Letter From 2012 In Obama's America

The Christian company Focus on the Family has created a separate company called Focus On The Family Action so that they can use it to lobby politicians legally and without churches affiliated with them losing tax exempt status. Focus On The Family Action recently produced a document entitled "Letter From 2012 In Obama's America" which is a theoretical letter from a Christian in the year 2012 that has been sent back into the past to warn us against voting for Barack Obama in this election. This is hands down the most offensive, least well thought out political attack I have ever had the misfortune of reading in my entire life. If you feel the need to read it before continuing on with this post feel free to do so, but I must apologize in advance for the loss of brain cells you will undoubtedly suffer.

Five out of sixteen pages of this document deals with how the very fabric of reality will unravel and existence itself will implode if we stop persecuting homosexuals and give them equal rights to marry. Seriously, the connections made between homosexual marriage, and well, everything else in this letter are so tenuous and outright ridiculous that absolutely no one with a brain could take this seriously. According to the author of this letter Christian books, talk radio, Christian doctors, private schools, home schooling, and all churches across the nation will cease to exist because of homosexuality. There will also be terrorist attacks on the U.S. and Russia will invade other countries in Europe because of homosexuality. Why do these people hate homosexuals so much? Why do they fear a sexual orientation that is different from theirs? Do they not realize that homosexual couples have absolutely no effect on them whatsoever? If they don't like homosexual marriage, then all they have to do is go ahead and not marry someone of their same gender. Problem solved, issue averted, they can officially get over it. But to mandate that other people can't marry the person they love? That's officially crossing the line into attempting to control other people's lives for religious reasons. How does it hurt a heterosexual couple if a pair of homosexuals get married? It doesn't hurt them at all! I'm a heterosexual man married to a heterosexual woman, and guess what? Our marriage is not in any way impacted by homosexuals wanting to get married. It doesn't hurt us, it doesn't affect us, it doesn't ruin the sanctity of our union, or do any of the other ridiculous things that right wing nut job religious people rant about.

Another half of a page of this letter is focused on how if the U.S. elects Obama as president we will suddenly have hard core pornography showing on all television channels at any time of the day. Besides the obvious issues of how Christians are afraid of sexuality aside, it's beyond obvious how this would never happen, and even if by some weird fluke it did, it certainly wouldn't happen within the next four years. I mean come on, porn on regular T.V. stations? First of all, cable T.V. providers wouldn't display this kind of content on regular channels because they know they can charge more for it by putting it on a higher end package, but secondly there are enough religious people who work for these stations who would throw a fit that it wouldn't ever happen. Then there also happens to be that little organization known as the FCC. Apparently the writer of this letter forgot all about the absurdly massive fine that was leveled because of Janet Jackson's accidental boob shot in the super bowl. Would an agency that charged a fee because of an accidental one second long boob shot really allow full on pornography on television? That's officially gone past absurdity into sheer insanity. This would actually be a bad thing for me, since I don't watch television, and I love porn. Oh yeah, and the person who wrote this also wants people to think that he/she/they don't also love porn. Guess what? They are lying. Every man, woman, and child on this planet masturbates. You do it, I do it, my wife does it, your "innocent" teenage kid does it, the guy down the street does it, the pastor at your local church does it. The sooner that people are willing to accept this fact and move on, the sooner we can get past this whole "be ashamed of our bodies" nonsense that Christianity likes to champion.

There is also a fundamental lack of understanding of our political processes exhibited in this letter. They mention about how it was O.K. for president Bush to fire some district attorneys but how it was wrong for Clinton to do it and how it will be wrong for Obama to do it. These people need to go back to high school and take the Junior year required course on Government. There is no "firing" and "re-hiring" of district attorneys. It is REQUIRED that all Presidents appoint attorneys when they are elected. They can choose to re-appoint those who are still there if they want or they can get rid of all of them and appoint entirely new people. No President in the history of the U.S. whether Republican or Democrat has ever paid attention to all of these appointees. There are too may for it to be feasible. They have cabinet members who take care of these decisions for them based on their platform.

The letter also states that Obama's tax plan would affect middle class people who "saved" their money wisely. Did this writer even watch the presidential debates? Did they read Obama's tax plan? Obama's plan will raise taxes for people who make $250,000 or more PER YEAR. Not people who just happened to have saved that amount or more. If you are making a quarter of a million dollars every year, you are not in the middle class. You are rich and you can afford to shoulder more of the burden, like the people who own Focus on the Family that want to make sure they can keep getting richer.

Shouldn't Christians actively want these doomsday scenarios to occur? If this sort of shit happens won't it bring them one step closer to the "End Times" so that they can all be abducted by aliens, er, I mean Jesus and go to heaven for all time while we poor sinners are left here to fend for ourselves? Seriously, aren't Christians actively working against God's will by voting for a conservative Republican like John Mcain? They should want to have people who disagree with them in public office so that the Antichrist can make a one world government and bring about their mythical Ragnorak, er, Rapture and go to their fairy tale afterlife.

The Global Flood

The Bible story of the global flood that was used as a "re-boot" of humanity because of their wickedness has always held a special place in the hallowed halls of things that really piss me off. Before tearing into the story proper, let’s have a few words on the background of this story. Lots of religious folk, especially among the Baptist and Protestant denominations, believe that people who inhabited the earth in the time frame of the early chapters of the book of Genesis lived for hundreds to thousands of years and had an advanced culture that rivaled our own. How could this be? According to this "theory," there was a massive canopy of water that surrounded the entire planet, either just floating around in the atmosphere or actually outside in space itself. Somehow this canopy of water filtered out the harmful UV rays from the sun, allowing people to enjoy massively long life spans. People who ascribe to this belief will give cryptic statements meant to pique interest by intimating that these people lived in a culture just as advanced as ours where they had mastered things like space travel and advanced engineering.

That particular piece of nonsense aside, the story of the Flood is truly, irrevocably messed up. Let's think about this logically. God creates man. Think about the ramifications of that statement. If God created man, then he also created all of man's feelings, urges, and predispositions. According to the Bible God is also knows all things that have occurred and will occur in the future, as he is omniscient. Put those two thoughts together. God makes man to be the way that God wants him to be, and God also knows exactly how men will react if put into certain situations. So then God decides that man, which he created, has become too violent and needs to be eradicated and started over. What. The. Fuck. God makes man with the predisposition to be violent, and because he can see into the future he knows that men will eventually reach a critical mass of violence that He can't tolerate, yet he goes ahead and punishes them for it anyway? Could someone also please explain to me how murdering every person on the planet is a proper, non-hypocritical, response to people who are too violent? Last time I checked, mass genocide on a world wide scale is about as violent as you can get.

Then there is also the canopy of water theory to take into account. People who believe this theory think that the canopy of water was dropped onto the Earth all at once, which is how the entire surface of the planet was flooded in this story. Remember how we went over that God can see the future? That means that this whole act of worldwide genocide was pre-meditated. God specifically made this canopy of water knowing full well that he was going to utterly wipe out his creation with it later when they pissed Him off for doing what He made them to do. Anyone who doesn't find that to be thoroughly disturbing needs to seek professional psychiatric treatment immediately.

Hilarity from the outback, or why pastors shouldn't hide their porn stash

I am currently experiencing equal bouts of giddy joy and complete befuddlement with the news of Australian pastor Michael Guglielmucci’s admission that he completely made up his two year battle with deadly cancer to cover up his love of pornography. I am always overjoyed when hypocritical religious folk reach beyond their grasp to become what amounts to cult leaders over thousands of people and then go plummeting back to earth when it becomes revealed that they do all the same stuff the rest of us do. Ted Haggard is a personal favorite of mine (I bought the drugs, but I didn’t use them. Well, yes, I did buy them from a gay prostitute whom I’d been seeing for months, but no we didn’t have sex, really!) but there are plenty of other examples of holier-than-thou types self destructing in a spectacular fashion in the public arena.

What’s so odd about Guglielmucci is the fashion in which he self destructed. I’m not sure why he felt the need to make up a terminal illness, going so far as to wear an oxygen tube and fashioning fake correspondences with doctors, to hide the fact that he liked to masturbate while watching people having sex. It’s not like this is some huge secret that no one knows about. Whether religious people want to admit it or not, everyone gets sexually aroused, and everyone takes care of those urges in one manner or another. It’s human nature. We are sexual creatures, we like to see each other naked, and we most definitely all masturbate. That lady from your church who goes “Ugh, gross, of course I would never do anything like that!” well guess what – she masturbates too.

This guy really could of saved himself, his family, and his congregation a lot of heart ache if he’d just told people he was going in the other room to whack it to some porn instead of fabricating an elaborate lie that is potentially going to have legal ramifications for him. Oh I didn’t mention that? He had a fund set up to help defray the costs of his “medical expenses” caused by his cancer. Tammy Faye eat your heart out!

Of more immediate hilarity is the song “Healer” that Guglielmucci wrote, which has absurdly sexual undertones if you look at it in light of recent events. A video of him singing the song can be viewed below. I dare you to listen to this without bursting out in laughter. “Hold my every moment” (tee hee), “Calm my raging seas” (GUFFAW!). Go ahead and throw in your own commentary or extra lines, such as when he sings that nothing is impossible for Jesus (except to reveal to his family that he doesn’t have cancer and was jerking off all the time), or make up a little diddy to the tune of the song about how he just wants some of that awesome Heaven brand lube that Jesus keeps to himself up in the clouds and won’t share with poor old Michael.

Life is so damn good.

Anyone interested is viewing the original news stories can find them here and here.

Why Christians Will Always Oppose Peace

Christianity cannot coexist with a world that fully supports total peace between all peoples, governments, and religions. Christianity and peace are mortal enemies. Peace is anathema to the entire mythology of the Christian religion. Christians are fond of quoting the Bible verse Matthew 24:6, which says in part "You are going to hear wars, and rumors of wars..." to explain why our generation is currently in the "end times" when Jesus is going to come down from the clouds and take his true believers (the true believers, of course, being whatever denomination the speaker is a member of....) back to heaven and submit all the silly folk who refused the "truth" to years of what amounts to hell on Earth as God pours out his wrath as described in the book of Revelations. There can be no peace on Earth as long as Christianity holds a majority of the world. Because if peace exists, then there is no reason for people to become Christians. Without fear, there is no drive to give your soul up to the Christian religion. If there is no war and no hate, then Christians cannot use scare tactics to bring more numbers into their fold. There can be no "Look what the Bible says, wars and rumors of war, wouldn't you rather be safe than sorry? The end times are here! What if Jesus comes back tomorrow, won't you be ready?"

If there is total peace on Earth, then there is no reason to convert to Christianity. Without war, Jesus can't come back. According to evangelical baptist Christianity, Russia must go to war with Israel to hail the time of the rapture. If there is no military conflict, Jesus never comes back. People like to completely misconstrue what John Lennon said when he stated that he was more popular than Jesus Christ. Jesus and John Lennon both preached the same message, yet the followers of both of their beliefs act in radically different ways. Followers of John Lennon smoke pot and protest against the war in Iraq and desire peace. Followers of Jesus support taking away the rights of homosexuals and bombing middle eastern countries and putting pot smokers in jail. They both preached the idea that "blessed are the peacemakers" and "the meek shall inherit the earth" and "he who has no sin cast the first stone" yet both have followers who are completely opposed to one another.

Could it be then, that in two thousand years, people will have created a religion around John Lennon which supports intolerance, prejudice, and hatred, completely ignoring what the man himself said?

Support peace, oppose Christianity.

Some Recipes We Have Tried Out Recently

My wife Megan has been trying out many new recipes from the site Allrecipes.com lately, and pretty much all of them have been absolute hits. Megan's favorite is a pork chop recipe that cooks the chops in a raspberry honey sauce with diced up pecans. At first the combination sounded like it could be disastrous but it really does work out. There's just enough sweetness to offset the meaty pork flavor and the crunch of the pecans adds a little something to make it a stellar dish.

The previously mentioned rum cake was made last night for our weekly gaming session. Megan added nuts to the bottom of the bundt cake pan so that the cake would have a pretty and decorative top when it came out of the oven. The recipe said to not use Captain Morgan as it would be too strong, but we like our Captain Morgan Tatoo so we went with it anyway, and it was just the perfect amount of rum flavor. Although the alcohol gets cooked out of the cake, the glaze uses a lot of the rum and doesn't get cooked, so you could theoretically get a little buzzed if you ate enough of it.

Another recipe of note that sounded a bit odd to begin with was the turkey burgers that had chipotle peppers and adobe sauce added directly into the meat before forming them into patties. These are magnificent and you don't even think about the fact that it's turkey instead of beef because of how flavorful they are. The recipe called for only a single pepper and a small amount of the sauce, but we bought a whole can of them so Megan threw the whole thing in. It was pretty spicy, but nothing too out of control and adding mayo or mustard really calmed it down.

June Musical Releases

I guess it's a little late as today is the first day of July, but there were a couple of notable June musical releases that I didn't want to skip over.

First and foremost was the new Opeth album "Watershed". Talk about unexpected! This is probably even more of a radical departure for them than their "Damnation" album which was entirely mellow with no growling. There is a much heavier emphasis on the prog rock feel than in previous albums, and the nature of the lyrics has changed pretty radically. The album also marks the first time Opeth has thrown in female vocals, although they only take place on the first song. Even though it's very different than the Opeth of old I'll still have to recommend it to everyone who likes any style of music. I wrote a full review of the album on Metalunderground.com if anyone is interested in reading it.

The other major release of the month was the new Moonspell album "Night Eternal". It's in the running for their best album ever, with plenty of heavy and oppressive stuff and a good deal of catchy material as well. Although Moonspell has utilized female vocals on several previous albums, this is the first time that vocalist Fernando has done a duet with a woman, and it sounds great! The duet areas sound a lot like Tristania, so anyone who liked that band will probably love this album.

Hopefully the "July Musical Releases" post will come in a more timely fashion!

Early Futurama

I picked up the new full length Futurama movies "Bender's Big Score" and "The Beast With a Billion Backs" the other day, and as I sat down to watch them I discovered to my horror that my brother-in-law Matt knew next to nothing about the show and had only seen an episode or two. We decided this needed to be rectified so we went out and got the first season on DVD so he could watch the early episodes and get a good grasp of the various story lines and what was going on with the main characters.

While watching the first season I realized that the first few episodes really are like Simpson's clones. There are frequently characters, voices, and situations that look like they should have been occurring in any given episode of the Simpson's. There's a guy talking in a stereotypical Indian accent, a jerk who says things very similar to the Nelson character, and random storyline arcs that wouldn't at all be out of place in an episode of that long running show. I guess that prob ably shouldn't be such a surprise considering the show was created by Matt Groening, but I'm just glad it managed to distinguish itself apart from the Simpson's and even overtake them and become the funnier show.

The voice actor's really hadn't gotten their craft nailed down yet in the early episodes either, especially the voices of Bender and the Professor. They are both delivered in a rather lackluster manner with none of the emotion and grandiose that would become typical of those characters later on in the series.

Futurama really hits it's stride at the fourth episode, "Love's Labours Lost in Space". Even though the voices problem hadn't been entirely resolved yet, this episode is rife with the zany antics the show becomes famous for and Fry gets to deliver some of his best lines in the series. My favorite moment is when they are being held in a jail cell and Fry says "Why don't you open that steam pipe Bender so we can escape?", and then when it's opened and the room fills with hot steam he shouts "No good, it's full of steam!"