Archive for the 'Rants' Category

There’s One in Every Family

April 19, 2010

There are actually people who believe that the vow of celibacy is why some priests molest children. I have a question for those people: When did teachers, doctors, directors, etc. take vows of celibacy? What? They didn’t? Yet, there are supposedly individuals among those vocations–and many more–who are guilty of child molestation. Either the idea that persons besides priests molest children is an evil conspiracy by the evil Catholic Church or celibacy is not why some priests molest children. I know these people will believe it’s a conspiracy–or possibly that these teachers and doctors are priests in disguise–but I’m willing to bet that it’s the latter: celibacy does not cause paedophilia.

Among these people are those who long for the destruction of the Catholic Church. Maybe the Vatican should burn for its corrupt leaders, but it’s definitely not the only city worthy of destruction: Hollywood and its defenders of child-rapist Roman Polanski deserve to burn in Hell just as much. Is there actually an organization out there that won’t defend its rapist-heroes? Unfortunately, I doubt it. The whole world deserves to be destroyed.

My point? Take the Catholic Church to task for their sins, but don’t be a fucking idiot and pretend that celibacy leads to child molestation. That’s as idiotic as somebody who claims that videogames lead children to violence when there are many non-violent children out there who play violent videogames and many violent children who don’t.

Posted in Rants | Leave a Comment »
Tags: ,

Fuck the Grammar Police

March 15, 2010

As I read Emily Dickinson’s poetry today, I came across a term I recognized but did not understand: Anno Domini. I checked the dictionary, discovered that it was the full form of AD, and learned something about AD’s usage: AD “should be placed before the numerals, as in AD 375.” My first thought was to travel across the blogosphere, look for blog entries with the incorrect usage, and post rude comments about how terrible their grammar is. While correcting the blogger’s bad grammar, my own comments would misuse ellipses, because that’s a trademark of pedantic pricks. Their other trademark is to contribute nothing to the discussion (or to life).

Maybe I’m too harsh on these pricks; most of them are only teenagers. I know I was completely anal about grammatical rules when I was younger. Eventually, I learned two facts that have made me more tolerant of “bad” grammar: 1) many rules, such as the rule not to split infinitives, are idiotic and not even considered canon by the gods of English, whomever they be; 2) the most badass writers do not always play by the rules. Nowadays, what matters most to me is that what I write be articulate; formalities are vain and often result in tinny, mechanical, lifeless prose.

Then again, when I was a perfectionist, I never did try to condescendingly correct somebody else’s prose, and if I were to, I would have made sure my own was primped and proper. The self-proclaimed grammar police do not worry about practicing what they preach because they do what they do for only two reasons: 1) because they’re bored and are too slothful to do anything more productive, and 2) because they need to bruise other egos to heighten their own, which sorely needs boosts to compensate for their miserable unproductive lives. They are not writers; they are trolls. Fuck them all!

Posted in Rants | Leave a Comment »
Tags: ,

A Modest Proposal 2: The Revenge of Jonathan Swift

August 26, 2009

So, as I read about the boycott against Whole Foods because its CEO is a libertarian, I thought about the healthcare issue once again. As somebody who will soon have healthcare, my opinion on the whole debate has changed. I now agree with the others who have affordable healthcare that America’s healthcare system is the GREATEST IN THE WORLD! It’s so obvious, isn’t it? I mean, when I look at all the benefits I’ll have, why would I want to choose a system that will set up a Nazi death panel to kill me when I start forming wrinkles (yes I know that’ll never happen since I don’t age, but allow me to be hypothetical for a moment)? It’s Ludacris! The best part about this system is that its completely voluntary and private (unless you count Medicare, Medicaid, Medi-Cal, etc.). If you want healthcare, it’s right there for you at affordable prices! If you choose to live life a little riskier, then you can save your money for an Xbox 360 or something. Since it’s that simple, it’s clear that anybody who doesn’t have healthcare is too cheap and lazy to sign up for it. And don’t give me this pre-existing conditions BS because I can easily disprove that with a single sentence: those who say they were denied healthcare because of a pre-existing condition are LYING! They’re probably a resurrected storm trooper working for Obama’s Nazi healthcare-reform propaganda machine. There is no such thing as a pre-existing condition. If you got diabetes, it was completely voluntary. You were asking for that multiple sclerosis.
I thought about this as I kissed my icons of Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston and I wept at how bloated our government has become. For example, in my lovely hometown of Modesto, the police are stretched in all directions toward wild gooses and unable to deal with the real problems affecting the city. You always hear about how Modesto is the city leading in auto theft, but not once have I ever feared for the safety of my car, so it’s clearly exaggerated by the liberals who want nothing more than to disrupt my peaceful existence here with evil. The worst that’s ever happened to my car is that a window was broken and a few packs of gum were stolen. Was this the work of some mythical car thief? No. It was the work of teenager. Bratty goddamned teenagers who litter, talk too loud at Barnes & Noble, and jaywalk as I’m driving. I’ve never been mugged, raped, molested, murdered, or assaulted nor have I ever witnessed any of that. I’m not so stupid as to say it doesn’t happen, but it clearly doesn’t happen on the level the liberal newspapers would have you believe. At most, it happens a few times a year to people who go walking through downtown in the middle of the night looking for drugs or prostitutes. Why then do we waste our police obsessing over liberal myths when we should have them focused on stopping the real threat: annoying teenagers who irritate the hell out of me! Me! ME ME ME ME ME!
We as a nation have fallen far from the golden Christian utopia we once were in the nineteenth century. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking my bourgeois wife to France on my private jet where we will eat truffles coated with 14k gold.
-In Christ’s Service,
The Monopoly Guy

Posted in Rants | Leave a Comment »

Hardened Hearts Help Nobody

May 25, 2009

Michael Vick, the NFL player sent to prison for his role in dogfighting, offered his help in the Humane Society of the United States‘ campaign against dogfighting. Wayne Pacelle, the president of the HSUS, wrote about his thoughts last week. He also shared a few of the comments he received. Most of them approached the idea of Vick working with the HSUS to end the very cruelty he practiced his entire life with understandable skepticism, but they were nevertheless willing to offer him the chance to atone for his crimes. However, there was one comment that really upset me: “I am a faithful supporter of the HSUS and can’t believe that you would welcome Michael Vick into the ranks… if Michael Vick is invited into the HSUS, I will no longer support the organization that I have held dear to my heart for so long.” I honestly just want to slap the woman right across her face!

She claims to be a faithful supporter of the organization and then threatens to sever her support if they do one thing with which she doesn’t agree. It’s not even something terrible. They are simply giving Michael Vick to help other men and boys ensnared by dogfighting; they aren’t canonizing him or condoning his crimes! Yet, because the HSUS is willing to give fallible people who make mistakes a chance to make right, she in her so-called faithfulness will turn her back on the organization that she holds so dear. I don’t think she understands what that word means. She only understands anger and vengeance and is willing to abandon a powerful organization that fights against injustices against animals. I’m sure she’d claim she’s acting in the interest of mistreated animals everywhere, but how is depriving an organization like the HSUS that fights against injustices against animals going to help them? It’ll simply rob them of the funds they need to stop the dogfighting she supposedly despises. If more people shared her hardened heart, the HSUS would even have to shrink their efforts against dogfighting, thereby ensuring that more –not less– dogfighting would occur. Would that bother her or would the pride she receives from her hardened heart numb her of any actual compassion and sense?

You don’t have to agree with everything an organization or church does to support it. If you did, do you honestly believe you would ever find such a organization?

Posted in Rants | Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , ,

American First, Christian Second: Christianity and Torture

May 3, 2009

As you might’ve read, an organization conducted a survey about Evangelical Christians and torture. The results? Most of them support torture. It honestly didn’t surprise me much. I found out about this on a blog on ChristianityToday. Surprisingly, it did not justify the support of torture, but actually argued against it with some very good points. It as well as some of the more insightful comments really convinced me that torture and Christianity cannot coexist.

The greatest point made was that the first question we should ask when it comes to torture is whether or not it is ethical. If it isn’t, then it is irrelevant if it works or not. After all, Christians condemn many atrocious practices based on the ethics alone: abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, etc. Why should torture be any different? For the good of the nation? If the good of the nation requires us to sin against God, then to hell with the nation! Better to hate America and to love God than vice versa. The Israelites thought they were doing what was best for Israel when they sacrificed to Baal, but that didn’t appease God any nor did it absolve them of any sin.

How do we know if torture is ethical? One way is to ask ourselves if we would want it done to ourselves if in the same situation, whether we were found guilty of terrorism or simply thought to be terrorist by our nationality. It’s not surprising that the majority of people –some of whom I am sure support torture– would not want themselves or their children to be tortured themselves or their children to be tortured if they were found to be terrorists or suspected enemies of a nation they happened to be visiting. I doubt most people would want to be imprisoned without being officially charged with something either. They might even consider the act inhumane. It’s clear they consider it unethical when done to themselves, so why would they support it when done to others? Simply because their hypocrites. Is hypocrisy one of our spiritual gifts?

I wonder how many of them support the actions of the Spanish Inquisition of centuries before. They too tortured people for a greater good. In fact, one might argue that their goal was even more nobler than the goal we had with Guatanamo Bay: while the United States sought to save lives through torture, the Spanish Inquisition sought to save souls.

The second question to ask is not if it is effective, but if it is legal. This is much less ambiguous and debatable than the first question: it isn’t. Not according to the United States and not according to many official documents it has signed: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Geneva Conventions, etc. (Here’s a quick overview of the many laws that torture violates). Are we as Christians expected to follow the law? Of course! Even if there are laws with which we don’t agree, God expects us to follow them! Even Jesus said “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” and I’m sure that the Jews didn’t much care for the Romans. God won’t honor us if we act like criminals. The only time we may break the law is when the law of the land requires us to sin against God. Are there any verses that state it is a sin not to torture our enemies? Maybe in one of the supposed lost gospels! However, not in the Bible. Therefore, by intentionally violating the law, we are sinning against God and making a fool of Christ. You might not agree with federal law or the United Nations, but federal law was begotten by the United States government itself and the United States voluntarily sacrificed a bit of its sovereignty when it joined the United Nations and when it signed those many treaties against torture. If we don’t like the law of the land, then we should change it. If we don’t like the United Nations or the treaties we sign, then we should abandon them and suffer the consequences. Until then, we have an obligation to be obedient. If we can ignore the government whenever convenient, then why should we be obedient to any authority, whether in government or church or work, except when it profits us?

Now, one could ask if torture is effective. Those who support it deem it essential and those who oppose it claim it’s ineffective. Personally, I don’t care either way because it’s already clear that torture is unethical and illegal and therefore contradicts my walk with Christ. Does the security of the nation precede our walk with Christ? Only if you love the United States of America more than you love God. Yet, as one commenter eloquently stated: “American Christians are American first, Christian second.” I don’t disagree at all. The idolatry of America by supposed Christians is quite evident. There have been efforts made to amend the Constitution to ban the burning of the American flag. How many efforts have been made to amend the Constitution to ban the burning of Bibles? The Bible represents something far more sacred than the flag ever will. I wouldn’t be surprised if most American Christians disagreed with me though. Last time I checked the Bible though, we could only serve one master. So, who do you love more? God or America?

Posted in Rants | Leave a Comment »
Tags: , ,

Animals Weren’t Designed as Food

February 21, 2009

I just watched this video by the Humane Society of the United States, Eating Mercifully, and something caught my attention: the Baptist woman mentioned how other her family and friends told her that God created animals for humans to eat. My first reaction was to say, “Do they even read the Bible?” After all, I’ve always been under the notion that there was no death in the Garden of Eden. Death only entered the world after Adam’s sin. If that is true, then how could animals be eaten without killing them? Was it like that episode of The Simpsons where a talking pig allowed Homer to peel a strip of bacon off his stomach? If so, can somebody direct me to that verse? Until then, I believe they need to think it through a little more. Most people understand that bacon, ham, and beef can’t be taken from cows and pigs without killing them. If Adam and Eve really did partake on such foods before the Fall, then death did occur in the Garden of Eden despite the common misconception I always hear. Perhaps the misconception spread as a reaction to evolution, which is mostly death, violence, and extinction. I find that most heresy is born out of an overreaction against other heresy. I wonder how violent Paradise really was.

“Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” -Genesis 9:3

Wow. I just noticed “now” in that passage, which supports my belief that God didn’t create animals for food. It’s not too much to assume that if God now gives me the right to do something, that I did not have it before, right? God understands the definition of now (though in the original Hebrew, perhaps now meant “long time ago”?). Not all translations have that word though, which suggests that the NIV was influenced by the Animal Liberation Force. Nevertheless, those “wills” and “shalls” that exist in more than the NIV still does not suggest that animals were created to be slaughtered and eaten, but that it was allowed only recently for Noah.

“Ha!” says Factory Farmer Brown. “That proves you’re wrong! I can eat animals! I will continue to treat animals as a commodity less valuable than iPods and cars (which are treated more compassionately by Christians of like mind) just as God intended while marketing a much happier and heavenly image of what these animals face!” Actually, what it means is that God gave us the right to eat animals after humans royally destroyed His planet with their sin. God also gave us the right to divorce because of our hardened hearts. It’s not a sin to divorce, but is it the ideal way that God intended? A mistake too many people make is that they believe everything mentioned in the Bible is pleasing to God. Uneducated skeptics do it all the time, which is why they believe that mentioning Lot’s incest or Noah’s drunkenness proves there’s no God, but Christians are guilty of it too. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial” to us, to the impoverished nations we claim to care about, or to creation as a whole.

There will be lots of people on the new Earth. Will there be factory farms all over the place to accommodate all these people, will the immaculate saints gun down wolves with assault rifles as they fly in helicopters, or will death be a distant memory?

Posted in Rants | Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , ,