SomethingClever
04-03-2006, 07:00 PM
insane = BIMO, in case you were wondering.
From blindwino.com:
"Some Christians are perfectly nice people. Merely irrational.
To be even more fair, I routinely carry on theological discussions with a few perfectly intelligent and sane folks of the religious persuasion, my point generally being that nobody knows what happens when you die, all rhetoric on this subject has been crafted by humans with their own agendas and motivations, and that whatever its origins, the church has historically been a tool used to politically subdue large portions of the population and justify countless acts of genocide and atrocity.
They usually contend that religion is also a positive force that gives meaning to life, strength and comfort to its adherents, unity to communities, and concentrates all the goodness that humanity is capable of into actions of mercy and benevolence.
Yes, in ideal situations I will admit that religion does all of this. But so does heavy metal.
Then I usually contend that any sort of morality which hinges on coercion through threats of eternal damnation isn’t a true morality, just an ornately adorned infantile game of punishment and reward. They come back with saying that the “threats of eternal damnation” are only one way of looking at things, and then get super metaphysical and do these insane logical gyrations in an attempt to rationalize an inherently irrational proposal.
And then I say, “Yeah, but you also think a guy lived two months in the stomach of a whale.”
And then they say, “It’s just a parable.”
And then I say, “I thought it was the word of God.”
And then they say, “It is.”
And then I say, “So Jesus is a parable, too.”
At which point they’re busted. If they say yes to this, it calls into question the entire supernatural backbone of their religion. It turns it into a philosophy which makes it just another idea competing in an entire sea of ‘em.
If they say no, it means they’re cherrypicking incidents to strengthen the weakness of their cause, just like their [censored]-spewing spiritually retarded evangelical cousins.
Trust me. I grew up in the middle of Southern Georgia Baptistry, where unprotected teenage ass sex is tacitly encouraged because girls can keep their vaginal virginity until marriage, firebombing Planned Parenthood and shooting gynecologists makes Jesus happy, gays are a family-destroying scourge to be wiped from the Earth (and exploited to bring “conservatives” to the polls), protesting movies like Brokeback Mountain is a godly cause but ending child hunger is socialism, all youth pastors might as well have “child-molesting timebomb” engraved on the title page of their youth-group prayer books, and while God has blessed the chosen people with glorious whiteness, the colored people down the street are strongly encouraged to remain at the colored-people church down the street.
Then again, I’ve recently acquired a minister-in-law uncle who lives in the slums of Milwaukee counseling homeless addicts and street drunks to bring them into shelters where he and a bunch of other religious folks feed them, pay for their medicine, and struggle to get them off the fun stuff and into the work force. Ever been to inner-city Milwaukee? Them’s some tough digs.
I'm assuming the rest of you goddies fall somewhere in between.
So, obviously, if you’re not a born-again butthole foaming from your eyesockets because there’s a gay cowboy movie playing somewhere or the sex-toy ban in your community isn’t being upheld at the end of Sheriff Roscoe’s Winchester Defender, you don’t need to email me and justify your belief system—unless it involves diapers and superconductors. I need to know if anyone else keeps having that dream. I’ve got some theories, but I’m sort of stuck on this inverse logic circuit.
And for [censored]’s sake, everyone stop praying for my soul and start praying that I get a company car, because vanpool’s turned into friggin’ high school Dramafest 2006.
“We now join the uncomfortable silence on the ride home after Jennifer’s secret emails badmouthing David’s ‘pussy’ driving style come to light due to Lester’s incorrect response to an email thread—all this despite the fact that Jennifer failed to attend her scheduled driver certification course last week! Add this to the smoldering resentment of Reggie and his decision to take a new rider from ANOTHER BUILDING without consulting the group, adding a third overweight butt to the dreaded slightly smaller back seat, five minutes to the total commute, and a strange, burning-plastic odor to the interior of an already olfactory-impaired Dodge Caravan.
Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of ‘Vanpool Place’ when Lester takes it upon himself to get the van waxed and demands the rest of the vanpool reimburse him while David interrupts this outrage and announces, ‘I lost the folder with everyone’s personal information in it so I’m gonna need new forms in duplicate along with signed photocopies of your FlexPasses.’”
Umm…could all adults please report to the dancefloor? You know [censored]’s bad when I’m the voice of reason.
02/21/06
Now, I know I’ve been away from the corporate workplace for nearly a century, but at what point exactly did the “let’s go get drunk at lunch” contingency get replaced with the creepy coven of born-again Christ vampires? “Let’s go pray at lunch,” just doesn’t have the same ring as “beers, shots, and bathroom lines at T.G. McFucksuckers!” and—let’s face it—you’re creepy.
Is it just me? Anyone else suffering through this stupidity?
“Oh, do you have the new Evelyn Justice record? It’s righteous. Simply righteous! Here, let me blast it through my [censored] 3-inch office speakers so everyone can hear it! This is ‘I Praise Him High to the Highest!’ It’s a song about eternal loyalty to something that doesn’t exist! There’s also a hip-hop song on the album I think you’d like. It’s called ‘2 Much Love 4 Da 6 Communions Dat I 8.’ It’s funky.”
And yes, Virginia, you do need a copy of the Bible on your desk at all times. MAYBE EVEN TWO.
Two Bibles. One reinforcing the other. The little one for when you’re on-the-go and the word of Christ must be sleek-footed and nimble to catch ears and hearts of the skittish and wily hell-goers-to. The big Bible for rock-solid revelations…a more permanent, authoritative, sturdy, lasting Bible wrapped in rich Corinthian leather, gold-gilded edges, awarded by a buck-toothed youth-group pastor as the blood semen ritual comes to ecumenical fruition.
A Bible able to goosebump coworkers at the distance of three cubicles.
“Oh, I noticed you looking at this pile of Bibles on my desk. Perhaps you would like me to read to you out of one of them? I’ve bookmarked the specific passages which reinforce the narrow view of the world I adopted in light of my repressive upbringing. I’d be happy to repeat someone else’s interpretation of someone else’s words to you. Currently, my church group is praying for laws that deprive adults of birth control—as laid out in the truth of the God’s word. Here we are, page 287. I think the truth of Ebenezer and the fire-breathing four-headed mule will really drive my point home.”
Everyone, put a sideways finger to your lips and, really fast, “Bluhbah-bluhbah-bluhbah.”
Come on. We all know that religion is a mental disorder. If I run around saying I’m filled with the love of Godzilla (which I am), I’m nuts. But if the holy spirit is in me well…meet me in the break room! We can kneel down n’ [censored]! Bow our heads and mumble! And oh, look! Instant friends! I’m part of something bigger than myself! It only costs my autonomy, curiosity, and self-determination! Yippie!
It makes sense why they keep getting hired though. Born-agains are bred to be perfect employees. They show up on time. They produce. They’re practicing for the next world, so they don’t mind wasting their time in this one. Hello, office work! They never come in hungover. They’ve been married since 18, so they’re on the hook with spouses and kids and all that [censored]. The gripping terror of an ultimate authority makes it easy for lesser earthly authorities to order them around. Following someone else’s rules just feels right. They equate the finer nuances of capitalist capitulation with spiritual duty. If they duck out early on a Friday, they’re not only endangering the financial goals of their team…they’re going to Hell!
It’s genius, really. Back when protestant Christian theology actually had some meaning…when it actually empowered peons, serfs, and beggars to consider themselves on par with kings and lords, the church began preaching, under the auspices of Calvin, that all the people who are going to be saved have already been saved and will remain being saved no matter what. Pray, don’t pray, go to church, drink all day, kill a hooker. It don’t matter. We’re getting in, and you’re not. So shut up about this equality [censored] and get back to work, while us big, important, saved people keep launching our land wars and exploiting the [censored] out of your unsaved, mangled bodies. Your place is on the battlefields and in the wheat fields. It’s all about the fields. Reaping what you sow. We (the rich) grow you (the poor) like a crop, and we harvest you with our Bibles. And God says it’s cool. We know. Our priests talk to him all the time. In…uh…a language you don’t understand.
Back to the “modern” world, where 70% of Americans believe that there is an actual guy named The Devil who runs around hell with a pitchfork and finds ways to tempt humans into evils like overeating and masturbation. Now, ‘cos you’re a nation of consumers before you’re anything, you gotta consume in a Godly way. Buy shiny fish logos to slap onto the back of your car. (Don’t even think of carjacking me, Satan!) Wear t-shirts and jewelry proclaiming your Christian love. (Get thee back 500 feet, Satan!) Vocally support official wars waged by Christians you admire. (We’re killing them for you, God! Blessed be Your name!)
Actual spirituality? Well…the American God barely factors into it. Because…you can’t be a Christian and a capitalist at the same time. They are diametrically opposed belief systems. You cannot reconcile “mercy for the weak” and “survival of the fittest.” And since we can’t change capitalism, we change Christianity. And now there’s a bunch of creepy assholes taking over the break room and trying to get birth control pills removed from the company health plan.
Come on. You’re not spiritual. You’re terrified. You want security. You’re lazy. You don’t want to have to think about stuff, you want a template for life. You can’t deal with the fact that you’re alone, hurling through meaningless space on a meaningless chunk of rock, performing meaningless repetitions above a howling void of death without guarantees of justice, fairness, security, or health. There is only the gaping maw of death and you can kneel down before it or you can stand tall and flip it off. It doesn’t matter. It’s coming for us. And NOBODY knows what’s on the other side. So shut the [censored] up already.
But if God actually existed, I’m sure sticking a metal fish onto your car would really make His day."
From blindwino.com:
"Some Christians are perfectly nice people. Merely irrational.
To be even more fair, I routinely carry on theological discussions with a few perfectly intelligent and sane folks of the religious persuasion, my point generally being that nobody knows what happens when you die, all rhetoric on this subject has been crafted by humans with their own agendas and motivations, and that whatever its origins, the church has historically been a tool used to politically subdue large portions of the population and justify countless acts of genocide and atrocity.
They usually contend that religion is also a positive force that gives meaning to life, strength and comfort to its adherents, unity to communities, and concentrates all the goodness that humanity is capable of into actions of mercy and benevolence.
Yes, in ideal situations I will admit that religion does all of this. But so does heavy metal.
Then I usually contend that any sort of morality which hinges on coercion through threats of eternal damnation isn’t a true morality, just an ornately adorned infantile game of punishment and reward. They come back with saying that the “threats of eternal damnation” are only one way of looking at things, and then get super metaphysical and do these insane logical gyrations in an attempt to rationalize an inherently irrational proposal.
And then I say, “Yeah, but you also think a guy lived two months in the stomach of a whale.”
And then they say, “It’s just a parable.”
And then I say, “I thought it was the word of God.”
And then they say, “It is.”
And then I say, “So Jesus is a parable, too.”
At which point they’re busted. If they say yes to this, it calls into question the entire supernatural backbone of their religion. It turns it into a philosophy which makes it just another idea competing in an entire sea of ‘em.
If they say no, it means they’re cherrypicking incidents to strengthen the weakness of their cause, just like their [censored]-spewing spiritually retarded evangelical cousins.
Trust me. I grew up in the middle of Southern Georgia Baptistry, where unprotected teenage ass sex is tacitly encouraged because girls can keep their vaginal virginity until marriage, firebombing Planned Parenthood and shooting gynecologists makes Jesus happy, gays are a family-destroying scourge to be wiped from the Earth (and exploited to bring “conservatives” to the polls), protesting movies like Brokeback Mountain is a godly cause but ending child hunger is socialism, all youth pastors might as well have “child-molesting timebomb” engraved on the title page of their youth-group prayer books, and while God has blessed the chosen people with glorious whiteness, the colored people down the street are strongly encouraged to remain at the colored-people church down the street.
Then again, I’ve recently acquired a minister-in-law uncle who lives in the slums of Milwaukee counseling homeless addicts and street drunks to bring them into shelters where he and a bunch of other religious folks feed them, pay for their medicine, and struggle to get them off the fun stuff and into the work force. Ever been to inner-city Milwaukee? Them’s some tough digs.
I'm assuming the rest of you goddies fall somewhere in between.
So, obviously, if you’re not a born-again butthole foaming from your eyesockets because there’s a gay cowboy movie playing somewhere or the sex-toy ban in your community isn’t being upheld at the end of Sheriff Roscoe’s Winchester Defender, you don’t need to email me and justify your belief system—unless it involves diapers and superconductors. I need to know if anyone else keeps having that dream. I’ve got some theories, but I’m sort of stuck on this inverse logic circuit.
And for [censored]’s sake, everyone stop praying for my soul and start praying that I get a company car, because vanpool’s turned into friggin’ high school Dramafest 2006.
“We now join the uncomfortable silence on the ride home after Jennifer’s secret emails badmouthing David’s ‘pussy’ driving style come to light due to Lester’s incorrect response to an email thread—all this despite the fact that Jennifer failed to attend her scheduled driver certification course last week! Add this to the smoldering resentment of Reggie and his decision to take a new rider from ANOTHER BUILDING without consulting the group, adding a third overweight butt to the dreaded slightly smaller back seat, five minutes to the total commute, and a strange, burning-plastic odor to the interior of an already olfactory-impaired Dodge Caravan.
Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of ‘Vanpool Place’ when Lester takes it upon himself to get the van waxed and demands the rest of the vanpool reimburse him while David interrupts this outrage and announces, ‘I lost the folder with everyone’s personal information in it so I’m gonna need new forms in duplicate along with signed photocopies of your FlexPasses.’”
Umm…could all adults please report to the dancefloor? You know [censored]’s bad when I’m the voice of reason.
02/21/06
Now, I know I’ve been away from the corporate workplace for nearly a century, but at what point exactly did the “let’s go get drunk at lunch” contingency get replaced with the creepy coven of born-again Christ vampires? “Let’s go pray at lunch,” just doesn’t have the same ring as “beers, shots, and bathroom lines at T.G. McFucksuckers!” and—let’s face it—you’re creepy.
Is it just me? Anyone else suffering through this stupidity?
“Oh, do you have the new Evelyn Justice record? It’s righteous. Simply righteous! Here, let me blast it through my [censored] 3-inch office speakers so everyone can hear it! This is ‘I Praise Him High to the Highest!’ It’s a song about eternal loyalty to something that doesn’t exist! There’s also a hip-hop song on the album I think you’d like. It’s called ‘2 Much Love 4 Da 6 Communions Dat I 8.’ It’s funky.”
And yes, Virginia, you do need a copy of the Bible on your desk at all times. MAYBE EVEN TWO.
Two Bibles. One reinforcing the other. The little one for when you’re on-the-go and the word of Christ must be sleek-footed and nimble to catch ears and hearts of the skittish and wily hell-goers-to. The big Bible for rock-solid revelations…a more permanent, authoritative, sturdy, lasting Bible wrapped in rich Corinthian leather, gold-gilded edges, awarded by a buck-toothed youth-group pastor as the blood semen ritual comes to ecumenical fruition.
A Bible able to goosebump coworkers at the distance of three cubicles.
“Oh, I noticed you looking at this pile of Bibles on my desk. Perhaps you would like me to read to you out of one of them? I’ve bookmarked the specific passages which reinforce the narrow view of the world I adopted in light of my repressive upbringing. I’d be happy to repeat someone else’s interpretation of someone else’s words to you. Currently, my church group is praying for laws that deprive adults of birth control—as laid out in the truth of the God’s word. Here we are, page 287. I think the truth of Ebenezer and the fire-breathing four-headed mule will really drive my point home.”
Everyone, put a sideways finger to your lips and, really fast, “Bluhbah-bluhbah-bluhbah.”
Come on. We all know that religion is a mental disorder. If I run around saying I’m filled with the love of Godzilla (which I am), I’m nuts. But if the holy spirit is in me well…meet me in the break room! We can kneel down n’ [censored]! Bow our heads and mumble! And oh, look! Instant friends! I’m part of something bigger than myself! It only costs my autonomy, curiosity, and self-determination! Yippie!
It makes sense why they keep getting hired though. Born-agains are bred to be perfect employees. They show up on time. They produce. They’re practicing for the next world, so they don’t mind wasting their time in this one. Hello, office work! They never come in hungover. They’ve been married since 18, so they’re on the hook with spouses and kids and all that [censored]. The gripping terror of an ultimate authority makes it easy for lesser earthly authorities to order them around. Following someone else’s rules just feels right. They equate the finer nuances of capitalist capitulation with spiritual duty. If they duck out early on a Friday, they’re not only endangering the financial goals of their team…they’re going to Hell!
It’s genius, really. Back when protestant Christian theology actually had some meaning…when it actually empowered peons, serfs, and beggars to consider themselves on par with kings and lords, the church began preaching, under the auspices of Calvin, that all the people who are going to be saved have already been saved and will remain being saved no matter what. Pray, don’t pray, go to church, drink all day, kill a hooker. It don’t matter. We’re getting in, and you’re not. So shut up about this equality [censored] and get back to work, while us big, important, saved people keep launching our land wars and exploiting the [censored] out of your unsaved, mangled bodies. Your place is on the battlefields and in the wheat fields. It’s all about the fields. Reaping what you sow. We (the rich) grow you (the poor) like a crop, and we harvest you with our Bibles. And God says it’s cool. We know. Our priests talk to him all the time. In…uh…a language you don’t understand.
Back to the “modern” world, where 70% of Americans believe that there is an actual guy named The Devil who runs around hell with a pitchfork and finds ways to tempt humans into evils like overeating and masturbation. Now, ‘cos you’re a nation of consumers before you’re anything, you gotta consume in a Godly way. Buy shiny fish logos to slap onto the back of your car. (Don’t even think of carjacking me, Satan!) Wear t-shirts and jewelry proclaiming your Christian love. (Get thee back 500 feet, Satan!) Vocally support official wars waged by Christians you admire. (We’re killing them for you, God! Blessed be Your name!)
Actual spirituality? Well…the American God barely factors into it. Because…you can’t be a Christian and a capitalist at the same time. They are diametrically opposed belief systems. You cannot reconcile “mercy for the weak” and “survival of the fittest.” And since we can’t change capitalism, we change Christianity. And now there’s a bunch of creepy assholes taking over the break room and trying to get birth control pills removed from the company health plan.
Come on. You’re not spiritual. You’re terrified. You want security. You’re lazy. You don’t want to have to think about stuff, you want a template for life. You can’t deal with the fact that you’re alone, hurling through meaningless space on a meaningless chunk of rock, performing meaningless repetitions above a howling void of death without guarantees of justice, fairness, security, or health. There is only the gaping maw of death and you can kneel down before it or you can stand tall and flip it off. It doesn’t matter. It’s coming for us. And NOBODY knows what’s on the other side. So shut the [censored] up already.
But if God actually existed, I’m sure sticking a metal fish onto your car would really make His day."