Amusing Musings

Letter to State Rep. on Heath Care Reform.

2010-03-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

"Look, I don't know if these even matter. I don't know whether you read them or not. But if you do, I hope you'll listen to what we're all saying.

I'm 25 years old. I'm an Army veteran, a single-mom, and a student who is studying to be a Physician Assistant. I chose to move back to Kalamazoo, my hometown, after I finished my service in the military. Even though it's been a struggle to find work here in Michigan, I love this state, and chose to live here because of that.

In a few months, I will lose health coverage. I have a job which offers insurance, but between school, and work, and my daughter I'm not available to work the amount of hours (32) required to be eligible. And with all this, I'm still one of the lucky ones. The military pays for my education. Heck, they even pay for my housing while I'm in school. All I have to pay for is day care and routine expenses. (I am not taking any government aid whatsoever.) Still with all this help, I will not be able to afford health insurance. And even if I could barely afford it now, the way insurance companies are inflating their prices, I wouldn't be able to afford it for long.

I'm not a fan of big government. I wouldn't identify myself as far left or extremely liberal. I'm a registered Independent, and I like to think that I vote for the person who is running, and not the party. So, I'm NOT coming to you as just another liberal democrat who is screaming in your ear about reform. I do not think this bill is perfect, and I don't think we have it exactly right. But, what I *know* is that this is a hell of a lot better than what we have right now.

I'm so tired of the petty arguing, and I'm not blaming one side. When there's a Democrat in office, Republicans will push back on everything introduced almost out of habit, but switch the situation and the other side will do the exact same thing. It's so infuriating to watch us flap our jaws and argue about such nonsense while people are DYING because we can't put aside our differences to solve this problem.

I do my best to stay informed and unbiased, and it seems to me that when we put aside the petty arguments, the real fundamental difference in this debate is whether or not Health Care is a commodity or a human right.

I realize that there are people in America who abuse government programs. And, it's sad, because I think they ruin the fundamental moral reason for why we've set up programs to help people. I understand that it's important to not just give people a hand out. I agree that hard work should mean something, and that people should be able to reap the benefits of their own labor.

I do not think, however, that life is so black and white for most people. A lot of Americans live their entire lives struggling day after day to put food on the table and make a better life for their children. And, it's not because they're lazy, or because they're looking for a hand out, it's because...well, that's just life. Sometimes it screws you. Sometimes you grow up in a poor family and can't afford college. Sometimes you save for years to go to college, and you end up having to spend it all so your parents can live in a nursing home. Sometimes your house burns down. Sometimes you get robbed. Sometimes you just plain can't find a job.

By saying that health care is a commodity and not a human right, we're vilifying everyone who can't afford it. We're saying...they must not be good enough. They must not be working hard enough. We're saying that they don't deserve to be cared for. That one human life is better than another because of their income bracket. To me, this is sickening and absurd. The fact that there are people in congress who put a price tag on the worth of a human being is deeply disturbing to me, and completely unacceptable.

We cannot allow insurance companies to do what they're doing. To drop people when they get sick. To deny people for pre-existing conditions. To raise their prices at a ridiculous rate. To suffocate small business owners. To tell a mother who is losing her son to liver failure that a transplant won't be covered because it's deemed "experimental." Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and these companies have absolute power.

So, I don't write to you for my own sake. I write to you for us all. I write to you for the tired, the poor,the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and I ask you to lift your lamp beside the golden door, and do what makes this country great.

Speak for me. Speak for me when I cannot. Speak for us all."

Doctors Office Gray

2009-12-31T14:24:00.001-08:00

I wrote this about 2.5 years ago. I think it speaks for itself. (It's very Chuck Palahniuk-esque)

Close your eyes. Imagine you're sitting in a room. A plain room, as big as - let's say a poor person's bathroom. In this room, you're sitting in a chair. A wooden one, the kind that creaks with sudden movement, that maybe your grandfather would have received as a wedding present. It's gray - the room. And not a stylish gray, either...more of that horrible drab that you see right next to a bright color in the doctor's office. There's no sound in the room, not even that annoying ring you get in your ears when it's too quiet. It's just plain silent. What do they always say? You can hear a pin drop? In this room you could hear an ant piss. It sort of swirls sometimes. Like cliche movies where you're the camera and you spin around the character. Not too fast, but every once in a while fast enough to make you nauseated. It smells...like church did after a sermon when you were a kid - sitting inside waiting for your parents to stop making it a social event so you can go the fuck home. It smells...boring. Stale. Dead, even. And the room in all it's mindless, gutless glory, is so overwhelming that you can't think. It can't even cross your mind to think. You just...sit. Your ass has been numb for a while now. but - you can't think of that, of course. Your arms are hanging straight down at your sides, your eyes straight forward, blinking occasionally. Does this sound horrible yet? Because, it is. It's numb.

So! You're sitting and it's creaking, and smelling. And small. And silent. And gray...it's alone. You are alone. No windows, no smiles, just ant piss. Now you're at the park. You're at a baseball game. A movie theater. A wedding. A funeral. But this whole picture, this whole...pathetic scene that is painted in your mind -- it's ME. It's my insides. And every so often I jump out of the chair and I run - no, I sprint at the wall and with open palms I beat the walls until they're raw and bloody and I scream. At the top of my lungs I just...scream. And it's beautiful because when I sit back down, even though it has gotten me nowhere and I feel more lost than ever, there is the most gorgeous color of crimson that stains the wall. And I know, if just for that one second - that I DO bleed. And, that means I'm still alive. And some day when I've pounded hard enough over and over and over again i'll break that wall. And when I do I will cry at weddings and laugh at funerals, I'll squash ants and I'll yell at the characters who run upstairs when they're being chased, as if it's going to solve something. And maybe I'll do it all at once. Squash and yell and laugh and bleed and cry my way into an existence that is ANYTHING but doctor's office gray.

Religion is Bad for Society

2009-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

It is, more often than not, greatly offensive when you challenge someone’s religion. It’s generally regarded as taboo, and most people shy away from the subject. But religion is a discourse that as a society we must participate in. It is precisely this belief, in the unsupported claim of a God that is threatening our society as a whole. It suppresses logic and critical thinking by ignoring science. It has been and continues to be an extreme source of violence and hatred between humans. It uses threats, like hell, to ensure people act a certain way and adhere to archaic principles which cause little, if any, advancement in society.

If a scientist has a theory, and that theory is disproven, he doesn’t get angry and defend his theory at all costs. He doesn’t make excuses and accept his theory on faith, because that’s the only way to make sense of it all. What he does, is accepts that what he originally thought was true is indeed false, because he is looking for truth. If truth is something that religion claims to perpetuate, isn’t it interesting that science, logic, and facts have no basis in its claims.

In a 2005 United Nations Report, a ‘Secularization Theory’ emerged that caught the church scrambling for an answer. It found that the happiest, most developed countries in the world were the least religious. It also found that as religion declines, society advances. Places like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland were on the top of the United Nations list as the best countries in which to live. They were also the least religious. Some even called them, “The most successful societies the world has ever known.” (The Guardian, 2005 Oct 25) These countries were forerunners in things such as gender equality, and also boast one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world. Sweden, for example, is one of the most economically competitive countries. Its government has long since recognized same-sex marriage, and has the best ‘high-literacy’ rate in the world. Denmark ranked highest in the moral issues that were surveyed in the report, and is one of the best countries toward the environment. Both of these countries are among the most generous in providing aid to third world countries. (United Nations Human Development Report, 2005) While this is not an end-all definitive conclusion that religion does us no good, it is interesting, and should at least begin a dialogue.

Religion has been with us for centuries. If you lived during the Viking Age, you would have most likely believed in Thor, the god of thunder, a war god. If you’d lived in Greece during 700 BC it was Zeus, a sky god. If you lived now in Iraq you would most likely believe in Allah.
Consequently, living in the United States, you most likely believe in Jesus. I would submit to you this: All these gods claim to have a monopoly on salvation with absolutely no proof that they ever even existed. Each society that claims these religious pretenses have committed murderous atrocities, and have done little to advance society, science, or knowledge in general. In fact, religion subdues knowledge even in its most basic form.

According to a recent Gallup poll (Gallup, 2004), only 12% of Americans believe life on earth developed through a natural process without the hand of a god, and 31% believe evolution was guided by God. This is a scary statistic when there are few examples in nature of intelligent design, yet so many examples of unintelligent design. This same poll revealed that 53% of American’s are Creationists. This means they take the book of Genesis, which supposedly tells us how the world began, at a literal translation. Even after a thousand years of scientific study which have proven how old the first forms of life were, and how much older the earth is, most of your neighbors actually believe the entire universe was created only six thousand years ago. This is one example of when religion starts to get very dangerous.

To literally believe your holy book is correct, no matter what religion you subscribe to, is to completely ignore scientific fact. And, while you may think this just makes a person blissfully naive and is no real cause for alarm, I would suggest you think back to our last President, George W. Bush, who said that as far as evolution is concerned, “the jury is still out.” Scientifically, this is intellectual bankruptcy. We hold countless indisputable fossil records which prove the theory of evolution. Our President, the Commander-In-Chief, was a Creationist. This means he takes the Bible literally. Most people who take the Bible literally believe that in the next 50 years, the world will end. Sam Harris put it best when he wrote, “Imagine the consequences that any significant component of the US government actually believed that the world was about to end, and that it’s ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half the American population apparently believes this purely on the basis of religious dogma should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. 45% of us think that Jesus is going to come back in the next 50 years. This is a shocking belief that’s incompatible with finding any motive in creating a durable future for our species or a sustainable civilization – geo-politically, economically, or environmentally. If you think the world is going to end in 50 years, and its ending is going to be the best thing that could possibly happen, that is a bad piece of software to be running if you have to make decisions about things like nuclear first strike policy.” (Harris, Sam)

Let’s look at it from a medical standpoint. If everyone believed that ‘everything happens for a reason,’ and that God was in control, what motivation would we have to make advances in medicine? Why would we make things like vaccines, or spend money trying to find cures for diseases like AIDS, and cancer. According to the Catholic Church, even a simple medical measure, like birth control, is wrong. The Catholic Church’s official position is that condom use to prevent AIDS, even from one married partner to another is forbidden. On the church’s behalf missionaries go to Africa, and preach that the use of condoms is sinful. They do this in a country that experienced 605,480 deaths from AIDS in 2006. (South Africa: HIV & AIDS Statistics 2007)

Stem cell research is one of the most promising lines in Biology to generate medical therapies. President Bush vetoed a bill that would allow stem cell research because he found it morally reprehensible, and Biblically incompatible. This means that he believed a three day old blastocyst, in a petri dish, had a soul. And the life of that three day old collection of cells was more important than finding a cure for cancer which would no doubt save millions of lives. All this was because of his religion. Biblically speaking, if you go through the Bible and add up all the first born-children that God either killed, or commanded to be killed, he is the most prolific abortionist of all.

Of course, violence is no stranger to the Bible. The Old Testament is full of slaughter. A rough estimation of how many people God killed falls at about 34,682,212. (How Many Has God Killed, Jan 2009) If you believe the Bible is a historically accurate account of God’s teachings and actions, then it is the most genocidal account of history on record.

Richard Dawkins wrote, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” (Dawkins, Richard)

It should come as no surprise to us, then, that so much violence is carried out in the name of God around the world. Historically we could point to the Inquisition and Crusades, but even today we are still killing each other in the name of God, or because others morals don’t coincide with the morals of their faith. Palestine: Jews versus Muslims, Northern Ireland: Protestants versus Catholics, Sudan: Muslims versus Christians, Nigeria: Muslims Versus Christians, Ethiopia: Muslims versus Christians, Sri Lanka: Buddhists versus Hindu’s, Iran and Iraq: Shiite versus Sunni Muslims; these are just a few recent cases. (Letter to a Christian Nation, 2008) And I don’t have to remind anyone why airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Religion has done some wonderful things for society, and I have no doubt that it makes some people better than what they thought they could be. I will point out, though, that there are many secular organizations that do just as much good for society, and so religion is not necessary to carry out good in the world.

In my opinion, the most destructive teaching of religion is the teaching that you are not enough, that there has to be some benevolent entity to make your life important, to make it worthwhile, to give you meaning. I would contend just the opposite. If there is some sort of benevolent dictator, then your life means nothing more than whatever he deems fit to make it mean.
It is amazing that you and I are here, on this earth today. Of all the ways it could have gone, and all the incredible possibilities this universe holds, we are still here, breathing, and thinking, and living. Richard Dawkins wrote, "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." (Dawkins, Richard, 1998)

So I submit to you this: Religion is as harmful and unnecessary as it is unproven. But it doesn’t mean your life doesn’t have meaning. In fact, the freedom from religion gives your life the greatest meaning. This is it – this is our time, this is our only time. And, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to live, to breathe, to experience joy, and love, and peace, and pain, and sadness, and kindness. What better reason than this to treat others with the highest amount of respect, with dignity. What better reason to value the sacredness of human life, to help others, to be generous, to be compassionate.

The Bible is both literally and historically contradictory, and is the only book in all of history that even makes mention of a man named Jesus. The teachings at its core are violent, and intolerant, as are other religious texts. It suppresses science and reason. The goodness that’s in the Bible, you can already find in yourself. Trust yourself; believe in yourself. You’re all that you need.
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Toynbee, Polly. "The most successful society the world has ever known." Guardian 25 Oct 2005: n. pag. Web. 8 Dec 2009.http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/oct/25/society.
foreignpolicy>.

Kevin, Watkins. Human Development Report 2005. New York, New York: Hoechstetter Printing Co, 2005. Print.

"Gallup." Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design. 08 May 2008. Gallup, Web. 8 Dec 2009. .
Harris, Sam. Letter To A Christian Nation. New York, New York: Random House Inc, 2008. 1- 112. Print.

Noble, Rob. "South Africa: HIV & AIDS Statistics." Avert. 2007. Web. 8 Dec 2009. http://www.avert.org/ safricastats.htm>

Wells, Steve. "How Many Has God Killed?." DWINDLING IN UNBELIEF. 04 Jan 2009. Blogspot, Web. 8 Dec 2009.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. 1st Edition. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 51. Print.

Dawkins, Richard. Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998. Print.

The Public Option is A Far Cry From Socialized Medicine

2009-11-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

These days it seems more and more difficult to separate fact from fiction. In an effort to scare Americans out of supporting the public option, Republicans have turned to rumors and falsities to perpetuate their agenda. They have compared the public option to socialized medicine, and have called it a “government takeover of health care.”

Sadly, instead of doing their own research, some Americans would rather be spoon-fed information, and when they are spoon-fed incorrect information, falsehoods are born and thrive. Be assured; the public option is far different than socialized medicine. It will achieve three main and very important goals, and is in turn necessary and extremely important.

The public option will keep insurance companies honest and accountable, and promote competition. The cost of insurance has increased far more quickly than income. In fact, while average income from 2001 to 2005 rose only 3 percent, health insurance premiums increased 30 percent (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). Since there is no honest competition for these companies, they are able to charge whatever they want and do as they please, like drop coverage when customer gets sick, or deny an applicant because of a pre-existing condition. The public option simply gives the American more freedom. It lets the consumer take control of their options and chose which is best for their lifestyle.

The public option would be government run, but would not use federal dollars. The program would be self-sustaining, meaning it would run only off the money received from premiums. No citizen will be forced to choose this option, and will be allowed to keep their original insurance if desired.

Socialized medicine is something very different. While it, too, is government run, countries that use it provide no other health care options. There are no private insurance companies. Health care is mandated by the government, and health care workers are paid by the government. Socialized medicine is also funded by tax-payer dollars, unlike the public option laid out by the White House.

The public option in the House bill is also a very conservative form. States that don’t want it can opt-out, and you’re only eligible to chose the public option if you are currently uninsured. This is nothing like the socialized medicine in Britain, and bears very little resemblance to the National Health Care system of Canada.

So, relax. Turn off Fox News, and take a breath. Health care is not being taken over by the government; no one will be forced to use the public option. Tax dollars will not pay for government run insurance. Big Brother is not watching while you sleep.

Oh, you thought Christianity was original? Don't you feel silly.

2009-11-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

The following are a list of religions and religious texts which predate Christianity and the Bible.

Eqyptian religion, 3000 B.C.

Horus

Born on December 25th

Born of a virgin named Mary

Birth Accompanied by a star in the east

Adorned by 3 kings who followed star

Teacher at 12

Baptized/Started ministry at 30

Had 12 disciples

Performed miracles such as:

Healing the sick

Walking on water

Called: "The Truth" "The Light" "Lamb of God"

Crucified

Buried for 3 days

Resurrected

-----------------------

Greece, 1200 B.C.

Attis

Born of a Virgin

Born on December 25th

Crucified

Dead for 3 days

Resurrected

---------------------

India, 900 B.C.

Krishna

Born of a virgin

Star in the east

Performed miracles with disciples

Resurrected

--------------------

Greece, 500 B.C.

Dionysus

Born of a virgin

Born on December 25th

Performed miracles (turned water into wine)

Called "King of Kings" and "alpha and omega"

Resurrected

-------------------

Persia, 1200 B.C.

Mithra

Born of a virgin

Born on December 25th

12 disciples

Performed miracles

Dead for 3 days

Resurrected

Sunday worship

------------------------

Other gods who share these attributes...

-Chrishna of Hindostan
-Budha Sakia of India
-Salivahana of Bermuda
-Zulis or Zhule, also Osiris and Orus of Egypt
-Odin of the Scandinavians
-Crite of Chaldea
-Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia
-Baal and Taut of Phoenecia
-Indra of Tibet
-Bali of Afghanistan
-Jao of Nepal
-Wittoba of the Bilingonese
-Thammuz of Syria
-Atys of Phrygia
-Xamolxis of Thrace
-Zoar of the Bonzes
-Adad of Assyria
-Deva Tat and Sammonocadam of Siam
-Alcides of Thebes
-Mikado of the Sintoos
-Beddru of Japan
-Hesus or Eros, and Bremrillah of the Druids
-Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls
-Cadmus of Greece
-Hil and Feta of the Mandaites
-Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico
-Universal Monarch of the Sibyls
-Ischy of the island of Formosa
-Divine Teacher of Plato
-Holy One of Xaca
-Fohi and Tien of China
-Adonis, son of the virgin Io of Greece
-Ixion and Quirinus of Rome
-Prometheus of Caucasus

Health Care Rant

2009-09-22T20:30:00.001-07:00

Frank Shaeffer speaks about the religious right.

2009-09-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

This guy hits it right on the nose. Good for him.

Forward

2009-09-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

I received this e-mail in my inbox this morning, and I could hardly believe how logically flawed and ridiculous it was. I was going to rant about it, but there's really no need. Just read it, that's all you'll need to understand how utterly stupid this is."

This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen...

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed.

As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation.

They talked about so many things and various subjects.

When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: 'I don't believe that God exists.'

'Why do you say that?' asked the customer. 'Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist.

Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children?

If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain!

I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.'

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument.

The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.

Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard.

He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber:

'You know what? Barbers do not exist.'

'How can you say that?' asked the surprised barber.

'I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!'

'No!' the customer exclaimed. 'Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside.'

'Ah, but barbers DO exist! That's what happens when people do not come to me.'

'Exactly!' affirmed the customer. 'That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! That's what happens when people do not go to Him and don't look to Him for help.

That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world.'

How I Saved Myself From Being Saved

2009-09-10T23:21:00.000-07:00

I like to tell people that I was birthed in the church, and it’s pretty much the truth. My mother’s water broke when she stood for the final benediction. I’m sure if the Bible held a clause about the importance of birthing a child within the walls of a church, she would have made sure it happened. I say this to impress upon you the fact that I was indoctrinated with Christianity since I was a small child. I was raised in Church and in private Christian schools. The path I took from what I was taught growing up to where I am now has been the biggest struggle of my life.

When I tell people I don’t believe in God, they tend to believe it’s just a phase. That it’s a period of doubt that “everyone” goes through. To me, this was initially offensive. They were saying that I didn’t have the logic and integrity to reason through something and be true to myself. They thought it was just something that I wanted to do because I didn’t want to be a good person. “I wanted to be liberal.” I didn’t want to listen to the rules that the Bible demands we live by. This, in fact, was the exact opposite of the situation. I wanted there to be a God. I wanted it all to be true…badly. And, I didn’t have too many issues with the principles of Christianity. In fact, I think Christianity helps some people be a better person. But, the reality is it’s not necessary to embrace any religion to be a good person. This, though, is not the point I am trying to make.

As I searched through the Bible, through what the religion claimed to be the infallible word of God, I started to become confused, and later on, appalled. I’m embarrassed to admit, but this whole journey started with the book, “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. It is, of course, a work of fiction, but the boldness with which it questioned and contradicted the Bible was something that I’d ever been exposed to prior to reading this novel. I began to think about the pieces of the Bible that never really sat well with me, and the more reading I did (as an adult), the more I became shocked and disgusted.

The stories I was taught to admire began to swarm in my head. Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son, God drowning almost everyone on the planet with a flood, God raining down sulfur on cities, God killing firstborn children. These were just a few of the terrifying, murderous stories housed within the book.

I was taught at church that Abraham was almost a saint. That he had so much faith in God, he was willing to kill his own child, because God had asked him to do so. I used to be in awe of that story. He had immeasurable faith. How awesome.

How awesome? I couldn't believe I had actually thought this! What type of God tests the loyalty of a follower by asking for the sacrifice of his own child? How sadistic! And, in my humble opinion, I don’t care who asks you to kill your child, the correct answer is no! Added to that is the fact that this is only one of the many child sacrifice stories found within this "holy" book, and most all of these executions were carried out! God didn't put the brakes on the rest of them like he did with Abraham.

The flood is a whole other story. Now, I’m not sure exactly how many people were on the earth at this time, but apparently that was immaterial to God, who effectively murdered all of them, sparing only a drunk and his immediate family. This is another story that was twisted all sideways in Sunday school. We colored fun pictures of an ark, and giggled about all the animals that Noah would house on his biblical Titanic. We marveled at the rainbow, a symbol of the promise God had made to Noah, which was to remind us that he would never again cause a worldwide flood.

Reading as an adult, I realized that God annihilated his entire creation! What happened to the loving, compassionate, kind, forgiving God that I had been taught existed? The people on earth were honestly so evil that God decided he made a mistake creating them, and the only way to fix the situation was to murder them all and start over? And wait, God could make mistakes? And on top of all that, there really was no alternative except mass murder? He was the Lord! Surely he could have conjured up slightly more compassionate idea than genocide!

How about these rainbows I was taught to admire? After reading this story through un-biased eyes, rainbows had become a reminder to me that the God I had believed existed had purportedly killed 99.9% of his creation! I’m not even going to go into the fact that that would mean we are all inbred, since the only people that were left to procreate after this were Noah and his immediate family! Although, I supposed they were inbred too, I mean who did Adam and Eve’s children have to marry but each other??

Sodom and Gomorrah taught us to be moral through what was an obvious fear tactic. I didn't even want to think about the story of the apparently very large cities. The thought of all those humans being being burned alive was enough to make me ill. I couldn't fathom that kind of terror, pain, fear and destruction that God had used to innihilate those cities.

When I got to the story of the firstborn children being killed, I wanted to vomit. How many excuses could I make for God before I just couldn’t take it anymore? The Bible had become the most offensive book that I’d ever read, and I was more than ashamed that there was a point in my life that I had loved it. But, sadly, I had.

There is something wonderful about Christianity in the sense that it gives you a purpose. The church is a tight knit community. For the most part, it was a good experience for me. There is a feeling of love and security around other believers. You feel like you belong, like you have a reason for being on this earth. No matter what you do, there is someone that always loves you unconditionally, that will never leave you. Someone who will forgive you time and time again, every time you mess up. When you falter and fail, he will always help you back to your feet. Unconditional love is a powerful idea, one that is extremely hard to let go.

When I finally realized I didn’t believe in God, that I couldn't believe in God, it was a heartbreaking experience. The sense of love and comfort that I had harbored was gone. But I simply couldn’t continue to believe in God, because I realized that the God of the Bible and the God I had been taught about in Church were polar opposites. As Julia Sweeney says in her monologue Letting Go of God, "It’s only because I took God so seriously that I couldn’t believe in him anymore."

I walked outside one night, and I looked up at the sky. I stared for a minute, and finally said, “You’re not the person I thought you were, and I don’t think I am either. I just can’t do this anymore. I just don’t believe you’re real.” I’ll never forget that defining moment in my life. To my complete surprise, I felt a huge burden being lifted from my shoulders. All the guilt and fear that I had been unwittingly harboring had been lifted. I felt free. I felt empowered. I felt...happy.

As time went on, I started to look at the world in a different light. I realized how lucky I was to be here. How lucky we all are to be here. And as this happened, I started to gain a new perspective on life. If we are all we have, I realized it was infinitely important that we take care of each other. I understood that there was no God keeping track of everything I did wrong, there was no threat of hell. I felt unburdened, but more than that, I realized the true importance of being a good person.

There is an innate danger in religion, which I hadn’t realized until this revelation. It teaches us that we aren’t enough. It teaches that there has to be a higher power for there to be a good enough reason to exist. It teaches us that we cannot trust in ourselves, that we are sinful and terrible people and it is only through the grace of God that we can try to better ourselves and be the people we should be. This simply is not true. In fact, only since my new found atheism have I realized the strength that I truly possess. It was only then that I could truly trust and love myself. I was capable of being all that I needed. I didn’t need some ethereal being to give me reason and purpose. It was one of those crystallizing moments, and I realized that I’d never been happier, and never been more motivated to contribute to society.

My family is deeply religious, and they struggle with my decision. My mother still cries because she believes if I were to die, I would go to hell. I’ve never wanted to make my mother upset, or anyone else in my family, for that matter. But, I couldn’t respect myself if I didn’t start standing up for what I believed in. They did it every day, and I should be afforded that same right.

I still sometimes cringe at the word “atheist,” although it is how I now identify myself. I sometimes find myself falling back into the ass-backward thinking of Christianity because it was habit for so long. But, I am slowly learning. I’m educating myself about science, which was never taught to me in the school system growing up. I'm finally employing logic and reason in my daily life without feeling ashamed, or like I’m committing some type of unforgivable sin.

I’ve continued my research on the Bible, and have found so many historical flaws, inconsistencies, contradictions, and just plain offensive language, that I’m really embarrassed to say that I ever believed it in the first place. I have nothing against Christians, but am thankful every day that I no longer call myself a sheep. Only sheep need a shepherd.

I will leave you with a quote from Bertrand Russell, who wrote, “Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”

I didn't make this, but I don't remember where I got it from. Enjoy anyway.

2009-09-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Senator Ted Kennedy's letter to President Obama

2009-09-09T21:21:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr. President,

I wanted to write a few final words to you to express my gratitude for your repeated personal kindnesses to me - and one last time, to salute your leadership in giving our country back its future and its truth.

On a personal level, you and Michelle reached out to Vicki, to our family and me in so many different ways. You helped to make these difficult months a happy time in my life.

You also made it a time of hope for me and for our country.

When I thought of all the years, all the battles, and all the memories of my long public life, I felt confident in these closing days that while I will not be there when it happens, you will be the President who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. And in the past year, the prospect of victory sustained me-and the work of achieving it summoned my energy and determination.

There will be struggles - there always have been - and they are already underway again. But as we moved forward in these months, I learned that you will not yield to calls to retreat - that you will stay with the cause until it is won. I saw your conviction that the time is now and witnessed your unwavering commitment and understanding that health care is a decisive issue for our future prosperity. But you have also reminded all of us that it concerns more than material things; that what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.

And so because of your vision and resolve, I came to believe that soon, very soon, affordable health coverage will be available to all, in an America where the state of a family's health will never again depend on the amount of a family's wealth. And while I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will - yes, we will - fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.

In closing, let me say again how proud I was to be part of your campaign- and proud as well to play a part in the early months of a new era of high purpose and achievement. I entered public life with a young President who inspired a generation and the world. It gives me great hope that as I leave, another young President inspires another generation and once more on America's behalf inspires the entire world.

So, I wrote this to thank you one last time as a friend- and to stand with you one last time for change and the America we can become.

At the Denver Convention where you were nominated, I said the dream lives on.

And I finished this letter with unshakable faith that the dream will be fulfilled for this generation, and preserved and enlarged for generations to come.

With deep respect and abiding affection,

[Ted]

Guts by Chuck Palahniuk

2009-09-02T18:47:00.000-07:00

Inhale.

Take in as much air as you can. This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer. So listen as fast as you can.

A friend of mine, when he was 13 years old he heard about "pegging." This is when a guy gets banged up the butt with a dildo. Stimulate the prostate gland hard enough, and the rumor is you can have explosive hands-free orgasms. At that age, this friend's a little sex maniac. He's always jonesing for a better way to get his rocks off. He goes out to buy a carrot and some petroleum jelly. To conduct a little private research. Then he pictures how it's going to look at the supermarket checkout counter, the lonely carrot and petroleum jelly rolling down the conveyer belt toward the grocery store cashier. All the shoppers waiting in line, watching. Everyone seeing the big evening he has planned.

So my friend, he buys milk and eggs and sugar and a carrot, all the ingredients for a carrot cake. And Vaseline.

Like he's going home to stick a carrot cake up his butt.

At home, he whittles the carrot into a blunt tool. He slathers it with grease and grinds his ass down on it. Then, nothing. No orgasm. Nothing happens except it hurts.

Then, this kid, his mom yells it's supper time. She says to come down, right now.

He works the carrot out and stashes the slippery, filthy thing in the dirty clothes under his bed.

After dinner, he goes to find the carrot, and it's gone. All his dirty clothes, while he ate dinner, his mom grabbed them all to do laundry. No way could she not find the carrot, carefully shaped with a paring knife from her kitchen, still shiny with lube and stinky.

This friend of mine, he waits months under a black cloud, waiting for his folks to confront him. And they nev¬er do. Ever. Even now that he's grown up, that invisible carrot hangs over every Christmas dinner, every birthday party. Every Easter egg hunt with his kids, his parents' grandkids, that ghost carrot is hovering over all of them. That something too awful to name.

People in France have a phrase: "staircase wit." In French: esprit de l'escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer, but it's too late. Say you're at a par¬ty and someone insults you. You have to say something. So under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party....

As you start down the stairway, then-magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put-down.

That’s the spirit of the stairway.

The trouble is, even the French don't have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.

Some deeds are too low to even get a name. Too low to even get talked about.

Looking back, kid-psych experts, school counselors now say that most of the last peak in teen suicide was kids trying to choke while they beat off. Their folks would find them, a towel twisted around their kid's neck, the towel tied to the rod in their bedroom closet, the kid dead. Dead sperm every¬where. Of course the folks cleaned up. They put some pants on their kid. They made it look ... better. Intentional at least. The regular kind of sad teen suicide.

Another friend of mine, a kid from school, his older brother in the Navy said how guys in the Middle East jack off different than we do here. This brother was stationed in some camel country where the public market sells what could be fancy letter openers. Each fancy tool is just a thin rod of pol¬ished brass or silver, maybe as long as your hand, with a big tip at one end, ei¬ther a big metal ball or the kind of fan¬cy carved handle you'd see on a sword. This Navy brother says how Arab guys get their dick hard and then insert this metal rod inside the whole length of their boner. They jack off with the rod inside, and it makes getting off so much better. More intense.

It's this big brother who travels around the world, sending back French phrases. Russian phrases. Helpful jack-off tips.

After this, the little brother, one day he doesn't show up at school. That night, he calls to ask if I'll pick up his homework for the next couple weeks. Because he's in the hospital.

He's got to share a room with old people getting their guts worked on. He says how they all have to share the same television. All he's got for privacy is a curtain. His folks don't come and visit. On the phone, he says how right now his folks could just kill his big brother in the Navy.

On the phone, the kid says how-the day before-he was just a little stoned. At home in his bedroom, he was flopped on the bed. He was lighting a candle and flipping through some old porno magazines, getting ready to beat off. This is after he's heard from his Navy brother. That helpful hint about how Arabs beat off. The kid looks around for something that might do the job. A ballpoint pen's too big. A pencil's too big and rough. But dripped down the side of the candle, there's a thin, smooth ridge of wax that just might work. With just the tip of one finger, this kid snaps the long ridge of wax off the candle. He rolls it smooth between the palms of his hands. Long and smooth and thin.

Stoned and horny, he slips it down inside, deeper and deeper into the piss slit of his boner. With a good hank of the wax still poking out the top, he gets to work.

Even now, he says those Arab guys are pretty damn smart. They've totally reinvented jacking off. Flat on his back in bed, things are getting so good, this kid can't keep track of the wax. He's one good squeeze from shooting his wad when the wax isn't sticking out anymore.

The thin wax rod, it's slipped inside. All the way inside. So deep inside he can't even feel the lump of it inside his piss tube.

From downstairs, his mom shouts it's supper time. She says to come down, right now. This wax kid and the carrot kid are different people, but we all live pretty much the same life.

It's after dinner when the kid's guts start to hurt. It's wax, so he figured it would just melt inside him and he'd pee it out. Now his back hurts. His kid¬neys. He can't stand straight.

This kid talking on the phone from his hospital bed, in the background you can hear bells ding, people scream¬ing. Game shows.

The X-rays show the truth, some¬thing long and thin, bent double inside his bladder. This long, thin V inside him, it's collecting all the minerals in his piss. It's getting bigger and rougher, coated with crystals of calci¬um, it's bumping around, ripping up the soft lining of his bladder, blocking his piss from getting out. His kidneys are backed up. What little that leaks out his dick is red with blood.

This kid and his folks, his whole fam¬ily, them looking at the black X-ray with the doctor and the nurses stand¬ing there, the big V of wax glowing white for everybody to see, he has to tell the truth. The way Arabs get off. What his big brother wrote him from the Navy.

On the phone, right now, he starts to cry.

They paid for the bladder operation with his college fund. One stupid mis¬take, and now he'll never be a lawyer.

Sticking stuff inside yourself. Stick¬ing yourself inside stuff. A candle in your dick or your head in a noose, we knew it was going to be big trouble.

What got me in trouble, I called it Pearl Diving. This meant whacking off underwater, sitting on the bottom at the deep end of my parents' swimming pool. With one deep breath, I'd kick my way to the bottom and slip off my swim trucks. I'd sit down there for two, three, four minutes.

Just from jacking oft' I had huge lung capacity. If I had the house to myself, I'd do this all afternoon. After I'd finally pump out my stuff, my sperm, it would hang there in big, fat, milky gobs.

After that was more diving, to catch it all. To collect it and wipe each hand¬ful in a towel. That's why it was called Pearl Diving. Even with chlorine, there was my sister to worry about. Or, Christ almighty, my mom.

That used to be my worst fear in the world: my teenage virgin sister, think¬ing she's just getting fat, then giving birth to a two-headed, retard baby. Both heads looking just like me. Me, the father and the uncle. In the end, it's never what you worry about that gets you.

The best part of Pearl Diving was the inlet port for the swimming pool filter and the circulation pump. The best part was getting naked and sit¬ting on it.

As the French would say, Who doesn't like getting their butt sucked? Still, one minute you're just a kid getting off, and the next minute you'll never be a lawyer.

One minute I'm settling on the pool bottom and the sky is wavy, light blue through eight feet of water above my head. The world is silent except for the heartbeat in my ears. My yellow¬striped swim trunks are looped around my neck for safe keeping, just in case a friend, a neighbor, anybody shows up to ask why I skipped foot¬ball practice. The steady suck of the pool inlet hole is lapping at me and I'm grinding my skinny white ass around on that feeling.

One minute I've got enough air and my dick's in my hand. My folks are gone at their work and my sister's got ballet. Nobody's supposed to be home for hours.

My hand brings me right to getting off, and I stop. I swim up to catch an¬other big breath. I dive down and settle on the bottom.

I do this again and again.

This must be why girls want to sit on your face. The suction is like taking a dump that never ends. My dick hard and getting my butt eaten out, I do not need air. My heartbeat in my ears, I stay under until bright stars of light start worming around in my eyes. My legs straight out, the back of each knee rubbed raw against the concrete bot¬tom. My toes are turning blue, my toes and fingers wrinkled from being so long in the water.

And then I let it happen. The big white gobs start spouting. The pearls. It's then I need some air. But when I go to kick off against the bottom, I can't. I can't get my feet under me. My ass is stuck.

Emergency paramedics will tell you that every year about 150 people get stuck this way, sucked by a circulation pump. Get your long hair caught, or your ass, and you're going to drown. Every year, tons of people do. Most of them in Florida.

People just don't talk about it. Not even French people talk about everything. Getting one knee up, getting one foot tucked under me, I get to half standing when I feel the tug against my butt. Get¬ting my other foot under me, I kick off against the bottom. I'm kicking free, not touching the concrete, but not getting to the air, either.

Still kicking water, thrashing with both arms, I'm maybe halfway to the surface but not going higher. The heartbeat in¬side my head getting loud and fast.

The bright sparks of light crossing and crisscrossing my eyes, I turn and look back ... but it doesn't make sense. This thick rope, some kind of snake, blue¬white and braided with veins, has come up out of the pool drain and it's holding on to my butt. Some of the veins are leaking blood, red blood that looks black underwater and drifts away from little rips in the pale skin of the snake. The blood trails away, disappearing in the water, and inside the snake's thin, blue¬white skin you can see lumps of some half-digested meal.

That's the only way this makes sense. Some horrible sea monster, a sea serpent, something that's never seen the light of day, it's been hiding in the dark bottom of the pool drain, waiting to eat me.

So ...I kick at it, at the slippery, rub¬bery knotted skin and veins of it, and more of it seems to pull out of the pool drain. It's maybe as long as my leg now, but still holding tight around my butt¬hole. With another kick, I'm an inch closer to getting another breath. Still feeling the snake tug at my ass, I'm an inch closer to my escape.

Knotted inside the snake, you can see corn and peanuts. You can see a long bright-orange ball. It's the kind of horse¬pill vitamin my dad makes me take, to help put on weight. To get a football scholarship. With extra iron and omega¬three fatty acids.

It's seeing that vitamin pill that saves my life.

It's not a snake. It's my large intestine, my colon pulled out of me. What doctors call prolapsed. It's my guts sucked into the drain.

Paramedics will tell you a swimming pool pump pulls 80 gallons of water every minute. That's about 400 pounds of pressure. The big problem is we're all connected together inside. Your ass is just the far end of your mouth. If I let go, the pump keeps working-unravel¬ing my insides-until it's got my tongue. Imagine taking a 400-pound shit and you can see how this might turn you inside out.

What I can tell you is your guts don't feel much pain. Not the way your skin feels pain. The stuff you're digesting, doctors call it fecal matter. Higher up is chyme, pockets of a thin, runny mess studded with corn and peanuts and round green peas.

That's all this soup of blood and corn, shit and sperm and peanuts floating around me. Even with my guts unravel¬ing out my ass, me holding on to what's left, even then my first want is to some¬how get my swimsuit back on.

God forbid my folks see my dick.

My one hand holding a fist around my ass, my other hand snags my yellow¬striped swim trunks and pulls them from around my neck. Still, getting into them is impossible.

You want to feel your intestines, go buy a pack of those lambskin condoms. Take one out and unroll it. Pack it with peanut butter. Smear it with petroleum jelly and hold it under water. Then try to tear it. Try to pull it in half. It's too tough and rubbery. It's so slimy you can't hold on.

A lambskin condom, that's just plain old intestine.

You can see what I'm up against.

You let go for a second and you're gutted.

You swim for the surface, for a breath, and you're gutted.

You don't swim and you drown.

It's a choice between being dead right now or a minute from right now.

What my folks will find after work is a big naked fetus, curled in on itself. Floating in the cloudy water of their backyard pool. Tethered to the bottom by a thick rope of veins and twisted guts. The opposite of a kid hanging himself to death while he jacks off. This is the baby they brought home from the hospital 13 years ago. Here's the kid they hoped would snag a football schol¬arship and get an MBA. Who'd care for them in their old age. Here's all their hopes and dreams. Floating here, naked and dead. All around him, big milky pearls of wasted sperm.

Either that or my folks will find me wrapped in a bloody towel, collapsed halfway from the pool to the kitchen tele¬phone, the ragged, torn scrap of my guts still hanging out the leg of my yellow¬striped swim trunks.

What even the French won't talk about.

That big brother in the Navy, he taught us one other good phrase. A Russian phrase. The way we say, "I need that like I need a hole in my head...," Russian people say, "I need that like I need teeth in my asshole......

Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.

Those stories about how animals caught in a trap will chew off their leg, well, any coyote would tell you a couple bites beats the hell out of being dead.

Hell ... even if you're Russian, someday you just might want those teeth.

Otherwise, what you have to do is¬you have to twist around. You hook one elbow behind your knee and pull that leg up into your face. You bite and snap at your own ass. You run out of air and you will chew through anything to get that next breath.

It's not something you want to tell a girl on the first date. Not if you expect a kiss good night. If I told you how it tasted, you would never, ever again eat calamari.

It's hard to say what my parents were more disgusted by: how I'd got in trou¬ble or how I'd saved myself. After the hospital, my mom said, "You didn't know what you were doing, honey. You were in shock." And she learned how to cook poached eggs.

All those people grossed out or feeling sorry for me....

I need that like I need teeth in my asshole.

Nowadays, people always tell me I look too skinny. People at dinner parties get all quiet and pissed off when I don't eat the pot roast they cooked. Pot roast kills me. Baked ham. Anything that hangs around inside my guts for longer than a couple of hours, it comes out still food. Home-cooked lima beans or chunk light tuna fish, I'll stand up and find it still sitting there in the toilet.

After you have a radical bowel resec¬tioning, you don't digest meat so great. Most people, you have five feet of large intestine. I'm lucky to have my six inch¬es. So I never got a football scholarship. Never got an MBA. Both my friends, the wax kid and the carrot kid, they grew up, got big, but I've never weighed a pound more than I did that day when I was 13.

Another big problem was my folks paid a lot of good money for that swim¬ming pool. In the end my dad just told the pool guy it was a dog. The family dog fell in and drowned. The dead body got pulled into the pump. Even when the pool guy cracked open the filter casing and fished out a rubbery tube, a watery hank of intestine with a big orange vita¬min pill still inside, even then my dad just said, "That dog was fucking nuts."

Even from my upstairs bedroom window, you could hear my dad say, "We couldn't trust that dog alone for a second...."

Then my sister missed her period.

Even after they changed the pool water, after they sold the house and we moved to another state, after my sister's abortion, even then my folks never men¬tioned it again.

Ever.

That is our invisible carrot.

You. Now you can take a good, deep breath.

I still have not.

Unintelligent Design - Richard Carrier

2009-09-01T19:22:00.001-07:00

Transcript from a Richard Carrier interview on Intelligent Design.

The human brain has to be really large to be able to perform this complex function called consciousness. It has to be so large, in fact, that it kills 1 out of 5 women who give birth without modern medicine to help them, so that's a really messy design. You wouldn't want to make something where babies kill their mothers 1 out of every 5 times, and there are many other problems as well. The brain is a HUGE hog. It sucks up all the oxygen and all the energy, so you're wasting a lot of your breathing and eating, and so forth, just to feed this brain, so it's very inefficient. It's also very vulnerable to injury, it's a very delicate organ. If it gets injured your whole cognitive function can be damaged. You can lose your sight, you can lose your reason, you could lose control of your emotions, it's a very vulnerable organ. It's not what a god would design. And, god wouldn't need to design it (stay with me here.)

If a god exists, then obviously a mind can exist without a body, because god is without a body. So, we could have minds without brains, we don't need brains. God could just give us a soul, like the Chrisitans actually think we have, and if we had a soul and it did all the actual consciousness, percieving, and thinking, we wouldn't need a brain. So, we wouldn't have to kill our mothers, we wouldn't have to have this organ that is sucking up all our energy, and making our bodies inefficiant, we wouldn't have this delicate organ that could easily be injured and ruin our cognative facalties, and so forth. There would be no need for that brain. But, if god does not exist - in fact, if it's impossible for a mind to exist without a fleshy organ to create it, then it necessarily follows that the only way to have a conscious being is to have this large, messy, vulnerable brain. So, isn't it surprising that on assumption that there is no such thing as a disembodied mind, it necessarily predicts that the only way there could be a mind is to have this complex brain. Lo and behold, we have this huge complex brain.

And yet, on the Christian theory we expect the exact opposite, we expect to have a soul, not brains. Well why do we need brains? We need brains if atheism is true. So, the existance of huge brains is positive proof that atheism if true, because the christian god would build something differently. Now, a Christian will respond to try to make up excuses for why god made the brain, but these excuses are just pulled out of thin air, and they don't really rescue the theory. It's still a fact that the only way atheism can be true, is if we have these large brains. We have these large brains - that's evidence for atheism. It might not be proof, it might not settle the issue, but it's evidence for it.

And, if god had some weird reason to do this, then it means that god had some weird reason to make the universe look exactly like it would have to look if god did not exist. And, that seems highly improbable.

Things That Annoy Me

2009-09-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked what things annoy me, and this is what I've come up with (it's imperative that while you're reading this, you're giving me Dr. Cox's voice.):

The idea that everyone has a soul-mate. People who drive in front of me with their blinkers on who aren't actually turning. People who chew loudly. People who smack gum. Fat people. Lazy people. Glenn Beck. People who waste my time. Drama. Fundamentalist Christians who know nothing about what they believe other than the fact that they believe it. Spongebob Squarepants. People who like the TV show Friends. People who think they can see Russia from their house. Everyone in my high school graduating class. Dutch people. Mexicans with staring problems. Hail. Pads. Art class. Paul Walker. Traffic jams. People who buy brand new jeans with holes in them. Paris Hilton. Audible internet ads. Computer viruses. Republicans. Fox News. Socks. Shoes. My mother. Her mother. Your mother. Going underwater without holding my nose. Going underwater while holding my nose. Cigarellos. Oversized tweety bird t-shirts. Dial-up. People who scratch lottery tickets while there are other people in line behind them...waiting. The movie What About Bob. And......Hugh Jackman.