This Is Stunning

It is about words, and the different meanings they can have, but I'm not even going to try using words to describe how fantastic this is:

At Long Last, The Catholic Church Understands Women...

They're just as bad as child molesters:



And you know what's rich? Say a priest ordains a woman into the clergy. The one who gets excommunicated? The woman.

The Catholic Church: Horrified of Vaginas since 1 A.D.

You Know, Maybe the Republicans Are Right

Traditional views on marriage are the foundation of society, and they predate things like laws and liberal activist judges. Just ask these village leaders in rural India:



If we let a man marry a man, then maybe a girl from a lower caste will marry a man from a higher caste, and then a man will want to marry his sister. Where will it end??!?!?

If You Are Ever Having A Bad Day

Just remember, there are tiny miracles happening all around the world right at this moment.



After hearing nothing for 8 months, Jonathan's cochlear implant is turned on and he hears his mother's voice for the first time.

Who Knew A Christian Prank Show Could Be So Mean?

A poor girl gets pranked into thinking she is "Left Behind" during the Rapture (and do yourself a favor, skip the sermon and go to the 1:20 mark):



... So, is it Christian of me or un-Christian of me to find this funny?

RE: "Did You Know The Season Premiere Of "LOST" is Two Weeks From Tonight??

The Crash of Flight 815 in real time...



Lost fans are the best fans.

Did You Know The Season Premiere of "LOST" Is Two Weeks From Tonight??

... I just can't wait to find out what time period we are in on the show because it could be 2004 or 2007 or 2010 or maybe even a different time later but then again it might also a be parallel or maybe a perpendicular universe and maybe the two universes or times will come together as one and we can see all the same characters again and we will find out if Jack still loves Kate and if Juliet still loves Sawyer and if Farraday still wears skinny ties because even though Farraday died they might have changed the future when they changed the past which means the present and past we have presently been watching all along now exist in the past of a different dimension ...


Final Season Of 'Lost' Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever

I Am Going To Make A Very Lucky Family Very Unhappy

The Internet Finally Makes Up For 2 Girls 1 Cup

... 2 Girls 2 Cups

We Have All Been There Before

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

... Child Abuse?

I recently finally finished reading "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, after stalling on the last few chapters. Overall, the book is fantastic, surprisingly funny, and ultimately a massive relief for me. It was the first time I read something that articulated my skepticism and doubt so well.

I do not come from a religious background. For me as a child, religion was obviously true, because everyone believed in it. I can only remember one event from my childhood that exposed me to the idea of non-belief (once, a friend's mother was upset with my family for taking her child to church without her permission -- it took me a while to realize my family was clearly in the wrong) .

Once I began working through my doubts, eventually arriving at atheism in high school, I mentally relegated myself to being a minority and an outsider. Not only was it doubtful many people agreed with me, but it would be far too impolite to ever express what I really thought.

I have held onto this aversion to rocking the (religious) boat. This was one of the reasons why the penultimate chapter of "The God Delusion," which focuses on vocalizing opposition to parents passing on their religion to their children, was difficult for me to swallow. What right do you have to have any opinion on what religion someone else's child is brought up within??

Religious indoctrination, Dawkins argues, is a form of mental child abuse.

"Geez," I thought as I read Dawkin's argument, "no wonder everyone hates atheists."

But then I started to think about it. At its root, what is religion? A pleasant answer to that question is that religion is a foundation for morals and judgment on which our human world revolves. But honestly, that answer gives religion way too much credit. We have morals and judgment because, without them, humans would have become extinct thousands and thousands of years ago. To survive, we evolved into increasingly complex social creatures, capable of empathy and stumbled into our own morality.

Ultimately, religion and belief is a prism through which someone can view the world. It is immensely powerful, but it is still merely a perspective. Religion describes the world and the people in it on its own terms, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

And surely, something that is "merely a perspective" is harmless to pass onto an impressionable child, right?

I felt ambivalent about that question. That is, until watching the following video:

The video, uploaded by a young Christian girl, Molly, shows her and her friend in their effort to convert a young Hindu girl, Saraa. Thank god, they are unsuccessful.

On the surface, the video is hilariously stupid. Molly and her friend can't comprehend how someone with a darker complexion, clearly of Indian descent, comes from Asia instead of Africa. But making it through the entire 10 minutes reveals the video to be tragic.

"Okay," Molly heavily sighs, "it's really frustrating. I don't -- okay -- like I know it's not your fault that you're Hindu, but I can't -- I don't know if I can be around that type of presence, like someone who can't let Jesus in--"

"I know. It's like -- it's hard," chimes in her Christian cohort.

"Like, you're not a bad person, but -- It's just --"

"If you just try --"

"You're going down the wrong path. Okay," Molly sighs again, recognizing her defeat, "I can talk to you, but I don't know if we can be, like, friends."

Fed up with the backhanded insults, Saraa departs.

Okay, I know the girls are stupid. Deplorably stupid. But they are also young. And clearly, Molly's only perspective stems from her religion. Incapable of seeing anything of value outside her Christian prism, Molly is handicapped.

Can children handle the seriously flawed system of belief that is religion? Maybe if there was a chapter in the New Testament about critical thinking I would feel far less ... critical. At least adults can be expected to understand the archaic nature of most religions and also have the worthwhile capacity to pick and choose. But (most) kids can't pick and choose. They have what they are told. And if the parents pass on an identity of Christian or Muslim or Jew, who is the child to argue?

Should not children be given a pass, at least until given the tools of critical thinking, to be tagged with a religion? Maybe instead of asking, "what right do you have to have any opinion on what religion someone else's child is brought up within?" I should be asking "what right do you have to categorize your child's belief system before s/he is even given a chance to weigh in on the subject?"

Maybe if Molly's parents asked themselves this question, their daughter would not be down a friend.

Bless Her Heart

Oh Sarah Palin...






(While checking out Yahoo news this morning)

God bless the fact check.

HA!

The quick brown fox actually jumps over the lazy dog!

The Nicest Music Video Ever Made

I saw this music video on another blog and had to post it up here. It was created entirely through webcam starring the musician's fans from around the world.

I Know This Shouldn't Be Funny...

... But the smoke shop appearing to have caught on fire?

God has a sense of humor.

A Big Day

If you rely on exclusively conservative sources for your news (ie: Fox News, Drudge Report), you are missing a huge story that came out today. And I doubt that the mainstream media will cover this story very much either.

The "Torture Memos" have been released.

... This is huge. Essentially, they are the legal opinions crafted under the Bush administration twisting the legality and definitions of certain forms of torture into a confusing pretzel of permission to commit war crimes. They are part of the damning case that is making it legally treacherous for certain people, from John Yoo to Alberto Gonzalez to our former president and vice-president, to travel to other countries (read: Canada and Spain) out of fear of being arrested for war crimes.

And people really need to get over this false idea that just because America and our president do something illegal that somehow it is still okay. Torture is illegal and has been illegal for decades. Our laws on this issue did not fall alongside the twin towers.

Andrew Sullivan, one of my favorite bloggers, covers the topic of torture voraciously. I highly recommend his blog (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com). Here's a paragraph he wrote this afternoon as he reads through the torture memos:

"Perhaps you are reading these documents alongside me. I've only read the Bybee
memo, as chilling an artefact as you are ever likely to read in a democratic
society, the work clearly not of a lawyer assessing torture techniques in good
faith, but of an administration official tasked with finding how torture
techniques already decided upon can be parsed in exquisitely disingenuous ways
to fit the law, even when they clearly do not. This is what Hannah Arendt wrote
of when she talked of the banality of evil. To read a bureaucrat finding ways to
describe and parse away the clear infliction of torture on a terror suspect well
outside any "ticking time bomb" scenario is to realize what so many of us feared
and sensed from the shards of information we have been piecing together for
years. It is all true."

Signs You Are A Dork #28

You can fill up the trunk of your car with your board game collection.

Carrows Restaurant

Now serving shitting pancakes

Church Sign Fail

One of my favorite things is the variety of messages on those signs outside of churches. They are usually very witty and clever (well, relatively speaking), and I can just imagine some priest or pastor sitting with a pad of paper in his quiet office exclaiming "OH! Good one Jesus!" when they come up with a new one (because surely all of these messages are coming directly from Jesus Christ).

I pass by a church on my way to work that always has the most entertaining signage, usually tinged with just the right amount of social commentary. Here is their current sign:


If you can't read the photo from my iPhone, the sign reads:

"OUR GREATEST THREAT IS NOT GLOBEL [sic] WARMING BUT SPIRITUALITY LUKEWARM"

First of all, it is too bad these signs do not come with a spell-check.

Secondly, are you sure about that, West Los Angeles Christian Center? I get a feeling after the pastor comes up with these quirky quips, s/he does not spend much time thinking about what they really say. The play on words is fun, but empty.

In my humble opinion, rising coastlines; millions and millions of displaces people; more severe extreme weather disasters; changes in agricultural capabilities (ie: having to plant corn in North Dakota instead of Iowa), and skirmishes and wars over those new capabilities; the famine and refugees that accompany said wars -- all that is slightly more important than people sleeping in Sunday mornings.

Their previous sign was too rich:

"NO COURT CAN OVERTURN YOUR CONVICTIONS"

Clearly in reference to their assumed anti-gay stance (those pesky "activist judges" upholding our state's constitution!), it does not take long to recognize the utter BS of this sign. Just taking the statement at face value, "NO COURT CAN OVERTURN YOUR CONVICTIONS" ... umm... is that not one of the exact purposes of our judicial system?? Enforcing and overturning convictions per a jury or judge's prerogative?? Am I missing something?

I will be keeping an eye on the West Los Angeles Christian Center. Talk about entertainment.

Okay, No... This Is Some Funny Shit

I take back what I said in my previous post.  This is the funniest thing I've ever seen: