15. August 2010 by Frank.

I drove by a sign a little while ago that said, “Living for Jesus is the only life worth living.”  In other words, a life apart from god is worthless.  Which is not only insulting, it’s quite inaccurate.  Unfortunately the people who create these signs and slogans will never acknowledge they know not whereof they speak.

Another nearby sign said, “Miles away from Humdrum!”  I happen to know for a fact that Humdrum is nowhere near here so it’s at least truthful to some extent.  This particular church strives mightily to be hip and upbeat, obviously for the younger generation who respond better to nontraditional services.  I have no intention of going there to find out if they actually manage to accomplish that  goal.  I’ve seen quite a few churches with that same goal over the years, they all admit that tradition just doesn’t draw them in like it used to.  Usually the strategies include up-tempo music instead of hymns, drums, guitars, any instruments other than piano and organ, more socially conscious sermons, more family oriented activities, more spontaneity and less tried and true tradition.  All too often these youth-oriented efforts wind up offending  the older base of the church because they get pushed to the side.

Most places go for the middle of the road combo service.

Or they go for the multiple service model in which they try to appease different groups at different times.

But it all amounts to the simple fact that there is no such thing as the unity of the faith that the bible talks about.  If you think there is any kind of united faith in christianity then you have never been to a Baptist business meeting.  Knowing this, however, leaves me wondering how the religious right has such sway over current politics.  Obviously, something more than just the religion itself unites their causes.

Which probably explains why the atheist movement doesn’t seem to be much of a movement.  What, exactly, do we have in common?  We don’t believe in god.  That’s it.  But even that has variations.

Some say all it takes is proof to get them to change their minds.

Some say there’s no way we can be 100% certain there is no god.  So all we can claim is there is no evidence so it isn’t probable.

Some don’t like the word atheist so they call themselves agnostics, not willing to go all the way.

Some may renounce the christian god but leave the door open for some other.

Some are “militant”, whatever that means.

Some roll over an play dead rather than getting labeled by coming out in the open.  Many are atheist in secret for fear of their immediate society or culture.  Many keep quiet because of family.

Personally, it’s a pet peeve of mine, being told there’s no way to be 100% sure and that no “real” atheist makes that claim is as obnoxious as some christian billboard telling me my life is worthless.  I spent 18 years of my life absolutely certain god was real and was actively involved in my life.  I studied his word, prayed,and served far more than any ordinary pew warmer.  I was a total fanatic. Completely devoted.

But all that fell apart as if it were held together by wishful thinking.

In reality, that’s all it actually amounted to.  When you finally realize that you have an extremely convoluted rationalizing system in place to explain all the failures of your faith then you must finally be willing to admit that your faith and your god aren’t real.  Christians have so many excuses for their god failing to live up to his promises, it’s hard to see why anyone remains attached to him.

I know a deeply devoted christian who is in a bad financial situation similar to what I’ve been going through for years.  He is trying desperately to cling to his faith that god will provide.  By his own admission god isn’t providing and his job isn’t enabling him to live up to his obligations.  I tried to operate this way for many years deeply assured that god would indeed provide.  I borrowed and made deals with the world because god never came through but I continued making excuses for him.  I never once got any money in any manner that could remotely be described as miraculous or praiseworthy.  But, like the good little sheep I was, I continually offered up praises of gratitude.

After awhile you know deep down that you’re just kidding yourself.

But you keep on anyway.  Because the concept of living without faith has been presented as such an abhorrent method of living by every pastor you’ve ever submitted yourself to, that the very idea is repulsive.  Atheists are such depraved, miserable, pathetic excuses of humanity that there’s no way you’d ever want to become like them.

I’ve heard a religious fellow use the word atheist several times recently.  He puts so much absolute disgust into pronouncing the word you get the feeling he thinks they are the worst form of life on the planet.  But if you challenge him on it he admits he has never even met one.  He’s been trained to believe the worst.

Without a shred of evidence or a real encounter.

So the church signs continue to imply that life without Jesus isn’t worth living.  Somehow, without their god, you are less than human or, at least, less than they are.  The thing that is really truly bizarre about all of this is, except for those pious individuals born and raised in the church, all christians were at one time or another unbelievers.  Maybe they believed in a god but they didn’t believe in “the” god.  If they didn’t believe in any god, they were atheists rather they admitted it or not.  I get the feeling atheist has such a negative connotation in our society that even raging atheists don’t want to be called atheist.

It seems as if we need to show them otherwise.

But I often doubt that will ever happen either.

Posted in interpretation, humor, sarcasm, wild guesses, listen, education, hearing, signs, religion | Print | 2 Comments »

2. August 2010 by Frank.

The sign says, “A smile is a curved line that is the quickest way to straighten someone out.”  I think they think that’s clever and witty or perhaps maybe even pithy.  Personally, I think it’s rather lame.

But then I’m grouchy and having a lazy day.

I was fine until I had to go to work for an hour for the weekly sales meeting.  Since I am on a 5 day vacation before the start of Back To School, it was more than a bit of a nuisance to have to go in.  Apparently, no one felt like working yesterday so nothing got done.  Whoever did work thought it was all right to throw trash in the cardboard baler.  None of us at the meeting were scheduled to work today but the boss figured the only way anything was going to get done was to make us do it before the store opened.  So I got to clean out the baler and take out the trash.  I was not dressed for such activity and was more than annoyed.  My vocabulary descended to it’s lowest depths with great volume.

I really hate that damn store.

Yesterday I watched The Princess Bride to start my day off on the right foot.  Then I went to see Salt, the new Angelina Jolie movie.  It is a non-stop action movie, much more serious than expected, and quite exciting.  I would almost call it an old fashioned cold war spy movie.  I enjoyed it.  Afterwards I solved someone’s computer problems.  As soon as I got home it was time for my weekly three mile hike with my friend followed by a visit from my daughter and son-in-law.  My wife was gone for the rest of the evening so I had to place to myself and got rather mellowed out.  It was a good day.

It wasn’t a good night.  At 4 AM my little cat buddy leaped on my stomach twice.  Right after the second leap she started making noises like she was about to hack up a hairball in my face.  This got her thrown off the bed in a hurry.  I managed to go back to sleep for a couple more hours.  Woke up in a fairly good mood.

But then my hour at work ruined my attitude for the day.

My wife came home from church and announced that she had a meeting with the deacons because she joined the church.  That’s fine for her but it will be thrown in my face somewhere down the road because I should join, too.  It’s just not right that I don’t go.  But I told her before that I would never join that church even if I still went to church.  I read their constitution and there’s several passages in it that I would have been unable to agree with even back when I was super-christian.  Basically, there were several anti-Pentecostal statements which not only contradicted what I used to believe but were also direct contradictions to scripture.  Agreeing to those statements would make me a hypocrite.  Shit like that was important to me but it never phased my wife.

We were never on the same page when it came to religion.

After I left work I drove by a poorly attended church that had a new name on its sign.  Now it is called (something or other) Grace Temple.  For some reason, the word Temple jumped out at me.  I have been noticing quite frequently lately that many religious words seem to be much more superstitious sounding than I ever realized before.  Temple (at least this morning) seemed to have a rather pagan connotation to me.  Images from pseudo Greek mythology popped into my head (maybe because I had just seen a poster for Clash of the Titans a few minutes earlier), but I just had a sense of primitive people afraid of a thunderstorm bringing their offerings to appease their cruel gods.

I went downtown intending to take a walk but there were several hundred people down there because of the chalk art on pavement event.  No place to park so I headed home passing several more churches.  A couple only had a few cars in their parking lots but most were full.  The two biggest churches probably had about a thousand people in attendance each.  That’s more people than you normally see in one place around here at any given time.  I kept wondering why none of these churches had services at 1, 2, 3, or 4 in the afternoon?  Does god take a nap after lunch?  Is god an early riser?  Every one of these places has a 9:30 & 11:00 service and maybe an evening service at 5 or later.  But never anything right after lunch.

I whipped up a ham & egg & cheese sandwich for brunch and then I took a nap.

I awoke grouchy as hell and feeling quite the curmudgeon.  Unfortunately, I haven’t got much fresh material to work with.  I could rip on the reports that the Jordan River is too polluted to allow baptisms.  That brings up the question of just how the water in that particular river is any different from the water anywhere else.  I am quite sure the water that Jesus got dunked in is not the same water that is there now.  So how is it “holy” today?  I read some nutcase that thinks contraception is morally wrong and that people should let god decide how many children they should have.  Doesn’t sound like a wise plan to me; where’s those statistics on unwanted pregnancies?   Another report was a bit more interesting at first in that it covered the rise of some of the spiritual guru nonsense of the 60’s and 70’s.  Because of the Beatles.  Unfortunately, the writer is still looking for more of the same enlightenment.  Sarah Palin used the words on the hand trick again. 

Nonsense up one side and down the other. 

In case I wasn’t clear at the start: the sign was at a church.  At least it didn’t say that a smile is just a frown turned upside down or that it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.  Those slogans make me throw up a little in my mouth whenever I hear them.  Smile, it will improve your face value.  Ugh!  I have to concentrate to be able to smile and then I have to be careful because I don’t want anybody to see my missing teeth (which would be quite the feat, I must admit.)  Although I will admit that all it takes to brighten my day is to be smiled at by an attractive woman.

But straighten me out?

Not very likely.

Posted in communication, humor, sarcasm, interpretation, wild guesses, emotion, hearing, signs, religion | Print | 3 Comments »

19. July 2010 by Frank.

As we enter our 4th week of 90 degree + very high humidity weather, a number of interesting events have taken place.

This weekend is/was the third big crowd event in town; the 4th of July fireworks, the art fair, and the Venetian Festival.  I have no interest in any of that but somehow or other I have managed to either be there or on the fringe of each of them.  I’ve seen all the crowds and walked amongst them unnoticed.  I’ve enjoyed some of the stuff while not actually doing any of the stuff.

Despite how uncomfortable it has been I have been outside walking more miles than I ever have in my life.  My feet are killing me but that hasn’t stopped me.  I’ve been sweating so much I should be only a pile of dust by now.  I really feel like I’m accomplishing something.  My weight has gone way down.  Except for my feet the rest of me feels pretty damn good.

My wife has friends visiting from Florida for the Venetian Festival.  Their original plans only included my wife and her girlfriend but the girlfriend got married last month and brought her new husband with her.  They only had three tickets to all the concerts and events so they have been off on their own and I have been left to fend for myself.  Which is OK by me, I have never heard of any of the entertainment they have down there and I will not eat outdoors in 90 degree heat.  That’s a real sure way to get deathly ill real fast.  I drove them down there and picked them up later and wound up walking around several miles two nights in a row.  I went and set up someone’s new high speed internet service in the meantime.

When we picked the friends up from the South Bend airport I couldn’t help noticing how much more empty it’s gotten since the last time I was there a couple of years ago.  Everything is now concentrated in one little area for boarding and exiting and they’ve moved all the security checkpoint stuff right up front.  The people manning this station looked absolutely bored out of their minds.  The airport is still functioning at threat level orange, a fact they keep repeating on the PA incessantly.  The staff all wear their little sanitary blue plastic gloves and the feigned disinterest which they scrutinize passengers seems rather artificial.  Air travel is pathetic.  Even if I had money, I would have no desire to fly anywhere.  If we give in the terrorists have won.  Guess what?  We gave in, the terrorists won.  I remember when this airport was a bustling, living enterprise; now, it’s just a shell.

Yesterday morning, my daughter and I went to see INCEPTION.  It was mind blowing as promised.  I’ll write up a review of it soon, maybe after I’ve seen it a second time.  I’m not entirely sure I saw what I thought I saw or that I interpreted what I thought I saw correctly.  You really have to pay attention, you can’t be texting or talking to your date.  The movie requires and demands all your attention.  And it insists your brain must be engaged and functional.  A trip to the concession counter would mean you should probably just go home because you’ll never catch back up if you miss just one scene.  If you want mindless, Summer, popcorn fare don’t even bother.  Highly recommended for serious, heavy duty, movie nuts.  I will say the special effects in this movie are absolutely awesome because they look real, so real that you’ll be wondering how in the world they did that.

Yesterday afternoon, however, was the real surprise of the weekend.

My friend, who goes on walks with me, got two tickets to some kind of event in South Bend and wanted me to go with him.  I didn’t know what it was supposed to be other than it involved a lot of walking so I went along.  He asked me to bring my camera.  It turns out it was a garden tour of an area they are trying to revitalize.  Strange but it was something to do.

Let me establish a few background details.  My friend is from Jamaica, he has a very strong accent, and he is very dark skinned.  He was wearing white shorts, white socks, white tennis shoes, white baseball cap, and a white muscle shirt.  And he is definitely into gardening.  I am pale white, silver haired, front toothless, wearing black tennis shoes, grey socks, black pants, a dark grey shirt (because all my light colored stuff was in the wash), and a white baseball cap.  No interest in gardens whatsoever.  So, essentially, a black man all in white and a white man almost all in black.  Felix and Oscar, if you will.

Bear with me, there’s a reason I mention this.

The garden tour took place in a rather rundown neighborhood that bordered on a somewhat ritzier neighborhood, a rather stark contrast.  There were many abandoned houses and old buildings, boarded up windows and many with shattered glass.  The sidewalks were frequently overgrown with weeds and littered with all sorts of trash.  Not the kind of place you would deliberately want to walk though.

The whole area screamed poverty.  My friend called it a ghetto.  In slang terms around here, it would be called “the ‘hood”.

Keeping in mind the appearance of my friend and I, we attracted a lot of attention as we walked around for three hours in the oppressive heat.  We’re both carrying our guide maps with the gardens marked on them and I’m taking pictures with my very noticeably expensive camera.  My friend thought the people were reacting to us like they thought we were undercover cops looking for drugs or something.  It was an odd journey.

But here’s where prior perceptions come in.

When you think of poverty or people living in slums or dying neighborhoods what do you expect those people to be like?  Do you think they’re all hostile or angry?  Do you expect violence or drunkenness?  Are you expecting drugs and prostitutes?  Would you be afraid of getting mugged or worse?

We did see some of that in evidence.

But what blew both our perceptions out of the water were the people who were part of the garden tour.  There were over two dozen gardens on the self guided tour, many of which were quite elaborate.  Most were manned by the gardeners themselves who were exceptionally friendly, very informative, quite happy, and upbeat.  Not a trace of fear or apprehension about having strangers coming up to their houses and walking around their yards.  We were even welcomed into secluded, fenced in back yards that were like islands of beauty in empty fields.  They were genuinely delighted to have folks showing interest in their work.  It was interesting just to watch the behavior.  Such a stark contrast to what you would expect in such an area.

We were both exhausted after walking several miles but we both had to admit that were totally wrong about our original perceptions of the neighborhood we were in.  We both decided we had blinders on and that we made assumptions based on fears and prejudices.  Our worldviews are skewed to the negative and assume the worst based on certain visual indicators.  But, because we’re so different to begin with, our fears and prejudices stem from different sources, the results, unfortunately, are the same; we fear what we don’t know and we project that onto people whether they deserve it or not.

It was quite the eye opener on many levels and food for thought for weeks to come.

One last thing:  there’s one of those internet sites that takes a sample of your blog and awards you some kind of rating.  Like NC-17 if you swear a lot or talk about sex.  This new one that only seems to have just shown up this week promises to tell you what “real” writer you’re the most like.  I noticed a couple of bloggers did it and were informed they were like Stephen King.  Yeah, right.  So I did it, too, submitting my last two posts here separately.  The first one also got me the Stephen King rating but the second one earned me the H.P. Lovecraft award.  Which obviously means the website just generates random nonsense like every other website that gives these ratings “awards”.  Since I’ve read both King and Lovecraft, I’m quite certain I write like neither of them nor is there any correlation in my style to theirs.

The only down note to all of this was that the memory card in my camera failed.  Although it appeared to be working at first there are no photos to go with the story.  In six years I have never had a memory card fail under any kind of weather conditions.  I have been out in higher temperatures and extreme humidity before for a longer period of time.  So far, I’ve found no way to salvage anything off the card and I have yet to disprove that it was the camera that failed.  I’m worried that it’s the camera, I can’t fix it or replace it.  My dreams live or die with that camera.

Wait a minute!  Part of the premise of the movie was that you never know how the dream begins, you always just start in the middle.  It tells you to ask, “How did I get here?” and “Whose dream is this anyway?”  Maybe I just dreamed the camera failed.  Maybe if I wake up soon enough it will still be working. 

That’s it!  I’m still laying on the floor having a stroke in the factory 12 years ago and nothing I think is currently happening is actually happening!

I mean, seriously, Sarah Palin almost became the vice president of the country, christians feel the need to carry guns to church, George Bush got elected president twice, Rush Limbaugh is the head of the Republican party, the FCC decides you can say dirty words on TV, the Supreme Court decides corporations can make all the political contributions they want, a liberal, black, Muslim, law professor from Kenya who has no birth certificate and who’s a communist, socialist, Nazi all at the same time is the current president, and I went from being super-christian to atheist blogger?  Oh, come on!  What kind of sick, warped mind dreamed that up?

See, I’m right!

It is all a dream.

Wow.  I’ll have to write this down when I wake up.  I hope I can remember all of it.

Posted in communication, interpretation, technology, humor, sarcasm, wild guesses, listen, emotion, religion, education, hearing, signs, stroke | Print | 4 Comments »

6. July 2010 by Frank.

Over the weekend I once again heard that Jesus has got to be coming back soon because the world is in such sad shape.

That actually almost spoiled my mood.  I walked 16 miles in 5 days this long holiday weekend.  I didn’t walk anywhere special but I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful everything was.  I enjoyed cool morning breezes, sweated to high humidity, startled a muskrat, examined a dragonfly, watched crows mating on top of a church (I wonder if god noticed?), saw a couple of million ants preparing for something big with an astounding amount of energy, looked at Lake Michigan, listened to a big band concert, said hello to dozens of people I don’t know, and even stopped to smell the roses.  Sad shape?  I don’t think so.

I also read up on all the latest political news.  If religion and politics were in bed together then I might could see reason why you were hoping for the soon return of Jesus.  Oops, religion and politics are in bed together.  My bad.  I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this or not, but the world isn’t nearly the dismal place the news media make it out to be.

Yes, I know there are a lot of major problems and disasters.

When was that not ever the case?  When in history were there not disasters?  When was there ever a time when there wasn’t political turmoil?  Moral bankruptcy?  How is that something new?  Ever hear of the Inquisition or the Dark Ages?  Something is always shocking or upsetting polite society.

I find it curious that the people who see the world as being in the worst shape are the religious.

It comes from the basic assumption that mankind is depraved, full of sin, corrupt.  There is no good apart from god.  I first became aware of this attitude back in the 80’s.  Like I mentioned before, I became obsessed with all the end times garbage that was so popular then.  It’s 30 years later and the exact same fears and desires for the soon return of Jesus are still motivating the same kind of people.  The person who made the comment this weekend was longing for a past that never really existed except in 50’s & 60’s sitcoms.  The good old days, I believe it’s called.  When we were much more moral.

Except that makes no sense because we’ve been corrupt since the garden of Eden.

Some people don’t handle change very well.  The familiar is more comfortable and easier to deal with.  And change that veers off too far from that accepted norm is more than can be handled.

This fellow lives in a religious fantasy world that is made up of bits and pieces he has heard various preachers and speakers promoting.  It is not based on knowledge of the bible, he hasn’t read it through.  Just the parts he’s been told to read.  And he has been provided with the “proper” interpretation for anything vague or questionable.  Yet he longs for the soon return of Jesus because the world is so depraved.  I used to be the same way.  I was much more negative when I was a christian.  I saw people as incorrigible reprobates and current events as a sure sign of the coming apocalypse.

The problem with that is simple and complex.  Ever since those parts of the bible that speak of all the calamity to come at the end times were written there have been events and situations natural and man-made that fit those prophecies precisely.  Precisely because they are so vague and general.  Jesus and Paul both told their followers that it was all going to be fulfilled in their lifetimes.  When it wasn’t, the interpretation machine kicked into gear.  As the years passed those interpretations grew more complex because no matter how much happened the world never ended.  At least not for two thousand years.

30 years have gone by since I first became aware of this.  Jesus was sure to come back in the 80’s.  Then it was certain he would in the 90’s.  We definitely weren’t going to survive Y2K without an appearance.  And for the last 10 years his return has been imminent.  You would think a couple of thousand years of failed prophecy would tell somebody something.

I remember when rock and roll was going to destroy the fiber of society.  Civil rights meant the end of civilization.  So did giving women the vote.  Now we have the awesome threat of brown people taking over our white country.  Surely Jesus needs to come and put a stop to that.  If not, then most assuredly he must come and stop the gays from wiping out the sanctity of marriage.  How much longer can this unholy ruination be allowed to continue?

I hate to tell all the bigots and racists but your eagerly awaited savior who’s going to restore your white world is a Jew, the most hated and despised minority on earth.

God got fed up with the depravity of man once before and destroyed the world with water says the bible.  Then he promised not to do it again.  So this time he’s going to destroy it with fire.  To burn out all the evil once and for all.  Evil which he himself created.  Evil which he himself allowed to exist in the garden with two innocents who had no idea what evil was.  Jesus was the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.  All this was the plan of god before he ever created us.  All the suffering, all the misery, all the disease, all the death, all the crime, all the disasters, all the depravity, all the sin, all of it is because of god’s perfect plan.

Think about it.  Satan was perfect, the angels were perfect.  They lived in heaven in the glory of god.  Yet they sinned against god and had to be cast out.  Cast out on the earth where they were free to corrupt god’s other perfect creation.  Now god is going to come back and destroy all that imperfect corrupt depraved race and make heaven on earth for all the fearful little people who are awaiting his return.  All he has to do is slaughter a few billion people whose only real sin is that they reject Jesus as their savior.  What a wonderful thing to be looking forward to and eagerly anticipating.

I don’t think these people who long for the return of Jesus ever give much thought to what would actually happen if he did come back.

I used to fantasize that it was like the greatest disaster movie ever made with the most incredible special effects imaginable.  The slaughter of billions of people didn’t really matter because they weren’t really real anyway.  It’s actually a rather sick and depraved way of thinking.

Do you really want the beauty of the world to go up in flames?  All the animals, the birds, the trees, the flowers, the fish, the insects?  Do you really want everyone who isn’t just like you to be annihilated?  Is that really glorious?

I think that if you seriously think about what would actually happen if Jesus did come back, you wouldn’t want him to.

Posted in interpretation, humor, sarcasm, listen, signs, emotion, education, hearing, religion | Print | 4 Comments »

4. July 2010 by Frank.

So a $3 error in my checking account led to a $40 fine for being overdrawn which caused something else to be short which pretty much ruined my 4 2/3 day weekend financially speaking.

Nevertheless, I went out for photos and walking for about three hours in glorious humidity free, cloudless air with temps that barely made it to 70.  Something very refreshing about that.  A couple hours from now, in virtually the same conditions, I’m going to go take in an outdoor big band concert.

For free.

That’s a nice word; free.  Especially when you’re broke and tired of just sitting around unable to do anything that costs money.

The truth will set you free, says the bible.  But that’s not the case, actually.  What it really does is put you in bondage.  How exactly are you free if you’re a slave to Christ?  How are you free if you have to toe the religious line all the time?  Where’s your freedom if what you want to do is considered a sin?  How is carrying a burden of guilt in any way freedom?

How can you be free of sin and yet still be a sinner?

The bible gets very confusing on this subject.  If you’re in Christ, you’re dead to sin.  Simple statement of fact.  Yet you still sin all the time, you’re still controlled by your sin nature.  You’re never more than a work in progress even though you’ve been redeemed.  And don’t you dare claim you have no sin.

There are plenty of people who will set you straight on that one.

And yet believers won’t let go of the idea of spreading their version of freedom around at every opportunity.  They don’t seem to  realize all the things they put restrictions on do not add up to freedom.  You are not supposed to think on negative sinful things, only that which praises god or is uplifting in some way.  Thinking itself has religious restrictions on it!  While there may be plenty of evidence that an obscene amount of people don’t think anyway, it’s frightening that there are billions whose religion tells them not to think for themselves.

And they actually believe it.

Curious that atheists are frequently called “freethinkers.”  While the terms are not necessarily synonymous, it’s curious how free thinking can have the same negative connotation.   I passed a church sign this morning that said true freedom is only in Christ.  Free thought would disagree with that completely.  God is the source of freedom as long as you are constrained by his guidelines.  Unfortunately that really means someone’s interpretation of his guidelines because the bible is so vague about what it really means.

There can be no doubt the bible is pro-slavery.  It was perfectly acceptable for the Jews to have slaves.  It was the will of god to make slaves of conquered people (unless he ordered their annihilation).  If you’re a believer, you’re a slave of Christ.  Why would god use that imagery if he wasn’t still of the same mind?  Have you ever noticed that you’re either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ?  No other options.  Freedom from sin means slavery to righteousness.

And that produces guilt which keeps you in bondage to sin.

You never get free of it until you die.

Somehow that seems like a pretty lousy plan.  There’s all sorts of euphemisms applied but essentially the idea is to keep you bound to the church and its clergy.  Sin never really lets go of you or you never really let go of it so you need someone to lead you back to righteousness and someone to forgive all your transgressions even after you’ve been washed in the blood.  That isn’t freedom, it’s bondage.

I used to preach the freedom in Christ but I wasn’t truly free until I left the church.  It began when I realized I had stopped feeling guilty about all the little things I enjoyed but which the church said were sin.  Every church service I sat in on was a reminder that I was doing something wrong, that somehow I didn’t measure up to god’s standards.  No matter how hard you were trying to live a godly life, you weren’t trying hard enough.  You weren’t praying enough, you weren’t reading your bible enough, you weren’t putting enough money in the collection plate, you didn’t really love everyone with the love of Christ, you weren’t leading enough people to god, you weren’t a good enough witness, and on and on.  Get away from those constant reminders for a period of time and see if you start feeling some actual freedom.

The world of the bible is the exact opposite of what it is presented as being.

Since I started writing this post I have walked 6 more miles, 3 of which were with a christian fanatic.  He confessed that after several years of being a christian he has still not read all the way through the new testament.  This is not surprising but in its own way it is shocking.  I pointed out to him that atheists know more about the bible than he does.  I never could figure out how I knew more about the bible than christians who had been christians for 40 or 50 years back when I was a christian.  It never occurred to me that they had never read their own holy word.  This guy admitted he had never read it because he’s incapable of understanding it anyway.  Ignorance is bliss and freedom is bondage if you have no knowledge of the foundation of your faith.

I read the blasted thing all the way through about 85 times!

That isn’t a brag or an exaggeration.  It’s a simple statement of fact.  I do things to the extreme, it’s the way I am and always have been.  It seems perfectly normal to me, nothing special at all.  Even the stroke did not alter that.

But apparently since it’s the 4th of July, I’m not the only one thinking in terms of free or freedom (which aren’t necessarily the same thing.)  This fellow also brought up being free in Christ.  That only the truth in Jesus could set you free.  The problem with his philosophy is that he has no idea what his written word actually says.

I don’t believe there’s any freedom in ignorance.

True freedom comes from considering everything rationally.  Take the emotion of guilt out it entirely.  Deep down in your heart you know the bible is wrong or you know your church is wrong.  You know the universe doesn’t revolve around the earth.  You know there wasn’t night and day before the sun was created on the 4th day.  You know mules don’t talk and you know that every species of animal on earth could not possibly fit or survive on a man-made boat.  You know that women aren’t property and that slavery is wrong.  You know that a god who tells you to hate your family and yourself isn’t really a god of love.  You know that.

But you’ll never be free as long as you believe that.

Don’t let your faith blind you.

Be free of religion.

And walk 13 miles in 4 days, it’ll make you feel good.

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17. May 2010 by Frank.

I walked about 4 miles yesterday.

I enjoyed it immensely but my feet didn’t.  My feet don’t like to walk, they like to complain.  I have three different styles of shoes with very different soles but my feet hate them all.  I don’t care, I go for long walks anyway.

This is a very common feature of my life.

I have to force myself to do things.  It is not laziness.  It is far beyond apathy.  I have no interest in doing anything.  I could zone out so easily and never snap out of it.  It may not sound like anything to you but it is a huge problem to me.  I have to work very hard to keep my mind interested in anything.

That’s one reason I write, it forces me to think.

I was helping someone get some online materials for his job.  There were 3 pages just listing all the acronyms the system uses.  I’ve never seen such a mess, it’s a wonder he can get anything accomplished.  I could tell you all sorts of things about how his industry works but obviously I’m not supposed to know any of it.  The point is, as complicated and confusing as all of it was and as difficult as it was obtaining the required information, it was not mentally stimulating.  I can do that kind of research with my eyes closed.  He doesn’t know how and he’s willing to pay.  I’m willing to get paid.

I set up my computer to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu on two separate hard drives not because they have features that I just have to have but because it forces me to learn to do things differently.  I need to keep from getting bored or complacent because I lose what little focus I have real fast.  I haven’t been a command line interface kind of guy since back in the days of Commodore 64 Basic.

I play first person shooters because that hand-eye coordination thing is real.  I used games to get control of my right arm and hand after the stroke.  I have to have something to do to keep my fingers moving, they get very tight if I don’t.  My brain turns to mush so I play role playing games to solve quests and puzzles.  And I toss in some Mahjong with Chinese symbols and some Sudoku just in case.

I read all my news online and about a dozen blogs.  And a whole mess of tech sites.  I’m constantly trying to find something new to keep my mind active.  I’m continually trying to learn new things and new ways of doing old things.

After having seen too many people succumb to the mental and physical destructiveness of stroke, I am determined to never let that happen to me.

So I’m going to go take another walk because it’s beautiful outside right now.  I’m so tired of religion and politics.  I’m tired of my dead end job.  I’m tired of being so broke I can’t even pay attention.  I have seriously bad problems when I get too tired.  The desire to just shut down gets overwhelming.

Some fresh air will do me good and maybe I’ll spot a church sign I can ridicule.

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12. May 2010 by Frank.

There’s another church sign that I drove by yesterday.  It’s obviously supposed to be humorous whereas the one I mentioned in the last post is serious (but seriously funny when you think about what it means.)  But since I still haven’t got the quote quite right I’ve decided this other one will have to do for now:  “Lost?  Try the GPS.”

See how clever that is?

No, then perhaps you should read the next line which says, “God’s Plan of Salvation.”  GPS, get it?  Those wacky Baptists, such a bunch of funsters.

Figuring out what God’s Plan of Salvation actually is, is an entirely different matter.  I guarantee that the church right down the street has a different plan than this church does.  And I know for a fact that the church on the other side of town regularly preaches that both those churches have it all wrong.  Not to mention the guys on TV that swear they’re all dead churches and nowhere near the truth.

Why so much confusion and various interpretation?

The bible is ridiculously unclear what the plan of salvation actually is.  Is it believe, repent, be saved or is it believe, repent, get baptized, be saved or is it believe, repent, get baptized, speak in tongues, be saved, or is it call on the name of the lord, be saved or is it do all that and do works, be saved or maybe it’s believe in your heart, confess with your mouth, be saved?  Or is it some other combination or none of the above?  You can read the bible until you’re blue in the face and you still won’t be able to define what the plan of salvation actually is step by step.

Sprinkled or immersed?  Tongues or no tongues?  Works or no works?  Faith without deeds is dead or justified by faith alone? 

Even the cheapest GPS’s give clear directions.

But god can’t seem to make up his mind.  Therefore, you’re still lost until you make a decision who to believe.  I recommend you believe me and avoid the GPS altogether.

Have I ever led you wrong before?

Posted in interpretation, humor, sarcasm, listen, signs, emotion, education, religion | Print | 2 Comments »

14. March 2010 by Frank.

I ate some real Louisiana crawfish cooked by a real Louisiana crawfisherman yesterday.  It was delicious.  I will not, however, be eating any more of it.  45 minutes after eating it I became rather ill and almost didn’t make it home in time to suffer horrible consequences.  I probably shouldn’t have given the first one a name (Herbie).  But they were such cute little buggers.

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One of my bosses has some major issues with my son-in-law (because he used to work with us).  He didn’t leave on good terms.  My boss, however, decided to vent his feelings the other day for some totally unknown reason.  He decided to vent his feelings to me using foul language and a variety of “expletives-deleted” insults to describe my son-in-law.  I don’t give a shit what my boss thinks of him, that’s his problem.  However, you do not bad mouth my family to my face no matter what your problem may be.

I had a hell of a time controlling my temper because what I wanted to do was tell my boss how far up his ass he could shove his fucking opinions.

Instead I calmly and without foul language informed him that it was very offensive and improper for him to say things to me of that nature.  He apologized.  The thing is, I should report this to the higher-ups because it is totally unprofessional and completely against the corporate ethics code.  Unfortunately, the immediate higher-ups are just as big as assholes as he is.

Another reason I love my job so much.

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FAITH:  THE BEST WAY TO SEE THE WORLD.

This is the first church sign I’ve seen in ages that really got my snark meter revved up.  Actually, it almost left me speechless.  Atheist blogs tend to be overly critical of the teachings of the christian church in general; I tend to always think it’s not really as bad or as insidious as we make it out to be.  Mostly, church is just boring, just look at how many people of all ages are fidgeting, talking, passing notes, yawning, and snoring during the standard service.  Really, how much impact on how people think does it actually have?  Then you see a sign like this.

Someone is actually listening to this message.  Someone is actually inspired by it.  Someone actually takes it to heart and really believes  it.  How many of those someones try to get on the school board or into the local government?  Where do you suppose these whackjobs come from who want creationism taught in schools, who get history books altered to make this a christian nation, who want prayer in all our government functions?  Where do all the bigots and racists get their fears and prejudices from?  Not exclusively from churches, obviously, but look how much delusional thinking could be started by the words, “Faith:  The Best Way To See The World.”

The whole concept is frightening.  Looking at the world through rose colored glasses is bad enough but imagine if those glasses were nine inches thick!   What exactly does faith have to do with reality in the first place?  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.  By the bible’s own definition it has nothing to do with the world you can see and physically experience.  So looking at the world through the eyes of faith is a bit of a non sequitur or maybe even an oxymoron.  Perhaps it’s just plain old bullshit.

What constitutes faith varies wildly from person to person.  From personal experience and observation I’d say every individual is unique in what they believe regardless of what group they might affiliate with.  Look how factious the christian religion is already.  There is no unity of the faith even within single churches.

The next Dobson, Robertson, Warren, etc., could be sitting in that church thinking (not), “the world is whatever I believe it to be!”  And his/her pastor is there reinforcing their faith, assuring them that they’re right.

Posted in wild guesses, interpretation, communication, humor, listen, signs, religion, emotion, education, hearing, Uncategorized | Print | 3 Comments »

8. January 2010 by Frank.

This is the fifth post I’ve written in the last two weeks but it is only the first post I’ve posted out of all of them.  Why?  Because I didn’t like the direction they were going. 

That direction was “nowhere”.

Not that they weren’t interesting, mind you.  They were just too much a reflection of my curmudgeonly anti-holiday / anti-tradition rantings that I do every year at holiday time.  In other words, I was following my own tradition of griping about other people’s traditions.  And, somehow, that just seemed wrong.

I do expect to get an earful of new material next week when I attend an “end of the world” seminar with a friend.  I’ve never heard of the speaker at all but I do know he’s Seventh Day Adventist so I have a pretty good idea of the direction he’ll be heading.  Yes, I know, I’m a glutton for punishment, but sometimes this sort of thing can be amusing if not informative.

I was always a fan of end of the world science fiction and that didn’t change when I became a christian.  I just traded mankind, aliens, and natural disasters for god, the devil, and demons as the cause of worldwide destruction.  The christian variations on the theme weren’t nearly as entertaining as the science fiction stories but I gave them more weight because they were based on the bible.  And since the bible was the word of god they had to be true and accurate.

Yeah, right.

I read multiple dozens of such books back in the 1980’s.  They were full of all kind of dire warnings and predictions stated with much bravura and unquestioned certainty; after all, god’s prophecies never fail.  Well, that was 30 years ago and hardly any of those declarations came to pass.  In fact, the average science fiction story by some hack writer was far more accurate in its predictions than anything the christian hack writers ever came up with.

One such book I remember was “When Your Money Fails” by Mary Stewart Relfe.  Not that it was a good book worth remembering.  It was a book full of all sorts of actual photos of diabolical mark of the beast money fantasies.  Well, at least, they were actual photos until you got to the last page where the author admitted they were all fakes (in very very very small print) designed for illustration purposes.  What’s remarkable is that there’s a website for this right here.  I only looked at the first page but can anyone say conspiracy theory?

Be very afraid of those embedded microchips.

Something far more plausible and disturbing is the retina scanners that deliver up tailored to the individual advertising in the movie MINORITY REPORT.  One of my blogs back in the day allowed for advertising so I put Google’s Ad Sense on it (this was when they first started promoting it).  It scared me to death when it started displaying ads that were about the exact same subjects as my current posts.  It didn’t take long to understand the technology behind it but it was quite eerie at first because I had never seen anything that uncanny.  Tailored advertising is here; tailored to the individual isn’t that far off.

Be afraid of that.  Especially if advertising works well on you.

Conspiracy theories seem to abound these days but they are really nothing new.  It’s when they are tied in with religion and right wing politics that they become really scary.  Because, unfortunately, otherwise ordinary people eat this stuff up.  The last time I went to one of these seminars there were over a thousand people there.  The one next week is in a much bigger building.  Even though I can’t remember the guy’s name I fully expect the place to be packed.

Don’t worry about me.  I am already practicing my eye rolling and covering my laughter with sneezing fits.  Not sure what to do if snoring occurs.

Posted in communication, technology, humor, interpretation, listen, education, hearing, signs, religion | Print | 4 Comments »

15. December 2009 by Frank.

Pain hurts.

Toothache pain hurts more than some other pains.

Nerves running through your sinus cavities and directly into your brain from your teeth hurt more than other nerves.

In other words, ouch!

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Christmas music has rotted my brain already after only a couple of weeks.  One two hour shopping trip with my wife has driven me to the edge of Bah Humbug permanently.  I know that I should get out of retail if I can’t stand all the crap that goes with retail this time of year but I am stuck for the time being.  Why anyone thinks Christmas is a christian holiday is beyond me.

Christmas is an artificial marketing phenomenon designed to move as much unnecessary product as possible while liberating vast amounts of money no one can afford to actually spend.  It is a day of greed without equal.  Churches can whine about commercialism all they want but the truth is that the holiday has been usurped from them just like they usurped it from the pagans.

I have some old Charlie Brown paperbacks from back in the day.  In one of them I was looking at there was a routine with Charlie Brown upset about trying to buy a Halloween mask.  He was upset because they didn’t have any.  They didn’t have any because they were already putting up Christmas decorations.  This book was dated 1959/1960.

Think about that.  The same thing people whine about now was common fifty years ago! 

The Christmas season has been starting right after Halloween for at least the last fifty years and yet it is rehashed like it is a new phenomenon every one of those years.  It is probably a safe bet to assume it goes back even further.  Talk about keeping your traditions alive.

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I have encountered a few people who use the phrase, “Merry Christmas,” as if it were some kind of attack.  I think these folks buy into the whole fake “War! On! Christmas!” bullshit that Fox News likes to promote.  They get mad at me because I don’t offer any holiday greeting at all.  I personally don’t care and my store doesn’t require it, we’re supposed to thank people for their business and be friendly but that’s it.  I’m friendly enough but I don’t feel any need to give any kind of holiday greeting just like I don’t feel the need to say bless you when someone sneezes.  You do know the superstitious nonsense that’s based on, don’t you?  I just don’t see the need.  (Although I will return a holiday greeting to people just being nice about it.)

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It hasn’t been much of a season for big blockbuster movies.  2012 was ok but I have no desire to see it again.  I refuse to bother with teenage vampire romances even though I really like vampire movies.  I have high hopes for AVATAR because James Cameron does have an impressive history of great sci-fi.  SHERLOCK HOLMES has Robert Downey Jr. so that’s two major points in it’s favor but it also has Guy Ritchie directing which is a potential downer.  We shall see.

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Right wing religion in the news has been on the lame side recently.  Getting Rick Warren to speak out against anti-gay laws in Uganda is hardly of interest.  Why would anyone believe anything the lying bastard says?  And Uganda is hardly a bastion of human rights to begin with.  If you want to see where prejudice lives just look at organized religion.  Really how is this news?

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There haven’t been any really good church signs to mock lately so I’ll have to use a lame one.  “A man wrapped up in himself makes a small package.”  Sort of Christmassy.  All of you secularists are self centered, small minded people.  If you focus on Jesus, you’ll be a big package.  Less of me and more of thee. 

Except that doesn’t really work.  If it did why would the church feel the constant need to teach its people to be humble?  Why would there be so much focus on what is called brokenness?  Pride is a bad thing, it has to be beaten out of you.  The only ego to be fed is the big guy.

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It’s no secret I don’t get much in the way of comments here despite having pretty good traffic.  Lately, I’ve noticed that if I comment on someone else’s blog the thread immediately dies or my comment is completely ignored amongst all the others.  I have several examples of both.  Apparently I am death to conversation.  Even after much introspection and wringing of hands, I still don’t know why.

It’s really strange because I’m such a nice guy.

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The baler was full at work yesterday so I had to make a bale.  All 4 wires broke when the bale hit the pallet.  There’s no way on earth to tip that back into the machine and even if there was you could never get the door to close again.  So I had to move it all by hand.  It was 30 degrees back there so I had on my sweater but I was sweating profusely.  And the Christmas music was blaring on its 4th or 5th go around.  So I spent 4 hours in frozen hell cleaning up the disaster.  You better believe I’m in the xmas spirit.  Ho Ho Ho, indeed.

Posted in wild guesses, humor, signs, hearing, religion, emotion, Uncategorized | Print | 2 Comments »