New term needed

When someone on Fark.com links to a site and the ensuing traffic overwhelms the servers of the linked-to site, it's called "being farked".

There are versions of that for many different sites: "slashdotted", etc.

What do we call it when American citizens overwhelm the mail servers at the U.S. House of Representatives? Apparently people are up in arms about this whole "$700 billion or the economy dies" thing.

New term needed. Suggestions?

My idea: democratered (from small-d "democracy" - since folks are mad on the Left and the Right, the emails aren't only from Democrats). • 8:02 PM 1 comments

"I want to do good things, instead of not doing bad things all the time."

"Choke" is based on the book of the same name by local author Chuck Palahniuk.

I did not see Chuck at the theater.

The movie is a comedy, though a dark one. But the fact that the main character's mom is dying... and crazy... made it harder for me to see it that way.

By the time Radiohead's "Reckoner" came up over the end credits, I felt the sting of tears. It's both difficult and exhilirating to see one's own dysfunctions displayed, distorted though they are, on screen.

You mean other people feel like this, too?

Damn. I thought I was special.

I mean... yay. Yay?

I'm so confused.

I'll have to see the movie again.

Labels: movies

• 5:47 PM 0 comments

Things not to do, ever

If you're feeling bad or ill, or wondering if the vague feelings you have are, in fact, symptoms of something, whether serious or not, there are many paths you can take to increase your knowledge and awareness.

But whatever you choose to do, do not Google your symptoms.

Yes, do not do what I did last night. • 11:42 AM 1 comments

High Finance

There's no freakin' financial crisis.

How do I know? Well, a spokeswoman for the Treasury just admitted they pulled the numbers out of their asses.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

And thank Invisible Sky Man that Sen. McCain has bowed out and conceded. Now the election will just be a formality and we can get on with repairing the damage 8 years of conservative rule has done to our country.

...what? McCain only suspended his campaign so he wouldn't have to show up at the debate? I thought he was battle-tested and ready to take command on Day One?

BWAH-HAHahahahaha!

This "crisis" can definitely wait for another couple of months, when we'll have a president who can walk and chew gum at the same time. • 8:52 PM 0 comments

Seen on a t-shirt

"Make believe, not war"

Best part? It was camo. • 7:30 PM 0 comments

What the bailout would cost you and me

A trillion dollars would be enough to give every man, woman and child in the United States $3278.

...of course, we're not getting that money. We're being told, ordered, really, to hand it over to Wall Street.

In exchange for... nothing at all. Not even the chance for oversight of what the Very Serious Bankers will do with it.

Have you called your Congresscritters yet?

(h/t Meteor Blades @ the Great Orange Satan). • 8:06 PM 0 comments

Oh. My. FUCK.

Thanks to the Mercury Blogtown, I stand in awe at the Baskin Robbins Heath Milkshake.

2,310 calories per serving.

No. Just... No. Not ever. Uh-uh. • 4:18 PM 0 comments

No deal

Just say "no" to handing over billions of dollars to the same screwed-up minds that got us into this financial mess.

Just say "no" to Bush's Plan.

It's that simple.

The financial institutions that lent the money, and assumed the risk for lending that money, need to pay the consequences of those actions. Not the taxpayers.

Or there'll be hell to pay.

It's that simple.

Monday morning, wake up and start calling your Congresscritters. Be polite but tell them this isn't going to fly.

If they're Democrats, remind them that this is the same script that lied our men and women into dying in Iraq for no reason.

If they're Republicans... well, it might be a wasted call, but maybe you could remind them that at one time, "conservative" meant "fiscal responsibility", and that letting bad actors off the hook isn't exactly responsible. I don't know if that'll work. I don't really know what to say to get Republicans to act in voters and taxpayers interests, to be honest, considering that the rank and file are OK with their leaders lying.

At any rate, more Americans are progressive or liberal, so we've got the numbers. Let's light up the switch boards!

Good thing most of us have cell phone plans with free national long distance. Let's make the telcos wish they'd never offered us that option! • 7:19 PM 0 comments

"Synedoche, New York"

Charlie Kaufman movies freak me out. I blogged several times about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" because... well, because of several reasons, including a woman I wanted to forget and remember, just like Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) in the film.

Finally getting her to watch it with me (my fifth viewing, her first, she claimed) and getting her reaction felt like a Kaufman-scripted moment. She just looked at me with a sneer in her voice and said, "That's it? But... but it's so obvious." And that was that.

So watching the trailer for the directorial debut of Kaufman, entitled "Synedoche, New York"... gives me the same eerie/excited feeling.



Can't wait to see this one.

And in case you're wondering, a synedoche is a figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole thing, like, say, the cast in a play standing in for the entire human race. Uh-huh.

Update: I fixed the links to my previous posts about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Thanks to Lisa! • 6:56 AM 1 comments

Epiphany

I spent the late night and early morning being mad at my friends for not being the kind of friend I'd like them to be.

When I suggest, through indirect language and hints that probably only I can understand, how they can help me, they don't hear me.

It's not their fault, though, because the way I ask isn't clear. And of course, what I'm asking for has to pass through their filters and their own needs and worries.

So I dug down deeper to figure out how I can ask for what I want more clearly. I diagnosed my need in more specific terms. If I could see my lack, I could better remedy it, right?

And I did. I do. Suddenly.

My anger at my friends disappeared, parted like a fog, and I came face to face with the hole in my soul I've been trying to fill.

Everyone has parents, of course, in the physical, biological sense. But since those parents are living breathing human beings, complete with their own flaws, lacks, needs, strengths, perceptions... all of that, may not match up with what our own experiences and perceptions tell us we want or need.

Our physical senses are more attuned to detect change rather than continuity. We see surfaces, hear when pitch or tone rises or falls, become used to certain scents and only pay attention when a new scent is introduced. We see the gap between what is and what could be.

The gap between all that our parents provide us, and the things we think we need, create our hole. And then we can spend a lifetime trying to fill it up.

My parents offered me all that they had, all that they felt duty-bound to give. And true to human nature, I could only react to the gap, rather than be thankful for what was given.

Support. A hand to hold to lead me towards the better path. Guidance given in advance, rather than a critique after the fact. Effort expended in creating a safe environment for me to try, and comfort for when I tried and failed. Instead of projecting expectations on me, encouraging me to set my own goals and helping me to realize when I've achieved them - and celebrating with me when I did reach them.

I ache for these things from my friends because, I believe, my parents did not provide them to me. I want to be clear that I do not think these things were withheld from me on purpose or out of malice! Not in the lease. They acted in the way they thought best. And yet I feel the lack.

Can I fill this need myself? I've been unconsciously trying for my entire life and have not succeeded. Now that I'm aware, is it more possible? I don't know.

For now, I will simply acknowledge the hole and see it as part of my story and my experience. I can operate without this support I think I need; indeed, I have developed habits to help me get around an absence of coaching. I'm successful at avoiding this barrier. My habits have created the safe space I once painfully desired. I live alone. I arrange my home so that everything has a place. I automate my bills and finances. I frequent places where I am known, I order the same kinds of food when I am there. I exercise by running pre-determined paths, and I set out on those runs like clockwork. When I interact with people I say the same things, talk about the same safe topics, and rarely venture beyond those boundaries.

Rather than be frustrated at these habits, as evidence of me missing out, I should embrace them. They are defenses, carefully cultivated over the years, that give me what I feel I need. In those actions, in that world I've created, I am safe. I rarely need guidance because I am rarely confronted with a situation for which I have no pre-planned reaction. Even when I take off for parts unknown, the options are few. Continue driving or find a place of rest. Look around. Observe, reflect - but don't interact. Dance when I hear music, but don't join in.

I like songs I know the words to. When I don't recognize the song, I move on.

And I tell my friends about the things I do, and secretly hope that they would want to do them next time, too. But I feel sad when they seem content to simply hear about the last time. They have their own plans and needs, so they're unable to join me, y'know, next time.

I have to go out there... alone? Again? Fuck.

I hate doing it alone.

...but I've been doing it alone for so long, I'm good at it. • 7:51 AM 5 comments

"I'll try to get a run in"

I often approach movies with a writer's mind. It's difficult to turn off the part of my brain that picks apart characters and plot and sub-plot and dramatic tensions and structure. I mean, after a lifetime of training my brain to put all that together in good ways, to use language to communicate those things, well, the habit is ingrained. Instinct, almost.

"Burn After Reading" began as, I believe, and carries its strength from the fact of being, a writer's movie. Yes, the actors in their roles are excellent, giving their characters humanity in a recognizable but quirky way. Yes, the visual design and look of the movie, and the pacing and camerawork support and enhance the story.

But without the story itself, none of that would matter.

Off-hand comments from early in the film - like George Clooney's daffy retired Treasury agent's remark of "Twenty years and I've never discharged a weapon!" or Brad Pitt's slyly given "Appearances can be... deceptive." - pay off later after the base had been set and the action begins to escalate.

The Coen brothers' movies often reward repeat viewings, and "Burn After Reading" is no exception, I think. It's in the attention to details that they shine.

Labels: movies

• 7:51 AM 0 comments

Without God or gods

In a snarky and light-hearted discussion about beliefs over on Damn Portlanders, a LiveJournal community I frequent, I and others eventually got down to the subtle differences between an agnostic and an atheist. My own personal take on it appeared to oppose dave256's views; the definition I use is that atheist belief is provisional and contingent on the evidence, and an agnostic's belief, coming from the assumption that the existence of God or gods isn't necessarily something we can ever know, is not really provable or disprovable.

Of course, I'd say that because I consider myself an atheist, and I'm giving myself the rational position. Heh.

dave256, on the other hand, gives the same basic definition of "agnostic" that I would give - then appends the idea that an agnostic would be the one most likely to change their mind if presented with evidence of a God or gods, rather than an atheist, which gave me food for thought.

Sure, atheists in general seem more sure of themselves on the topic, but even among atheists there are distinctions that not many are aware of. There's both "strong" and "weak" atheism, where a weak atheist takes the position of being against the specific gods of the major world religions - the Christian God, Jesus-as-God, Yahweh, Allah, the many Hindu gods, the Norse or Greek or Egyptian gods, and so on - and a strong atheist takes the position that dave256 is suggesting, that there are, flatly, no gods at all.

More and more, I find myself pushed by the evidence (always follow the evidence is my creed and motto) to simply reject the major gods of the world's existing religions. Might there be a god yet uncovered by human philosophy? Sure. Show me the evidence, though, so I can evaluate your claim. But the vast flavors of Christianity, the various sects of Judaism, the factions of Islam, the myriad followers of Vishnu et. al. - those all make specific claims, and those claims can be evaluated with the imperfect-but-best-we've-got tools of logic, the scientific method, rational thought, and always always always direct comparison to the world we actually see around us.

And those gods have always failed tests by those tools.

So, in that Damned Portlanders discussion, when existence_ltd mentioned the word "adeist", it caught my attention:

It strikes me that in the context of this conversation -- in the context that we commonly use the word "atheist" -- that it might be more appropriate to use the word "adeist." Is that a word? Should be.

I Googled the word and found that someone had apparently added "adeist" to Urban Dictionary in October 2007, so they had beaten existence_ltd to the claim of invention, but the idea itself is useful and it's one I shall use for myself in the future as a more specific descriptor of my own beliefs.

And whether or not others see it my way or not, I can say for myself that I'm open to new evidence and willing to admit I'm wrong if someone shows me God in a Box ™. • 8:10 AM 0 comments

"Boogie Nights"

Movies about porn rock!

Just sayin'.

Labels: movies

• 6:46 AM 0 comments

How's this for crazy?

Looks like the union office staff for the Oregon Education Association (which is itself a union for teachers and educators in Oregon) have, um, gone on strike.

For shame, OEA. For shame. • 2:29 PM 0 comments

Just sayin'

Since installing the 2.1 update for iPhone, my battery life kinda rocks. I get nervous when the little battery indicator gets low, but the damn thing just keeps on going. If I saw an indicator at 1/3 or less, I was within an hour of having it shut down entirely, previously. Now, it seems to just keep working.

I don't know why I'm talking about this now. • 9:17 AM 0 comments

Two great shows

Just a quick update before I have a chance to write more words on the topic:

Friday night Tracy, Gina and I had dinner, then rocked out to Harvey Danger at the Doug Fir. So good. Sean Nelson, I think I've now seen you live in concert more times than any other performer. Well done, sir.

Then Saturday I took the train up to Seattle to see Bad Religion fill a tiny little club with their challenging and acerbic music, to the delight of several hundred sweaty punk rock fans, including myself. So hot inside, and black as pitch. The security was spraying down the crowd with cold water. That felt good after being in the pit, moshing and laughing.

I think I've figured out why moshing is so exhilarating to me: I'm so bipolar when it comes to contact and touch, that being in a crowd like that, having almost no control and being pushed and pushing back, just takes me beyond my normal boundaries. And there's a combination of the feeling of "danger, danger!" and the, yes, friendliness of the crowd. I fell once last night, and the crowd immediately made room for me, and a giant of a man reached down and pulled me to my feet almost before I knew I was down. We're happy maniacs in there. Feels damned good.

Today I'm taking the train back. Kinda glad I brought a change of clothes - I was soaked with sweat and water last night. • 9:47 AM 2 comments

Cricket*thon!

Rocket is promising a real unicorn. That, on top of the fire and strippers and chance to help out a fellow traveler, should be all you need to know. • 10:05 AM 1 comments

We are all Fletch

When I saw the movie "Fletch" for the first time, I loved it. I dug Chevy Chase, and I loved the idea of the investigative reporter who is a) hilarious, and b) challenging to authority. Oh, and he got the chicks.

When a friend pointed out that the movie was based on a book, in a series of books, I knew I had to read it. This wasn't a novelization of the movie, made after the fact, a hack attempt to cash in. The character of Irving M. "Fletch" Fletcher started on the page, in the mind of Gregory Mcdonald. And so I read "Fletch".

And then I read "Confess, Fletch". And then I read "Fletch's Fortune". And then I read "Fletch and the Widow Bradley"... and on and on.

And as much as I loved Chevy Chase's take on the character, I realized that Mcdonald's written version of the character wasn't the same at all. On the page, Fletch was more vulnerable and somehow, more charming. Chase's Fletch stumbled sometimes but he was always the master of the situation. In the books, we had access to Fletch's thoughts and feelings, and it gave me more insight into the mind of a caring con man, a schemer for justice, if you will.

And it was all done through Mcdonald's marvelous dialogue. Real, funny, and it always drove the plot and defined the characters.

Which is all to say that I'm going to miss Gregory Mcdonald. I didn't know much about him as a person, but I loved the stories he told and characters he created. He was an inspiration to me.

Goodbye, Mr. Mcdonald. • 8:06 AM 0 comments

Consistency

Republican co-worker in conversation with like-minded libertarian co-worker on Monday:

"Palin? McCain? Of course they're lying. What does lying get them? More money in the bank and a boost in the polls! It's OK! There's a war on, and whatever it takes to win..."

Republican co-worker in conversation with friendly but opposing Democratic co-worker on Wednesday, in reference to Joe Biden's gun control position:

"He's been in the fight but he's never told the truth. We don't like liars."

...at which point I busted up laughing and practically shouted at him, "You don't like liars?"

He replied back, "Show me a documented instance of--"

I cut him off. "How about McCain and Palin?"

"Uh, uh, well, no, I'm talking about--"

"Whatever," I said. "I need coffee." And I walked away.

Felt good to catch him in a direct contradiction. That might've made my entire week. • 8:01 AM 0 comments

Cancer, indeed, sucks

Rocket has put together a fund-raising benefit for Cricket, to help with medical expenses.

The benefit is Thursday, September 25th, 9:00p - 2:00a at Devil's Point.

Cricket is an energetic and positive performer. No 23-year-old should have fuckin' cancer.

Bring your friend Benjamin!

Edit: fixed the links to Rocket and Cricket's MySpace pages. • 3:07 PM 0 comments

"Ed Wood"

Johnny Depp's take on Edward D. Wood, Jr. in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" is almost unfailingly positive, driven, and, well, delusional. He compares himself to Orson Welles in terms of... well... they both make movies. What Ed Wood lacks is any discernible talent.

Ed Wood (per the movie) accepts the first take on any scene, and rationalizes away any errors, flubs, or disasters. When Tor Johnson (played by George "The Animal" Steele) nearly takes out a set while trying to simply get through a door, Wood replies, "No, it's fine. It's real. You know, in actuality, Lobo would have to struggle with this problem every day."

Even Wood's supposed dark secret, his cross-dressing, appears to be more of a quirk. At least three times in the movie, Wood claims, sincerely, that he's never told anyone about this but now he feels he must.

And when, finally, Kathy O'Hara (Patricia Arquette) simply replies, "OK"... Ed Wood has found the acceptance he's looking for.

My take on the movie is that there really appears to be no subtext. As a biography, there's no subtlety or hidden messages. It's all right there on the surface; enjoyable, predictable, simple.

And once again, at the IFR Monday movie night, I failed to win any of the cool raffle prizes. Maybe next week!

Labels: movies

• 2:10 PM 0 comments

Decisions

I've never seen Bad Religion live. According to my Last.fm page, they're one of my top-played bands. I love them.

So when I heard they were playing a show in Portland in support of their new album, I snapped up tickets. The Roseland, Friday night, bitches. Mosh or die.

It's somehow fitting that they're playing on September 12th. Greg and the boys were warning about what's come to be known as "post 9/11 thinking" since Ronald Reagan was in office.

...and then Tracy found out that one of my other top-played bands was playing a show in Portland.

On September 12th. At the Doug Fir.

Oh, snap.

Butbutbut... I've never seen Bad Religion play. I've seen Harvey Danger play many times - it's a benefit that they're semi-local (regional?).

I wish there was a way I could make it happen to see both of them...

Hmmm... Checking Bad Religion's schedule, they're playing a show in Seattle on the 13th. Maybe it's time for a road trip? • 9:00 PM 0 comments

Oh, I see

So when Republicans talk about "executive experience", what they mean is "experience in abusing power, banning books, not issuing any orders to military or paramilitary units under their command, and covering up a multitude of scandals".

Right? • 8:54 PM 0 comments

Stupid Boy Project #3 Update

Man, there's some crazy, crazy shit in the Bible.

Insert obvious "Bible is used for family values?" joke here. • 8:53 PM 0 comments

Serial vs. Parallel

I love Mythbusters. They're doing actual science but in a very accessible way.

Here's part of a demonstration Adam and Jamie did... somewhere... that demonstrates the difference between serial processing, and parallel processing. Watch and learn and be in awe.



They get to play with the best toys. • 6:09 PM 0 comments

Stupid Boy Project #3

I'm reading the Bible cover-to-cover (the copy I have is the King James) and compiling a list of every time God speaks or appears directly to people, or otherwise directly intervenes in worldly affairs.

Why, you may ask?

In order to document how God does not show up in real life in the same way the Bible claims He does, as Deacon Duncan stated so eloquently.

There may in fact be a real-world explanation of the difference - indeed, that's pretty much what Christian apologetics is about, coming up with explanations and rationalizations for the differences between the world we inhabit and what Christians have claimed about the universe. But those explanations are not found in the Bible. Apologetics comes from men's thoughts and feelings and studying what other people have thought and felt and studied. • 11:53 AM 1 comments

Deserving

Walking down the crowded sidewalk in Moreland on a perfect Friday evening. Past the spicy Asian restaurant, under the marquee of the decades old neighborhood theater with the smell of actual buttered popcorn. Moms and dads and kids out walking around, groups of smokers sitting on the benches outside bars, clinking their glasses, laughing hello, hugging goodbye.

My fedora and I walked along. My stomach was full of stir-fried green beans and chicken and delicious chili sauce. My head was full of indecision as to which bar to spend my money in tonight.

Ahead of me on the sidewalk was a woman; blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail, tanned shoulders inked with red roses with soft white cotton hanging from spaghetti straps to cover curvaceous breasts and a flat tummy, her ass rhythmically moving under worn blue denim, moved by dainty pedicured feet in flip flops. A beautiful woman.

And a mom. Her three young children, all between the ages of 3 and 6, I think, scampered and shouted and strolled along in a youthful cloud of energy. Two girls and a boy, in generic Gap Kids togs, blue and red and brown and green.

The mom was walking along at about the same speed as me, but just enough out of sync that I wanted to either speed up to pass or slow down to avoid the appearance of following. Considering her butt in those jeans, I slowed down. I was in no hurry.

The tallest girl child, in a dress with dark brown hair, stayed near her mom's left hand. I heard no words or sound from her at all, and then her mom looked down at her and said, "Your attitude! You're really pissing mommy off right now, you know that, right?"

Again, I heard nothing from the little girl in response. I heard no crying or sobs, no backtalk. Either she was too quiet for me to hear or her response was entirely body language which I couldn't see from my position several yards back.

But mommy continued. "All through dinner you gave me nothing but attitude. I'm sick of it. You need to straighten up." Her voice was cutting and sarcastic. The little girl continued walking. Her head was not bowed down but it also wasn't raised up in defiance. Her lack of affect affected me deeply.

The two other kids had danced ahead, and now mommy and daughter stopped next to a giant white sports-utility vehicle parked next to the sidewalk. The mommy shouted at the other two to come back, and as soon as they heard mommy's voice they did so, excuses tumbling out of their mouths. "We saw the car, mommy, but it was locked!"

"Uh-huh," mommy said as she dug out her keychain fob, "See that?" she pointed, with her chin, at where the two had been playing. "That's a driveway. You could have been hit by a car." She sounded to my, now disapproving, ears, to be entirely non-chalant to the fate she was describing.

She pushed the button on the fob, beep!, and the giant white vehicle's horn beeped in response. Kids opened unlocked doors and climbed in and mommy walked around to the street side to get in.

And then the truck's horn beeped again. And again. It was a pattern, a warning, an alarm. The headlights, taillights and parking lights all flashed in time with the horn.

Mommy fumbled with the keychain fob - beep! - again and again - beep! - beep! - but the transportational alarm continued. Mommy climbed inside - at least part of the system was working since the doors were now open - but nothing silenced the honking horn.

I walked another half-block, waited my turn, and got some weekend spending money out of the ATM, then walked back past mommy and her children.

The horn continued honking.

Mommy's brow was furrowed in anger and frustration.

I'm just some guy... but I think she deserved it... but the poor, poor kids didn't deserve such a bitter (though beautiful) mother, I think. • 7:55 PM 0 comments

This weekend

Tomorrow I'm going to hop on my bike and ride it to the Old Spaghetti Factory in SoWhat, and sign up for the Pints to Pasta 10K. Then I'll ride it home. Or maybe downtown or somethin'.

Sunday I'll get up early, and ride my bike to the Old Spaghetti Factory so that I can run the Pints to Pasta 10K.

Whole lotta exercising going on this weekend. Should be fun.

I haven't run a race since the Shamrock Run 5K earlier this year. I'm not expecting to be superfast. If I break a 10:00 per mile pace, I'll be ecstatic. Mostly I just want to gauge my fitness. And drink beer and eat pasta. And hang out with other runners. And lose some weight. And not be in the house.

...I guess I do have a lot of goals. • 3:07 PM 0 comments

It's like they want to lose

Are Republicans just so tied up in their culture of victimization that they want to lose? They like being beaten up and made fun of, is that it? And I mean "beaten up" metaphorically, here.

I just can't wrap my head around the idea, on top of the lousy messaging that the McCain campaign has been doing, that they just keep on making goofy amateurish mistakes. How many times has he undermined his own message?

• "John McCain is just regular folks... and yet he's so rich he can't remember how many houses his former mistress trophy wife has bought for him."
  
• "John McCain is a proud Republican and has served in Congress for 25 years... so John McCain is the outsider maverick who's going to be an agent of change."
  
• "John McCain is a reformer who's trying to clean up Washington... by flouting the campaign finance laws he himself helped to enact."
  
• "John McCain stands for family values... which is why he had an affair with his first wife, dumped her and married his mistress."
  
• "John McCain goes his own way... which is why he selected a far-right Christian woman for vice president in order to excite the far-right Christian base the Republicans have depended on for the last several decades."
  
• "John McCain has the experience that Barack Obama doesn't... so we've selected an unknown governor with less experience than Barack Obama to be our backup president."

See? It's like the McCain campaign wants to lose.

Which is the only way I can wrap my head around the continued, minor gaffes they make. Like showing a picture of a Hollywood middle school behind him during his speech last night. Whuuuuuh...? • 9:11 AM 0 comments

Made-up questions, real answers

Someone who doesn't exist did not just email me to ask:

Q: "What did you have for lunch today, Brian?"

To which I respond: Alligator pizza, mofos!

It wasn't all that great, actually (I didn't care for the crispy noodles) but just eating alligator makes me feel more cool. • 12:29 PM 0 comments

The Bible doesn't match reality

Many thanks to Deacon Duncan for beautifully expressing the simple and basic flaw that Christians have been attempting to avoid or rationalize away for centuries.

The God of the Bible simply does not show up in the world we see around us.

I can already hear the fum-fuhs and harrumphs as untold millions begin their practiced refutations and contradictions!

I'm going to set aside the overwhelming evidence of a world shaped by explainable causes and forces. I'm going to set aside the arguments against God's existence on the basis of the existence of evil. I'm going to set aside the observance that there are multiple revealed religions in the world and in history, and since they all contradict each other, they can't all be correct and therefore are probably all incorrect. Set aside all that and consider only two things: the world as described by the books of the Bible, and the world you see when you look out your window.

And then, answer me this: why doesn't the world around us look like the world described in the Bible? Old Testament, New Testament, you name it. Compare the miracles, the plagues, the resurrections and prophecies in the Good Book with the weak, metaphorical, have-to-look-at-them-in-just-the-right-way-to-see-it "miracles" we have today? Why do prophets and fortune tellers today have such a poor record compared to the nearly-infallible ones in the Old Testament?

Sure, science can move enough water to enable people to cross what's normally an impassable sea - with pumps, and electricity.

Why would a God that supposedly loves us, only reveal himself to a handful of Middle Eastern men (and maybe a few women), two thousand years ago?

If He was all-powerful and all-knowing, as the Bible itself claims, then why would He forsake the millions of human souls that existed prior to His series of revelations in Israel and surrounding regions? Why would He, by His own actions, doom countless people to His creation, Satan's, clutches? Parents, let me ask you this: would you kill or torture one child to save another? No? Then why would you worship a being who has apparently done that very thing?

If God was infinite in power, He could very well appear to each of his followers, just as Saul of Tarsus said Jesus appeared to him.

If we could look at the world and see the concrete, not metaphorical, actions of God, intervening in world events... there would be no atheists.

But Jesus (or his biographers) taught a metaphorical way of looking at the world. He taught in parables, which are just fictional stories with a moral conclusion. He spoke in metaphors - Was Peter actually made of stone when Jesus said "Upon this rock I will build my church"? Um, no. No, he wasn't. Sorry, even the Bible shows that Peter was just flesh and blood.

But modern fundagelical Christianity mistakes metaphors for reality. And in doing so, they miss the most obvious evidence for the non-existence of their God: the God described in their own holy books simply does not appear in the world in which they live. • 7:55 AM 0 comments

Damn

Where did summer go? • 7:29 PM 0 comments