15T10:06:00.000+02:00

I recently discovered the blog Stuff Christian Culture Likes and I loved it so much I read the whole thing front to back! Reading it was like taking a journey back to the weird and wonderful (but mostly weird) time in my teens and early 20's when I lived fully immersed in charismatic Christian culture. One particular post on "Waiting to kiss until your wedding day" really stuck with me because it brought back a lot of memories about just how confusingly complex the church's view of physical intimacy is.

Having sex is the second worse sin anyone can commit (worst is having gay sex, obviously). We use words like "dirty", "defiled" and "impure" to describe people who have been physically intimate. You can lie cheat and steal all day long but the the only time anyone would tell you that you are "living in sin" is when you're having sex. Sex is so bad you can't even have it by yourself! Most congregations have groups for men that provide "accountability partners"* to help keep them from flogging the bishop. They also help keep men from looking at the swimsuit issue of a sports magazine because sex isn't just a dirty sin when you actually commit it, it's even a sin when you just think these dirty and impure thoughts!

Sex is a wonderful gift from God and He want's His children to enjoy it. Many churches have a several week long sermon series on Song of Solomon to teach congregations that physical intimacy is a blessing and that God intended it for their pleasure. Churches therefore encourage Christian couples to have a lot of sex with programs like the 30 days of sex challenge. In other words, Christians are supposed to have a lot of sex and they are supposed to enjoy it!

Confused? You are not alone. Yes, the Christian culture's views on sex sound a little bit like Schrodinger's petting. It manages to be incredibly good and incredibly bad at the same time, the difference maker being marriage of course. Marriage is the magic wand that turns the dirtiest, most sinful thing you can do into the most wonderful, holiest thing ever. If you are unmarried then there is nothing more important to God than your purity, i.e. not defiling yourself with physical intimacy. Get married and suddenly God no longer gives a hoot! Purity shmurity!"

It should be no surprise then that Christian young people tend to get married young and also tend to have very short engagements. The problem is that it doesn't work out that well for everyone, mostly thanks to the unholy abomination that is Christian dating and courtship.

The first rule of Bible based dating is that dating is evil and immoral and should be avoided at all costs. Since God has a perfect plan for your life, this includes the perfect marriage partner and you should let God be your matchmaker. If you start dating different people you run the risk of stepping outside of His Perfect Will by following your own sinful desires, in which case: no perfect life partner for you! Instead, a lot of churches teach "Biblical Courtship" which is a complex multidimensional system involving assorted small group leaders, accountability partners, the pastor and both sets of parents. I would explain further but it would take a very long time and I'm not sure I understand most of it. I wonder if anyone really does... Anyway, the second rule of Bible based dating is no funny business before the wedding! I'm not talking about sex, that should be a no brainer. No, things that should be avoided are anything that could tempt you to slip and fall into the sinful morass of sexual impurity - so no kissing, no hanging out alone, no touching in the swimsuit areas (and this is Christian culture so I mean one piece, not bikini!) and preferably no hand holding (though it is grudgingly allowed). After all, if everyone is destined for someone then you run the risk of getting frisky with someone elses spouse-to-be! That would be sad and wrong because you would be robbing both your true future spouse as well as their true future spouse of something meant only for them.

Couple of problems with this. First off, "Bible based dating" is not based on the Bible. At all. How could it? There is no dating in the Bible! People in Biblical times just married whoever their parents arranged for them to marry after all. There may have been matchmaking involved but it certainly wasn't from God's side. This is also why the Bible places such a premium on (female) virginity - women were property back then and their "purity" gave them value in marriage negotiations. "Biblical courtship & dating" is probably based on Romeo & Juliet more than any other source material, only instead of "star crossed" lovers you have "God ordained" partners. Secondly it places a lot of unrealistic expectations on libidinous young couples that they are often ill equipped to deal with, leading to downward spirals of (completely unnecessary) guilt and shame. Thirdly, it clearly doesn't work for everyone. If you look past all the engaged/married kids in their early 20's at church you are bound to see a smattering of lonely single people in their late 20's (and 30's and 40's) still desperately waiting on God to be their matchmaker. Why do you think that is? It's not that they are being punished for their impurity. On the contrary, these folks are usually far better at "staying pure" than their married-at-20 counterparts I can think of three possible answers:

1 - God is a matchmaker but is also running an eugenics program. Take a closer look, those singles are more often than not of the overweight, unattractive and/or socially awkward variety. Matching them doesn't seem to be as high on God's to-do list as matching their attractive, vivacious counterparts. Coincidence?

2 - God did in fact have a perfect life partner picked out for you but then said future spouse decided to obey the Word of God and chose to stay unmarried (as endorsed by both Jesus and the Apostle Paul). Could God's perfect plan for you to get married be overruled by His own endorsement of life long celibacy? That is a question for better theological minds than mine! Alternatively maybe your perfect partner didn't go to a church that taught Biblical courtship and ended up marrying someone outside of God's perfect matchmaking plan. OR perhaps your perfect partner did go to a church that taught Biblical courtship and dating and were so overcome by their sinful desire to have sinful intercourse that they married the first best person they could find just so their desires could stop being sinful!

3 - Maybe it's none of the above. Maybe God is not your matchmaker (good guess since as already pointed out, none of that is in the Bible) and the rules for finding love is exactly the same inside the church as it is on the outside. Maybe you're supposed to do what you can to make yourself as attractive as possible, go out and meet some people, ask some of them out and find someone compatible. Who knows, you may even find someone you get on with so well that you want to marry that person! Could happen!

*This one time, at church camp, I met a guy whose mother (a Christian counsel) also doubled as his "accountability partner". He would have to go to her every time he had "sinful thoughts" or masturbated and confess his sin to her. I wish I was kidding about this!

How gay is the anti-gay movement?

2011-11-08T23:13:00.000+02:00

Something extraordinary happened recently: My cousin recently proposed to his girlfriend of three years. Doesn't sound very extraordinary does it? But it is. Or at least, it's supposed to be. See in this country gays have full marriage equality and if you have been listening to Christian Conservatives you would know that once same sex marriage becomes legal it will inevitably be followed by the destruction of the institution of marriage! The Family will cease to exist! People will marry horses and cows! Slippery slopes will drag us all down to anarchy! Civilization will cease!

Except none of that ever happened. Civilization is still going (despite the best efforts of Greece), my cousin is getting married in a year and it turns out they have to wait that long for a venue because apparently a lot of other couples also plan on getting married it seems. It's been years now since the legislation passed and despite all expectations heterosexuals are still getting married and starting families - which seems rather extraordinary considering the fact that gay marriage was supposed to destroy both marriage and the family! Imagine that. In yet another shocking turn of events, people are still not marrying their pets/toasters, pedophilia is not legal and "the gay agenda" somehow failed to turn us all gay. So much for those slippery slopes...

The thing about all these demonstrably false claims about "the gays" is that, like a lot of the anti-gay movement's activities, they sound a little... well... gay! Think about it:

Firstly there is the preoccupation with gay sex. I'm a hetero male. Do you care to guess how much time I spend imagining gay sex acts? None. I spend absolutely no part of my day picturing what gays get up to behind closed doors. "None" is also the amount of homosexual pornography I look at. Now I can't possibly speak for all straight people but I'll wager that for pretty much all of them the answer to the above questions would be somewhere between "very little" and "none at all". You know who does spend a fair amount of time thinking about gay sex though? Gay people, sure. But also anti-gay activists. How weird is that? The people who act the most outraged by the very idea of gay sex spend hours of their day thinking about and talking about the details of gay sex. They even check out a lot of gay porn - and not just any old porn, the hardcore S&M stuff - and then show it to other people who also claim to be very much against homosexuality. They do this on a regular basis too. Yeah, that's totally not gay...

Secondly there is their need to make the lives of gay people as miserable as possible. To the anti-gay brigade, the concept of "live and let live" is more abominable than socialism and secular humanism combined. They don't believe in liberal hippie nonsense like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Instead they go out of their way to oppose anti-bullying and hate crime legislation that would protect gay kids from being tormented to the point of suicide. Yes, here you have "good" Christian folk being PRO-bully. Their rationale seems to be that kids won't "choose the homosexual lifestyle" if they can make it unattractive enough. The fact that countless kids still somehow "choose" a sexual orientation that will guarantee lifelong harassment, mistreatment not to mention verbal and physical abuse never makes them consider that perhaps choice has nothing to do with it. Now I'm not saying that these pro-bully, anti-gay folks are themselves homosexuals who feel that since they are forced to live miserable, closeted lives by their beliefs then no other gay person should be allowed to be happy and openly gay because that would be slander. All I'm saying is that it sure looks a lot like it. The logical inference of their position is that being gay is so attractive that if it was a hassle free option then everyone would want to be gay! Which makes very little sense because typically the only people wanting to be gay are people who actually are gay. Just sayin'...

Thirdly there is the statement that same sex marriage will "destroy marriage". I've never heard a particularly good argument as to why allowing more people to get married will somehow lead to less marriage though. Like my cousin (and the millions of people like him and his girlfriend) demonstrate, the fact that same sex couples are getting married does not in any way diminish the desire for marriage among opposite sex couples. Really the only scenario I can imagine where legalizing same sex marriage would end a hetero marriage is if say you're a gay person who entered into a straight marriage (due to religious or societal pressure) during a time when gay marriage was illegal but then when it became legal you decided to stop living a lie, get a divorce and finally marry your true love. Again I'm not saying that when anti-gay activists are saying "same sex marriage will destroy marriage" they really mean "if it was legal it would probably be the end of my marriage". Sort of sounds like it though...

Oh and apropos of nothing, here is a growing list of the top anti-gay crusaders who turned out to be gay.

Spellcasting for Christians 101

2011-10-31T21:57:00.001+02:00

Thanks to the new Facebook layout I get to see a lot more of what my friends and acquaintances are up to. So then whenever I see someone commenting on or "liking" an person that actually uses "Prophet" or "Apostle" as a title, I'm compelled to check it out. I have to say, it rarely disappoints! For instance I was checking out the Facebook wall of "Prophet Kobus van Rensburg" and I noticed that while every one of his status updates is a Bible verse, there was this one exception:

"...Today I put on the power of heaven, The light of the sun, The radiance of the moon, The splendor of fire, The fierceness of lightning, The swiftness of wind
The depth of the sea, The firmness of the earth and The hardness of rock
Today I put on God’s strength to steer me, God’s power to uphold me
God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye for my vision, God’s ear for my hearing
God’s word for my speech, God’s hand to protect me, God’s pathway before me
God’s shield for my shelter, God’s angel to guard me, From ambush of devils
From vice’s allurements, From traps of the flesh, From all who wish ill
Whether distant or close, Alone or in hosts, Christ-beside me, Christ- before me
Christ-behind me, Christ-within me, Christ-beneath me, Christ-above me
Christ-on my right hand, Christ-on my left, Christ-when I lie, Christ-when I sit
Christ-when I rise, Christ-in every heart who think of me
Christ- in the mouth of all who speak of me, Christ-in every eye that sees me
Christ-in every ear that hears me, Christ-guard me today, From poison, from burning, From drowning, from hurt, That I have my reward, Today I put on a terrible strength, Invoking the Trinity, Confessing the Three, With faith in the One, As I face my Maker."

Clearly this was no Bible verse. In fact this looked exactly like a magical incantation. Turns out it is (sort of) and it's rather old. It's known as Saint Patrick's Breastplate, a prayer and hymn attributed to the patron saint of Ireland. (Prophet van Rensburg here actually used the short version, you can check out the full version at the wiki link) According to the Wikipedia article on it, "It is written in the style of a druidic incantation for protection on a journey". So yes, it looks like a magical incantation because it's based on one!

You know, Charismatic Christians may buy into Jack Chick's claims that Catholics all work for the antichrist, but they sure do act pretty much exactly like medieval Catholics!

Before I forget, Happy Halloween to all who celebrate it! Feel free to use this bit of Jesus magic to keep yourself safe from all the ghosts and ghouls out there!

The Libertarian and the Antichrist

2011-10-30T15:36:00.000+02:00

While watching this week's Daily Show interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano, I was once again reminded of why I find Libertarians so fascinating. As you may have guessed from the title of this blog, I do enjoy a good juxtaposition and Libertarians offer a particularly interesting one in that they claim to follow both Christ and an antichrist*. Now I realize that I'm generalizing here and that this will not apply to every Libertarian, but hear me out at least because I do think it applies to a whole lot of them.

First off, I know that not all Libertarians are Christians and therefore would not claim to follow Christ - what follows does not apply to those. A lot of Libertarians on the other hand are Christians. All the Libertarians that I know are certainly Christians and I don't mean the nominal kind, these are all very serious Christians. Not sure about Judge Napolitano's exact religious beliefs but in that interview he talks about "Judeo-Christian values" being foundational. So then a lot of Libertarians claim to follow Christ. Which makes it extremely strange that so many (again, not all) would also be such avid followers of an antichrist like Ayn Rand.

Again, I know that not all Libertarians worship Ayn Rand and that she herself wasn't a big fan of the Libertarian movement, but it's undeniable that Rand is idolized by a significant portion of Libertarians. She famously authored "The Virtue of Selfishness" and in that interview, Judge Napolitano explicitly mentions that "selfishness is a virtue" - that is no coincidence. Her works and words have clearly saturated the thinking of many in the movement.

So how exactly do so many people see no contradiction in following both Rand, who advocated individualism over collectivism and egoism over altruism as well as Jesus, who preached pretty much the exact opposite? Judge for yourself if you think I'm being too extreme:

Ayn Rand said:
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: "I."

Jesus said:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Ayn Rand said:
“the first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men.”

Jesus said:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Ayn Rand said:
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Jesus said:
"whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Ayn Rand said:
"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality -- the man who lives to serve others -- is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit. The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man, and he degrades the conception of love. But that is the essence of altruism."

Jesus said:
And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

"The greatest among you shall be your servant. "

"Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves."

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.”

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

From Common Sense Jesus

I could go on but you get the idea, Jesus and Ayn Rand had polar opposite worldviews. These were just the words of Jesus mind you, if I started quoting from the rest of the "Judeo Christian tradition" (aka the Bible) this would have been a very long blog post indeed. My point is that while anyone is free to read both the Bible and Atlas Shrugged, no one can reasonably base their beliefs on both. You can follow the teachings of Jesus or the teachings of Ayn Rand but as far as I can see it would be a complete contradiction to claim to follow both.

"Contradictions do not exist". "Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises". "You will find that one of them is wrong". Ayn Rand

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Jesus of Nazareth

Seems like Jesus and Rand do agree on some things...

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*Please not that I'm using the term "an antichrist" here and not "THE Antichrist". The Antichrist is what fans of the Left Behind books imagine will be the leader of the coming One World Government that will resemble Christ as far as the world is concerned but who will actually be a satanic imposter. The Bible on the other hand does not refer to one single antichrist but instead uses the word as a plural, i.e. those people who live and operate as polar opposite to the life and teachings of the Christ.

"Common Sense" Jesus

2011-10-27T21:37:00.001+02:00

Would you vote for Jesus? In principle, a lot of people probably think they would. In reality though, I don't think they would, not in a thousand years. Jesus would make a terrible president. Not that he would even make it past the campaigning stage without being re-crucified! The fact is, Jesus had some strange ideas and tended to ruffle everyone's feathers. Not some feathers, everyone's. It doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you reside in, chances are pretty solid that there would be some things about Jesus you would not be willing to live with if they were government policy. If you don't believe me, go read the Gospels.

Not that this has ever stopped opportunistic politicians from claiming Jesus' personal endorsement on their campaign. None of them are of course willing to look at the whole package when it comes to Jesus though - both liberals and conservatives tend to only focus on the things Jesus said that they personally agree with while pretending all the other stuff He said somehow doesn't count. For instance, recently Herman Cain made the following statement:

"He helped the poor without one government program. He healed the sick without a government health care system. He feed the hungry without food stamps. And everywhere He went, it turned into a rally, attracting large crowds, and giving them hope, encouragement and inspiration. For three years He was unemployed, and never collected an unemployment check. Nevertheless, he completed all the work He needed to get done. He didn’t travel by private jet. He walked and sailed, and sometimes traveled on a donkey. For over 2,000 years the world has tried hard to erase the memory of the perfect conservative, and His principles of compassion, caring and common sense."

See? Jesus was the "perfect conservative"and his approach was one of "common sense". Oh really? Well I guess I could answer that by quoting some Scriptures but we all know how that goes; before you know it both sides are throwing Bible verses at each other, armored with the deep conviction that they are right and that Scripture vindicates their personal beliefs with neither side listening to anyone else. So why bother? Instead I'm just going to link to this fantastic new site called Common Sense Jesus. It does a beautiful job of debunking the idea of Jesus being a party line towing, modern right wing, common sense conservative. Go there now! You will find more gems like these:

The Worst Crutch To Lean On

2011-09-25T21:58:00.001+02:00

This month has not been a good one for me as far as hero worship is concerned. First Donald Miller, one of my all time favourite Christian authors, writes this article claiming that the biggest problem with the church is that it's too focused on scholarship and education. That just rubbed me the wrong way for a lot of reasons but eventually I calmed myself down and decided not to vent about it on my blog (though I may have left a snarky comment or two on his facebook fanpage's link to the story). There is a chance I'm over-reacting and the article is written in pretty ambiguous/slippery language. On the one hand, I can agree - if all the church does is argue dogma and split theological hairs and it never helps anyone then what good is it? On the other hand though it seemed to me to be talking down to academia in general, calling education pointless. Again, that could just be me. It did seem to echo the populous notion that education and scholarly pursuits are for out of touch elitists and that real, salt of the earth, common sense folks don't need none of that thar book larnin' to know what is right. Also, pretty sure that the problem among Christians is not too much education, if anything it's the opposite! I'll get back to that before the end of this post.

Anyway, so just today The Slacktivist, one of my favourite bloggers in the universe, discussed the very Pat Robertson video I posted in my previous post and he (unlike me) came out in support of Pat. Actually I've been meaning to do a follow up on what I wrote previously because I did get thinking on the matter. For one thing, I'll give the Slacktivist that much, the video shows a far softer and less dogmatic Pat Robertson than the one who usually comes on TV to kick suffering people when they are down. There did actually appear to be a glimmer of empathy in his reply. I still disagree with his advice though. The Slacktivist post did make me realise that I should perhaps just clarify a tad and expand on what I said.

First of all, like I took pains to point out, I have nothing but the deepest empathy for people who has a loved one suffering from Alzheimers. Pat was right, it's a truly hateful disease. Frankly if I was diagnosed with it, I'd go the same route as Terry Pratchett and choose to die as myself, not an incoherent mess that couldn't even be called a shadow of who I used to be. But I get that is not what everyone would choose for various reasons and that is why there needs to be some frank discussion and planning for the future when a disease like this is diagnosed. If the subject of the letter to Pat Robertson and his wife had sat down together and discussed the way forward and she agreed that it would be best that eventually he move her into a facility and move on with his life I would agree with Pat's advice. BUT - and that's a big but - this was clearly not the case. This man's wife went into that long night fully confident that her husband was going to take care of her the way he promised in his wedding vows and then he changed his mind. He started off taking care of her, got frustrated, found someone else and is now going to move on. That, I can never agree with. If you said you were going to be there to the end then you better be there to the end. The commitment you make is the commitment you stick to. That is why I found Pat's advice so offensive, because it was such an after the fact rationalization made in order to justify and excuse a course of action that has already been taken in bad faith.

Just a little bit of honest planning would have changed the way I responded to that situation. Of course planning ahead was never going to happen, much the same way it didn't happen when my grandmother got sick. The problem is that just like the man with the sick wife, my family are fundamentalist, Pentecostal Christians. People like us, when faced with dread medical conditions, tend not to plan for the future the way we should because we have a crutch we lean on. Unfortunately this crutch is weak and brittle and can never give the support it promises. It doesn't look it though, it looks ancient and noble and trustworthy. We are all taught early on to trust in it completely. It's not a cheap crutch either, it asks a lot from us. It asks that we cheerfully deny reality, that we stay positive and believe and trust and above all never give in to the temptation of accepting the facts. This crutch is faith that God will heal. This crutch will make you fall on your face every time. It may ask for a lot but it will give you nothing but disappointment and bitterness. It won't even let you have that though, you're not allowed to be disappointed or bitter or voice any doubt in the claim that the crutch is sturdy and true no matter how many times it has demonstrably failed to be that. So really, it takes everything from you and leaves you with nothing.

I remember a lot of things about my grandmothers disease. Some of the worst memories however are not the one's where she didn't know who I was. The darkest memories are of my grandpa furiously praying over her, rebuking the devil and praying the healing power of God over her. My grandpa leaned on that crutch more and more as my grandma got worse and worse and sure as day, it dropped him on his face every single time. My grandma never got better, why would she, she had Altzheimers! It's an incurable, soul crushing disease! It's not caused by devils and it's not healed by the hand of God.

My dad used the same crutch for over a decade when my mom's kidneys started failing. There was fasting, and praying - so much praying - she was anointed with oil, demons were bound, healing was claimed and... well what do you think? That crutch kept collapsing but we kept believing in it right up to the day she died. Also, my dad stuck with my mom all through this decade plus long illness which I knew wasn't easy just like my grandpa did. So again, while I have tons of empathy for someone living with a loved one with an incurable disease I will never have sympathy for you if you decide to call it quits because it's too hard on you. That choice runs contrary to my very DNA.

I too leaned on that crutch and for most of my life pretended it wasn't as worm eaten and rotten as it demonstrably was. I trusted in it as a child when my mother and grandmother were ill, just like the rest of my family. I leaned on it while my dad lay dying in the hospital. I leaned on it desperately when I got cancer - even though I should have known better by then. I don't like to talk about my own disease, mainly because what I faced wasn't as bad as what my parents and grandparents had to deal with. I had the weak, sissy kind of cancer that spreads slowly and grows at a snails pace. The only reason it almost killed me was because I kept going to prayer lines and healing services instead of a hospital.

If you or a loved one is sick, don't pray about it, go see a doctor and get help. As someone who grew up hearing countless sermons about how we're supposed to put our faith in God and not reality I know that won't be easy to do, so why not start small? Try this simple test. Next time you get a headache, pray about it but do nothing else. Did the headache go away? How long did it take? Now, if you get another headache pray again but this time also take some painkillers. Pretty sure the headache went away pretty quickly this time, right? OK, now repeat this a third time but this time just take the painkillers, don't pray at all. Any difference? It's a simple experiment that anyone can do and it's bound to demonstrate reliably which works best: prayer or medicine. Jesus Himself said in Luke 16:10 that: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dis honest with much." Doesn't it then follow that if modern medicine is trustworthy to fix headaches you should also trust it if you have cancer?

See, this is why Donald Miller's article got to me. Me and my family trusted and leaned on a rotten, unreliable crutch not because the church is run by teachers and scholars but rather because the teaching we got from church was no good and definitely not scholarly. I think if anything that points to a lack of good teaching and scholarship in church, not an abundance!

Now if you are a Christian and you've actually read this far, congratulations. I really didn't think you would because this post moved into heretical territory real quick! I appreciate you hearing me out at least, unless you were just skimming this post while planning a rebuke in the comment section. Anyway, maybe you know exactly what I'm talking about, maybe you've tried this crutch and fallen on your face many times too. Maybe you know that feeling of having that gnawing feeling that there is no help coming from above, only to have to convince yourself that somehow it will work out because the very idea is blasphemous. I've been there. So for you I offer this compromise. Pray, OK? Pray all you want. But please, treat prayer as a complimentary remedy, not an alternative to seeking medical attention (or in the case of incurable disease, realistically planning for the future at least). I get it, lots of people call that having "weak faith" and will blame you for the inevitable happening. Forget those guys. Trust me, when the inevitable happens anyway (as it is wont to do) they won't have anything for you either except platitudes and perhaps more guilt. I may have only had the sissy cancer but I've met lots of people with the scary real deal when I go in for treatments. I've seen that for many, trusting God to heal them offers much needed hope and strength when undergoing treatment. I'm not a complete dick, if you need to hold on to that crutch for comfort I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't. That is really up to you. Just don't you ever lean on it exclusively. If you do that, it's pretty much guaranteed to fail you. No matter how many amazing testimonies you may have heard about miracles happening, take this from a real person who has lived through some real events that were anything but miraculous. Prayer alone is no substitute for treatment. That way lies nothing but bitterness, disappointment and disillusion, not to mention a deep well of anger you're not going to be allowed to acknowledge.

Pat Robertson vs The Sanctity of Marraige

2011-09-15T21:44:00.001+02:00

I remember that back when Pat Robertson made his immensely horrible comments on the Haitian earthquake Jon Stewart did this amazing response to it, pointing out all the great (and Biblical) responses Pat could have made instead. That was one of the clips that got me started watching The Daily Show because I thought it was just such a smart and well thought out response that showed Pat Robertson for the insensitive jerk he was. Apparently not everyone thought so though. In the comments on that clip I was stunned to see many comments along the line of "How dare you criticize God's anointed?", "Pat Robertson is a man of God, shut up about him!", "Pat is a prophet speaking the Words of God, you will be judged for opening your mouth against him!" etc. And I remember thinking "WTF is wrong with you people??" Do you really think this failed apocalyptic prophet, this ghoul who has never found a tragedy so heartbreaking that he couldn't turn it into an opportunity to take cheap shots at the groups he dislikes, this horrible, cruel, self righteous old man - you think he is God's anointed prophet?! How ugly would your God have to be for that to be true? How damaged would you have to be to actually buy into such a claim?

Long story short, I try to avoid Pat Robertson because he's really bad for my blood pressure. But now he's gone and said something else that I simply can't ignore:

So if your wife has Alzheimer's disease, consider her dead, consider your commitment to your marriage vows done and go find yourself someone else. Just be nice about it and at least dump your spouse at a care facility first - just dumping them on the street just wouldn't be Christian after all!

Lest you think I'm upset just for the sake of dogma or ideology, I'm not. I am all too familiar with the horror that is Alzheimers. My grandmother, the only one I ever knew and who I loved dearly, had Alzheimers and it was hell. It's not like most bad diseases where someone gets it, gets worse, dies and then everyone gets to mourn and move on. No with this hellish disease you get to watch for years how someone you love turns into someone who doesn't even know who you are. I've never lived through anything worse. So I get how hard it is, I understand fully just how badly one wants to escape from it. But I would never agree that it would be OK to forget about them and move on as if they are already dead.

See, her illness was hard for me - it was hard for everyone in the family - but no one suffered due to it like my grandfather. I just had breakfast with him last week, he turned 93 and the man is still as sharp as a tack. I can't even begin to imagine how it must have felt for him to watch his wife of about 50 years slowly deteriorate day after day until there was nothing left of the woman he married. I can't even conceive of that kind of pain. Here's the thing, he never bailed on her. He stayed with her, taking care of her all day and every day until the day she died. Just by doing that, my grandfather taught me more about what it means to be a real man and far more about what the term "sanctity of marriage" means than every lecture, book, sermon and talk I've heard on the subject my whole life.

A real man, doesn't take the easy way out. A real man stands by his loved ones until the very end no matter what. Marriage vows mean something. Phrases like "in sickness and health" and "for better or for worse" are not just idle words, if you speak them you better mean them. The vow you make is the vow you live by.

I don't think anyone ever called my grandpa an "anointed man of God" but I have to say, I think he is a million times the man Pat Robertson is. If I can live to be half the man my grandfather is I would not have wasted my life.

Rob Bell Fixes Calvinism

2011-09-14T21:43:00.000+02:00

Right, so I did all those posts on "Love Wins" before it came out and then just one short one when I got it and then I never got around to giving my final impressions on it. Not that anyone asked...

I'm sure that by now you can find all kinds of reviews of the book online both positive and negative so I'm not going to do a review. The book was interesting and well written but not quite what I expected. Not that I'm all that sure exactly what I expected. Rob came out both for and against orthodox Christian theology. Simultaneously. In short, Rob Bell fixed Calvinism.

See, Calvinists say that God is the omnipotent, omniscient King of the Universe. Therefore it's impossible for Him to fail - to even suggest that people go to Hell because God failed to save their souls would be blasphemous. Therefore, people only go to Hell because God ordained ahead of time that they were meant to go there. Thereby, the Majesty of God remains unblemished because everything happened exactly the way He wanted it to all along. This is why Calvinism always left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Rob took the same concept and turned it around. He pointed out that salvation, Heaven, Hell (and how you end up there) is nowhere near as neat and formulaic in the Bible as Christian theology suggests. (Fun fact - he uses the Bible to prove it! ) He tackles the unblemished Majesty of God slightly differently than the Calvinists. Simply put, God wants to save the world and therefore God will find a way to save the world. This means everyone. Even the bad ones. If it takes you some time in Hell to be cured of your evil then so be it but in the end, Love/God wins out and everyone is reconciled with Him. Not that he suggests Hell is more like Catholic Purgatory. In fact, he mused that Heaven and Hell may even be the same place. For if Heaven treats all races with love and respect then that Heaven would be Hell to a racist for instance, or if everyone shares freely then it would be Hell for the selfish and so on. Anyway, point is that you don't just die and end up either immediately perfect or eternally damned. Everyone gets sanctified over time until they are able to fit into Heaven's way of doing things. So really just like the Calvinist, Rob believes that God is the omnipotent, omniscient King of the Universe. This God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to save it and this God cannot fail since He is the omnipotent, omniscient King of the Universe - eventually then He saves everyone and to suggest otherwise would be blasphemous. That's a taste I can live with.

Is he right? I don't know, but I hope so. Having a God that actually turns out to be benevolent and good at the end of the day is really good news. I can totally see why so many people were upset with this book though! Lots of believers aren't that happy with the Gospel being good news. It was that way even in Jesus' day...

Amazing Ancient Herbal Wisdom!

2011-09-12T10:29:00.000+02:00

Usually I don't like to put ads on my blog but I think maybe this time I'll make an exception. I was sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Johannesburg on Saturday when someone gave me this flyer. I admit that I've always been baffled why people still flock to sangomas (witchdoctors to you ignoramuses out there) and herbalists when we have good, scientific, evidence-based medicine readily available to all. Well suffice it to say, I get it now. Surely no "doctor" with their "medicine" and "science" can offer you half of what these folks can offer you with their magic spells and herbs!

Can your doctor make sure you win in the casino while making you a well endowed sexual dynamo? Didn't think so!

FAQ's by Random Googlers

2011-09-04T13:32:00.001+02:00

Usually, when I write a blog post, I try to to offer something meaningful. Granted, it doesn't always work and my posts may not always come out as thought provoking as I may have hoped, but still. I like to imagine that every now and again someone coming to this blog finds the very info they were looking for, especially if it's something they were searching for specifically - as opposed to those who arrive here hunting for LOLcats. Hopefully at least someone out there finds some of the things I post in some way helpful. However when I look check out the search engine queries that lead people here I have to admit that some visitors had to come away deeply disappointed. I have empathy there, I really do. I know exactly what it feels like to go googling for something and find that the helpful search results are really not that helpful (especially those sites that just feature a fuckton of keywords to generate traffic but offer nothing; I hate those guys with the burning fire of a thousand suns!) In my recent quest to learn what the heck a "dirty party" is (still unsuccessful I may add) I learned all about the disappointment of finding a promising link on google only to find the opposite of what you were looking for. So, I'm going to be helpful!

Here are some of the stranger google searches that led people to my blog. Don't worry, I'm not going to make fun of you! Instead, I'm going to try and help you. You came all the way here with your really weird search and I'm going to do my best to not send you away empty handed. Empty headed? What's the right term here? Anyway, in alphabetical order:

80s church waiting rooms
Right... OK, look I've been in a lot of churches in the past 30 years but I'm pretty sure none of them had waiting rooms, not even in the 80's. Why would they? It's not like a hospital. I mean even at churches where the pastor also does counseling, there usually isn't a waiting room. People just show up for their appointments or the pastor goes to see the bereaved. Sorry, I'm not going to be any help here at all, I have no idea what you're talking about. But if anyone out there knows anything about church waiting rooms, especially from the 80's, be a good neighbour and post something in the comments. OK, that wasn't a very strong start...

Albino people porn
Stop. Just stop. There is no such thing as albino porn. All you will ever find when looking for it is a) people like me telling you there's no such thing and b) other people like you also looking for it but not finding it. So really all you'll be left with is a really embarrassing term in your search history - you google keeps those right?

Can demons make you scratch yourself?
Well that would depend entirely on who you ask. I'd say no. Lot's of people out there would be happy to blame every single ailment on demons - from cancer to ingrown toenails - but that's really a ridiculous belief to have in this day and age. It's understandable why people in a pre-scientific era thought that diseases came from demons (actually in Biblical times they thought it was unclean spirits, there's a difference) since it's not like they had the equipment to find germs. But these days we know exactly how disease works so if you have a problem go see a doctor, not an exorcist. If someone is compulsively scratching themselves they may be suffering from Dermatillomania and they need help, not holy water. There are plenty of natural causes for both physical and mental illnesses so no supernatural explanations are needed. Seriously, go see a doctor.

Christian pornography
I'm sorry, you're looking for what??! Pretty sure that's not a thing! Don't let XXXChurch fool you, they are an anti-porn ministry. Yes, I know, their name is a little deceiving. That's how they sucker you in. Look, it's an open secret that Christians looove their porn BUT they do so in secret. No Christian ever publicly admits to liking porn unless they are giving their testimony about Jesus saved them from their porn addiction. It's an unwritten rule. Which I just wrote. Anyway, my point is that you will never find Christian themed porn unless it was made as a parody by non Christians. Mind you, I have a friend who is an engineer who refers to new part and tool manuals as "engineering porn" - did you mean it in that sense? Because I guess you could call a Bible Commentary "christian porn" in that sense but you are going to get a lot of funny looks for it if you do. Probably also a visit from your minister.

Hitler three fingers
Pretty sure Hitler had all his fingers. Were you looking for Claus von Sauffenberg, the three fingered Nazi who tried to assassinate Hitler? Only other connection between Hitler and three fingers I know of would be the three finger salute Neo Nazis use in Germany since the original Nazi salute is illegal there now. If you want to know Hitler's views on "the shocker" then I'm afraid I can't help you.

Hitler with dachshund
It's not impossible that Hitler was around a dachshund at some point but he was really more of a German Shepherd guy. He owned German Shepherds from his youth right up until his dog Blondi died with him in his bunker. Hitler's personal dog handler, Fritz Tornow did however own a dachshund and they were in the bunker together. Best connection I can come up with, hope that helped.

Is the group Abba gay??
No, they're not. They are very popular in some gay circles but the band itself is not. Chalk that one up to gay people having great taste in music! ABBA consisted of two married couples (for a while at least). The guys didn't wear makeup and tights. They may have been the most hetero band of the 70's! Their songs were also all about the joys of man on woman loving - see my blog post on the subject for more.

Lady Gaga Man Proof
For the last effing time, Lady Gaga is not a man! Seriously, how is this even still a thing? It's not like she just popped into existence in 2008 ex nihilo after all (though she did hatch from an egg at the Grammy's this year). Her pre-fame existence is rather well documented and a simple google search will find you lots of proof that she's been female all her life

Well, all her life minus the 2011 VMA's...

Her Wikipedia page has a picture of her and Lady Starlight from their performance art show at Lollapalooza in 2007. I posted a video of her preforming earlier than that as a university student and if you poke around youtube you'll find plenty of footage of her back when she was still preforming as Stefani Germanotta. Heck you can even find videos from her early teens when she did some acting, most notably the time she was an extra in The Sopranos at age 15. But if reason and logic isn't enough for you then here is the conclusive proof that Lady Gaga is a woman. It's seriously NSFW though so be careful when you click on that link!

Mars hill demon trials
I should probably ask you which Mars Hill you are referring to. Pretty sure there were never any demon trials at the original Mars Hill in classical Athens (or for that matter in Mars Hill, Maine or Mars Hill, North Carolina), at least as far as I could check. The Mars Hill church in Michigan, pastored by Rob Bell, seems like an extremely unlikely place for demon trials as well since they always seem far more concerned with dealing with evil in the temporal instead of the spiritual. Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill church on the other hand seems like the right kind of place for it. Mark is after all a vocal defender of the notion of a real and present Satan - and demons - and he seems just macho enough to stage a trail. Unless you meant "trial" not in the legal sense but rather in the "trials and tribulations" sense. Not sure if this will help but Pastor Driscoll did do a series called "Trial" (available as audio downloads here). Nothing there seemed overtly about demons but then I didn't really listen to it so who knows?

Retarded Jesus
WTF?! Really? OK, no - just no. You can say a lot of things about Jesus but He was by no means retarded. I certainly never used those words (until just now) so no idea how you ended up here! Did you meant this or this? Not sure how either of those things would have landed you on my blog though.

Yoga to make you poop
Have you tried fibre? Just kidding, I looked it up, there really is such a thing. For best results, rather google "Yoga for healthy bowel system" next time, you're bound to find far more useful websites (on that matter at least) than mine! But seriously, try fiber.

Ray Comfort loves dead babies and money

2011-09-01T20:10:00.001+02:00

Let's say you found a way to end crime and violence forever. Doesn't require years of training or weapons or equipment. Instead you've found some magic words that if you say it to any criminal they will immediately abandon their unlawful conduct and walk the straight and narrow for the rest of their lives. Again, it takes no training, once you know what the words are you can turn anyone away from a life of crime in a matter of seconds.

Or what if you knew a way to end drug addiction, any addiction to any drug in fact. Again, all you need are some magical words, so no clinics, no medicine, no detox or anything like it. You say these words to a junkie and they will never touch drugs ever again. What if you were an animal rights activist and you learned some a magical argument that is guaranteed to turn the most dedicated meat lover into a vegan immediately? What if you were a pacifist who found a simple argument that will cause someone to never hurt another human being ever again?

What would you do? Think about that for a second.

Now I don't have any strong opinions on abortion but I know that conservative Christians most certainly are very strongly Pro-Life. So what if you were a conservative Christian and you actually found a near magical argument against abortion, much like what I've described in the hypotheticals above? That would be the best thing ever right? Well turns out that someone did just that. Here is Ray Comfort, (sort of) showing his magical words:

Amazing right? It's exactly as I described: no training and no equipment needed, just a few magical words and a Pro-Choice person becomes a Pro-Lifer for life. Best of all, it takes but seconds.

So back to my question. You are passionate about a cause. You find an argument that works like actual magic that anyone can learn to use in a minute and can then go on and apply in under a minute. What do you do? Well I know what I would do if for instance I could stop say crime and violence like that. I would post it on youtube, email all my friends, blog about it and then just sit back and watch the internet machine turn it viral. It would take me less than an hour to get the word out and internet being what it is, word would spread like wildfire. Within weeks the world would be a completely different place. Within a month or so, crime would be something you only rad about in history books. Sure I could hold out on people and ask them to pay me first but why would I do that? Millions of lives would be lost while I wait to get my beak wet! That would kind of make me a sociopathic dick, now wouldn't it? Plenty of time to make myself some money after I saved the world after all! But maybe that's just me. Here is what Ray Comfort did:

See he has this magical argument and he will tell you what it is. For free! Eventually. First, he would like some donations to market the thing. Marketing, really? Why is that needed at all? If this magical argument works as advertised he just needs to put it on youtube and notify some churches and Pro-life ministries. Just from word of mouth (which is free btw) every Pro-Lifer in the country would know how to convince every Pro-Choicer they encounter into a fellow abortion abolitionist. Sure, Way of the Master wouldn't make a lot of money out of it but think of all the babies! They plan to launch the movie in 26 days from now. According to the CDC, about 800 000 abortions happen every year so that means about 60 000 babies will be aborted in the waiting period! The US - if not the world - could be Pro-Life in 26 days if this gets out! Why wait? Why have a whole documentary if a 30 second argument is all you need? And why ask for money for a marketing appeal when you have a product that is bound to go viral all by itself?

I could be wrong but it kind of seems as if Mr Comfort and/or his argument may not be what you call "good".

It's Springtime! It's Orgytime!!

2011-09-01T08:10:00.000+02:00

[Since it's officially Spring Day in South Africa today I dug up something I wrote back in 2007 when I tried my hand at blogging via Facebook Notes. Since Jackie the Suicide Dachshund and the local cats are still at it, it just seemed appropriate. ]

Suicide Dachshund taking a moment to get her Zen on before a big night of cat "chasing"

Well folks, it’s that time of year. Spring has sprung and its already on my bad side. To be fair, spring was never on my good side to start with. I am a winter person and I make no apologies for it. The thing is, most of Spring’s redeeming features lie in its days (Pretty girls in short skirts mostly*. Oh and the flowers… Yes right, let’s remember the flowers too…). On the other hand, my main beef with spring (and summer) are its nights. Night time during winter is a magical time. You have big warm dinners full of slow cooked goodness, snuggle in front of the heater with hot chocolate or brandy (or both!) before you take a long warm bath and go to sleep in a heavenly cocoon of snugness like a hibernating bear. Wintertime is what sleep was designed for! Words cannot begin to describe the wonder of lying snug under your blankets while the winter wind weeps around the house. What sleep! What dreams!

Now springtime is something else entirely. Sure, you take your 5th shower of the day just before you go to bed, but it’s still so hot that you end up sticky and smelly by the time you hit the covers. Then it takes forever to get comfy because every position is uncomfortable, nothing can touch you because it’s so hot and no matter how many times you turn your pillow around, the cool side never stays cool for long. During the night your sleep is constantly interrupted by two things: all the bugs that have returned after sweet winter sent them to their grave as well as by you constantly berating yourself for settling for a fan when your stingy ass should have just shelled out the extra R3000 for an aircon!

But is that the worst part? Noooooo, not even close! And I’m not even referring to the too soon too hot mornings that make sleeping late a distant memory, no I’m referring to the horrible fact that spring is mating season! Mating season – of all of spring’s many facets I hate that one the most! Is it because all the coupling & mating energy drives happy single people to suicide? Well yes, that too. But mostly because every cat in the whole damn neighbourhood wakes up at 3 am to find their biological clocks ticking at which point they all congregate in my backyard for the mother of all cat orgies!

Cats seem to be nature’s noisiest lovers. (If there are noisier mating rituals out there, I beg you leave me in my ignorance and for heavens sake, keep it away from my back yard!) Honestly has anyone listened to them going at it lately? It doesn’t sound like they are having a good time. Hell it doesn’t even sound like they are comfortable! Are they even doing it right?? I mean I’ve heard that cats aren’t the smartest of creatures, but COME ON!!

Pictured: Cat Brothel

Of course the reason it all happens in MY backyard is because this is also the home of the world’s dumbest Dachshund. Then again, maybe she is the worlds most Zen Dachshund, I’m still trying to figure this out… See, its not that she doesn’t chase cats. No, rather for her its more about the chase, not so much the cat. She’ll chase but by now the cats have learned that they don’t really need to run. They can sit still, she will do all the chasing and running whether they take part or not. Round and round she will go, cat or no cat. Its all about the journey for her, not so much about actually “catching” anything. Stupid Zen dog has turned my backyard into a… well um, oh hell, lets admit it – a cathouse! For cats!! And thanks to her antics, this is a cat bordello with a dog show…

Oh, and as an added bonus the neighbours added a spotlight. "So what?" you say. Well every time a cat jumps onto the wall in front of the spotlight, he/she gets projected way larger than life on my curtains. I’m enough of a man to admit that the first time I awoke to see a puma jump on my windowsill I nearly crapped myself!

Can’t wait for winter to come back!!

Winter = Awesome

*Of course you will also see other girls in teeny outfits - girls who really, REALLY shouldn’t be in those teeny outfits… But I’m blocking that mental picture.

Uncle Arthur Lies About Science

2011-08-27T16:02:00.000+02:00

When I saw a hilariously terrible bit of scientific misinformation called "Did Charlie make a monkey out of you?" over on Scotteriology, it reminded me of my very first encounter with the Theory of Evolution. When I was a wee toddler my parents used to read to me from a delightfully traumatizing series called "Oom Attie se Slaaptyd-stories" (better known to the rest of the world as "Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories") by the Seventh Day Adventist author Arthur S Maxwell. To say that this left me with a slightly incorrect impression of what evolution actually claimed would be a massive understatement. I remember that even as a five year old, I was stunned that people could believe something as utterly ridiculous as evolution! Since teaching evolution was a taboo under the state run Christian National Education in the Old South Africa I was a committed young earth creationists until deep into my grownup years. In my defense though, I went all those years hearing only the version of the Theory of Evolution as told by Christian Apologists - so really I had no idea what evolution was really all about. To may shame it took me almost three decades before I actually bothered to look it up for myself and found out what science actually had to say without the filter of fundamentalist Christianity blocking my reception.

So for nostalgia's sake I decided to dig up the story and read it again. I have to say, it was worse than I remembered! When it comes to accurately portraying the theory of evolution, Uncle Arthur makes Kent Hovind look like Richard Dawkins! I can't describe to you just how incredibly dishonest it is because if I tried you would think I'm making things up. So instead I decided to just post the entire story right here. Now I admit I'm not up to speed on copyright law but I'm fairly certain one is allowed to post someone else's work provided you cite it properly and don't claim it as your own. If I'm wrong about that, please do correct me. Also, since I only have the Afrikaans copy of the story and was unable to find the original English online I had to translate it myself. So then what follows is not the original words of Arthur S Maxwell but rather the Afrikaans translation by C. van der M. van Wyk translated back into English by me. The original story ('n Storie Wat Nie Waar Is Nie) appears on page 71 - 75 of book 5 of the Bedtime stories series. Sit down when reading this, don't drink anything that will burn your sinus cavities if you snort it by accident or ruin your computer if you spit it. I promise that I translated this as accurately and as close to the original text as possible, keeping the grammar, punctuation and sentence structure as far as possible. It may appear at times that I tweaked it to make it sound more ridiculous but I assure you I took no such liberties - this is the exact story I heard as a child.

BTW, if anyone can get me the original text of this story I would very much appreciate it!

Not even kidding!

"A story that isn’t true
copyright Arthur S Maxwell

I don’t mean that my story isn’t true. On the contrary, it’s very reliable. See, I know the boy who told it to me, and he wouldn’t tell a lie to save his life. I’m going to call him “David” to protect his true identity.

David came back from school one day and told his dad the story he heard that day. It went like this:

In the history class the teacher wanted to tell start right from the very beginning of things and so he told this funny little story. He said that life on earth began as a little bit of slime in the ocean. This bit of slime grew and grew and eventually broke up into little pieces. One piece decided to become a fish, another piece a plant, and another crawled out on land and decided to become a worm.

From this first fish, first plant and first worm came all other fishes, plants and animals. At least that’s what the teacher said. Then he tried to follow the history of the worm until, billions and billions of years later, it became an animal with legs! How ridiculous! This worm, he said, started crawling until he grew a wart on his belly. This wart later became a leg. Some worms got four warts and so grew four legs. Others got many warts and they turned into centipedes.

Animals got eyes, he said, because the light of the sun shone on them. The sun burned a freckle on them and the freckle later became an eye.

Then as millions of years went by, some of the worms whose warts became legs turned into dogs, some into cats, some into leopards and lions and tigers and giraffes and so on. The teacher then told them that one group of worms later developed arms and legs and became monkeys. The most advanced of the monkeys were playing with sticks one day. By chance they happened to rub the sticks together and made a spark. That is how they learned to make fire and the warmth of the fire caused their hair to fall out and they became people.

So then, this is the story that David’s teacher told him that day. It’s a story that is told to children the world over. But, it is not a true story. Do not believe it!

It’s not true, because God tells us in the Bible that He made all things. They didn’t “evolve” over millions and billions of years from a speck of slime in the ocean. He made everything Himself through His wisdom and Omnipotence. We read in the Psalms: “By the Word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth. … For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.” (Ps 33:6,9). Regarding mankind we read: “So God created mankind in His own Image, in the Image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” (Gen 1:27).

See just how ridiculous this untrue story sounds that’s being told to so many boys and girls today? If you just think about it you may just burst out laughing! That first speck of slime in the ocean, who put it there? Who made the sea so that it could grow there? Who made the land upon which the first worm crawled when it became tired of the ocean?

And just think of all those poor worms with the warts under their bellies. How did the warts form on just the right places so that legs could form on a spot where they would be useful? And why didn’t they get more warts on their legs so they could stick out in all directions?

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? And just think about those eyes! Oh dear! The sun shone on the freckle until an eye formed they say. But why did the sun have to pick a freckle right next to the nose? And then again another freckle right on the other side of the nose as well? Why not a freckle on the back of his head, on one of his legs or maybe on his tail? Why didn’t eyes grow all over the body?

Also, if it really was the light of the sun that changed the freckles into eyes, why didn’t it make them strong enough to look into the sun? Why did these same sunbeams have to go and make eyelids to keep the light out? Finally, what about those poor monkeys who supposedly changed into people. They lost their hair because they invented fire and didn’t need hair to keep them warm? No way! Why didn’t they lose the hair on their heads as well then? And why don’t cats lose their hair today if they sleep in front of the fireplace? And why do monkeys in warm climates still have their hair?

No children, this story isn’t just untrue but it also sounds like nonsense. It was thought up by people who didn’t love the Bible and tried to find a different explanation for the origins of things. If you ask me I think their story is a thousand times harder to believe than the simple Biblical story of creation."

Have you ever in your life seen a strawman brutalized quite like this? It's like Uncle Arthur is actually an Atheist missionary in disguise! It would be pure genius actually, because if you want kids to realize that their religious leaders are lying to them/don't know what they are talking about/are ridiculously ignorant about things they claim to be knowledgeable about, then tell them a story as ridiculously false as this that can be easily demolished with but a handful of actual facts. I can promise you, they will never trust their church again.

To be read ironically by adults, never seriously to children!

Heaven is so Surreal!

2011-08-26T21:46:00.000+02:00

How do you know if someone drugged you? As a kid I firmly believed that you knew that by checking the bottom of your cup for a dark gooey residue. See there was this TV show I watched as a small child and that is always how they realised someone got drugged. I wish I knew what show that was but that's really the only thing that stuck in my mind. Plus it was the 80's and thanks to the Apartheid sanctions South African TV was a strange mixed bag of whatever old shows someone would sell us that got dubbed into Afrikaans so even if I remembered the title I doubt it would help much! I suspect it may have been a German production from the 60's or 70's but I have no way of confirming that. All I know is that if they suspected someone was drugged they checked the bottom of the mug or glass and boom - dark goopy residue. Once someone snuck them some drugged milk and there was a gooey substance on the milk cap. So for the longest time I assumed that all drugs (when slipped into drinks) left a gooey residue behind and I would always check after I drank something. I had almost forgotten about that completely but then I saw this video:

At first I was like "He he he, this guy in the purple suit sure brings back memories from the movies the Pastor would sometimes show when I was a kid!" and then came those "heavenly reenactment" bits and I was like "Riiiiight, that is kinda weird and corny but it fits the genre I guess" but then the thing after 2:13 happened and I was like "WTF just happened?!? Am I high? Did someone slip me LSD without telling me?". That was when I just had to check the bottom of my mug to be sure...

But no, that actually happened and you watched it happen. And no, that wasn't satire or a Poe, that was 100% real.

How gay is ABBA?

2011-08-18T20:16:00.001+02:00

I am a huge ABBA fan. There, I said it. I loved them since childhood (probably because they were at their peak when I was a fetus) and I never grew out of it. I had the Readers Digest ABBA collection on tape as a teen and I have the same songs on my iPod today. You know what my parents rented for me on my 16th birthday? ABBA: The movie. It was one of my best birthday's ever. So to sum up, I really really love ABBA.

Problem is, the moment a guy (let's say me) declares their love for ABBA, other guys are immediately like "dude, that is sooo gay". On that note, I have 3 things to say:
One, I really don't care what you think my taste in music says about me. Judge me by my words and deeds and I will consider what you have to say but judge me by the music I enjoy and you can bite me. I will enjoy the things I enjoy and you can love it or shove it.
Two, I may be heterosexual but I don't view gays as subhuman deviants so calling gay is probably not the sick burn you think it is.
Three, why exactly is ABBA gay?

Look I get it, I watched "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" too, I know a lot of people in the gay community looves them some ABBA. Good for them, ABBA made great music! I just don't quite understand how this particular Swedish pop band became the gay icons they are, that's all. Not to rain on anyone's parade (see what I did there?) but I have to wonder if anyone bothered to actually listen closely to ABBA's song lyrics? Check out these snippets from their song "People need love":

"Man has always wanted a woman by his side to keep him company
Women always knew that it takes a man to get matrimonial harmony
Everybody knows that a man who's feeling down wants some female sympathy"

"Flowers in a desert need a drop of rain like a woman needs her man
If a man's in love and his woman wants the moon
Then he'll take it down if he can"

Call me nitpicky but that sounds less "Gay Pride Parade" and a lot more "Focus on the Family". This is quite typical of their music too, it's all about the agony and the ecstasy of old fashioned hetero luvin'. For crying out loud, they have a song called "One Man, One Woman" - which sounds like something James Dobson would play before railing against the evils of the homosexual agenda and lifting DOMA!

Again, not trying to denigrate anyone's musical choices here or to "take back ABBA" or anything like that. I just really have to wonder how ABBA went from the most hetero band of the 70's to the gay icons they are today. I'm genuinely curious!

Was it the outfits? It was, wasn't it?

How the media makes sausage

2011-08-15T14:29:00.001+02:00

I'm feeling a little shocked by my own naivety right now. If you asked me if I thought the media was sometimes dishonest in the way they told a story I would have immediately said that, yes they most certainly are! Yet despite that, if I saw someone saying something on TV or heard them say it on the radio I believed it to be accurate. Quotes in print I'm easily skeptical of, thanks to countless encounters with Creationist quote mining but somehow when I see video my skepticism gets short circuited. I knew that reporters make edits but I never really knew how to spot them so I usually just trusted whatever I saw.

Not anymore. British reporter Peter Hadfield (aka youtuber Potholer54) posted this video sharing the tricks of the trade. Now that I've seen how they do it I'm definitely going to be more vigilant in future! Granted, not all edits are malicious - I'd like to think that most are simply made due to time constraints - but even an innocent editing mistake can completely alter a quote. Point is, seeing is not believing!

So if you're brave enough to take a peek behind the curtain, here is Potholer54's video on the tricks of the journalistic trade:

(Video apparently blocked in the UK and Ireland for copyright reasons, unblocked version available here)

The New Radiation

2011-08-14T15:10:00.001+02:00

Ever notice how comic book superheroes all seemed to get their powers from radiation at one time? A crew of astronauts get bathed in cosmic radiation and become the Fantastic Four. A young boy is blinded by radioactive waste and becomes Daredevil. A scientist gets hit by a massive dose of gamma radiation and becomes the Incredible Hulk. A student is bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes Spiderman. I can keep going for quite a bit here. In the movies and comic books of yesteryear radiation either created giant monsters (Godzilla) or gave people superhuman abilities. Ever wonder why this was such a popular notion? Could radiation realistically give a person superpowers? The answer of course is yes, but only if by "superpowers" you mean radiation poisoning, cancer and agonizing death!

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone tried to give themselves superpowers through radiation poisoning. Also, I'm not suggesting that the silly folks of the last century actually believed that would work if they did try it (no, leave that for the incredibly stupid people of today). All I'm saying is that it at least seemed like a plausible mechanism a couple of decades ago. This was after all the days before Google when - if you really wanted to understand something - you had to go to the library and search through a lot of books to get all the info you wanted. So naturally some people were happy to instead get by with the little knowledge they had and as the saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The little people did know was that nuclear power was amazing and immensely powerful not to mention the fact that radiation can affect your cells on a molecular level, altering your very genetic code. Of course the results of this were never pretty but you can see on some level why people wouldn't immediately call shenanigans on the trope that radiation is magical, at least as far as their fiction was concerned.

Of course things have changed since then. The Information Age dawned, people stopped believing that radiation was a magical explanation for the implausible and found new magical explanations. Today however, some people choose not to save it only for their fiction, instead they actually believe in the magical explanatory powers of their New Radiation in real life.

Probably the most famous example is the one in the comic above. Pretty much all New Age woo peddlers explain away their ridiculous claims with the magical power of Quantum Mechanics. I am currently reading The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and it brought me to a profound realization - I am not smart enough to comprehend Quantum Mechanics! It's fascinating stuff and what little I can understand blows my mind but the moment it goes past the most basic concepts I can feel myself starting to get lost. Things just get so strange and so utterly counterintuitive that I have to admit I make little sense of it. But even so, even though I understand so very little of it I am quite confident in saying that quacks like Deepak Chopra understand much, much less of it than I do! Lucky for them, the same goes for a lot of the population so they are free to make their nonsense sound rational and scientific by using terms from Quantum Mechanics. Just like with radiation, people know very little about Quantum Physics but what they do know is that it's fascinating and exciting and seems to overturn a lot of the "old science". All of that is true of course but it does not therefore follow that you can wish things into existence (a la The Secret) thanks to Quantum Mechanics or that Quantum Physics show that positive thinking alters reality (a la Chopra). None of that is true. Like it or not, you're going to live your life within the boundaries of standard, boring old Newtonian physics - which only breaks down for incredibly big and incredibly small things, neither of which you deal with at all. So while quantum particles can and do spontaneously pop into existence out of nothing, the same will never be true of a new Porsche no matter how hard you wish!

Quantum Mechanics isn't the only New Radiation in the world today of course but it's pretty prominent. Another form, extremely popular for the conspiracy minded if no one else, would be the Dead Sea Scrolls. Same story as the others, the Dead Sea Scrolls are mysterious, exciting and people don't know much about it - making it a perfect form of New Radiation. What people know is that these are very ancient Biblical manuscripts that have been hidden unmolested for many centuries. What many people therefore believe is that it shows all kinds of crazy things about the Bible, Jesus and how the Church has totally been hiding the truth, man! We can mostly thank people like Dan Brown for that one. After reading The Da Vinci Code, a friend of mine was utterly convinced that the Dead Sea Scrolls said that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had kids. In fact you can make up just about any wild conspiracy about the Bible and claim the Dead Sea Scrolls show it's all true and people will believe you; despite the fact that you could probably find the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls (in English) in your nearest bookstore. The reality of the scrolls - while fascinating to historians and scholars - are not that exciting to someone looking for Catholic conspiracy and the dirty secrets of Jesus. The actual contents of the scrolls are:

"The Dead Sea Scrolls are traditionally divided into three groups: "Biblical" manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 40% of the identified scrolls; "Apocryphal" or "Pseudepigraphical" manuscripts (known documents from the Second Temple Period like Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc., that were not ultimately canonized in the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and "Sectarian" manuscripts (previously unknown documents that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism) like the Community Rule, War Scroll, Pesher on Habakkuk (Hebrew pesher פשר = "Commentary"), and the Rule of the Blessing, which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls."

In other words, lots of fascinating Old Testament Judaism stuff, zero sexy New Testament dirt. Still, just like Quantum Mechanics, the Dead Sea Scrolls may yet function as the New Radiation for a quite while before it's replaced with something else.

Quacks vs Chemistry

2011-08-08T18:28:00.000+02:00

"How can you be so sure there is nothing to it all?" That is probably the number one question skeptics get asked. It's a very good question too, in fact I would argue that a skeptic should be the first one asking himself/herself that question. If you don't accept that there are ghosts, why is that? How can you be so confident that Alternative Medicine isn't really medicine? You need to know the answer to such questions or risk coming across as completely closed minded and ignorant instead of informed and skeptical. Now depending on the subject the long answer can be rather long but the short answer almost always turns out to be: Science. Science may not be perfect but it is peerless in differentiating truth from falsehood and while it can't always tell you what the correct answer is with 100% certainty, it is fantastic at telling you what the wrong answers are. That is why I am very confident in dismissing the nutritional claims of someone like Mike "the health ranger" Adams as complete quackery. How can I be sure? Because his claims don't stand up to scientific scrutiny. Worse, you need only an elementary school science education to know that he doesn't know what he's talking about at all.

For instance, in a recent article called "What's really in the food? The A to Z of the food industry's most evil ingredients." he made the following claim:
"Homogenized Milk - The fats in the milk are artificially modified to change them into smaller molecules that stay in suspension in the milk liquid (so the milk fat doesn't separate)"
He goes on to explain how that somehow turns milk evil and such but that's really as far as I need to read to see that he really has no clue. See if you break up the fat molecules in the milk you don't get smaller fat molecules, you get things that aren't fat or milk or in fact anything remotely like it. Now since I said you only needed elementary school level science to understand why, let me demonstrate with an extremely simple example. Behold the mighty water molecule, H2O:

As you probably know, a water molecule is one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. So when you break it up into "smaller molecules" what do you get? Really small water molecules? No! You get Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules, neither of which are anything like water molecules! Put water on a burning pile of wood and you put out the fire, put hydrogen and oxygen on a fire and you get a much bigger fire! The molecular structure of a substance makes it what it is. If you break it up you don't get a smaller version of the substance, you get a completely different substance. It's that simple.

On that subject, a lot of the hysteria surrounding vaccines and autism came from the claim that "ZOMG vaccines contain mercury!!" That is a lie. There is no mercury in a vaccine. There is however something called Thiomersal (C9H9HgNaO2S) in vaccines which is a compound containing mercury. As I've just pointed out with the water molecule example, there is a very big difference between mercury and a molecule that has mercury in it. Here is another fun example I bet they taught you in elementary school, table salt - one of the best examples of just how magically amazing chemistry is. You take Sodium (Na) which is toxic and as an added bonus explodes when you add it to water and Chlorine (Cl) which is so horrifically toxic that they used to use it as a chemical warfare weapon, but when you join them into Sodium Chloride (NaCl) you get ordinary table salt, which doesn't explode in water and isn't toxic at all - in fact it's edible! Therefore, just as putting salt on your popcorn is not the same as putting chlorine on it, putting thiomersal in a vaccine is not the same as putting mercury in it. It's elementary!

To study chemistry is to study a world of endless wonder, but not for these quacks. No surprise there, actually understanding the science of their claim tends to debunk it completely. They want people to be afraid of chemistry and I'm afraid they've been very successful. Just look at advertisements, how it always tries to juxtapose "chemicals" with "natural" as in "All natural with no added chemicals"; which is not only terribly lazy language use, it's also complete crap. Everything is made out of atoms, that is a fundamental truth of everything that physically exists. Chemistry is the study of how all these atoms interact and behave. Therefore, chemistry - and chemicals - are everywhere. Everything you eat, drink, breathe and wear is made of chemicals. You yourself happen to be made entirely of chemicals. Chemicals are not evil. Scaring people with chemistry on the other hand is evil (not to mention stupid and wrong).

So then, when an alternative medicine proponent tries to make their case with "science-y" sounding terms but clearly lack even a basic understanding of what they are talking about, I feel pretty confident in disregarding their claims. That is how I know there is nothing to their claims - if they had anything they would have presented me with facts, not fakery. If you want to see the rest of Mike's pseudo-scientific claims from that article dismantled by actual science I heartily recommend Orac's blog post on it: Oh, no, there's protein and salt in my food! It's choc full of chemistry and good for you!

What has two thumbs, a coonskin hat and a brand new iPod?

2011-08-07T14:39:00.002+02:00

This guy!!

That's right, ME!! I won it. I am a winner. Because I won something. Suck on it haters!

I know what I may have risked type two diabetes when I drank all that Coke a Cola in order to send in all those entries but I don't care because it was totally worth it!

Unfortunately my obsessive compulsive nature took over the moment I installed iTunes so I may not be able to properly blog (or do anything else) again until every song is filed under the correct album and displays the correct album artwork. I thought I could be happy with just having my Lady Gaga and Sheryl Crow albums sorted but it turns out that no, I really can not. I probably should worry more about that personal realization but I can't right now because I AM A WINNER!

How then shall I live?

2011-07-29T20:56:00.002+02:00

Normally I don't have much time for philosophy but my last post did put me into a bit of a philosophical frame of mind. How should I go through life? What are the important qualities to strive for? Which bedrock virtues are best used as a foundation for everything else? It's more difficult to decide than it sounds on the surface since a lot of virtuous things really aren't necessarily virtuous. For instance, loyalty. Being loyal is good, right? Not necessarily! Many were loyal to Hitler and Stalin, terrorists can be loyal to their cause and I consider none of that to be virtuous! I'm looking for concepts that can stand on their own two feet so to speak, things that are intrinsically good to be.

Well I'm no philosopher and also I'm still pretty young so consider this a work in progress. So far I've settled on three things: being good, being smart and being skeptical. By "good" I refer to treating others with the kindness, decency and respect they deserve, to actively care about the wellbeing of others and the betterment of the world you live in. By "smart" I don't necessarily just refer to intelligence (which is rather out of your control) but rather to a commitment to do all you can with the intellectual resources you were dealt. The mind is a muscle that can move the world and it needs to be stimulated and exercised. To me a smart person is someone who is willing to learn and open to be educated. There is no excuse for a life of ignorance in the Information Age. By "skeptical" I refer to a commitment to grounding your beliefs in reality, to not believe things without evidence and especially not to trust in things despite evidence to the contrary. None of these qualities are innate to humanity and therefore all three things need to be constantly striven for and cultivated. I think these three things form a very solid foundation on which to build your life but these things all require one another and you can't just have some of them, you need them all to be present.

If someone is smart but neither skeptical or good then they tend to be the kind of person who does a lot of harm for really bad reasons. Worst case examples would be people like Dr Mengele or those CIA scientists who did the crazy unethical experiments with LSD and attempted psychic warfare. These weren't stupid men but a little goodness would have prevented their cruelty and a little skepticism would have prevented their ridiculous experiments entirely.

If someone is smart and skeptical but not good then they may have some valuable insights but no one is going to give them the time of day because they're probably going to be raging assholes. Actually asshole is the best case scenario here, worst case scenario would be professional mediums, psychics and other con artists. They're smart enough to expertly deceive others and they know they're fake so they don't lack skepticism but they are happy to take full advantage of the good nature and credulity of others.

If someone is smart and good but not skeptical they may be a very pleasant person to have a conversation with but you really should be careful when taking advice from them. They may be well meaning, intelligent people but they tend to promote a whole lot of nonsense. Good examples would be the scientists who fell hook, line and sinker for Uri Gellar or Project Alpha. I think Dr Oz would also be a perfect example - a charismatic, gifted surgeon who wants what is best for people but is gullible as hell and is now unleashing an escalating parade of quackery on the public.

If someone is skeptical but not good or smart they typically end up as contrarians, going against the stream simply for the sake of going against the stream. They tend to call all the wrong things into question for all the wrong reasons. They often find their niche as trolls on internet discussion forums, being skeptical on things such as the holocaust, global warming, evolution and the germ theory of disease.

If someone is skeptical and good but not smart they tend to be skeptics of the well intentioned but profoundly misguided sort. In their most harmless incarnation they could be conspiracy buffs, skeptical about everything the government says and passionate about getting the "truth" out. Unfortunately this combo can also manifest in parents who don't have their kids vaccinated or who use alternative medicine to treat actual illnesses. Despite doing it because they want the best for their kids, they are doing harm because they are skeptical of all the wrong things.

People who are just good but not smart or skeptical tend to epitomize the expression that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. With some power at their disposal they can do some real damage even though they mean others nothing but the best. Unfortunately they are too uninformed and gullible to know what that is. When these people are in government it can be a disaster. Or if they have their own talk show they can spread terrible misinformation like no other (looking at you Oprah). When they have no power they tend to be simply the kindhearted suckers that con artists prey on. The Nigerian prince scam unfortunately only succeeds because people like this exist.

Alternately I guess you could lack all three of these qualities in which case I hope to never run into you. The Inquisition was staffed almost exclusively with people lacking goodness, smarts and skepticism if you ask me!

These three things aren't perfect but they work really well and they work even better when you start building with other things upon the foundation they provide. Several things will actually enhance them all. With added humility for instance, you will know that there are limits to how smart and informed you are and that maybe you don't know as much as you think you do. Humility tells you that despite your best intentions you may not be doing as much good as you think you are and also it can remind you to be skeptical of your own skepticism because you may have a pretty big blind spot in there somewhere (looking at you Bill Maher). Another good thing to add on top would be courage - the courage to choose kindness when indifference is easier, the courage to follow the evidence to wherever the truth may lie and the bravery necessary to admit to yourself when what you know turns out to be wrong so you can go out and learn anew.

Anyway, I'm 34 and this is my best shot in the dark. In five to ten years I may have a completely different life philosophy, who knows? Like I said, this is a work in progress but so far it seems right to me.

Skeptical Skepticism for Skeptics

2011-07-25T21:21:00.002+02:00

Yesterday, blogging friend Gumby did a post on the issue that's been causing a huge uproar in the Skeptical Community - the horribly named "Elevatorgate". I think Gumby did a very good job discussing the situation so I don't really have anything of substance to add here. I agree with his assessment and I don't think it's worthwhile reiterating the entire thing on my blog. Seems to me that everything worth saying has already been said regarding "elevatorgate" (who thought up this name?!) and I have nothing original to add. OK, well maybe one thing. Can we, as a society, please stop adding "gate" to words to describe a scandal? Pretty please? The Watergate scandal was called that because it happened at the Watergate Hotel. It had nothing to do with either water or gates. Adding "gate" to a word to denote scandal is just stupid and it makes no effing sense! Now that I have that off my chest...

I think the fact that the issue of sexism and how women are treated in the Skeptical Community stirred up such a nest of hornets is worth looking into. It made me think of that really dumb antiquestion* believers often ask of skeptics - "if you're so skeptical, why aren't you skeptical of skepticism?" Obviously it's an incredibly stupid question - or is it? In the way the people who say it usually mean it of course yes, it's incredibly stupid. But I don't think it's entirely stupid to suggest that perhaps skeptics should perhaps be a little more skeptical about their own skepticism. Hear me out.

I am not saying there is a problem with skepticism. Healthy skepticism is good (also, healthy). The scientific method, logic and evidence based reasoning - while not perfect - are by far the best tools we have to separate fact from fallacy. No, skepticism is not the problem here, skeptics are. Skeptics are human beings. Human beings are terribly unreliable at observing and correctly interpreting reality. The human brain seems to be wired for belief and our minds are riddled with cognitive biases making us easy to fool. A human being can easily believe stupid things for bad reasons and thanks to our built in proclivity for confirmation bias we find it incredibly difficult to part with cherished beliefs even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Despite our best intentions its always easier to believe a true sounding falsehood than a difficult truth. That is why we need science, why we only started to really make progress when we started using the scientific method. The truth is often counter-intuitive, facts are not always self evident. Skepticism does not come naturally to us, reason and logic are alien to our minds. We have to learn these things and constantly practice them to become proficient at it and even then there will be no guarantees that we will get it right every time. That is why good science requires peer review - anyone can be mistaken so the more minds, the more tests, the more evidence the better. Skepticism is not a state of existence one can attain which will magically transform every corner of ones being into a bastion of reason. Instead it requires a daily commitment to reason and evidence and a willingness to seek the truth wherever it may lead you. None of that comes naturally to human beings.

And yet, it becomes tempting after a while to tell yourself that it does - to you at least. That skepticism is something you can attain and that once you have, your every thought and attitude will be a reasonable one. Its only human after all. So little wonder that so many feathers get ruffled when someone tries to address sexism and/or racism in the Skeptical Community. Once the idea that your every thought and reasoning is logical and sound has taken hold then any suggestion that you may be just as wrong as those sheepish non-skeptics about something seems terribly insulting!

I think this is a very good thing. I don't know that any of us have the self awareness necessary to know every dark corner of our minds and the bad thought patterns that may be hiding out there. I know this all too well, being new to skepticism myself. For most of my life I was massively credulous so learning to be skeptical and applying sound reason is sometimes a bit of an uphill battle for me. Situations like this, I have found, tend to bring everything up to the surface - which is where it needs to be if it's to be properly dealt with. So bring it on, the arguments for and against, the anger, the reasoning, the overreactions, bring it all. Here is a chance for everyone to learn something about themselves and about others, a chance to become better skeptics and better human beings.

So yes, if you are a skeptic you should be skeptical about your skepticism. For skepticism is something you can have but not hold. The day you stop pursuing it is the day it slips from your grasp. You can seek it, you can find it but you cannot possess it because for better or worse, you are human.

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*A question is something you ask in order to learn something, an antiquestion is something you pretend to ask in order to reinforce your own ignorance. Other examples include "If you're so into tolerance why won't you tolerate my intolerance" and of course, that creotard classic "Were you there?! Huh? Huh? Were you? Were you there?"

I dag er vi alle Norske

2011-07-24T10:53:00.001+02:00

Today we are all Norwegian. I have to admit, up to this week I have never given Norway much thought. Beautiful country, land of the Vikings and their incredibly hot descendants and that's about the extent of it. But the recent tragedy has changed all that. Anders Behring Breivik murdered almost a hundred people in a senseless act of terrorism this week and now Norway is on our minds and in our hearts. My heart goes out to them, cliched as that may sound, I feel saddened with them and touched by what happened to them even though they aren't my people. As I read this story though I find myself wishing they were my people because as much as the tragedy fills me with empathetic sadness, their response to it fills me with admiration and respect.

Anders - a right wing fundamentalist Christian - committed this atrocity because he hated the culture of tolerance in Norway, especially towards immigrants and Muslims. The Norwegian response to this attack on tolerance? A vow to continue being tolerant.

The Prime Minister of Norway, said:
"You shall not destroy us, you shall not destroy our democracy and commitment. We are a small but proud nation. No one should scare us or shoot us into silence. No one should scare us from being Norway."

Meanwhile Eskil Pedersen, leader of the youth camp that Anders attacked responded by vowing to continue such camps in future saying:
"We meet terror and violence with more democracy and will continue to fight against intolerance,"

Now that, is incredible. I wish we could all see such sentiments from our leaders when terror attacks happen. If evil men attack you because of your principles, shouldn't the correct response be to hold on to those principles? Wouldn't the worst possible response be to sacrifice those principles in the name of safety and security?

It's a little ironic that in the wake of an attack by a Christian fundamentalist, it is the people of Norway who are acting more in line with the fundamentals of Christianity. In the book of Acts and the history of the early church, when the Christians were being cruelly persecuted by a brutal military regime their response was to become more like their Messiah. They did not choose to become more cruel, brutal or military themselves in order to become safer, instead chose to lay down their lives as their Master did before them. Being attacked by Rome for being Christian made them more like Christ, not more like Rome. That only happened later...

These days whenever a tragedy occurs it seems as if it's the Fundamentalist Christians who are most vocal in calling for stricter controls, harsher penalties, more draconian measures and more blood in retaliation. Of course at the moment they are too busy decrying the media reporting that the perpetrator was a Right Wing Fundamentalist Christian, pointing out that no true Christian - one who followed the teachings of Jesus - would ever commit such an atrocity. They are completely right in that but if this tarnishes them by proxy then they really only have themselves to blame. Who do you think started this trend of blaming the acts of evil, deranged men on their purported beliefs? Turnabout is fair play, is it not? Besides, modern Fundamentalist Christianity has little to do with the fundamentals of Christianity.

The Trouble with Exes

2011-07-21T16:48:00.004+02:00

A common sight in the Evangelical Christian community is the ministry of the "exes". I had a pastor for instance who was an ex-alcoholic and would frequently talk about that. There are a lot of ex-addicts (drugs, porn, you name it) with speaking gigs in the Christian community, sharing how Jesus freed them from their old life of bondage. Once at a church camp we had a man named Jan Eriksen, a Norwegian ex-pimp and gangster turned evangelist to prostitutes, as the guest speaker. (Little off topic, but when I was about 16 we had an American Vietnam veteran ex-field medic come to lecture us on the dangers of sex and how wearing condoms or just having oral sex did not protect you from the most nightmarish sexually transmitted diseases. That was at school though, not church so it doesn't count.) Anyway, with these exes I have no beef, on the whole they do a good job reminding people that there is a life after addiction and horrible circumstance, that escape is possible. They show that even if you are lost, you can be found - their message is one of hope. But there are other, darker exes who do not share a message of hope and recovery at all. These would be people like:

Alberto Rivera, Ex-Catholic. Alberto became world famous thanks to Jack Chick who used his story for several of his tracts and comic books. He claimed to be a former Jesuit priest who gained access to the inner workings and secrets of the Catholic Church. He alleged that the Catholic Church was actually an ancient organization dedicated to destroying the work of God on Earth using it's vast power and riches to start wars, economic recessions, famines and various political and religious movements to undermine and destroy true Christianity. He tapped a rich vein of anti-catholic sentiment prevalent in Protestant Christianity and while his fame may have petered out since his death I won't be surprised if a very large section of fundamentalist Christianity today has had their views of Catholicism shaped by his stories. He didn't have a whole lot of proof for his allegations regarding this vast conspiracy and when Cornerstone Magazine looked into his past they found all kinds of problems with his story. There was no record of him being a Jesuit priest for instance but there were records showing him to be a married father of two in the USA when he was supposed to be a celibate priest in Spain. Furthermore the chronology of his story just doesn't add up, the facts didn't check out and then there was the matter that he had a long legal history of committing fraud.

Mike Warnke, Ex-Satanist. During the 70's, Mike took the Charismatic Christian world by storm with his testimony of his life as a former Satanist. He was a likeable, charming speaker who captivated audiences all over with his tales of a vast Satanic underground undermining the church and seducing young people into debauchery. As he rose through the ranks of Satanism he eventually learned that this was an ancient organization dedicated to destroying the work of God on Earth using it's vast power and riches to start wars, economic recessions, famines and various political and religious movements to undermine and destroy true Christianity. Despite being billed as an expert in occult matters he didn't have a whole lot of proof to back his tales. When Cornerstone Magazine decided to look into his story they found that reality was very different from what he claimed. Somehow his family, friends and former fiance all remembered a completely different Mike from the one he claimed to be. Furthermore the chronology of his story made no sense. He claimed to have gotten into drugs in college, the drugs eventually led him to become a dealer and through his drug dealings came into contact with satanists. He then joined and gradually rose through the ranks of the satanic movement until he eventually became a high priest. He traveled all over meeting several famous people, brought all kinds of innovation to the Satanic church (like rape, blood drinking and sacrificing fingers) and worked tirelessly to recruit thousands of young people into satanism. Eventually his drug use made him a liability and the satanists kicked him out, tried to kill him with an overdose and left him with nothing which led to him enlisting in the Navy as a last resort where he became a born again Christian. The problem? He started college in 1965. He enlisted in the Navy in 1966. That makes his story seem incredibly unlikely! While he eventually admitted to embellishing much of his testimony, he still claims that some of it is true.

John Todd, Ex-Illuminati Druid. John claimed to have been a member of a powerful family of Scottish Druids who imported witchcraft to America and helped found the Illuminati. Growing up in this ancient occult family gave him great insider information regarding the Illuminati - a powerful organization dedicated to destroying the work of God on Earth using it's vast power and riches to start wars, economic recessions, famines and various political and religious movements to undermine and destroy true Christianity. Though never as big as Warnke, he was very popular in Charismatic circles and thanks to his association with Jack Chick his influence is still felt. He is partially to thank for the Christian idea that Rock music, occult themed books and movies and role playing games are all satanic gateways that lure unsuspecting youngsters into the occult. If you ever hear some of the really wild "true history of Halloween" stories in a Fundamentalist Church then there's a good chance you can trace it back to Todd. As with the previous people on this list, investigations into his past proved that most of his stories were either complete fabrications or utterly unverifiable. Over time, he drifted further away from the mainstream as his stories got wilder and he started making crazy accusations about several political leaders and church leaders that disagreed with him. Also rather strange was the way he went back and forth between born again Christian warning against the occult and organizing book and record burnings and being a Wiccan coven leader with an occult bookstore. Mostly it seems he used various religions as a cover for preying on underage girls and he was eventually jailed on rape charges.

Lauren Stratford, Ex-member of a Satanic Ritual Abuse cult. During the repressed memory Satanic panic heyday of the 80's Lauren quickly rose to fame with her sordid tale of lifelong ritual sexual abuse by Satanists. With the endorsement of influential Christian speakers and authors like Hal Lindsey and Mike Warnke she soon had TV appearances lined up and had a book on the shelves. Her story of growing up in a Satanic underground movement (disguised as good Christian folk) dedicated to abusing and murdering children had Christian parents terrified. Her story seemed so incredibly terrible it was hard to believe it could be true. As it turns out, it wasn't. When the good people of Cornerstone magazine looked into her past they found that her entire story was a hoax. What's worse is that she had a long history of pathologically looking for sympathy with wild tales, tales which had grown more elaborate through the years and tended to crib heavily from other people's stories. After her star as a ritual abuse survivor faded she would later go on to reinvent herself as a Holocaust survivor.

Walid Shoebat, Ex-terrorist. Walid is a brand new entry on this list, seeing as how CNN just recently broke his story. He claimed to have been a Islamic fundamentalist terrorist who threw a firebomb at a bank in Bethlehem and spent some time in an Israeli prison. These days he is a born again Christian who is very popular among Christian (and government) groups who pay him to lecture them on the dangers of Islam. Now unlike the Illuminati and baby eating Satanists, Islamic terrorists are real and they are dangerous. However it's doubtful whether his advice to fear and distrust every Muslim and suspect every Islamic group of being a terror front is really the greatest advice. He sells himself as an expert in terrorism but even if his story was true, I don't see how much of an expert he would be - his one alleged attempt at terrorism was woefully underwhelming! As CNN points out, his entire terrorist past may be a lie:

More detailed articles here and here.

As you can tell, unlike the ex-addicts and ex-sinners, these exes are pretty dark. Their message is not one of hope and deliverance but of fear and paranoia. They're not telling you that no one is too lost to be saved, they're telling you that everyone is evil and out to get you!! Why would such a terrifying message be so popular? Why do these guys have the influence that they do? Their stories are widely believed despite the fact that even the slightest amount of fact-checking brings it all crashing down. Clearly people want to believe them, they want their horror stories to be true, hence the lack of skepticism. But again, why is that?

There could be many reasons, in fact this phenomenon is probably not due to just any one thing. For one thing living in a world full of lost and broken people who could really use your understanding and perhaps a helping hand isn't that exciting, in fact it sounds like a bit of an imposition. On the other hand, living in a world filled with monsters and unspeakable evil is really exhilarating! Plus protecting yourself and your loved ones from all these creepy monsters won't cost you much and will be super exciting! The dark exes really helps you tap into that primal, tribal, us-versus-them mindset hardwired into us all. They turn the world into a black and white place, us (the good guys) and them (the evil ones), which really simplifies your life/political choices by a lot! Also with the bad guys being so cartoonishly evil, you automatically become a better person just for not being them! While hurt, needy people come in all kinds of shades of grey, enemies on the other hand simplify life considerably. Listening to those ex-addicts and people whose life took a turn for the worst can be a sobering experience because it reminds us that we are living a very fragile existence. After all, they are people just like us and if the things that happened to them happened to us, who knows how we would have turned out? The dark exes on the other hand lets you forget all that nonsense because all bad things are clearly the work of unseen dark satanic forces! If you know all there is to know about these terrible people then you don't have to worry about bad things happening to you now do you?

Those are some of my best guesses. Over on The Slacktivist, Fred Clark wrote a very interesting post on this very matter a while back called "Mike Warnke and Marriage Equality", so do yourself a favour and check it out. It explores not only this strange phenomenon among the Christian faithful but also how the "satanic underground" fears of yesterday have now made way for the equally unfounded fears about "the gay agenda".

Hero Time! The Find Your Own Nazirite Adventure Quest!

2011-07-20T21:17:00.004+02:00

I was chatting to a friend of mine the other day and she told me how she felt like she was losing touch with her own identity. She has been spending so much time lately trying to live up to other people's requirements of her that she wasn't sure who she was anymore. Now if you've read my previous blog post I bet you think I sat her down and preached the Gospel of Gaga to her. That does sound like something I might do, but in this case I did no such thing.

This week was Nelson Mandela's birthday and the whole country was very worshipful about it. It was celebrated everywhere, but not by everyone. Couple of posts on Facebook reminded me that one man's freedom fighter is still another man's terrorist. Not everyone looks up to Madiba.

We don't all have the same heroes. Why should we? We are not all the same, we don't all value the same things and that's just fine. You don't have to enjoy the things I enjoy nor do you have to be impressed by the people who impress me. But while I would certainly not expect everyone to agree with my assessment of Lady Gaga as the Last Great Nazirite, I would very much hope that you wouldn't disregard the concept of the Nazirites completely.

No one should have to do this life by themselves. As the poet said, "No man is an island". As the Zulus say, "umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" (You become a person through other people). So much of the world seems dedicated to grind you down and tear you to pieces. Having someone to look up to, someone who's life calls you onward and upward makes all the difference in the world. You don't like my Nazirite? Fine, pick another. There are so many poets, painters, musicians, magicians, leaders, lovers, composers and writers to choose from so find the ones who feed your soul, those who remind you who you are. Those who remind you to stay true to yourself. Those who constantly push you to be better.

These aren't just empty words and I can prove it. When people talk about their heroes I'm often reminded of that scene in Zoolander where Owen Wilson's vapid male model character talks about his role models and mentions how Sting inspires him: "Sting would be another person who's a hero. The music he's created over the years, I don't really listen to it, but the fact that he's making it, I respect that." My point is you can't just list someone because its the cool thing to list, that person either makes a real difference to you or they don't.

Check out the post count on the right of the screen. Notice how I've blogged more in half a year than I have done per year for the last 2 years? Lady Gaga is a big part of that. Stop rolling your eyes at me and hear me out! See before she was the world famous Lady Gaga:

She was Stefani Germanotta, a young girl from NY with a deep love of music and some very big dreams. In an interview she told how as a young, completely unknown artist she would play hour and a half long sets full of songs no one knew whenever she got a stage. To give you some perspective, here she is as a student at an NYU talent show:

Just FYI, she didn't win, she came in 3rd. As you can see the seeds of who she would become are all there but she hadn't quite hit her stride yet. The talent is there, those songs were not bad at all but they were never going to top the charts. A more pragmatic person would have advised her to get a real job instead and make music more of a hobby. She kept going though, kept writing songs, kept preforming and eventually she found her voice and took the world by storm.

Now I'm no Lady Gaga, I don't have a fraction of her talent so this comparison breaks down pretty early on. But the thing is, I really do like writing. It's the only thing I've ever really dreamed of doing, one of the few things I truly enjoy. Now I may never become famous or widely read but that's no reason not to keep at it. If I love doing it, why not do it more, why not try to get better at it? It may not bring me fame or fortune but that's no reason to not get all the enjoyment out of it that I possibly can. That's why I've been writing more blog posts this year, who knows maybe one day I too will find my voice? I like to think I'm getting more comfortable in my own skin here, despite (or maybe because of) having an audience in the single digits. Lately it's been easier for me to speak my mind and to be honest when I write - I'm starting to be more like myself. We can't all be famous, we can't all achieve greatness but that's no reason to not enjoy the things we do and learn to be good at it.

So laugh at me all you will for revering a 25 year old pop star the way I do but do yourself a favour, find a Nazirite of your own. Believe me, it makes a difference.

The Last of the Nazirites

2011-07-19T14:00:00.005+02:00

"Don't you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can't be exactly who you are."
— Lady Gaga

Have you ever heard of the Nazirites? Let me tell you about them.

Since childhood I have known about the Israelite holy men and women known as the Nazirites. I knew the story of Samson, Samuel and John the Baptist but I never really thought much about it. It was only when listening to historian Ray Vander Laan's "That the World May Know" series that I learned the most important thing about the Nazirite vow namely the reason it exists. See I knew from my days in Sunday School that the Nazarite vow required three things:

Abstain from wine, wine vinegar, grapes, raisins, intoxicating liquors and vinegar distilled from such.
Refrain from cutting the hair on one's head
Avoid corpses and graves, even those of family members, and any structure which contains such (Apparently for some this ban on dead things also meant not eating meat)

What I never thought to ask was why they had to do these things, why did these things made them "Holy unto the LORD"? None of those things were wrong or immoral so why would abstaining from them make one holy? Maybe the answer is in the fact that "holy" doesn't mean what you think it does (or at least back then it certainly didn't). As I've written before, "holy" meant "different", "set apart", "unique" - which is exactly what the Nazirite vow set you up to be. A Nazirite didn't look like everyone else, they couldn't fit in to society like everyone else. To put it a different way, a Nazirite was a freak, but the important thing here is that they were freaks for a reason. They had a purpose, they weren't just different for the sake of nonconformity. Instead they were living reminders to the people of Israel that they too were supposed to be different, that they were a nation set apart by God and that they were not supposed to look like and live like all the other nations of the world. Nazirites lived as freaks to remind those around them that they weren't supposed to blend in. It brings my favourite quote from Angel to mind: "Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh, and cruel. But that's why there's us - champions. Doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world is as it should be, to show it what it can be."

Those were the Nazirites of old. Now, let me tell you about mine.

"For being different, it’s easy. But to be unique, it’s a complicated thing."
— Lady Gaga

There are a lot of words people use to describe Lady Gaga but I don't think the word "holy" is usually among them. Yet if "holy" is to mean "different" and "unique" then she has to be the holiest person I know by a long shot! There really is no one else like her. Some artists reinvent themselves with every album they release but she seems to reinvent herself anew every morning. She sets a new standard for concepts like "different" and "unique", she's a hyper dramatic, beautiful freak. She may be full of shit but she is never less than true to herself. She changes all the time and yet she is always aggressively her, sometimes only more so - every prop she ads on only makes her more her. She stands out wherever she goes, she blends in nowhere and she is impossible to miss. She is truly, fundamentally Holy/Different.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.
-- Lady Gaga

You know what, my description sounds a little clumsy. I think she said it a lot better than me in her latest column for V Magazine (I'd very much recommend the entire article):

"Art is a lie. And every day I kill to make it true. It is my destiny to exist halfway between reality and fantasy at all times. They call me “theatrical,” but I posit profusely that I am theatre, and that theatre is me. I am a show with no intermission. It is this thing that summons me from the depths of reality and reminds me that the power of transformation is endless. That I (we) possess something magical and transformative inside — a uniqueness and specialness waiting to be exiled from the depths of our identity. I have said before that I am a master of escapism, which many attribute to my wigs, performances, and my natural inclination to be grand, but perhaps that is also a lie. Maybe I am not escaping. Maybe I am just being. Being myself."

Now while she is clearly unique, that in itself is not enough to qualify her as a Nazirite. After all, you can't throw a brick into a room full of artists without hitting someone "different" looking! Merely looking strange is not enough, for a Nazirite is never odd just for the hell of it, a Nazirite is different for a purpose and that purpose involves other people. Here is where she transcends most of her peers. As you can probably tell from her quotes, she certainly does use her uniqueness as a platform to reach out to others, to remind them that it's OK for them to be different too. To see how successful she is with her message, look no further than her fans. Especially to unpopular, bullied teens and those in the LGBT community - in other words, those under the most pressure to suppress who they are and conform to societal expectations - she has been a light in the darkness. This is her message and it is heard far and loud, you don't have to be like everyone else, you can be a freak and be proud. You don't have to try to fit in, there's no shame if you don't, you can be who you are and be loved and valued for it. If you let her, she will remind you that being yourself is a good thing.

"You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way."
— Lady Gaga

So then, may I present to you - Mother Monster, Champion of the queer, Friend of the odd, Goddess of the Night, Queen of the freaks, High Priestess of the Holy Darkness, Hammer of the Status Quo, Enemy of Conformity, The Voice of change calling you out from the desert of bland, the Strange Beauty, the Lying Truth, Patron Saint of Aggressively being yourself: Lady Gaga, Last of the Nazirites!

"I want you to walk out of her tonight not loving me more, but loving yourselves more."
— Lady Gaga

A Secular Government is a Sane One

2011-07-15T22:23:00.001+02:00

I've mentioned before (also before before) that I'm a big fan of American politics. Elections in the US are exciting to watch because there either candidate can actually win, unlike in South African politics where we have only one party that always wins every election by a landslide. I think that the upcoming presidential elections are shaping up to be really interesting. So far I'm especially enjoying the race for the Republican presidential nomination. I'm no political analyst so I don't want to use overly dramatic language like saying "the Republican Party is at a crossroads!" or that there is "a battle for the soul of the party!!" but it does seem to me that what happens in the 2012 election will have a serious impact on the future of the party.

Following the success of the Tea Party in the midterm elections, the religious right suddenly have more power than they've had in a very long time - and they are using it for all they're worth. Things that belonged on the far right fundamentalist lunatic fringe just a few years ago are becoming increasingly mainstream on the conservative side it seems. Case in point, the popularity of Michelle Bachman as a serious presidential candidate and of course this:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What was poison for a presidential candidate just last election is now the water of life and those who are unwilling to swear fealty to the new right wing, fundamentalist Christian dogma may just find themselves sidelined. The religious right are now the kingmakers and they demand doctrinal purity - no gays, no abortion, no taxes, no healthcare, no compromise. Therefore, all the moderate, more centrist conservatives are being flogged for their "progressive" views and so now the moderates have to fake allegiance to the fringe or risk losing support. This in turn leads the party ever further towards the far right and I think this will cost them. For instance look at the issue of gay marriage - fast becoming the Republican Albatross. The religious right wants none of that and are fighting it tooth and nail BUT public opinion is turning rapidly and the majority of Americans now favour it. While doctrinal purity may win you the Republican nomination it may very well cost you the election. Worse, in the history books of tomorrow they will stand alongside the villains who fought against women's suffrage and to keep racial segregation alive. Only time will tell I guess.

Now I could be reading it all completely wrong, I am half a world away after all. Just seems to me that this next election will determine the future direction of the Republicans - either they will do well and the Religious Right Wing Fringe will become more powerful than ever OR they will get spanked and moderates could wrestle back control. I for one hope that cooler heads will prevail.

But again, I know that no one likes a foreigner coming along, telling you your business and pretending that they understand things better than you do and I definitely don't want to be that guy. No one likes that guy! So I will rather just post the words of a great American, Robert Ingersoll. He wrote the following in 1879 but it's so appropriate that it may as well have been written last weekend:

"I would like also to liberate the politician. At present, the
successful office-seeker is a good deal like the center of the
earth; he weighs nothing himself but draws everything else to him.
There are so many societies, so many churches, so many isms, that
it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a
political career. Candidates are forced to pretend that they are
Catholics with Protestant proclivities, or Christians with liberal
tendencies, or temperance men who now and then take a glass of
wine, or, that although not members of any church their wives are,
and that they subscribe liberally to all. The result of all this is
that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real
principle; and this will never change until the people become grand
enough to allow each other to do their own thinking.

Our Government should be entirely and purely secular. The
religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of
sight. He should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the
inspiration of the Bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the
immaculate conception. All these things are private and personal.
He should be allowed to settle such things for himself and should
he decide contrary to the law and will of God, let him settle the
matter with God. The people ought to be wise enough to select as
their officers men who know something of political affairs, who
comprehend the present greatness, and clearly perceive the future
grandeur of our country. If we were in a storm at sea, with deck
wave-washed and masts strained and bent with storm, and it was
necessary to reef the top sail, we certainly would not ask the
brave sailor who volunteered to go aloft, what his opinion was on
the five points of Calvinism. Our Government has nothing to do with
religion. It is neither Christian nor pagan; it is secular. But as
long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account
of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place
and power. Just so long will the candidates crawl in the dust --
hide their opinions, flatter those with whom they differ, pretend
to agree with those whom they despise; and just so long will honest
men be trampled under foot."

From "Some Mistakes of Moses" by Robert G. Ingersoll available for free online here. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Bran Covered Jack

2011-07-13T21:00:00.002+02:00

The problem with writing in my second language is that I sometimes find it very hard to say exactly what I mean. Afrikaans is a very visceral, descriptive language that lends itself very well to idiom. Sadly this means it usually loses a lot when you try to translate it to a more boring language like English. For instance we have this saying that goes: "Meng jou met die semels dan vreet die varke jou" which if translated directly reads: "If you mix yourself with bran, the pigs will eat you" - which makes little to no sense. Bran after all is a wholesome, colon-friendly product and I'm not sure pigs are particularly into it. "Semels" on the other hand would more accurately be not bran but rather the waste product you get after milling wheat or corn, the stuff not really fit for human consumption that's best fed to animals. The meaning of the idiom here is that if you hang out with a bad crowd you'll eventually become indistinguishable from the rest of them. So to translate it properly I guess I'd have to change it to "If you roll around in carrion you'll end up surrounded by vultures". With that out of the way, lets talk about someone who really exemplifies my new idiom - Jack T. Chick.

If you look at his earliest works they portray only very standard, straightforward message of Christian evangelism - get right with Jesus before you die or you will go to Hell. If he had stuck to these, chances are most people wouldn't even know the name Jack Chick. What made him really famous however was the fact that he eventually began wrapping the gospel message in the most batshit crazy conspiracy theories known to man. Why did this happen? I would hazard a guess that perhaps it happened because he started spending time with the most batshit insane members of the Christian fringe you could hope to find. Here are some of the folks who helped Jack become the man he is today:

Alberto Rivera. If you know any of his work, you know that Jack Chick hates Catholics more than the Westboro Baptists hate the gays and Katy Perry combined. From what I've learned in his comics and tracts, the Catholic church was responsible for creating Islam, Communism, Freemasonry, the Nazis, the Mormons, the Mafia and just FYI the entire Holocaust was basically a new Catholic Inquisition against the Jews! Apparently, the Catholics have been working for Satan for millennia trying to destroy all real Christians (Protestants) and the only true Bible (King James 1611, duh!). In fact, when the Antichrist eventually shows up, it's going to be none other than the Pope! Now these are some pretty wild claims so you would assume he has some very solid evidence to back it up. Instead what he has is the word of one man, Alberto Rivera. Alberto claims to have been a Jesuit priest who had access to lots of secret Vatican inside info. Eventually all these horrible truths, coupled with the fact that Catholic dogma contradicted the Bible led him to reject Catholicism. The Jesuits then locked him up and tortured him in an asylum in Spain trying to force him back to the fold but eventually he escaped and spent the rest of his life fighting to expose the Vatican. The thing is, unlike Chick, the Christian magazines Cornerstone and Christianity Today looked into his story and found a few small discrepancies. For one thing the Catholic church denies that he was ever a Jesuit priest or a bishop and the 3 doctorates he supposedly held turned out to be from a Colorado diploma mill. They even found an employment form showing him married and with two children in the US while he was supposed to be a celibate priest in Spain. Furthermore they found that "Rivera had a 'history of legal entanglements' including fraud, credit card theft, and writing bad checks. Warrants had been issued for his arrest in New Jersey and Florida, and he was wanted by the Spanish police for 'swindles and cheats'; while in the USA in 1967, he claimed to be collecting money for a Spanish college, which never received this money." (Source).

John Todd. John Todd a.k.a "John Todd Collins", "Lance Collins" and "Christopher Kollyns" was the man responsible for alerting Chick to the dangers of the occult. Chick published three comic books (not tracts, comics) explaining how secret Satanist Druid Illuminati agents control the world, all based on what he learned from John Todd. Did you know that all Rock music - even Christian Rock - is actually satanic and when you listen to it you bring demons into your house to make you less of a good Christian? Same goes for Dungeons & Dragons, Horoscopes and Star Wars - all plots to turn Christians into Satanists!! Again, a tiny bit of background checking raises serious doubts about his claims. Most of his claims are either impossible to verify or downright false. What we do know is that he was married several times, alternated religions between charismatic Christianity and Wicca several times though it seemed that for him religion was merely a means to get close to teenage girls. Wherever he went, complaints seemed to surface regarding inappropriate sexual behaviour towards underage girls. He spent a few months in jail for forcing oral sex on a young girl and years later was convicted on several rape charges and sentenced to 30 years in jail. He eventually died in a mental health facility. The sheer insanity of his life is hard to capture in a paragraph so I would strongly recommend this summary of his life here and here or for a briefer rundown, his Wiki page.

Kent Hovind. When Chick felt the need for a science adviser to help him illustrate the war godless scientists are waging on the clear and obvious literal truth of Genesis he turned to Dr Kent Hovind aka "Dr Dino". Whenever Chick mentions anything about evolution, just know that Hovind was his source. Unlike the others I've mentioned so far, Hovind didn't fabricate his past. He does however fabricate some of the worst, laughably false, most facepalm inducing attacks on science that you are ever likely to find. He is so terrible that he is even shunned by the rest of the Young Earth Creationist community! You have to be a new kind of terrible for Answers in Genesis to publicly distance themselves from you - and Kent Hovind is. He claims to have many years experience teaching science in high school. What he does not mention is that he only taught "science" at unaccredited church schools. His doctorate is likewise from an unaccredited diploma mill (just like all his qualifications) and is not in any scientific field either, it's in Christian Education. He is currently serving a 10 year prison sentence for tax evasion. (Source)

Rebecca Brown. With the departure of John Todd (though Chick did support and defend Todd to the last) Jack was in need of a new source for fresh occult info. Lucky for him, help was at hand in the form of Dr Rebecca Brown - medical doctor by day, demonslayer by night. I already discussed her rather unorthodox views in a previous post on Dirty Sexy Demonology so for more info do check it out. The post was satirical but I didn't make up anything she actually teaches, you will find everything I mentioned in her books! Thanks to her, Chick had up to date info on how demonic Halloween was and got to stay current on all the latest plots by witches and satanists to infiltrate and destroy Christian churches. In gratitude he got her books published and so released her patented Curse Theology on the public. Now unlike everyone else on this list, her credentials are actually real, she really did go to med school. However she's not technically a doctor anymore (and not just because she's a full time demon hunter and witch smeller now). "In 1984, Brown's medical license was revoked by the issuing state of Indiana. The licensing board ruled that on numerous occasions she had "knowingly and intentionally misdiagnosed her patients", blaming their illnesses on "demons, devils, and evil spirits." A board-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed her as suffering from "acute personality disorders including demonic delusions and/or paranoid schizophrenia" and observed her injecting herself with unknown substances. The board also found that she had over-medicated her patients and administered improper treatments, as well as failed to properly document their treatment." (Source.) For a more detailed discussion I would recommend these: Part 1. Part 2.

With friends like these, is it any surprise Chick tracts are as insane as they are?

Problematic Theology Made REALLY Simple

2011-07-07T18:11:00.054+02:00

Let's say I tell you that I own a Davy Crockett style coonskin cap. Now let's say that first off you think that "coonskin cap" sounds vaguely racist even when a Wikipedia link is included showing it's not and secondly that you are skeptical and do not think it's possible that I can own one. How should I respond to you?

The best possible answer I could give would be:

See? Argument settled, it's right there for all the world to see. Still skeptical? Feel free to come over, I'll show it to you in person and maybe even let you touch the soft fluffy hide. Just wash your hands first. Still don't believe me? Really? How could you not? You're just being contrarian on purpose now, aren't you? Psh, I can't talk to you when you get like this!

On the other hand...

The worst possible answer I could give would be:

Really? How is that even an argument? Sure if I said "You don't know everything there is to know in the universe so it's totally possible that I'm right and you're wrong" I would probably technically correct in a way but that's a terrible answer to a simple question. Similarly if I told you to just believe that I have a hat and that if you presuppose that it is true you will feel the proof of my coonskin cap ownership in your heart - that wouldn't be very convincing either now would it? No, I'm pretty sure that would sound insane. Even worse, I could say that I don't need to give you proof, the fact that I told you about it is all the proof you need and if you don't believe me then just wait until you're dead because then you will have all the proof you want. If I said that and you punched me in the face, no one would blame you because that is such a bad argument that it actually goes full circle and becomes the opposite of an argument.


Only thing left to add is that I look uber manly in a coonskin hat. Don't even bother trying to refute that argument, you're just going to end up looking stupid.

Problematic Theology Made Simple

2011-07-06T13:29:00.137+02:00

My entire youth spent in church, a year in Bible School and 3 years in Seminary and I never once heard it explained quite as well as this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic:

Theodicy is a theological problem that predates Christianity (See Epicurus) but sad to say, 2000+ years of theological pondering has left us no closer to an answer. Well, if you want to be technical it has left us with a great many volumes of answers but none of them are particularly satisfying (hence the many volumes). The problem is simple, on the one hand you have a perfectly good God who is all-knowing and all-powerful. On the other hand you have the messed up world we live in. One of these things make it very hard to believe in the other and the problem with reality is that we are kinda stuck with it. The problem, like I said, is simple - if God is so great why is the world so evil? The answer is also fairly simple, all you have to do is change something about God to make Him fit the state of the universe. Problem is that the moment you start tinkering with God you change Him into something less godly and usually you end up with a God as ugly as your universe - which makes the whole exercise pointless. Honestly, I don't see what is so bad about the skeptical view here. Surely an uncaring universe is preferable to one governed by a malevolent or apathetic God? Also, if you're going to have a God that can be overruled and marginalized by your (and everyone else's) choices at all times then why bother having a God at all?

In all fairness, I think CS Lewis made a pretty good case for free will as a solution in "The Problem of Pain". I can agree with him that for God to actually stop every evil thing that happens would require near constant miraculous intervention and having the laws of physics and reality altered every couple of seconds does seem like an absurd expectation to have. The problem is, even the free will argument breaks down after a while. Let's say I'm walking down the street and I find a teenager who tried a dumb stunt on his skateboard and ended up with two broken legs at the bottom of a sewer drain that is busy filling up with water. He got into that situation by his own free will, no doubt. However if I ignore all his pleas for help and just leave him there to suffer I'm not respecting his free will, I'm being a dick! Where it falls apart for me is not that bad things happen or that evil exists, it's that there seems to be no divine help when you beg for it.

Ye gods I am sick and tired of the weepy, impotent God of modern Christianity! I was reading The Shack which explained how God was right there when the protagonist's little girl was abducted, molested and murdered, crying with her and feeling her pain. I have found that this is a Godview shared by many evangelical Christians and it's meant to be comforting. Comforting?! Comforting my ass! You know who can cry along in empathy when children get molested? Me! Also: You and anyone you know with even a shred of humanity left in them. We don't need God to do our crying for us. A God who could have saved that little girl, now that would be a praiseworthy God! I don't need a God who can get weepy about my pain, I need a God who can help.

How I long for the Old God, for the God of Elijah and Moses! He walked the earth in fire and lightning, He was powerful and He was present! When Elijah wanted to show who served the true God he didn't have to break out the ontological argument or anything like it because he had a God who answered with fire! Moses didn't show up in Pharaoh's court with the Cosmological Argument because he had a God who could turn a staff into a snake, bring down horrific plagues on the land and split the sea in half! Their God may have been terrifying but you knew without a doubt that He was real and you wanted to be on His side!

Or how about an eating, drinking, miracle working God-with-us like Jesus? You don't need to discuss "first causes" and "unmoved movers" when you can walk on water and raise the dead! If you were on the side of power and the status quo He was every bit as terrifying as the God of Elijah but if you were amongst the outcast and the broken you had no better friend. He didn't go through the land feeling sorry for people, He healed and restored and helped! He was present and He made things better for those who called on Him in a real and tangible way! Jesus of Nazareth was nowhere near as emo as the neutered Jesus of modern suburbia.

I guess what I really long for is a God who lives in reality and not in philosophy. Is that too much to ask? I don't think I'm alone in this either. Despite all his apologetics and philosophy, even CS Lewis ended up inventing a God more majestic, compassionate and present than the one he preached about in his theological works.

Dirty Sexy Demonology

2011-07-02T23:10:00.002+02:00

Do you ever find yourself feeling disenchanted by the inherent passivity and lack of sexiness of "lamestream" Christianity? Ever wish you could do more to fight the forces of evil? Sure, praying about it and hoping God will do something somehow at some point is nice and all but don't you ever wish you could do something more exciting, more dangerous, perhaps even something more... sexy than that? Do you ever say to yourself, "Protestant Christianity is fine I guess but I sure do wish it could be more Medieval Catholicism!"? Well if you said yes to any of those questions then boy do I have a great product for you!

First, let me tell you the story of how I learned of this exciting branch of the Christian tree. See back in my teenage years my parents decided to play host to a wayward youth pastor for a couple of months. Now having a pastor under your roof 24/7 is less fun than it sounds but she did make up for it by occasionally telling the most amazing tales of her experiences battling teenage witches and warlocks. Well technical term for shepherding young Satan worshipers (did you not know that's what all witches are? Don't you just feel ignorant now!) back to the Christian fold is "deliverance ministry", but the way she told it sure sounded more like a battle to me. A mage battle! Since I was so fascinated by her tales she gave me a book to read called "He came to set the captives free" by Dr Rebecca Brown (MD). To say that the contents of that book was "mindblowing" would be a massive understatement. The story Dr Brown told was just totally unbelievable! I mean really it is just like impossible to believe that such a story can be true! (Except it totes was, because she's a Christian so you know she wouldn't fib and all that) It was like reading the script of the most awesome supernatural horror movie ever except it wasn't a movie - this shit was real!

Now over time me and the Charis-manic branch of Christianity had to go our separate ways due to irreconcilable differences (long story) and I kinda forgot about it until this week when this book featured in the excellent Prodigal Witch series over on Swallowing the Camel which you should totally read if you have any interest in the "former Satanist" phenomenon because it's awesome. The blog that is, not the phenomenon.

Anyhoo, back to the good part. As you can probably judge just by looking at the cover, "He came to set the captives free" introduces you to a darker and far more exciting version of Christianity. Basically it takes normal, everyday, boring old Pentecostal Christianity and then strips out all the boring shit and then streamlines it into something sexier! Don't worry, just because they threw out a lot doesn't mean they don't replace it with a ton of totally awesome extras! When the dust settles you'll find that you got yourself some real old time religion. I mean really, really old time religion. Like a thousand odd years or so old.

I'll quickly get the boring part out of the way so I can tell you the juicy stuff. Here is what happens in the book: As a baby, little Elaine's soul gets sold to Satan by some evil nurses. She grows up with lots of occult talent and then gets forcibly drafted into full blown Satanism at a religious camp a popular classmate tricked her into attending. She takes to satanism like a duck to orange glaze and quickly rises through the ranks to eventually become the Bride of Satan. That's not just a title either, she actually has a physical church wedding with Satan complete with honeymoon (Spoiler alert - the Prince of Darkness is a terrible lover!). She has many awesome magical adventures in Satanism fighting against the forces of God until she runs into the right kind of Christian - Dr Rebecca Brown MD! She then learns that Christianity is actually far more awesome, converts and has lots of magical adventures in Christianity fighting against the forces of Satan! Now doesn't that just sound better than anything YOU have ever done in church? Welcome to the wild world of Curse Theology!

It's like this but where one wizard ♥ Satan and the other one is way into Jesus. Can you guess which one is which?

Forget everything you know, this is not your daddy's theology! This is Christianity times awesome squared! Let me break it down for you:

In the one corner we have your opponent, the demons. You know how in the Bible possessed people are drooling, epileptic lunatics and how whenever Jesus or one of His followers told the demons to leave they just packed up and went? Snoozeville, amarite?! Well good news, turns out Jesus was holding out on you and in fact demons are awesome. Turns out you can use intelligent demons to make yourself smarter or instead use lesser demons to enhance your physical abilities. In the book for instance, Elaine uses demon power to become a deadly martial arts master! Hold on to your hat though, because those are just the entry level demons! Turns out demons can also enable you to do incredible magic - and I mean real magic, not lame David Blaine in a box magic - feats for both personal entertainment and practical self defense! But wait there's more! Are you sitting down? Do you think werewolves are cool? Of course you do! Werewolves are awesome! You know what is more awesome? The fact that according to Rebecca Brown, demons can turn you into a real flesh and fur werewolf! Also vampires but I feel Twilight made them lame so I'm not even going to bring that up. Also these motherfucking demons don't just get out of the motherfucking person they're possessing just because you asked nice. Oh no, these mofo's are going to put up a fight! Hope you're ready!

In the other corner, there is you. Now you may be feeling nervous because your enemy sounds totally awesome but that's only because Satanists and their demons totally are! Never fear, you get to be even awesomer! Pop quiz, a horde of satanists are astrally projecting themselves your way and they are bringing all their pet demons along, what do you fight back with? No, the urine in your underwear won't prevent you from being torn limb from limb. How about some effing ANGELS instead?!! Because if you are good enough, God will totally lend you some and apparently those dudes kick sooo much satanic ass it's not even funny! (Actually it may very well be funny because according to the book they do snarky wisecracks while they whoop demon ass!) Don't worry though, it won't all come down to a game of creature summoning every time. Turns out Christians can do all kinds of magic too when they need to. Except it's not magic because magic is Satanic and therefore Christians don't use it. They just use stuff that looks and sounds exactly like spells and ritual magic except it's completely different because they get their magic from Jesus. It may seem daunting, but never fear, Dr Brown wrote a whole slew of books that will teach you all the spells and counterspells (or prayers, whatever) you need for both defense and offense against the forces of darkness.

Interested? How could you not be? All that usual Christian stuff about loving your neighbour like yourself and forgiving those who trespass against you and caring for the smelly homeless people is hard work and it's neither sexy nor cool. On the other hand, having a theology that bears an uncanny resemblance to magic is super exciting and not that hard at all! Let's face it, your life lacks excitement, your job doesn't seem that important and no one in your family appreciates you. All of that changes when you get to be a front line warrior in the secret war between heaven and hell! You can finally silence that annoying feeling that maybe you're a loser! OK no one is going to appreciate you more and your job and life will still be meaningless and insignificant but deep down you will know that you are actually as cool as you always dreamed you could be! Humility is for chumps, why not be a (secret) hero instead? Curse theology, demons and the like is sooo sexy! If you add some dirty sexy demonology to your life you can be sexy too!!

[Disclaimer: Dirty Sexy Demonology only makes you feel sexy, doesn't actually make you sexy or cool. Embracing Curse Theology and the teachings Satanic Panic teachings of Rebecca Browne and her ilk may instead lead to excess loneliness and friends and family spurning you for being "annoying as fuck" or "a chore to be around" (their words, not mine). Don't worry, you don't need friends when you have delusions of spiritual grandeur and a sense of smug superiority! The more people you drive away the more God loves you! ]

An Open Letter to American Conservative Christians (upset by Gay Marriage)

2011-06-30T14:20:00.002+02:00

Dear American Conservative Christian,

You don't know me and you probably don't know much about my world, but I do know something about yours. See, all my life your news and issues have been on my TV and in my newspapers. I think it would be fair to say that I am as familiar with your pastors and politicians as I am with my own, if not more so. In fact, I find myself purposefully following news and opinion stories on American politics these days because, well, if you knew South African politics you'd understand... I know you guys get a lot of hate and snark from foreigners who act like they understand your issues better than you do and rest assured, I'm not one of those guys. I've been to America and I loved it. I loved the place, the people, the culture and most definitely the food! Are you concerned for the future of America? Believe me, so am I. I believe that America is worth fighting for and worth saving. So I'm not writing this letter to tell you what to do or what to think. It's just that I noticed that a lot of you are very upset right now and I think my story may just bring you a little bit more peace of mind.

It has come to my attention that you guys are pretty upset about the recent ruling in New York giving gays the right to marry. Many of you are worried, outraged, saddened and/or shocked by this development and how could you not be? After all, so many of your leaders have been telling you for years that gay rights will bring down the wrath of God on your country, bringing disaster and devastation to you all. I know those warnings all too well because they were given to us too.

See I grew up in Apartheid era South Africa, in a situation many of you would envy. Easy now, that wasn't a backhanded way of calling you racist, I'm not referring to that part at all! It's just that we had prayer and Bible study in school - state schools mind you - and no one was taught evolution. We had super strict laws about media content to the point where even porn magazines were printed with naughty bits censored, so you can imagine how clean our TV programming was! The only religious programs broadcast on national TV were Christian ones. That is what I meant by "situation many of you would envy". Unless I'm severely misunderstanding many of your leaders, that is how you would ideally like the USA to look as well, isn't it? Well I had that and then it all changed.

Believe me when I say you have never in your life experienced political and cultural change as radical as I have. Virtually (almost literally) overnight our government went from conservative, Christian nationalism to extremely liberal secularism. Suddenly we had a new constitution that was more progressive than just about anyone else's and everything changed. A few years later government gave full equality to homosexuals. Suddenly gays could marry, serve openly in the military, adopt children and were legally protected against discrimination. When that happened, believe me we heard all the same warnings you are hearing now.

Here's the thing though, this happened years ago and things are still pretty OK here. Society did not collapse, heterosexual couples are still getting married and having children, the nuclear family has not become extinct, we did not all get "converted" to homosexuality - in short for most of us absolutely nothing changed at all! Both Christianity and the institution of marriage seem to be thriving. We did not fall down a slippery slope of deviancy and so pedophilia and bestiality is still totally illegal and going to stay illegal. There have been no natural disasters, not a single tornado or earthquake last I checked, so no wrath of God there. Despite what my pastor told me back then, not one preacher has been jailed for calling homosexuality an abomination and as far as I know not one priest has been forced into marrying a gay couple against his will either. In fact (and you're going to love this part!) people are still free to consider homosexuality sinful and no one is being forced to like it. In fact you are allowed to very loudly dislike it on TV or in a letter to the editor or in your local church as much as you like!

Now you may be saying "wait a second, I've heard that giving gays the right to marry causes anarchy in society and from what I've heard, you folks in South Africa have a whole lot of anarchy on your hands!" You would be right about the anarchy. Violence, crime, corruption, disregard for the law is pretty rampant here but to blame all that on same sex marriage would be massively dishonest. The anarchy in question is what you might call a "pre-existing condition" around these parts. It didn't start with gay rights and throwing the gays under the bus will do about as much to end it as human sacrifice did for the problems of Aztec society...

So while you have a lot of very real threats to your way of life to deal with, let me assure you that gay marriage isn't one of them. Trust me on this, I have lived through this and with this for years now. I have heard all the same predictions of doom as you and I've lived to see them come to nothing. So please, for your own good, rather use your energy to address real problems. I know it's hard to hear this but gay rights are no threat to you. Really. The sooner you realize that homosexuality isn't going to destroy your society the sooner you can focus on the things that actually will. But then again, I'm a foreigner so it's not my place to tell you what to do or how to do it. Still, I hope you would at least take the time to think about what I said and then look at the countries (and states) that have legalized same sex marriage and see for yourself if what I said has any merit.

Sincerely,
A friend from South Africa

Verandering or How I found happiness by rejecting nonconformity

2011-06-27T09:16:00.001+02:00

"Wanneer ... jy ophou om my te label; En ek ophou worry oor wat jy dink; Sal almal dan kan happy wees en ophou om te kla?"
— Karen Zoid

"For being different, it’s easy. But to be unique, it’s a complicated thing."
— Lady Gaga

I just had the most wonderful birthday weekend. I hung out with friends, ate a giant steak, drank lots of beer, went clubbing, danced to loud & terrible music and came home late reeking of a night out on the town. In other words, I had a blast! I feel years younger than I am and none of that would have been possible had I not finally turned my back on nonconformity.

Yes, as a teen I was one of those. You know, the black wearing, alternative music listening, pop music scoffing guys who never seem happy. I would like to go "what was I thinking?" but the truth is, I know exactly what I was thinking. I believe that we all want to belong, we all want to be a part of something greater than ourselves. Hate it all you want, human beings are just hardwired for it. But what if you don't fit in the way you would like to? What if the popular fashion looks terrible on you and your hair just cannot look like that of anyone in a magazine? What if you find popular culture and music shallow and meaningless and completely detached from the way you feel? When you have difficulty fitting into the group everyone else seems to be fitting into just fine, of course the counterculture alternative is going to be attractive. I get why I was attracted to the nonconformist lifestyle to begin with. I was never that great at fitting in and at the time it seemed like the only group that would have me.

The thing is, there are some real problems with being a nonconformist as well. (If you'd prefer a list based discussion - with cartoons! - that's going to be far more enlightening than my ramblings here check out this article on Cracked) Nonconformity may seem like the freedom loving choice but in many ways it is as rigid as popular fashion/culture, if not more so. As with any group you are presented with a list of "in" things and "out" things, things that you are supposed to like and things you are supposed to hate if you want to belong. Worst of all, you don't even get to decide on what is "in" or not, the rest of the sheeple/popular kids/conformists decide that for you - when they zig, you have to zag, if they like it, you can't. Them's the rules! It took me a while to gather up the courage to say it but that's just stupid!

This is who I am: I really do like many thing's in the "alternative" world. I never had to pretend to like bands like Nirvana or artists like Tori Amos, I loved them in High School and to this day I'm a big fan. Thing is, I'm also a big fan of ABBA and I don't think the one precludes the other. I enjoy both Leonard Cohen and the Vengaboys - for very different reasons - and I don't see why I should hide half of my musical tastes in shame. I do enjoy deep thoughtful movies at times but other times I really enjoy mindlessly entertaining movies and I don't think there is anything wrong with that either. I listen to some bands I bet you've never heard of but I don't listen to them because you've never heard of them, I listen to them because I like their music. If they become world famous next week I'm not going to brand them sellouts and stop enjoying them, how does that even make sense? I like a lot of popular things too but I don't like everything that is popular either. Why should I? Liking things because they are popular or liking them because they are not popular are equally senseless to me. The only good reason I can see for liking something is how much it appeals to me. Am I wrong? I am not alternative and I am not pop. I am a very surreal, misshapen mix of all of that and more and these days I find far more joy in being myself than in trying to fit in.

I guess it's one of the few happy side effects of growing older but I find myself really not caring as much as I used to about how other people see me. I certainly wasn't always like that. For the longest time I cared all too deeply about whether the things I enjoy (or at least the things I admit to enjoying) would make people think I was intelligent enough or deep enough or interesting enough to be worthy of consideration and interest. I would pretend to be into things that, in reality, I barely tolerated. Likewise I had to hide things (like my deep love for silly romantic comedies) like it was a dirty secret. Not anymore though.

From Steam Me Up, Kid - the most joyfully insane blog I've ever seen! If you haven't checked it out yet you really should!

It didn't happen all at once and I can't really pinpoint an event that got the ball rolling. Perhaps it was a consequence of just being surrounded by a better class of friend who accepted me for who I am, not who I had to pretend to be. Perhaps growing older made peer pressure less relevant. Either way, I'm grateful it happened because I've never felt more free. If your opinion of me is diminished because I'm a fan of Lady Gaga then that is your problem, not mine. I'd much rather have the warm feeling I get everytime I watch Love Actually than the imaginary approval of people that don't even know me. Best of all, as I realized on the Tipsy Turtle's dance floor this weekend, not caring what you think of me leads to a surprising amount of fun and acceptance!

I but laugh to keep from weeping

2011-06-22T19:49:00.000+02:00

Does anyone actually enjoy getting a call from a telemarketer or do you find them annoying too? Well if you've ever been annoyed by a telemarketer then boy do I have a bittersweet tale for you!

Just to be clear, I always try to be nice to telesales people because I get that it's a job and in this economy you do what you can to put food on the table but it's not always easy. I think it's the dishonesty that gets to me. There are those who just come straight out and ask you if you are happy with your current armed response/carpet cleaner/water filtration system and then try to sell you one. That's annoying but those calls tend to be brief at least so it's easy to take in stride. No the ones I really dislike are the ones where they pretend they aren't trying to sell you something and they're just doing a survey and then after you patiently answered a bunch of questions they hit you up with a sales pitch anyway. So then today while I'm getting dinner ready the phone rings and I realize almost immediately that this was going to be one of those calls. Anytime someone calls looking for the owner of the house "but since he's not in and you are here would you mind answering a few quick questions?", then you just know what's coming. Since this lady claimed she wanted to do a lifestyle and holiday related survey I'm guessing she had planned on selling me timeshare but this call didn't really work out the way either of us thought it would.

(For this reenactment, imagine my voice as a croaky James Earl Jones since I have a bit of a chest cold at the moment.)

SALES LADY (chipper tone): "So tell me sir, are you between the ages of 30 and 40?"
ME (fiddling with the phone cable hoping it cuts out): "Yes I am"
SALES LADY (still chipper): "Excellent! Now tell me, are you married?"
ME (kicking the wall socket with no luck): "No I'm not"
SALES LADY (less chipper): "Are you engaged?"
ME (giving up hope on faking phone trouble): "No"
SALES LADY (starting to sound concerned): "Are you living with someone?"
ME (now a little more interested in this conversation): "No I'm single and I'm not seeing anyone."
SALES LADY (desperately hopeful): "Do you have any children perhaps?"
ME (sensing weakness and deciding to pounce): "No I don't have any children. Look it's really starting to look like I'm not the right kind of person for this survey of yours, perhaps you should rather call back later when the owner of the house is here. I'm just ummm... doing some part time work around the house here."
SALES LADY (clearly distraught): "Yes I supposed that would be for the best."
ME: "OK, goodbye then"
SALES LADY (sounding downright bummed out): "Sir, you really shouldn't be going through life alone like that..."
ME (making my "wait what now?!" face): Err.. OK? Thanks?"

So there I stand with a dead phone in my hand not knowing if I should be happy or insulted. On the one hand I got out of what was bound to be a very long sales pitch in no time flat. On the other hand apparently my life bummed out a telesales lady so much that she decided I needed life advice more than a sales pitch. I don't think I would be more weirded out if a hobo gave me my money back because I look like I need it more than he does!

I chose to find it very amusing. Because if you can't laugh at your own lonely, childless, semi-penniless life spent living in a house that isn't yours then really what's left?

I'm not kidding though, I've been pretty down this last while because I have a birthday coming up that I really don't feel like celebrating. After that phone call though, I feel a lot better. I will celebrate it and so help me there will be beer and meat and friendly faces involved and I will enjoy it!

Because really what else can I do? Life didn't exactly turn out the way I would have liked it to but that's all the more reason to spend time doing the things that bring me joy. Speaking of, here are two things that make me really happy COMBINED!! It's Weird Al doing a Lady Gaga parody! It may be the funniest, creepiest thing I've ever seen and it's awesome! And yes, I'm probably going to do a Lady Gaga post around my birthday so just deal with it.

Strange New Godview: The Get Out of Jail Free Card

2011-06-21T18:38:00.003+02:00

Just about every Christian believes in a God who freely pardons sins. However there is a subset of believers who have a God who not only forgives but also legally pardons felonies. It's a pretty sweet deal! Not only do you get to have a clear conscience, you also don't have to face any punishment or justice for your crimes and you definitely don't need to worry about any of that pesky restitution stuff. This God is like Mr Wolf in Pulp Fiction, only better! He can do so much more than a normal cleaner or a sleazy lawyer because He can render your entire criminal past completely irrelevant! Have you heard? He can even destroy the DNA evidence against you!

No no, it's OK, we don't need to check the facts here or ask for evidence, it's cool. He heard it from his apostle after all so it has to be true!

But of course this isn't that new. I first ran into this God as a teen at the display table at church where all the Chick tracts were kept. There I found the Get out of jail free God in what has to be the vilest Chick tract of all time. It was called Lisa and was one of the very few tracts that was ever pulled from circulation (It can still be found online here). In this happy story a dad descends into pornography and incest because he lost his job and his wife nagged him. When his neighbor finds out that dad is raping his 6 year old daughter he offers to stay silent in exchange for also getting to share in the "fun". Luckily for little Lisa, her doctor is a Christian who worships the Get out of jail free God, so when he diagnoses her with Herpes and realizes she's being abused by two grown men, he does the right thing and calls in the dad to tell him about Jesus. Dad then gives his life to Jesus, feels better and promises to never hurt his baby girl again and they all live happily ever after. Is it any wonder Chick tracts are so popular in prison ministries?

You'll also find this God very popular amongst the "former satanist" crowd. That's why they get to regale crowds with their tales of ritualistic rape, abduction and murder without fear of having to be accountable for any of those things. Sure, if their stories were true they could close many cold cases and by turning in their former buddies could prevent many baby sacrifices but then they may end up paying for those totally real crimes too and then who would warn parents about AC/DC?! The Get out of jail free God is really helpful to the "former witch/high priest/druid/werewolf" because thanks to Him they get to pretend they never did anything wrong (except for when they have to pretend they did in order to scare parents into fearing rock music and D&D).

So whether you are a family values politician caught with your pants down or just a clergyman with a taste for the illicit, have no fear, the Get out of jail free God is ready to take your call right now! Why pay for your crimes when you can pretend it never happened?

Overcare

2011-06-16T20:44:00.000+02:00

What do you care about? What matters to you? The AIDS pandemic? Deforestation? Human trafficking? Endangered species? The exploitation of the poor? Overfishing? Violent dictatorial regimes? Global warming? Racism? Women's rights? Victims of natural disasters? Victims of man made disasters? Political & corporate opposition to the prevention of man made disasters? Do you care about some of that or all of that? Do you care about some more than others or do you care equally for them all?

All of these issues are constantly in your face, demanding your attention, demanding that you care. If you consider yourself any kind of decent human being, it's like you're supposed to care or else you are implicitly admitting to being some kind of heartless monster! I have a question though, is it even possible to care about everything worth caring about? Maybe it's just me (I hope it's not but it's a distinct possibility) but I just don't have to capacity to care that much about that many things.

But is it just me though? Does anyone have the physical and mental capacity to meaningfully care about everything that needs to be cared about? Sure, I can be concerned about all those things and more. I can even be opposed to all those nasty things in principle. But can I care? I don't mean in the hipster douchebag sense where you are totally "into" every bad thing du jour for about 5 minutes. What does that accomplish besides giving you a smug sense of moral superiority and annoying the living shit out of everyone around you? How is that even caring?! If someone I care about is in trouble I show I care by trying to help, trying to make whatever is wrong better in whatever way I am able. To me, that is what caring should look like, otherwise why bother? Simply shaking your head with a sympathetic look may give you the warm fuzzies inside but it certainly won't do anything meaningful for those in need of care.

So I ask again, if really caring about an issue requires that you bleed for it, sacrifice your time and energy and resources and comfort in an effort to address the issue, how many things can you care about? Everything? Surely not! Most things? Unlikely. A handful of issues? Possible but even that would be pushing it. Seems to me that if you want to care in a way that is at all meaningful you really need to pick your issues with care.

Am I wrong or does having to care about everything prevent any meaningful action? I feel like I'm just so bombarded with ~~good~~ great, meaningful causes that I'm supposed to care about that I become overwhelmed by the sheer mass of it. Overdosing on empathy feels a lot like paralysis to me. Is there even a difference between overcare and zero care? For all the good it does, it may as well be the same thing!

I don't mean to sound preachy. Truth is, I suck at caring. I tell myself it's because I'm currently rather low down on Maslow's pyramid but it's far more likely that I'm just not that caring a person. I prefer to spend my time with escapism and humour rather than with the cruel realities of life in this world. Caring about a cause takes a lot of effort for me. But that is how it's supposed to be, isn't it?

Jackie the Suicide Dachshund

2011-06-15T12:30:00.001+02:00

I'm going to come right out and say it, my dog is trying to kill me! Oh I know, she looks all innocent and adorable but you don't know the darkness in her dachshund heart! Every winter she tries to leave this earth in a violent flash of murder-suicide and I'm afraid that one of these days she is actually going to succeed.

See, glorious Winter has once again arrived in the Highveld and since central heating is for the pampered weaklings in First World countries, things can get quite chilly around bed time. I'm not complaining of course, sleeping snug on a bitterly cold Winter's night is one of my favourite things ever. I stay warm using a three pronged approach - a pile of blankets, an electric blanket and a snugly dachshund. Now for those who don't know, dachshunds are perfect cold weather dogs. They are small so they don't take up much space on the bed, they are genetically programmed to burrow so they love tunneling under the blankets, they are very loving dogs who enjoy snuggles and their tiny bodies give off a surprisingly large amount of heat. Unfortunately for my health, my dachshund also has a potentially lethal personality quirk.

Caught in the act!

As this picture shows, she is a compulsive licker. For some reason she enjoys licking things more than she loves life. I have a theory that perhaps she is powered by static electricity which doesn't make much sense but it would explain why she acts like a tongue that uses a dog for life support. Now this is merely annoying when she does that while on my bed. It becomes downright dangerous when she does that while I have an electric blanket on my bed! Since she is usually snuggled tightly against me while doing this I can only assume she plans to take me with her when she electrocutes herself.

Now I could be wrong, it may not be malice driving her. After all, while she is a sweet dog I have to admit she's as dumb as a small bag of rocks. So it could just be coincidental but then again, what if it's not? What if the stupid is all just an act?

I guess that what I'm saying is if I turn up dead, I need someone to please tell the cops to question my dog!

When Bad Things happen to Bad People

2011-06-14T20:18:00.000+02:00

"Why do bad things happen to good people?" is a question we hear all the time. Somehow you never seem to hear the inverse, "why do bad things happen to bad people?" Why is that? Sure we seem to get upset at the success and prosperity of the wicked but we rarely feel sorry for their misfortune. But the thing is, bad things happen to good and bad people (as do good things), it's just that we don't consider bad things all that bad when they happen to people we consider evil. When that happens we prefer to think of it as justice.

It seems that the idea that we cause our misfortune by our own actions* is as deeply ingrained into our psyche as the idea that we can somehow control the universe by saying and doing the right things. I recently wrote a post explaining why I reject the latter and by that reasoning I should also reject the former. And I do. But believe me, it's not easy. Especially when you read a story like this:

"ALAMEDA -- Harold Camping, the Doomsday radio preacher who sparked international media attention by predicting the end of the world last month, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke at his Alameda home Thursday night.

The 89-year-old radio evangelist and president of the Oakland nonprofit Family Radio was taken by ambulance from his house Thursday night, a neighbor said, but his well-known, gravelly voice that led many believers to donate millions of dollars to his cause may never be the same.

"He had a stroke, it was on his right side," said the neighbor,"
Source

I freely admit that I would love to agree with the many internet commentators who call this stroke a just punishment for a false prophet. Thing is when I gave up trying to control the world and accepted that I live in a random and often chaotic universe I also gave up on the idea of karmic justice. The world is rarely fair and not everyone gets what they deserve. It sucks but then again, from time to time I have been grateful not to receive my comeuppance so there's that. I like the local term for karma/the hand of fate, namely the "blinde sambok" (blind sjambok). Granted for most people that describes someone getting their just desserts but I like the image of a blindly wielded whip it conjures. Anyone can get hit, at some point everyone does and some people get hit more than they should be and others not as many times as they probably deserve. Doesn't sound very comforting, I know, but it's actually a load off your mind once you realize you are not responsible for every piece of misfortune that comes your way.

Besides, real justice would be for Harold Camping to live long enough to see the world not end in October!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Just for the sake of clarity, I'm talking about causing our misfortune in the sense of Karma. Not talking about doing event A which directly leads to logical outcome B, I mean the way we tend to mystically connect outcome C with utterly unrelated action S. For instance I don't mean it in the sense that you caused your nose to be broken because you flirted with a Rugby player's girlfriend. I mean it in the sense that you think you "caused" the cold you got on your birthday by not calling your mom on Mother's Day.

Strange New Godview: Jedi Jesus

2011-06-12T16:37:00.000+02:00

Today's entry into the pantheon of new and exciting ways Christians are looking at God stands out from the rest of the pack. Just about all the Godviews I can think of, both ancient and modern, tend to have one thing in common - they all regard God as a Person of some kind. So while some may think Him a good and gentle Shepherd while others see him as the blood soaked God of War, they all see Him as a Him, not an It. Not so much with this next one. Check out the Godview of this pastor:

Did you notice that his God wasn't so much a person as it was a mystical force to be harnessed? Now I'm pretty sure if you actually asked Pastor Deluca here (I didn't, so guessing here) he would of course deny my inference and insist that he does consider God a person. Thing is, actions speak louder than words and this is not how you act if you think your God is a person. No, this is how you act if you're in a Star Wars movie.

Hear me out, let's say that instead of a Person, your God was more of a Force that surrounded and permeated the universe, keeping it all together. Now if you had the right ~~midi-chlorian count~~ anointing, you could manipulate and control this Force and use it to do magic tricks! Why you'd be able to use it from everything from mild brainwashing to knocking people over at a distance. With enough training you could even fashion it into ~~Force lightning~~ Glory Grenades and cause ~~excruciating pain~~ the giggles!

This form of Christianity-as-ritual-magic may seem weird to some but it is practiced fairly widely in the Ultra-Charismatic sects of Christianity. I could tell you about some of the things I've seen these Jedi Christians attempt but you'll just think I'm making things up. Some things are so unbelievable that you really ought to see it for yourself.

Just pulling your leg!

2011-06-09T13:43:00.001+02:00

With regards to faith healing, there is one thing I'm still trying to process. If you watched the Derren Brown special I posted in the previous blog post you would have noticed him explaining the leg "lengthening" trick. If a 74 minute Youtube video/700 mb file download was more than you could bite off and chew, here is a shorter clip by the Debunkmaster General, James Randi. He explains the leg trick at about two and a half minutes in:

When you see it explained like that it seems pretty silly. It really is the faith healing equivalent of pulling a coin from behind someone's ear; if there was a school for faith healing this would be the thing they teach you on day one. It shouldn't fool anyone, but strangely enough it does. I know it fooled me. I remember the first time I saw it at a youth camp when I was 13. They asked if anyone there had back pain and then told us that if you have back pain it's often because your one leg is longer than the other. Then, would you believe it, everyone who came out for prayer for their backs happened to have one leg longer than the other! Since then I lost track of the amount of times I've seen this happen since, like I said, it's a bit like the coin trick.

Look, I get it now. In fact I'm a little bit ashamed that I even needed to have it explained to me. Obviously you can't go through life with one leg several inches shorter than the other and not know it! This is the kind of thing they diagnose very early on in life and prescribe corrective footwear for. This is not the kind of thing you suddenly discover during a prayer meeting, you either know you have it or you don't have it. So therefore when someone discovers (and then repairs) your newly uneven legs during a prayer session that must mean they're tricking you, right?

And that is what I'm struggling to process. See, with leg pulling being the go to move for amateur faith healers I've known a lot of devout Christians who preform this particular trick. In fact a close friend of mine is a Christian because of a leg pull - he believes he felt the power of God lengthening his leg and that turned him into the Bible literalist, Young Earth Creationist, born again, baptized believer he is today. How can I accept that these good, completely sincere people are all deliberate frauds? I'll have to ponder this some more but I'd like to think that there is some kind of ideomotor effect at work here, that while they are preforming trickery they aren't doing it on purpose. Am I being naive?

Miracles for sale

2011-06-07T13:31:00.002+02:00

Derren Brown changed my life. I was only marginally aware of him at first but then I saw 'n clip from his series "Messiah" where he managed to convert a bunch of atheists into believers simply by touching them. People were falling over when he touched them, there was some uncontrollable crying, basically they had the same kind of pentecostal experience that I was all too familiar with having grown up in the Charismatic Christian tradition. After seeing this mentalist - an atheist himself - work the same kind of "miracles" I've seen in church since childhood I knew I had to learn more so I immediately bought his book, Tricks of the Mind. (I heartily recommend that by the way, its a great read). Church was never the same for me after that.

So then it should be no surprise that I was very interested to see his latest show on Faith Healing called Miracles for Sale. Full disclosure, I nearly died because I put my faith in Faith Healing instead of going to the doctor so this is a topic I feel very strongly about. Now if you are unfamiliar with the Pentecostal/Charismatic Christian movements, have never been to a healing service and don't know who Benny Hinn is then you probably won't enjoy this program as much as I did. It's not as spectacular and exciting as some of Derren's previous projects like The Events. On the other hand, if you do know what terms like "slain by the Spirit" means and you have heard preachers claiming to heal the blind and deaf and cripple at their services then this is a must see.

As James Randi has demonstrated so well in the past, the best way to test and/or debunk a claim of supernatural powers is to show how easily it can be replicated using nothing but natural means. In Miracles for Sale, Derren finds a charismatic young scuba instructor and within a few months teaches him all the necessary tricks of the trade, transforming him into Pastor James, faith healer. They then travel to Texas and he preforms "healing miracles" indistinguishable from those you may see at an actual "Miracle Crusade". For the finale he hosts a full blown Revival service, again identical to the real thing, without having any actual "anointing". Here he ended off by giving a stirring sermon about how people asking money to heal others by the power of God are doing something utterly opposed to what Jesus taught and warning them to stay away from anyone who would advise them against seeking medical treatment because that would constitute a lack of faith.

I liked this program for several reasons. First of all it wasn't an attack piece on Christianity. In fact several Christians were involved in this project. They didn't attack the flock, they took square aim at the wolves who fleece the faithful with false promises of health and wealth. There was one scene in particular that just destroyed the Jack Chick view of non-believers as vile creatures slobbering at the prospect of destroying the lives of good Christians. At first they were planning on using a Christian PR firm in order to break into the Texas Christian community. But then they realized that once their deceit was made public they would be destroying the reputation of a good and honest man so they decided to rather take the risk of doing it without PR. That's hardly the picture many Christians have of atheists!

Then there was of course the nuts and bolts of the faith healing business that I found fascinating. If you ever watched Benny Hinn do his shtick and asked yourself "how does he do it?!" then you have to watch this show. Derren actually demonstrates how to "heal" a blind person and a deaf person. No stooges either, these were people who were legally blind and legally deaf. Of course they were still deaf and blind afterwards but it turns out that it's surprisingly easy to make someone look healed when they aren't.

Unfortunately I couldn't find it streamed online anywhere but I will post it if I ever do find it. If you see it in your TV guide, make a note to watch it if you have any interest in the faith healing business. If you have the bandwidth however, here are some links you can use to download the entire thing.

Update:
Found it! Guess I just needed to look harder!

File Name ..........: Derren.Brown.Miracles.For.Sale.WS.PDTV.XviD-C4TV.avi
Total Size (MB) ....: 699,93 MB
Video Length .......: 01:13:32
No Passwords

- ALL LINKS ARE INTERCHANGEABLE -

http://www.fileserve.com/file/eDfgzqA
http://www.fileserve.com/file/b9n8JY8
http://www.fileserve.com/file/xVZmMMd
http://www.fileserve.com/file/SgKh4s8

https://www.rapidshare.com/files/459232212/Derren.Brown.Miracles.For.Sale.WS.PDTV.XviD-C4TV.part1.rar
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The Impossibility of a Christian Nation

2011-06-04T18:06:00.005+02:00

Are there still any Christians out there? I'd like to think there are but honestly, they are increasingly hard to find. No, I'm not saying that because the Atheist-Communist-Muslim-Socialists are busy destroying Christianity and persecuting the righteous. Look, you can find millions, no billions of people who belong to churches and read Christian scripture and refer to themselves as Christians. I'm not talking about those though, I'm talking about people who actually live up to the criteria implied by the name Christian. If you call yourself Christian, the implication is that you follow Christ. Just to be clear, by "follow" I mean spending your days living according to the teachings and example of Jesus the Christ. That's what the word means, there is really not a lot of wiggle room.

Thing is, the weirdest piece of news just popped up in my daily news feed. It turns out that in Orlando, some people were thrown in jail for feeding the homeless. "No effing way!", you exclaim, "surely there is more to the story?" Well yes of course there is more to the story. They weren't just thrown in jail for feeding the homeless, they were arrested for feeding the homeless in a public park. The city fought a long, hard and expensive legal battle to make it so and they weren't going to let some dirty hippies thumb their noses at them by feeding some dirty homeless people! You know what? I actually get it. I know that nothing ruins a nice picnic in a pretty park more than a smelly hobo who stands around acting weird and looking like someone who hasn't eaten in days while you are just trying to enjoy your adorably tiny picnic morsels. So I can understand why the city fathers decided to ban feeding the wild homeless in their public parks. No God fearing taxpaying citizen wants the unwashed poor hanging out where their dogs poop, now do they?

Now I'm guessing most of the good people of Orlando Florida who support this law would also self identify as Christians. (The USA is a Christian Nation is it not? Pretty sure I read that online...) Heck, many of them would even call themselves "fundamentalist" or "Bible believing" Christians. The only problem is that a law like this is completely and utterly against the teachings of Jesus, i.e. Un-Christian. Therefore no one who claims to follow Jesus can also support such an antichrist law and still call themselves Christians. Jesus didn't leave that loophole. Bummer. (Unless you're a bum!)

It's the weirdest thing really, so many people who claim to know and follow the Christian Bible don't actually know its content. Somehow many people live with the delusion that the Bible is mostly concerned with regulating sexual activity plus some stuff on getting into Heaven and spotting the Antichrist thrown in to round it out. Of course in actuality, The Antichrist is not mentioned in the Bible (ditto the Rapture) and the Bible mostly deals with the here and now, not the sweet hereafter. Even better, when it comes to the "here and now" stuff, the sex verses are barely a drop in the ocean compared to the money verses. By far the biggest part of the Bible talks about money and stuff and more specifically, how to treat those who don't have any. Now I know that many a modern apologist manage to somehow wrangle the scriptures to make it look as if the Bible was written by Ayn Rand and is profoundly anti-welfare but to do that they need to pretend that the majority of the Bible doesn't actually exist. Sorry, but as a former theology student, that doesn't fly. One of the core principles of Biblical interpretation is that the majority/unambiguous verses are used to understand the minority/unclear verses, not the other way around. According to the major part of the Bible then it is very clear that God does not care about your picnic pleasures, He wants you to take care of the homeless. Like in, all the damn time!

This just again shows why (contrary to the idea many have) there can be no such thing as a Christian nation. You can live as a Christ follower, you can run your household (or commune) in accordance with His teachings, perhaps even have a small community that truly follows Christ in all they do. However it would be suicide to run a Christian country. Jesus had a habit of saying and doing things that made the rich and powerful deeply uncomfortable - it's one of my favourite things about Him actually - so the idea of getting the rich and powerful to abide by His teachings is so unpractical it's downright funny. Here is an atheist who understands Christianity better than a lot of Christians making the point better than I can:

I think that if you try to run an entire country according to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ you are going to have a nation full of deeply unhappy people. There would be no military, very little (if any) capitalism, a government budget spent largely on welfare and a justice system that doesn't resemble a justice system to name but a few issues. Face it, Jesus wouldn't make a good president. But don't take my word for it, go see for yourself what an actual Christian nation would look like. You don't even have to read the entire scary big Bible, just the four Gospels. Remember if you call it a Christian Nation then it has to be based on what Jesus taught. No cribbing from Moses or David! Afterwards you can tell me if that sounds like a nation you can live in or if you would prefer a secular government. It's OK, I can wait.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Monster comforts me. But this is driving me nuts!!

2011-05-31T21:29:00.003+02:00

OK, I would normally not blog to blogs so close together (blog) but I have a burning question for everyone who doesn't read my blog. These days one of the very few sources of joy for me is shaking my ass to my new Lady Gaga album. Here's the thing though. Regarding her song "Scheiße" she claims, via Twitter (or Facebook because fuck twitter, I don't roll like that yo!) that:

"I went to a dirty party in Berlin, and wrote SHEIßE the next day. It's about wanting to be bad without permission. "

OK so then I Googled it and for the first time since I searched for albino porn (stop judging me, it was to prove a point!! Shut up!) I found that Google was unable to help me. Apparently I'm the only person on the entire internet who doesn't know WTF a "dirty party" is or at least cares enough to ask. Seriously, how can THE INTERNET not know? This seems like the exact kind of thing the internet should be able to tell me dammit!! So if you know a German (from Berlin preferably) and you chance upon this post, I beg you, put me out of my misery. WTF is a dirty party???? Surely SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET MUST KNOW??!!

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!
(But even with cruise control you still need to steer...)

__________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE (05/06/2011):
Gumby suggested that a "dirty party" is the same thing as a "poo party". No beer for you! I'm currently rejecting that notion for the following very good reasons:

That answer came from The Urban Dictionary which as a source of reliable information is about 1/16th as credible as Yahoo Answers. I should note that UD didn't even have an entry for "dirty party", it was a redirect.
Eeeuww!!! No seriously, that's just too disgusting to be a real thing! (This reason courtesy of the last vestige of my innocence not yet destroyed by exposure to the interwebs)
It may be a stereotype but I'm not ready to give up on my mental image of Germans as neat, clean, well organized people. I mean ffs, they have a problem with dudes peeing while standing!
Scheisse/Shit is used as an exclamation in the song, not as a noun as in "I, I wish I could be strong without the scheiße, yeah"

So then, until I see some hard proof showing otherwise I refuse to accept that a "dirty party" is the same thing as the UD definition of a "poo party". Because seriously, eeeeeuwww!!!

___________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE (17/06/2011):

Did some more online detective work and found another clue. In this interview she gave the following background info to the song:

"This song I wrote right after I left Berlin. I went to the Laboratory club the night before, I had some fun with my friends then the next day I wrote 'Scheiße'. I meant it like 'shit, it's good.' But I also meant it the other way; because this song is really about wanting to be a strong female without all the bullshit that comes along with. Anything that gets in your way from being brave. It's not the only word I know, I just like that word. It's sexy."

I then googled the Laboratory Club in Berlin and while I still don't have a definition for a "dirty party" I'm also no longer sure I want one! The Laboratory is a Gay sex club and from the sound of it, things get pretty wild in there! Here is a sample review:

"LABORATORY is THE sex-club of the moment. Settled in the basement of a former electric power station, it has a huge and really hot labyrinth. You must get in at the indicated hours, then doors close and the party begins : all-naked on Thursdays, Fuck on Fridays,etc. Changing calendar to be consulted on their website.

Facilities and services

Video room
Bar
Nightclub
Darkroom
Fetish (leather, latex...)"

Kinda reminds me of this time someone described Freddy Mercury's birthday parties as the kind of thing you went to hell to for attending. On second thought, I'm actually more curious than ever now!

Anyway, I also found these photos of Lady Gaga partying at the Laboratory. Note that she doesn't appear to be covered in literal shit so unless you have pictures showing otherwise I'm still not listening to any scat party suggestions!

The Joy of Being Listened To

2011-05-31T21:05:00.002+02:00

OK so maybe blogging when I'm halfway through a bottle of 10 year old white wine isn't such a good idea but then, neither was opening a bottle of white wine from 1997. Clearly this is was never going to be night of good decision making.

Here's the thing. I finally got my very own copy of Rob Bell's book "Love Wins". Hardcover and everything, because I'm just classy that way. I'm about half way through it and as usual when reading Bell I'm pretty depressed because I realize that I'm never ever ever ever going to be that good. I know 65% of the Christian world disagrees with me on this but the man is an exceptional writer. The kind I wish I could be. But anyway, I'm digressing, probably because my playlist just went from Metallica to Tanita Tikaram. I really ought to make less random playlists.

Anyway, here's the thing. I just read an atheist blogger's review of "Love Wins". Go ahead and check it out, it's reasonably spoiler free and far more positive than you would have probably expected. One thing in particular struck me in that review. Ahh, finally some Lady Gaga, my playlist loves me! Where was I? Oh, right the surprisingly positive review. The Uncredible Halq said:

"Aside from agreeing with much of Bell’s message, I also enjoyed his book’s style. It reads like it was written by a preacher, in the best possible way. It reads like it was written by someone who’s made a living out of speaking to people week after week, and been very successful at it. It also reads like it was written by someone who’s used being listened to. Too often, I think, atheists get used to having people not listen, so we put too much energy into arguing with people who will never change their mind. Bell, though, just makes his points and doesn’t worry that some won’t agree."

OK, that last part. That's what I'm talking about. He talks like someone who is used to being listened to.

*Sigh*

I wish I could do that. Thing is I'm not used to being listened to at all! I think that explains my blogging style. Feels like a lot of it is me second guessing myself and arguing against my own point. That's what people do when they are used to being ignored. It blows. Chunks. Big ones. Also why do I have 2Unlimited on my playlist?? What is wrong with me????

OK, listening to The Cure now, world is better. Anyway I guess I don't really have a point. I only wish that I could talk like someone who is used to being listened to, like someone who could just make a statement and people can take it or leave it. I sometimes wish this blog could just reflect all the fucks I don't give, you know what I mean?

God bless spellchecker!! No more red lines so I'm pressing "publish"!

Reason to love Randomness #1: Bad things happening to good people

2011-05-30T17:44:00.000+02:00

Last night Oom Eddie's car was stolen outside church. If you are somehow new to this blog and can't be arsed to click on a link, Oom Eddie is the kindly gentleman I rent a room from. As I mentioned before, Oom Eddie is one of the kindest, gentlest, most giving people I know. I can think of no one who actually lives out the commands of Jesus the way he does. I recently discovered that the reason our meat supply got so suspiciously low all of a sudden is because he started giving away packages of frozen meat to people who stop by begging for food. Now having your car stolen sucks 5 kinds of ass but Oom Eddie is taking this pretty hard. He is usually asleep by 8 but last night he was up till way past 11, alternately blasting Gospel and Simon & Garfunkel. Turns out that against all reason he sees this as a punishment from God. If you think that's weird, wait till you hear why.

See, due to his tender heart, the man likes to create work for the unemployed. As such he gets his car washed so regularly I'm amazed it still has paint on. Last month he had the house painted even though for the most part it certainly didn't need any paint. That's when the trouble started though. See the guy he hired to paint (and paid pretty well I might add) kept on showing up after all the painting was done demanding more work. Now Oom Eddie is not a rich man and painting the house emptied his coffers and seeing as how the painting was pretty much just busywork in the first place there was nothing else to do around the house. So, though I assume it was very hard for him, he told the worker in question (Elias) to go away because he had nothing left to give him and nothing for him to do. Fast forward to last night. Now, with the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus weighing heavily on his soul, he has come to the conclusion that God is punishing him for not helping Elias more.

All this reminded me of why I so happily embrace the random universe we live in. I don't torture myself like this when something shitty happens because I don't think everything happens for a reason. Well, technically everything does happen for a reason but my point is that most of those reasons have sweet screw all to do with me. Tectonic plates move, pressure builds, earthquake happens. It's not the anger of God or Karma or the retarded Law of Attraction, it's just the wheels of the universe turning. Occasionally said wheels fling some shit your way. It happens. It's not to say that we aren't responsible for some of the things that happen to us. But while some people get heart attacks because they live on deep fried bacon grease, others have heart attacks because of a genetic flaw. So spare yourself as much shit as you can but live with the knowledge that you cannot stop it all. Once you make peace with that it just hurts less.

Not I very popular message I grant you. That's why things like The Secret, The Prayer of Jabes and the entire Word of Faith movement is so enduringly popular - people will grasp at any straw offering them control over an indifferent and uncontrollable universe. For many, the illusion of control is better than the reality of no just how little we truly control.

Which is all a very roundabout way of saying that Elias is working on the tiles in the kitchen right now...