Get Behind Jesus

And old link I rediscovered just now: http://getbehindjesus.net/

Not Tolernace, but Reality

I was originally going to preach about tolerance today, but instead I'm going to bump that topic for a day and talk about the reality of religion... xtianity to be specific.
Now, for those of you who follow my writing, you know I speak very frankly about things, and sometimes even a little more so than is necessary. But I also just tell things like they are and this is one of those times. So today you're not only going to get some good insight into the reality of xtians, but also into guys themselves.

In my youth, that is to say, before I got married... no wait... let me move forward to what started this to begin with.

This weekend, I was discussing with Faithinate the aspects of fidelity. And we decided that there are many levels of infidelity. And of the many levels, fucking her hot friend is definitely what we would consider infidelity in the 1st degree, right... a capitol offense so to speak. OK, so that's the basic premise.

So that got me thinking, strictly hypothetically of course... what would it take to fuck her hot friend? What obsticles would I have to overcome? Because like it or not, this is what guys think about. OK, so I'd first have to get past her loyalty to my wife. They've been friends for a long time and she wouldn't fuck over her friend like that. 2nd, her husband and kids. That's a really big one because she's really into her own husband and it would be hard to convince her she needed to risk everything to fuck me once or twice. Girls aren't as easily convinced of that kinda shit as guys are. But you know what never entered into the equation? That's right... the fact that she's a xtian.

The truth of the matter is that getting through religion most of the time is easier than getting through virginity. I can't tell you the number of girls I've picked up at church and in fact, the church where my wife and I met (many years ago) housed a girl who was very into the whole jesus scene. She was as holy as they come. She was always at the functions, recited the bible like nobody's business, never cursed, all that standard stuff. And I'm here to tell you she snuck me in her bedroom late at night a number of times. What can I say... religion's just not a factor.

Now that really says something about it doesn't it? The fact that religion isn't considered practical enough by its practitioners to limit their everyday actions only tells of the lack of any real belief in god or his principles. If god is such a powerful force then why doesn't he instill more fear and loyalty in these people? Hell, back then I was a xtian too and I thought nothing of sleeping with whomever I saw fit. The two were separate. You had religion for the really bad stuff like don't kill and don't worship anyone else. And you had the real world for getting laid and studying for your exams.

It's like wedding rings... and this is where the ugly side of guys really comes out. We would always hit on married or engaged chicks. We did it all the time. And do you know why? Because a lot of times that ring means about as much as god does when it comes to getting laid. We had a saying... rings only stop amateurs. So only guys who didn't know how to pick up chicks stopped when they saw a ring. So you really wanna know how successful you can be going up against a wedding ring? If I had to guess, I'd say about 40%. It was in the neighborhood of 4 out of 10 married chicks we hit on ended up coming home with us. And I don't know about you, but in any kind of sales, those are good odds and well worth your time. And I'd have to say that your odds are even a big higher in church.

Ok, I've shown you how depraved men can be. It's pathetic I suppose, but it's true. Getting laid is a numbers game. The more women you hit on the more chances you have. But the 2 things that are never a limiting factor are marriage and religion. They just don't factor in enough to concern yourself with. And when they do factor in, it's really hard to say if that's what's really factoring in, or if they just don't like something about you and they get with the next guy whom they really do like.

Dan Savage on God

I'm a big Dan Savage fan, and I loved what he had to say on a few famliar topics (here's the full article):

Homos are marrying in California as of this week (congrats to all), and should a tornado—or an earthquake or a meteor or the Incredible Hulk—flatten, say, San Francisco's City Hall during a big gay wedding, respected leaders of the religious right will rush to cable broadcast studios to insist that the tornado/earthquake/meteor/Hulk was God's divine judgment, His righteous wrath, the Baby Jesus's latest temper tantrum, wocka wocka wocka.

"I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing," said the Rev. John Hagee, John McCain's ex-BFF, when asked about Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans just before a "massive homosexual rally," a/k/a an annual street party called Southern Decadence, was supposed to take place in the French Quarter. "I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment. And I believe that Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."

And God got His way: By drowning all those little old ladies in their attics in the Ninth Ward, God prevented that massive gay rally—for one year.

So how does a douchebag like Hagee explain away the tragedy in Iowa last week? A tornado struck a Boy Scout camp, killing four and injuring scores more, and the Scouts are famously anti-gay and anti-atheist. Well, we need only consult the same interview with Rev. Hagee to learn the answer: While all natural phenomena represent God's "permissible will," says Hagee, "it is wrong to say that every natural disaster is the result of sin . . . . No man on Earth knows the mind of God."

See how that works? Not every natural disaster is the result of sin, you see, because sometimes natural disasters happen to us, not just to them—and when they happen to us, well, the Lord sure moves in mysterious ways, and no man on Earth knows the mind of God. But let a natural disaster strike San Francisco this week, next week, or ever again, and Rev. Hagee will be able to read the mind of God like it was a large-print edition of Highlights for Children.

AOTD: The Latest Religion Poll

First a side note: I first read this in my local printed paper, and then came home and searched on the paper's site so I could quote more easily. They're not exactly the same story (the printed article is the Boston Globe version, and the online is the AP article). What interests me is the spin, indicated here just by headline, each version of the story puts on it:

• Americans see truth in a range of faiths, massive study finds (Boston Globe website)
  
• Religious Americans: My faith isn't the only way (AP article online and local paper website)
  
• Majority of Americans are believers, poll says (printed local paper)
  

Um, different emphasis much? Not that there's necessarily anything WRONG with that, it's just....interesting. "Yay tolerance!" "Yay tolerance!" "There are lots of us!"

The survey was conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Pew pew pew.

The findings...can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don't know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

The numbers:

• 92 percent of Americans believe in God
  
• 74 percent believe in life after death
  
• one in four Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and Orthodox Christians expressed some doubts about God's existence, as did six in ten Jews
  
  
  
• 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life
  
• 63 percent say their respective scriptures are the word of God
  
• 68 percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their own religion
  
  
  
• 21 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God or a universal spirit, with 8 percent "absolutely certain" of it
  

Hm.

God's Cumrag.

We were watching Dawkins last night and he was interviewing a slew of religious leaders about what they believe and how they can believe it, etc. Personally, I think he comes on a bit too strong if he wants to keep them talking, but I do the same thing so I think it's all reasonable.

So he's talking to these guys, asking them specific questions, and they go off on one tangent or another. One baptist guy (a real prick this one, he was caught fucking male hookers) just started accusing him of being arrogant and how he doesn't know everything in the world and he needs to realize that he isn't perfect. WHAT? I simply asked you how you can not believe in evolution when all the evidence points to it.

Another one... muslim, started talking about how everyone has raped their lands and their women and how athiests don't have any morals and they approve of people fucking in the streets, etc.

Seriously, can none of these people answer the simplest of questions about the gross contradictions in their religion and science? The answer to that question is this:

What are you fucking stupid? Who do you think you are? You don't know everything. And I'm tired of you letting fags fuck in the streets, and letting women dress like whores and put on makeup. Who do you think you are? You arrogant prick.

But seriously... of course they don't have answers to these questions. What are they going to say when they tell you the world is only 10,000 yrs old and you show them fossils from millions of years ago? What possible explanation could they possibly have for that? What are they going to say when you say evolution is real because we can prove that animals have gone extinct? Just the fact that we know that there are species that aren't around anymore proves evolution because they've evolved out. They were a failed line of evolution. If god put them here, then they'd still be here because that's how he designed it. So if we've got mastadon skeletons and no mastadons, then what the fuck happened to them? And you can't say that they're around as regular elephants because that would mean that they've evolved into regular elephants and you lose anyway. There's no way around evolution. It happened. It's not a theory. It's a fact.

What would you say if you came home and found semen all over your sheets and your wife asleep naked on the bed beside it? Would you think that maybe she just shagged somebody rotten, or that god put the semen there to test your faith in your wife? Don't be ridiculous, you'd go with the evidence and do what needs to be done (whatever that is).

So when you're presented with evidence contrary to what your bible tells you, don't be ridiculous, go with the overwhelming evidence and give it up already.

Don't be God's cumrag. Be your own cumrag.

Lewis Black: Me of Little Faith

I just read Lewis Black's book Me of Little Faith. I wasn't all that into it because I've been over a lot of the themes lately, but it wasn't bad.

Lewis claims he is not an atheist, but he doesn't really believe in his Judaism, either. His belief in an undefined higher power seems to be based on some drug-induced blissful trips and his inability to accept the possibility that your life force just winks out and ceases to be when you die.

I found it an interesting window into the minds of believers. He notes himself that many hard-believing Christians show the same blissful, happily and willfully ignorant high that drug users obtain. Interestingly he quit drugs because he had nothing more to gain from them, yet he seems unable to consider atheism a viable alternative to undefined feelings of a higher being.

Regarding my own awe at the universe and my inability to grasp and understand it all at times in the past had led me to the same fuzzy belief in some undefined greater force of nature. But recently I realized I don't define that as a god so much as just there are so many things I'll never understand them all. This life is awe inspiring, and I don't get why so many of the faithful seem to be so eager to get it over with and move on to the next thing.

I also am no longer bothered by the idea of winking out at death. I'm not sure that happens, of course, but I don't see evidence of anything else. It doesn't bother me because there have been billions of humans before me who have already died, and it's just the way things are. I should be able to handle it on average as well as they all did.

The Prayer that wasn't there

I've got this friend who told me last week he was having to go in to have a pacemaker put in. And rightfully so, I was concerned. I sent him an email at the beginning of the week telling him that I really hoped he was ok, and basically to not die on us.

He's a religious man, and I know this. So he sent me a reply saying that he could feel my prayers and he was grateful to have a friend like me basically doing such good work for the Lord.

I'm sorry, did I say I was going to pray for you? Something tells me that even for me it's not acceptable to tell him that the last thing I would do would be to pray for someone. I'll just let him think what he wants, but man... people sure do read things into stuff don't they? The well-wishing is good enough that I don't have to call upon the powers of the tooth fairy's ex-boyfriend for help.

Anyway dude, I'm glad you're alright, even though you don't read this blog.