Leaving Hope
I'm drunk right now. But 10 days, 25 minutes and 38 seconds in, I'm calling it. 2010 sucks. So happy Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day. Happy Memorial Day and Labor Day and Fourth of July. A joyous 9/11neverforgetGodblessAmerica Day. Happy Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, Merry fucking Christmas and a Happy New Year. Now, let's be done with it.
Because I'm sure 2011 it will all be different.
We as people put a lot of emphasize on milestones. On changes and markers and self-created new beginning. New years, new millenniums and new decades. New days and new weeks, new months and moments. And it really is all a load of shit. It's the same as yesterday and the day before. Sure there is change, but we never achieve the drastic upheaval and renewal we say and hope will come. It's 2010 and the only thing different from 2009 is the number. It's the same war and death and disease and misery. We're still killing each other to impress invisible men in the sky, we're still slaughtering animals because we think they taste good, we're still raping the planet cause our Hummers and Escalades are so damn convenient and awesome looking. We still hate and destroy and kill and die and it goes on and fucking on. We make our resolutions and we fall short and leave them behind for dead, like a raccoon caught in the headlights and just not quick enough to save herself...beyond saving but still twitching. But we all know next time will be different and better and we'll round a corner and turn over a new leaf, get to the flip side of that coin and we'll be Good. We'll fix instead of break, save instead of ruin, put aside the pain to help alleviate the agony around us. After all, it is a new beginning. Things will be different.
Stephen Colbert, Accidental Hacker
On tonight's episode of the Colbert Report, Stephen encouraged all of his viewers to edit him in to the Conservapedia's absolutely asinine project to rewrite the bible, removing the "liberal bias" from it. I would link that project here, but two hours later and the site is still giving a 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable message. Stephen Colbert, unleasher of the unintentional denial of service attack. I love it.
Even better, from Conservapedia's article on Stephen Colbert (still available on Google cache):
"Colbert has poked fun at Wikipedia and its apparent democratization of truth. He has coined the word "Wikiality" (as opposed to "reality,") and caused trouble for Wikipedia by suggesting that his listeners alter articles. In August of 2006, he encouraged users to state that the population of African elephants had tripled in the last decade. Colbert's point was that if enough people believe something, it becomes "the truth." Wikipedia responded by reverting and locking down the pages to prevent further vandalism."
I just had an awesome tofu cheesesteak, and it was nowhere near as delicious as the irony here. Thank you Stephen, for being awesome.
You know who needs to be punched in the face?
Kirk Cameron. Seriously, he desperately needs to be punched in the face.
See? If people want to believe in silly things, that's fine. If they would like to ignore science and rational thought and things that actually have some sort of evidence, great. But when you decide to be a complete and utter jackass about it and try to portray yourself as persecuted because you believe stupid shit, that's where my tolerance ends. Because I don't care if you think that the sun revolves around the earth. But the second you start whining about the truth being taught and crying intolerance because the fairy tale you believe in isn't being presented as a wholly legitimate alternative, that is when you need to be punched. Preferably in the face.
I seriously wonder how much time, energy and material people like Kirk Cameron expect to be devoted to a completely unscientific theory such as Creationism. What do they want teachers to do or say about that? They want both "views"? Fine. "Some people say gawd did it all." Awesome, that's out of the way, now we can teach theories that actually have some scientific merit and are worth discussing. And when we're done we can all go punch Kirk Cameron. In the face.
T-Shirt Hell
I came across this site of "Christian" t-shirts today kind of randomly, and it is so bad I felt I had to share it. Even if the slogans weren't for the most part ignorant, devoid of insight and completely unfunny, the actual design work is so shitty it would not matter. Calling it amateurish is an insult to amateur graphics designers everywhere. It's like a someone vomited up bible clip-art on Cafe Press. The site concentrates heavily on "pro-life" propaganda, which is a shame because their site should have been aborted.
I won't even bother with snarky comments on individual t-shirts, or even arguing the overall abortion is murder theme they have going on. I would be here way too long. The reality is I am writing this entire post just to make one observation:
If gluttony is a deadly sin, why are all of their shirts available in sizes up to XXXXXL? Just saying.
And no, I am not exaggerating. 5XL.
Hope
Choronzon: I am Anti-Life, the Beast of Judgement. I am the Dark at the End of Everything. The End of Universes, Gods, Worlds...
...of Everything.
Sss. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?Dream: I am Hope.
-The Sandman, issue 4, 'A Hope in Hell'
written by Neil Gaiman
I've been thinking a lot about hope lately, how completely insubstantial yet singularly important it is to our lives. It is nothing and it is everything, intangible and priceless. It is the light that keeps us going when life seems black as pitch, the drive to go just a little further, and then a little further after that. It's what makes us try when giving up seems so much easier. It cannot be sold and it cannot be bought. It is strength at your weakest, it cannot be stolen if you are not willing to give it up and it can only be destroyed if you let it be.
To completely give up hope is to lose all you have and be dead inside already, beyond salvation; breathing, warm and heart beating but not alive and never to be again.
In the darkest place, at the edge of the deepest abyss, when you're teetering at the brink, eyes burning and cursing all of existence and convinced that death would be easier, there still is room for hope. You have only fallen when you give that up. When it cannot get better, when there is no salvation left, when the last gossamer thread that could have pulled you back from that place slips from your grasp and the only thing left to do is take that last step and say goodbye to it all, then and only then have you truly lost all hope.
I've never been to these places, never sunk to that depth. I've felt hopeless, and sometimes I still do. I've had dark times in my life, and I will have more. I am so lost and scared and confused sometimes and I feel like things will never make sense in a way I can grasp. But I have never truly lost all hope. I am convinced that to do so must be the most horrific experience that one can endure, worse than whatever brought you there.
I have never lost all hope. I hope I never do.
Jesus, Protect Me from Your Followers
or...why I, and others like me, have so much beef with so many Christians.
The folks on the right talk so often and loudly about Jesus, and claim him as their own. It's impossible these days in America to separate religion and politics. So lets talk about that guy that got nailed to a tree that the Republicans claim to love so much.
Two things to note, first of which is the obvious: I am not religious. I have a love for Buddhist and Taoist philosophy and writings but I would be lying if I called myself one. I was raised Lutheran, which is Catholicism with less bullshit and less Mary. I drifted away from that pretty young though. Too many questions that could not be answered, too much doubt, too much emptiness, too much hollow.
Second, I am basing all that follows on the belief that religion is not something you do for an hour a week. It’s not something you dabble in. Sitting in church doesn’t make you a Christian, just like sitting in a garage doesn’t make you a car. It is what you believe, to the core. The guiding principles of your life. Christianity is defined so differently by so many people, but when you strip away all of the bullshit, the ceremonial trappings and inter-sect squabbles, at the heart of it all the point is to follow Christ’s teachings and example as best you can. To try to be the light of peace that he was. All the rest is just trim.
And right there is my beef. So many (most?) on the Right just use their religion to justify how they already feel, to rationalize their prejudice and hate. And so Jesus becomes a reason to discriminate, to hate gays and Muslims, to wage war...to do all manner of things that he was blatantly against. I don’t like the Vatican much, but damn it was nice to see the pope call the Iraq war for what it was.
If you think Christ’s highest priorities, were he alive today, would be eradicating Muslims, stopping abortions, and keeping gays from getting married, you really need to evaluate your priorities. Maybe he would care about those things, maybe not. But I am damn sure that ethnic cleansing in third world countries, the thousands of innocents dying in Iraq, the destruction of the environment, the greed and avarice and sickening chasm between the haves and the have-nots all across the world would all be much bigger blips on his radar.
So why doesn’t the party who claims Jesus as their own, who brings up religion the most often and proclaims it the loudest, care more about those things? If you claim Christianity as your religion, why isn’t helping people, all people your priority; your highest priority, as it was for Jesus? I don’t see the most vocal Christians calling to help those who need. I see them calling for more suffering. More war. More weapons. More death. More torture. More oppression.
...why?
Recent Posts
- Leaving Hope
- Because I Can
- Stephen Colbert, Accidental Hacker
- Doing good
- You know who needs to be punched in the face?
- The pains of being a pack rat
- Justify your rage
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