Really?

One cannot read the headlines on Google news these days without being reminded that there are millions of Americans who think god is fanatically concerned with where adult men put their penises (SPOILER: vagina ok*, anus bad). These same people, though they may not admit it, are slightly less concerned with what two women do together. Go figure.

Asking why does god care what consenting men do in a bedroom is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a needle. Theological debates are like sword fights with wet spaghetti noodles; nothing is ever accomplished. The swords are, I'm afraid, not designed to do any sort of cutting. Watching a theological debate is like watching Star Trek and Star Wars fanboys argue about who was a better captain, James Tiberius Kirk or Han Solo.

Sometimes it seems the best way to promote rationalism is to ask people to read their Bibles. It makes no sense! Read the Old Testament and you'll come to see that this Yahweh character has a serious inferiority complex and a major problem with genocidal rage. One day he is angry, another day jealous, sometimes unsure, other-times just pouty. Hell, sometimes he kills people just for trying to help (2 Samuel 6:6-11) or for being curious (1 Samuel 6:19) Good heavens!

One of my philosophy professors once said he thought that Yahweh was a hyper expression of the full range of human emotion. I guess so

*Vaginal sex is only acceptable when two individuals have signed a marital contract before a judge, a contract which is honored only about 50% of the time, and slightly less amongst the people who believe god cares where we put our genitals.

Just let the Gays get Married

Just let the gays get married

Once upon a time in a country called America the wild buffalo roamed freely. Eagles soared across the vast expanses of quiet mountainsides, and trout swam in bubbling brooks! Wheat and cotton grew in the fields and all was well; black people were considered subhuman property and women were subjugates of their husbands without legal equality or rights. Oh those were good times, no immoral MTV, gayness hadn’t been invented yet, and people understood what it meant to put in a hard days work.

Then something happened in that most wonderful nation. War and hardship struck and many young men lost their lives fighting for both noble and corrupt causes. Ideas, long considered taboo were questioned in a new light and change began to occur, the moral zeitgeist began to shift. We don’t really know why, but the institutions of religion and tradition were powerless to stop them; and like a phoenix, from those rancid ashes arose great leaders who championed the causes of suffrage and equality. Slowly, the walls of patriarchy and racism were chipped away. The moral spirit of the age shifted, in spite of religious fervor, a shift born from the reasoned proposition that all men and women deserve equal rights afforded under the law. Why? Not because god said so, but because a democratic consensus decided that this type of society, one in which we all enjoy equal rights, would best benefit the majority of all people in accordance with the principals of liberty and happiness.

However despite all our gains we are once again faced with that bitter old foe which would seek to limit individual freedom based upon the what some ancient shepherds and cave dwellers wrote on scrolls thousands of years ago. Gay people would like the legal right to get married in this great land. Nothing more, they simply want the ability to declare their love for each other just like any heterosexual couple can, yet they are facing stiff opposition from the religious fundamentalists who would seek to deny them this fundamental right. Our president elect, a democrat who could lend powerful support to this struggle has cowardly turned from the issue in order to appease the fundamentalist zealots. Why is this issue so contentious? The religious fundamentalists believe their god to be manically obsessed with what humans privately do in their own bedrooms, so much so that if gay marriage would be allowed it would somehow undermine straight marriage. Of course none of their arguments make any sense, religiously based arguments never do, they are always spawned from that ancient part of our brain that is still afraid of the dark, that still fears death, and would long to adopt any comforting idea no matter if it matches reality or not. However, as our species progresses we slowly shed the metaphorical skin of our past as it becomes no longer useful, and so too will we inevitably lose these old fears and prejudices that have haunted us and caused so much suffering for so long.

If history stays consistent then no liberty will long be denied by those who would have us remain in the dark. A new sun (and rainbow) will rise for our gay brethren in their struggle for equality soon enough.

Deadbox 360

There are many topics I should be writing about on this important blog, but I'm going to push those aside today and concentrate on what really matters most. The US Armed Services may have their "army of one", but I have an audience of none which is arguably more powerful. This frees me from any constraints and self-regulations that come from knowing people are reading what you write and lets you blow-hard as much as possible.

Religion, anti-politics, organic food, alternative medicine and hippies are all good ranting topics, but today I have something else on the ol' mental chopping board, my xbox 360.

Recently I purchased the game Fallout 3. Having spent large portions of my youth playing Fallout 1 & 2 I had been looking forward to Fallout 3 ever since it was officially announced 3-4 years ago and like a 14 year old boy with his first secret Playboy magazine I drooled over the intitial trailers and screenshots of the game. I read with anticipation about the developmental hurdles the game went through, the changing of ownership from Interplay to Betheseda, and I waited with the rest of the fans hoping that Fallout 3 would not simply be Oblivion with guns. Well, a couple weeks ago my wait was over and on the second day of its release I purchased Fallout 3 for my xbox 360 and I began playing. and playing. and playing even more. For the first time in years I had a game that truly capitvated my senses; I would rush home from work, drop my bike on the floor, change clothes into sweatpants and an old t-shirts, grab a few beers from the fridge and indulge myself without even breaking to eat or pee for 5 to 6 hours on end in front of my xbox 360. I indulged every moment of exploration in the game's world, taking my sweet time walking around and endeavoring to accomplish even the most minor quests. I was not rushing this game. No, I was savoring it like a pint of Godiva ice cream.

Then, it happened. I got the Power Armour training... oh how I had waited for that moment to be a walking tank in the wastelands. I knew what to do next, I knew who I wanted to fight now that I was ready. I knew where it was... The behemoth supermutant in front of the radio building. I traveled slowly through the ruins, peaking over piles of rubble, watching my back, making sure my weapons were loaded and in good condition until finally I arrived and from a distance I saw my foe. 30 feet tall he stood, holding a street light as a mace angrily cocking his head to and fro. I aimed my weapon and fired a volley of bullets but they landed on thick skin, almost no damage done! The behemoth turned and saw me! I panicked a little, armed my rocket launcher and....

.....

....

...

..

.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

deep breath

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

RROD. Red Rings of Death. At the worst possible time ever. To the uninformed the RROD signify an internal hardware problem in the xbox 360, a problem that can only be fixed by shipping the system to Microsoft for repairs. I was speechless, this is something you read about happening to other people, but you think that you are exempt, that you will be the one person in the history of Xbox 360s to escape the inevtiable fate. But man, you were wrong. Oh. so. wrong.

So like a retarted kid trying to get that last french-fry from the bottom of the Happy Meal box I packed up my xbox, tossed on the pre-paid shipping label I printed from Microsoft's website and headed out into the dark night of Bellingham to find a UPS dropbox. After biking in circles for a few miles I found one, right next to a group of crackheads. Awesome luck I thought to myself as I wedged the package into the UPS box, getting it partially stuck in the process. As I biked home I was sure the crackheads would pry my xbox out and try to smoke it, sending my Fallout 3 dreams up in puffs of acrylic smoke. However they didn't. Even now I am tracking my xbox's progress, it should be at Microsoft tommorow morning, and in 10 days back in my hands, and then, ONLY then will me and the Super Mutant behemoth finish our struggle.

blah blah blog

Blah, blah, blah, Obama. blah blah, blaaaah, election, blah blah blah.
blah, blaaaah, blah... blah blah, Palin, McCain! Blah Blah... Blah! Hope, blah blah blah.
Blah..blah blah blah, sheep, blaaaah blah blah, Choice A or B, blah blah blah, blah, get out the vote, blaaaaaaah, blah, blah. bifurcation... blah.

If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal. Blah, blah, blah.

Blah.