In England, it's Boxing Day, in Canada, it's also Boxing Day. Here in the US, it's merely the day after Christmas.
When we were young, we often celebrated on January 6, the Epiphany, or "Little Christmas." We'd leave the tree and other Christmas baubles up until then, and just use the day to close everything down for the new year. Right now, it's merely the sales day, more potent than the day after Thanksgiving, because a lot of stores just want to unload a bunch of stuff and sell it quickly. In my estimation, this year, the stores are probably packed to help many actually spend the money that a lot of people didn't get to spend on the holiday itself.
I mention all this because some religious folks on the right blame secular beliefs for creating the commercialism of the say they consider most holy. I contend that these folks are just addled in their brains. You go into a store and you find chaos and mayhem, and if you asked them if they believed in a god, and they would say, yes I do. Then they're off to purloin some items with a deep discount and they think nothing of it. I contend that the day after Christmas has nothing to do with religious beliefs, just people eager to spend the money they didn't spend before the holiday.
Gonna fly now--spending a little, but not much. I simply don't have it to spend. But that's okay. The essentials are just as important as the frills. Perhaps even more so.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
TV too violent? Other media the same?
Blame the religious right. Hell, Hollywood is only putting out what audiences want to see. Massive examples of gore, of horrible things, violence running rampant--it's all the fault of fundies, of repressed right-wingers, and anyone who has ever made the decision to support these people.
Isn't it odd that repression in our country makes the human body in all its glory something to cover up, always? Isn't it bizarre that the most pure activity in the world, sex, is something to mention only in hushed tones, and never in the open? Isn't it just unfathomable that while we don't discuss sex, we live with enough violence of one kind or another to make us desensitized to it?
Psychologists will happily tell you that once we have inured ourselves to a distasteful situation, we can go on without as much trepidation. War is an example, but there are many, many examples in our lives that are smaller,
Isn't it odd that repression in our country makes the human body in all its glory something to cover up, always? Isn't it bizarre that the most pure activity in the world, sex, is something to mention only in hushed tones, and never in the open? Isn't it just unfathomable that while we don't discuss sex, we live with enough violence of one kind or another to make us desensitized to it?
Psychologists will happily tell you that once we have inured ourselves to a distasteful situation, we can go on without as much trepidation. War is an example, but there are many, many examples in our lives that are smaller,
Monday, December 8, 2008
And So It Goes
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
I get to start another blog, once again finding myself completely and totally committed to trying to squeeze an entry in each and every day, perhaps even more than once a day. Yeah, sure. And my name is Marilyn Monroe, and I have a bridge that goes for real cheap I can sell to you.
I'll try. And I will also be cognizant that I can barely handle the daily stuff already, without trying to make promises to myself--or anyone else, for that matter--to put up a posting that often.
My other blogs have suffered a dearth of entries because I will write often on web boards and make my comments, but I have somehow got the idea planted in my mind that I have to write deep, meaningful entries every time I enter the sacred temple of bloggerism.
I think it took me a very long time to realize that what I post everywhere else is quite suitable to posting as a blog entry, regardless of whether something is short or long, deep or shallow. That's good: it will take a while to let this knowledge sink in, but I will eventually get to the point where I take it for granted.
Each of my blogs concentrates on a whole different area of my interest. The first blog concentrates on life--period. I use that blog to discuss life, the universe and everything else. I talk about my life, my animals, my whole impression as a normal human being. Er, there are likely some limitations on the word "normal" in the previous sentence, just to let you know. Of all the things in my life, normal is hardly a word I would use too often. I know that "normal" is what isn't weird, and I've been weird, too, according to the criteria, but I fall short of being bizarre, so "normal" it is.
The second blog is about politics. My own, especially. I talk about the travesty of the past eight years, about dissent, about freedom, about the "little deaths" that happen every day to what we love, honor and appreciate. I don't know how our "founding fathers" would react to the scum who have ruined the U.S.A. over the course of the past 65 years or so--you can call the majority of the dishonorable thieves Republicans, if you wish--but I doubt if George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or even Benjamin Franklin would suffer these traitors gladly. They all spoke of dissent with reverential tones, they praised those who fought for freedom and liberty, and despised those who tried to sell the colonies back to the King. Nowhere in their public beliefs did they intimate a theocracy, a plutocracy, an autocracy, or any other of a dozen -cracies that returned the colonies to the failings of the governments they already had escaped. Oooops. I started talking about politics, and my mouth--er, keyboard--won't shut up. But I shall move on, to
This, my third blog. This blog, if you haven't figured it out yet, is about religion.
Okay, so here we are. First, if you aren't a fundie, you're relatively safe here. I don't begrudge anyone--except the fundies and others like them, of course--their belief system. I've always been the kind of person who thinks, hey, let others believe what they want, as long as they aren't hurting me or others with their faith. It's cool, because for the most part, people will agree with that philosophy. We're all different, but it doesn't hurt me to see others finding meaning in whatever they choose to believe in.
Unless, of course, you want to condemn me for MY beliefs, and when you are so smug and arrogant and try to force me to believe in the absolute drivel in which you believe, and try to be so sanctimonious all the while. And then you try to tell me it's all for "my own good" and that I "must be saved" in order to be resurrected sometime in the "near future," time and date to be determined by you and your intolerant asshole friends.
Ah yes--millennial dispensationalists who try to pretend that they are the only ones who have a lock on god's wishes, and everyone else be damned. Oh, there are many names for these people, but good, honest and decent aren't any of them. They cherry pick from a tome with thousands of authors, from those who had nothing to do with their perceived god, to those who made sure that history favored them and their victories. They try to make this anthology the sole "truth" in a nuclear age, not caring how many viewpoints have skewed the meaning of passages, of books, of history itself. They try to define a timeline through who begat who, and when and without even a consideration for any science or even anything attributed to logic. They believe in the inerrancy of the words there, and for many of these deluded bastards, those who have never even heard of critical thinking never mind being the beneficiary of it, they somehow believe the WASP version of Jesus Christ, and that the Bible originated in the English language. Moreover, what exists, mainly in that of the King James version, is the entirety of the book, and the fact that the books themselves were cherry picked, while some of the other books were left out quite deliberately, and for reasons many will never understand.
My argument is only with these gullible fools, who post at web boards that cater to their delusions, who don't want, like or care for multiple truths, whose intolerance is only matched by their smugness and arrogance, and who have traded in their thinking brains for some large, dark entity that controls them and their greatly unwashed masses.
Oh, I am not alone in this frustrating, tilting-at-windmills crusade, but preaching to the choir has gotten a little too safe, and venturing out to offer my thoughts on a far greater scale is a little intimidating. If, however, I didn't try, I would not be able to live with myself, for never being heard above the rabble of morons would label me as timid and useless. I am neither.
THIS I can promise--if I cannot contribute something of my own at least once a day, I will at the very least post quotes from atheists and agnostics from the many who have graced our history, and offer up questions for people to consider during the next twenty four hours.
I will start with a few of those quotes right now:
"...finally men were saved only through God's son dying for them, and that unless human beings believed this silly, impossible and wicked story they were doomed to hell? Can anyone with intelligence really believe that a child born today should be doomed because the snake tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam? To believe that is not God-worship; it is devil-worship." ~~ Clarence Darrow, Why I Am An Agnostic
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Many Christians base the belief of a soul and God upon the Bible. Strictly speaking, there is no such book. To make the Bible, sixty-six books are bound into one volume. These books are written by many people at different times, and no one knows the time or the identity of any author. Some of the books were written by several authors at various times. These books contain all sorts of contradictory concepts of life and morals and the origin of things. Between the first and the last nearly a thousand years intervened, a longer time than has passed since the discovery of America by Columbus." ~~ Clarence Darrow, Why I Am An Agnostic
I will get angry at times, and I might rant. Ranting is good for the soul, I've heard. I do know that I feel better, sometimes, speaking my mind and not holding some frustrations inside. It did take me a while to realize I had to start a blog strictly on the basis of how obsessed I have become, and why I feel these people are the real threats to the United States, and how allowing them enough free rein to hang themselves is all I can hope for.
If you want to "listen" to me railing against these anti-intellectuals, feel free to join in. And while I know I can't change one of these people's minds for the better since their narrow-mindedness excludes such attempts, it would be nice if I could make them look into what they are doing with a different viewpoint.
So mayhap I shall actually get something accomplished and get all three of my different "worlds" written, and I can keep up the blogs with more of a sense of purpose.
I get to start another blog, once again finding myself completely and totally committed to trying to squeeze an entry in each and every day, perhaps even more than once a day. Yeah, sure. And my name is Marilyn Monroe, and I have a bridge that goes for real cheap I can sell to you.
I'll try. And I will also be cognizant that I can barely handle the daily stuff already, without trying to make promises to myself--or anyone else, for that matter--to put up a posting that often.
My other blogs have suffered a dearth of entries because I will write often on web boards and make my comments, but I have somehow got the idea planted in my mind that I have to write deep, meaningful entries every time I enter the sacred temple of bloggerism.
I think it took me a very long time to realize that what I post everywhere else is quite suitable to posting as a blog entry, regardless of whether something is short or long, deep or shallow. That's good: it will take a while to let this knowledge sink in, but I will eventually get to the point where I take it for granted.
Each of my blogs concentrates on a whole different area of my interest. The first blog concentrates on life--period. I use that blog to discuss life, the universe and everything else. I talk about my life, my animals, my whole impression as a normal human being. Er, there are likely some limitations on the word "normal" in the previous sentence, just to let you know. Of all the things in my life, normal is hardly a word I would use too often. I know that "normal" is what isn't weird, and I've been weird, too, according to the criteria, but I fall short of being bizarre, so "normal" it is.
The second blog is about politics. My own, especially. I talk about the travesty of the past eight years, about dissent, about freedom, about the "little deaths" that happen every day to what we love, honor and appreciate. I don't know how our "founding fathers" would react to the scum who have ruined the U.S.A. over the course of the past 65 years or so--you can call the majority of the dishonorable thieves Republicans, if you wish--but I doubt if George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or even Benjamin Franklin would suffer these traitors gladly. They all spoke of dissent with reverential tones, they praised those who fought for freedom and liberty, and despised those who tried to sell the colonies back to the King. Nowhere in their public beliefs did they intimate a theocracy, a plutocracy, an autocracy, or any other of a dozen -cracies that returned the colonies to the failings of the governments they already had escaped. Oooops. I started talking about politics, and my mouth--er, keyboard--won't shut up. But I shall move on, to
This, my third blog. This blog, if you haven't figured it out yet, is about religion.
Okay, so here we are. First, if you aren't a fundie, you're relatively safe here. I don't begrudge anyone--except the fundies and others like them, of course--their belief system. I've always been the kind of person who thinks, hey, let others believe what they want, as long as they aren't hurting me or others with their faith. It's cool, because for the most part, people will agree with that philosophy. We're all different, but it doesn't hurt me to see others finding meaning in whatever they choose to believe in.
Unless, of course, you want to condemn me for MY beliefs, and when you are so smug and arrogant and try to force me to believe in the absolute drivel in which you believe, and try to be so sanctimonious all the while. And then you try to tell me it's all for "my own good" and that I "must be saved" in order to be resurrected sometime in the "near future," time and date to be determined by you and your intolerant asshole friends.
Ah yes--millennial dispensationalists who try to pretend that they are the only ones who have a lock on god's wishes, and everyone else be damned. Oh, there are many names for these people, but good, honest and decent aren't any of them. They cherry pick from a tome with thousands of authors, from those who had nothing to do with their perceived god, to those who made sure that history favored them and their victories. They try to make this anthology the sole "truth" in a nuclear age, not caring how many viewpoints have skewed the meaning of passages, of books, of history itself. They try to define a timeline through who begat who, and when and without even a consideration for any science or even anything attributed to logic. They believe in the inerrancy of the words there, and for many of these deluded bastards, those who have never even heard of critical thinking never mind being the beneficiary of it, they somehow believe the WASP version of Jesus Christ, and that the Bible originated in the English language. Moreover, what exists, mainly in that of the King James version, is the entirety of the book, and the fact that the books themselves were cherry picked, while some of the other books were left out quite deliberately, and for reasons many will never understand.
My argument is only with these gullible fools, who post at web boards that cater to their delusions, who don't want, like or care for multiple truths, whose intolerance is only matched by their smugness and arrogance, and who have traded in their thinking brains for some large, dark entity that controls them and their greatly unwashed masses.
Oh, I am not alone in this frustrating, tilting-at-windmills crusade, but preaching to the choir has gotten a little too safe, and venturing out to offer my thoughts on a far greater scale is a little intimidating. If, however, I didn't try, I would not be able to live with myself, for never being heard above the rabble of morons would label me as timid and useless. I am neither.
THIS I can promise--if I cannot contribute something of my own at least once a day, I will at the very least post quotes from atheists and agnostics from the many who have graced our history, and offer up questions for people to consider during the next twenty four hours.
I will start with a few of those quotes right now:
"...finally men were saved only through God's son dying for them, and that unless human beings believed this silly, impossible and wicked story they were doomed to hell? Can anyone with intelligence really believe that a child born today should be doomed because the snake tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam? To believe that is not God-worship; it is devil-worship." ~~ Clarence Darrow, Why I Am An Agnostic
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Many Christians base the belief of a soul and God upon the Bible. Strictly speaking, there is no such book. To make the Bible, sixty-six books are bound into one volume. These books are written by many people at different times, and no one knows the time or the identity of any author. Some of the books were written by several authors at various times. These books contain all sorts of contradictory concepts of life and morals and the origin of things. Between the first and the last nearly a thousand years intervened, a longer time than has passed since the discovery of America by Columbus." ~~ Clarence Darrow, Why I Am An Agnostic
I will get angry at times, and I might rant. Ranting is good for the soul, I've heard. I do know that I feel better, sometimes, speaking my mind and not holding some frustrations inside. It did take me a while to realize I had to start a blog strictly on the basis of how obsessed I have become, and why I feel these people are the real threats to the United States, and how allowing them enough free rein to hang themselves is all I can hope for.
If you want to "listen" to me railing against these anti-intellectuals, feel free to join in. And while I know I can't change one of these people's minds for the better since their narrow-mindedness excludes such attempts, it would be nice if I could make them look into what they are doing with a different viewpoint.
So mayhap I shall actually get something accomplished and get all three of my different "worlds" written, and I can keep up the blogs with more of a sense of purpose.
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