I Just About Pissed Myself...

...because I was laughing so damn hard at this!

Apparently, it's not enough to try and guilt kids into not having sex, to lie to them about the evils of birth control, and to tell them masturbation leads to blindness. Now, kids aren't even supposed to give each other proper hugs. That's right, the "front hug" is now officially sinful. What used to be a simple, innocent gesture of friendship and closeness is now sexually charged and awkward. But don't worry, there's an alternative way to show how much you care, the Christian Side Hug! That's the actual name; I did not add the word Christian to this. You want proof? Here's a little video spelling out the dangers of front hugs (and kissing, but we already knew that was wrong), presented in such a way as to mesh with pop-culture attitudes, so that kids will pay attention.

Speaking of paying attention, keep an ear out for the sounds of sirens, gunshots, and threats of violence in this song. Just like in the Bible, violence is okay, but sex is evil.




I have a feeling this is just the beginning. Pretty soon it'll be the Christian Handshake (not to be confused with the Freemason Handshake, or the Cool Black Guy Handshake), then the Christian Wave From Across the Room, and ending with the Christian Separate Bedroom (for married couples only!). It's an exciting time to be a Christian!

My iPod is Magic

I made a comment on Facebook today about how, up until a year ago, I didn't think anyone actually believed in their religion. This immediately riled some people up. So, I figure I should explain my position on this. Hopefully, it'll make more sense to all of you.

This is the best analogy I can come up with. Let's say I ask an electrical engineer how my iPod works. At first, things will be general and simplified, so I can keep up alright. But then he starts adding on layers of complexity, showing me how particular circuits are put together and why, how they relate to others, etc. Eventually, it will reach a point where I can no longer comprehend his explanation (or am simply too mistified to keep trying). At this point, if he simply said, "It's magic," I'd accept the answer. I wouldn't believe it, but I would accept it, because the details are just too intricate for me to follow(at least not without more education/training/etc). This is where I thought people were with their religious beliefs; they knew that they didn't understand, but needed some sort of answer, so religion fills in the gap. But I didn't think anyone actually believed in it!

I know my iPod doesn't run on magic, but if someone asked me, that's the only answer I could give. It's not true, but because I can't understand it, and I can't explain it to someone else, then it's all I'm left with. What I say is "It's magic," but what I mean is "I don't know." I guess I thought everyone knew that when you're told "God created the earth," what they really mean is "No one knows." I think this is where the big rift between religion and science comes from. Scientists aren't satisfied with being told it's magic, because that means you're giving up on the question, you're accepting that no one knows. Just because no one knows, doesn't mean you can't find out, if you try hard enough.

I think people should disbelieve their religion. There are tons of criticisms I could throw out here, but they're all irrelevant. The main point is this: why give up on the big questions in life? Wondering why our world exists, is there any purpose to our lives, what happens when we die...These questions have so many important ramifications for how we live that we need to have the correct answers. By giving up on these questions, and saying "It's magic," we're leaving behind any possible good that could come from truly understanding them, and possibly opening the door to real harm.

Slightly Redundant

I think it's a pretty fair assumption that the people who read my blog also read my wife's blog(and vice versa). A couple days ago, I showed her a couple youtube videos that I thought were pretty damn funny. Her response was write a short post, and include those videos.

That thunder thief! I was going to post them!!!

So, for most of you(honestly, I don't know why I keep talking like there's a large audience here...anyway...) this will be slightly redundant. I say slightly, because I've chosen other vids that I like a little bit more. So there.

Kids on Fire

I have just witnessed the most disturbing film of all time. It's called Jesus Camp.

A central player in the film is Becky Fischer, a pentecostal preacher and organizer of a summer camp called "Kids on Fire." I wish I was making that up. The film opens with a fun little song and dance routine put on by a bunch of kids, singing about how great Jesus is. I'd say that's a normal part of church; no problem there. Except the boys are dressed in camouflage(with their faces painted to match), the kids are carrying sticks as though they were weapons, and the dance moves kind of looked like karate(little kid karate). Becky then proceeded to stand in front of these children and tell them what a terrible world we live in and asked the kids why didn't God "just fix it". She also told them how fat and lazy Americans are. Judging from the size of her, I'd guess she doesn't believe in leading by example. It all ended with the children on their feet, shaking uncontrolably and speaking in "tongues" (read "gibberish").

Next we meet some of the little children who will be attending the "Kids on Fire" camp. Seriously, what self respecting parent would let their children attend a camp where the name implies that they will be SET ON FIRE?! Anyway...we meet little Levi, an 11 year old who already has a career preaching. Levi is home schooled by his mother(according to the movie, 75% of homeschool children in America are evangelicals). She asks him what he would think if a public school science teacher were to say creationism is stupid, to which he says he wouldn't agree. Then she asks him the same question, only about evolution. I think you can guess what his reply was.

We also get to meet his little sister, who prays to Jesus with all her heart that he will...help her get a strike while bowling. Really? Apparently, God cares deeply about your bowling average. Guess I'm fucked. She also decides to walk up to a random woman and tell her that God cares about her, and that she should follow a righteous path(or something similar, it all sounds the same to me). When her Dad asks her why she did it, she said God told her to.

The entire film is like this, swaying back and forth between absolute absurdity to shocking horror at the brainwashing these kids are enduring. I had to fight back tears a couple times while watching it. One of the sermons these children went to had this message: "a person's a person, no matter how small." But the message wasn't about the acceptance of others, like Dr. Seuss intended. No, instead the pastor/preacher/whatever the hell you call him then proceeds to open up a small box, containing tiny plastic models of human embryos at various stages of development. He tells them that one-third of their friends wanted to be there today, but couldn't because they weren't given the chance to live. Then the children had red tape with the word "Life" written in black placed over their mouths, and then led in a prayer about wanting to be washed in the blood of christ. Their doctrine of "Life" apparently only extends to the unborn, however, as the day before Becky told the kids that Harry Potter would have been put to death for being an enemy of God, no matter how big a hero he was. A death sentence pronounced upon a fictional character...these people have a big problem distinguishing fact from fiction.

Probably the most powerful message pushed on these kids is that they're the most important generation ever. Here's a nice little quote from Levi's little sister: "...we're being trained as soldiers..." In fact, the theme of war runs throughout the entire film. The evangelicals are fighting a war to win back America for christ, and they're using their children to do it for them. At one point the children are asked, "How many of you want to be those who would give up their lives for Jesus?" Of course, they all raise their hands. In the beginning of the film, Becky talks about how Islamic children are taught from a young age to use guns and grenades, and says no wonder they're willing to kill themselves when they get older. Apparently, she thinks this is a great idea. The evangelicals even have a flag and a pledge of allegiance. Here's the flag:














Before you denounce the evangelicals as just a bunch of whackos who aren't representative of America, let me remind you of two things.

1) You don't have to be numerous to be dangerous.

2) The evangelicals make up 28.6% of the American population(according to this study). That's 85,800,000 (estimated US pop 3 hundred million) of these crazy nutjobs.

One last thing: the voice of reason in this movie comes by way of a Christian radio show host. He shows up a couple times, and each time he's pointing out what's wrong with evangelism. Of course not all Christians are like the evangelicals, and it's great to see a christian with a little influence doing something to keep these people in check. I hope more follow his example.

I took so many notes during this movie, I can't possibly put it all down here. You really should just watch the movie. I'll end with a couple of choice quotes:

"I can go into a playground of kids that don't know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of, just no time at all, and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God, because they're so open. They are so usable in Christianity." -Becky Fischer

"If the evangelicals vote, they determine the election." - Ted Haggard, then leader of the National Association of Evangelicals



"God hears the cries of children" -Becky Fischer

Comment Reply

A friend of mine posted a comment on my last post, asking for proof of some of the comments I made(you can read both of these things for yourself). Now, normally I would reply in the comments section, but once I started, I realized that my response was going to be way too big. Not only that, but I thought it might be pretty interesting for everyone to know exactly where I'm coming from on this issue(religion). So here we go:

First of all, I was asked to point out where in the Qu'ran it "states that any muslim not only has the right, but the duty, to kill any non-believer"(those are my words). If you read it carefully, I say that their religion teaches this idea, not the Qu'ran. Most of a religion's dogma comes by way of interpretation by the clergy(priests, rabbis, mullahs, etc.) For example, I don't believe the Bible states that Jesus' birthday is Dec. 25th. The date for the celebration of Easter is even more specious; it's not even the same calendar day from year to year! Yet they have been handed down by the clergy as the proper days for celebration, and accepted by the masses. This situation is even much more prevalent in Islam, for they make the claim that the Qu'ran is not the Qu'ran unless it is in arabic; no translation will suffice. That means that for the millions of non-Arab muslims, they can't even comprehend their religion until they learn a second language. I would say it's pretty naive to think that they would ever understand Arabic(or any second language) as well as a native speaker. According to the CIA factbook, 98% of the population of Iran is Muslim, yet only 1% actually speak Arabic. Not only that, but only 77% of the population is literate(it doesn't say in what language). That means that roughly one-third of the population has to depend on the interpretation of others for their religious beliefs. Given all of this evidence, I think it's pretty clear that it doesn't matter if it's actually stated in the Qu'ran or not.

What is stated in the Qu'ran (quite clearly, I might add) is the pain and torture awaiting those who don't believe. The majority of the condemnations I've read involve the wrath of God, meaning that they'll leave the judgement to Him. But there are also passages citing past conquests against non-believers, and even threats of future violence (Note: I didn't bring my Qu'ran with me to work today, so I'll update this later with the actual passages). Not only that, but I found a passage saying that if you fight in the name of the Lord and are harmed or killed, all of your sins will be expunged and you'll be granted access to the gardens. There's also one that says(I'm paraphrasing) that no dead person would wish to come back to life, accept for the martyrs, who have found such great rewards in heaven that they would martyr themselves again. And I haven't even read the whole thing yet.

I feel I shouldn't have to mention this, but all you have to do to find proof of what I said is to look at the world news section of any major newspaper. Not a week goes by that they don't report "sectarian" violence between the different Muslim groups. They can't even get along with each other! Or how about the situation that's been brewing in Israel for the past 5o years? In all honesty, I do not feel that what I said about the Muslim faith was incorrect, and it will take a lot, A LOT, of evidence to change my mind. I'd also like to say that I don't harbor any ill will towards the Muslim people. And I understand that not all of them are so strong in their convictions; far be it from me to condemn all of them because of a few bad apples. The problem is that those bad apples have proven to be so dangerous, and I think it would be foolish of us to turn a blind eye, simply because we don't want to appear prejudiced.

I also mentioned in my last post that the Christian holy books(by which I mean the old and new testaments) also advocate violence toward non-believers. I'm not a Christian myself(sorry Mom), but I'm definitely more familiar with the Bible than the Qu'ran, so this should be pretty easy. How about the story where Moses goes up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments? While he's gone, the people ask Aaron to make a god for them. Tada! Golden calf. Moses is of course pissed, so he proceeds to first destroy the calf, then ordered the tribe of Levi to kill as many people as possible. Not only that, but a plague was then sent upon the people "because they made the calf, which Aaron made" (Again, don't have my Bible with me, but this is in Exodus 32).

Here's a fun one - "...they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword" Joshua 6:21. This was of course at the battle of Jericho. Here's another - "But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." I think I've made my point. As for the New Testament, I don't have any good verses, but I don't think I'm wrong in saying that the Jews, who actually believe in the same God, have been persecuted for well over a thousand years for the killing of Christ.

So there you are friend, proof that religion promotes discrimination against non-believers. Not that any of this should come as a surprise to you; I think you just wanted to make sure I wasn't spouting ignorant nonsense. For that, I would Google "American Taliban." You might be surprised (and hopefully apalled) at what your fellow Christians have to say.

Censorship in Iraq

The other day I read an article in the New York Times talking about how the Iraqi government is trying to pass a set of censorship laws. This is disturbing to me for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that many of the bans were already around under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Most of the bans are based on what people see on the internet, but book publishers and distributers are also coming under fire. It's been six years since we invaded Iraq, under the pretense that we wanted to give them a free society. Whether or not that was actually the case, the Iraqi people have had six years of unimpeded contact with the outside world. Their government has decided they want nothing to do with it.

At first glance it sounds reasonable. There are a lot of people out there trying to inflame sectarian violence, or to recruit "martyrs." Of course it's important to try and stop this from happening. But the way that they're going about it is a step backwards. According to the article, the Iraqi constitution guarantees freedom of expression, as long as it "does not violate public order or morality." But what right does their government have to determine what is moral? What is moral and what isn't is a personal matter. My morality isn't necessarily the same as your morality. By determining what is and isn't right, and punishing people for transgressing, they're encroaching on the private lives of their citizens. This will engender hatred towards the government, and will actually push people to do the things that are banned, simply because the act of rebellion will feel good. It's just like when teenagers act out against their parents, only these teenagers might blow themselves up(along with many other people).

If these laws were only aimed at countering terrorism, I might not have a problem. But there is a whole list of subjects that apparently "violate public morality": drugs, terrorism, gambling, negative remarks about Islam, and pornography. NEGATIVE REMARKS ABOUT ISLAM! Now, I can't imagine that they would have much bad to say about Islam, seeing as how almost everyone over there is muslim. But the fact that they can't even read about criticisms of their religion without it violating public order speaks volumes about their level of fundamentalism. But it also means that their society will never mature. By crushing rational thought, their leaders are ensuring that the Iraqi people will never be free. Our country spent billions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of lives trying to free them from theocratic tyranny. Before we've even left, they're already going back to their old ways.

"Why should I care?" you may be asking. Let me put it to you like this. Iran, Iraq's neighbor, is a theocratic society. They say they're a democracy, and they even have elections, but all the power really sits with the Ayatollah, their supreme spiritual leader. Being muslim, his religion states that any muslim not only has the right, but the duty, to kill any non-believer(this is suggested pretty strongly by the christian religious books, too). Right now, the Iranian government is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Who's going to stop him if he decides to push that launch button? This situation is the product of a society that has failed to mature. They have crushed all rational thought, and put their superstitions on a pedestal. The last thing this world needs is another society propped up by falsehoods.