Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Pro-Life Conundrum

Every day that passes seems to bring with it a battle between pro-lifers (usually conservatives) and pro-abortionists (usually liberals) about what rights a woman has over a fetus and how far she can go to terminate a pregnancy. This issue seems to be one of the most prevalent issues among Christians today, and the moral majority has waged war against this right since Roe Vs. Wade was won.

Maybe it's because I try so hard to hover around the middle, or maybe it's just because I'm an arrogant asshat, but I think I see this issue with a broader perspective than most pundits give justice.

What I mean is this issue goes FAR beyond declaring whether or not a fetus is human life.

Life is life, regardless of how you view it. Whether that life is incapable of experiencing happiness, joy, or reality is up for interpretation. But the fact remains, life is life. And if you value life, you should value it in all respects.

Life is a blessing, whether it is given from a Creator, or the miraculous result of evolution, and/or [ACK] intelligent design.

Now either you view life as I have indicated, that it is something to be preserved, or you don't. That's your choice. People, however, need to stop cherry-picking the issue to further their agendas.

If I were to believe that a human blastocyst, no matter its age, is human life and should be protected, no matter the cost, what am I valuing? Am I honoring cells that will potentially develop into a human given good conditions, or am I honoring the fact that life was created? If I am thinking abortion should be illegal, what am I really thinking? Is it that the tiny fertilized egg is taking the shape of an innocent baby in my mind? Or does that mess of quickly dividing cells have a soul?

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But again, this is your choice, and you are entitled to it.

What bothers me is the belief that somehow, for some reason, when an adult commits a heinous act, his life is forfeit.

What bothers me is somehow, for some reason, a mess of cells no bigger than the head of a pin should be revered, but yet somehow, for some reason, a thinking human being with (hopefully) developed social skills who can be helped or rehabilitated or somehow given some other use is hanged, gassed, electrocuted, shot, put to sleep, or destroyed in a myriad of ways.

I don't see how someone can be against abortion and simultaneously be for the death penalty.

Life is life, regardless of how you view it.

Personally, I am against abortion. I do however believe it should be used in certain medical scenarios, e.g. when the life of the mother is proven to be in danger, and the fetus will or will not survive the birth in this case as it stands. I make this consideration because I, as a believer in Life, believe it to be protected, yet I, understanding that I have a right and need to defend my family with deadly force, which is perfectly legal in most states, draw a parallel to the case of a mother in danger, wherein a fetus would be aborted in defense of her life.

Because I am against abortion I also am personally against the death penalty, in all its forms, principally because when one is put to death it is in a controlled situation, where no person's body is in direct danger. I respect the death penalty due to its legality, yet I do not support it.

I understand that states have control over the death penalty, and I understand that many of these states have abolished the practice. However, as long as I have a right to kill someone in defense of myself or my family, I believe a mother has the right to kill her fetus if her health is in danger, or better put, in defense of her life and health.

Abortion used simply as a method of birth control is, in my strongest opinion, a grave sin, and should be outlawed, no matter the age of the developing baby. I am arguing the legitimate uses of abortion, the baby's health notwithstanding, in cases where the mother's health is in danger.

Life is life, regardless of how you view it.

If a developing fetus is so important, then for God's sake a thinking human being should be just as important. If a developing fetus is so important, then for God's sake lets do what we can to help the mother after the baby is born, instead of forgetting her. If a developing fetus is so important, then for God's sake please can we stop killing people in our prisions and hospitals simply because we have judged them and their lives as useless to us.

Mixed Up And Desperate

I have just a quick gripe here. Let me set the situation for you. There is controversy in Texas going on right now, and it centers around whether a hospital is doing the ethical thing in seeking removing a 17 month old child with a terminal illness from a ventilator.

I am not going to argue whether it is right or wrong to do so. I'm not going to even argue the facts of the case, beyond state the child has Leigh's disease, a rare disorder with no cure that results in death. The child can't see, speak, eat, or breathe on his own.

The hospital says he is in excruciating pain and wants to remove him from the ventilator. The mother says he is not in pain, smiles when he "looks" at her, and wants to keep him on the ventilator.

I am not going to argue for either of these points. What burns me up is the mother said she was fighting to keep her son on the ventilator so he will die (and I quote directly) "naturally, the way God intended."

I understand one may say strange things or believe the unbelievable when placed under duress, especially the fear, pain, and grief caused when one's child is in the hospital (I know this from personal experience, unfortunately). However, I think stating that keeping your child on a ventilator so he can die as God intended is over the line.

Take the kid off the ventilator. Let him die with dignity, AS GOD INTENDED. Let his soul go home. Keeping him here is selfish. The ventilator is keeping the child alive. The doctors say he would die in a matter of hours once it is removed. This is the NATURAL way.

There is nothing natural about a clicking and beeping machine prolonging the inevitable. I feel sorry for the mother and respect the pain that she feels, but I believe the real problem here is her inability to let go and to give her son back to God.

So she makes excuses.

And selfishly on my part, I have to pay for it.
And truthfully I wouldn't mind doing so, if she wanted to keep the boy alive for other reasons.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

I AIN'T 'FRAID O' NO GHOST!

Give me a break. It seems to me that the renaissance of new age mumbo jumbo bullshit is in high swing. When our TV is on it is usually on comedy central (our most dependable channel for cable news), yet sometimes when everyone is in bed i decide to brave the thick of idiocy on the other channels. At least comedy central is supposed to be funny. I mean there are some things on the producers of which believe to be taken seriously, and if these shows didn't anger me as much as they did, I'd nominate them for the best-new-comedy-show academy award.

For example I think every channel on basic (non-hbo/skinemax/showtime cable) has some sort of stupid show or other about searching for ghosts. It seems to be some past-time for most people, I guess, to somehow form links with long dead people in order to:

a) prove to themselves there is an afterlife,
b) prove to themselves there is an afterlife that is different from what is accepted by convential, dominant spirituality,
c) prove to themselves there is an afterlife that is different from what is accepted by conventional, dominant spirituality so that they can feel better about themselves after being excommunicated by church, friends, and family for being a stupid moron.

And there is so much proof out there that you'd be an idiot not to believe the way they do. I mean that's how they make their shows. How else could they get away with snubbing conventional faith?

Granted, conventional faiths have addressed the existence of spirits since their origin. I don't deny that. But these shows on TV today take the approach that all the knowledge gained from milennia of soul-searching is wrong. This is the common theme. Christians are wrong. Muslims are wrong. Catholics (yes I know they are Christian too but they are separate here because they are one of the only ones I know who have ritualized processes relating to the exorcism of evil spirits) are wrong.

These shows proclaim (sometimes with subtlety, others with brazen defiance) that only "earthy" faiths truly understand the afterlife. The plight of native americans is usually addressed and glorified, and many times some half-drunk native american desperate for money or attention comes onto the screen discussing the relationships between spirits, our ancestors, and nature. Again if it weren't as shameful as it were, I'd laugh.

So after sitting through these shows (which normally last an hour or so and are chock full of nightvision video, shots of balls of dust floating around that they claim are spirits of the dead, silly girls in women's bodies who pretend to be scared and giggle and scream a lot, weird tapping noises that sound surprisingly like expanding/contracting wood during normal night settling, mysterious EVPs of voices saying "OOOOSSSSSHBBIIIXOSSSHHHHMMMMMMCALLLLLLLSHHHHH [static]" (which says something like "hey i'm dead, it's cold, i'm lonely, get out of my house, get me a jelly donut" or whatever ridiculous thing people say they say) and my favorite the EMF fluctuations that "JUST DON'T HAPPEN IN NATURE AND PROVE THAT SINCE GHOSTS ARE ENERGY AND ENERGY IS ELECTROMAGNETISM THEN WHEN YOUR METER JUMPS 10 OR MORE UNITS (again never explained exactly *what* they think is being measured) A GHOST IS HERE! ) <---BIGTIME RUNON ...

So after sitting through these shows I decided to study how they do it.

READY RAGGY? NEED A SCOOBY SNACK?

Why is it that it is always the smart kids with bright futures who get gunned down at universities? Can't for once the people in these shows burst into flames for our sensationalist enjoyment?

Or would the news even tell us? Probably not.

Anyway while I watched about the blueumpteenthmillion of these ridiculous shows I think I figured out the racket. So, if anyone out there wants to become famous and make lots of money, I offer you now my crash course in being a ghost buster, all for the wonderful price of a pile of dog crap and bucket of unsearched south american emeralds from ebay.

STEP 1 GET A VIDEO CAMERA THAT HAS NIGHT VISION
This is important. If for any other reason, you need this so the eyes of everyone you film has that neat cat's-eye reflective thing effect going on. It's also important for filming in the dark. See step 10.

STEP 2 HIRE A NAÏVE WOMAN WHO GIGGLES AND SCREAMS LIKE A GIRL AND IS AFRAID OF HER OWN SHADOW
Not only will this girl inspire innocence when the viewer sees her, but also she will serve to disarm the viewer's skeptical walls with her sheer beauty. As offensive as calling a grown woman a girl is, I use the term accurately, seeing that I am not judging her physical age, but her mental age, which, to be successful, needs to be similar to that of a day-old turd.

STEP 3 FIND A DARK PLACE
I don't care where this is. It could be an old abandoned hospital. An elementary school after a PTA meeting. Your basement. It doesn't matter. Hell it's going to be dark anyway.

STEP 4 TELL THE PERSON WITH THE CAMERA AND THE GIGGLY LITTLE GIRL/WOMAN THAT THE PLACE IS HAUNTED
Make shit up. Make it good. Tell them something like young boys ate the livers of black cats, got possessed, kidnapped people from Kansas and sacrificed them to Kegger, an ancient, forgotten Sumerian god of partying. After that, they drank the blood of their parents.

STEP 5 ADD THE "AND THESE DAYS" OR THE "PEOPLE SAY" STATEMENT
People say these days that when the moon is out and it's dark and you can't see anything for what it really is, you just might get carried away and imagine seeing little boys with black eyes riding war-pigs across the floor, searching for victims to oink to death. Get the idea?

STEP 6 GET A REALLY DUSTY RUG
Put this rug in the room where the ghosts most frequent. Be sure to tell the idiots so they spend time here walking around, stirring up dust. Orbs anyone?

STEP 7 MAKE SURE THERE ARE EXPOSED LEAD, STEEL, OR IRON WATER PIPES IN THE ROOM
This does wonders for EMF readings. Trust me. The result will be quite humorous.

STEP 8 MAKE SURE THAT THERE ARE ACTIVE WALL OUTLETS IN THE ROOM
Watch as the idiots take the EMF detector to the walls above the outlets and "detect the presence of a vortex or spirit."

STEP 9 REMOVE INSULATION AND CARPET
How else will we feel cold spots?

STEP 10 TURN THE GIGGLY IDIOT GIRL AND SCARED SHITLESS CAMERAPERSON LOOSE INTO THE DARK HAUNTED ROOM
Watch the fireworks. Be SURE you got the girl so scared that every rat, every flying insect, every draft, every tap and step is definite proof of the existence of spirits. It's even better if you can get her to the point of screaming, and better yet, crying.
And with the night vision (because as we all know, you can only see ghosts in the dark, and they are too weak to manifest in bright daylight) her eyes will be big and shiny, and she'll not be able to see her hand in front of her face, and when the cameraman gropes her butt it will be explained away quite easily.

The rest writes itself.
VOILA. A ghost hunter show fit for any of the networks.

I could go on and on about this, so please, if anyone wants to support these shows in comments, be my guest. Don't expect an answer though, because it's pointless. I know I'm right, and I know you're stupid. That's that.

I enjoy watching those guys on TAPS though. They do their best to disprove things, and some things have happened on their shows that is difficult to explain. What I like about them is they say "yeah we think ghosts are real" without putting that stupid new agey mumbo jumbo let's-get-back-to-our-ancestors-because-the-earth-is-crying crap the others do.

Go TAPS. I think you're doing your best to do it right.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Haves and the Have-Nots

Why you should not have unprotected sex -


you get cute things like this:

Apples And Oranges

Friends, family, and strangers ask me every so often how I can claim to be religious and shack up with a self-proclaimed Atheist. Doesn’t this cause problems in your marriage, they ask? How will you raise your children? How do you ever agree on anything?

What you people asking these questions do not understand is how similar our moralities are. Here, let me explain:

In the year 1969, while on a trip bestowed by that wonderful mind-altering agent LSD, the great prophet Shantal decreed that the state of the Christian church at that time was defunct. Angels visited Shantal and instructed him on the method by which he could restructure the church so that it could successfully reach out to people and solve their problems. Thus, the Directive for Understanding Multiple Beliefs And Social Structures was given.

The great prophet Shantal gave the name of the directive to our church, thus fulfilling an ancient Mayan prophecy that a D.U.M.B.A.S.S. prophet and a bunch of D.U.M.B.A.S.S. “Christians” would bring the new gospel to the planet Earth. The people were given their mission – do whatever you can to secularize society so that the true church can find its place contemporary society.

D.U.M.B.A.S.S.es worked for years to bring this mission to fruition. I joined the church in the 1990s after being introduced to it by a member of its executive council, the group known as AFJ, the Atheists For Jesus. I was taken aback by this – I couldn’t understand how an Atheist and a D.U.M.B.A.S.S. could ever reconcile life choices, let alone get along in everyday life. I soon saw the error of my ways. Since both of our organizations valued hedonistic sex, we hit it off quite quickly and ended up marrying each other. It was a beautiful ceremony: the moon was full, the leaves had begun to fall onto the graves, and the statue of the Baphomet and the great prophet Shantal in a circle-jerk ring shone from atop the altar of rubber tires greased with Crisco. Our marital bliss began that day at the climax of our ceremony when they brought out Shantal, now reincarnated into the Chihuahua Bubbles. We copulated atop the rubber tire altar with Bubbles, insuring that our life of morality would never end.

My D.U.M.B.A.S.S. life improved day by day. My wife, being a member of AFJ, the executive order of D.U.M.B.A.S.S., introduced me to the secret societies within D.U.M.B.A.S.S. and their agendas. The hardest thing for me to understand was the similarities between Jesus and Bubbles. Although my mind is finite and I will never understand fully this great virtue, I trust my wife when she tells me they are the same and different. Because we were so similar in other ways she gave me the opportunity to join her cause. From that day on I swore I would not rest until:

1) Prayer was removed from schools
2) “In God We Trust” is removed from our money
3) “God” is taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance
4) Any woman is allowed to abort her baby so we can drink its blood
5) Gays – being the sacred judiciary of D.U.M.B.A.S.S., are given the right to marry so they too could receive tax breaks for having dirty sex, lighting the way for all of us in the true pleasures of hedonism.
6) Murder, rape, and drug use are made legal.
7) Telling the truth is not only not necessary but is also frowned upon.
8) Anyone can walk around naked if they want to.
9) Jews around the world are rewarded for what they did, since the true prophet is in fact Bubbles the Chihuahua, the reincarnated LSD using great prophet Shantal.
10) The black helicopters are painted pink.
11) Freemasons are given their 30 acres and a bucket of cement, as promised so many years ago.
12) We can not only burn our flag, but also use it as an adult diaper if there is no other cloth around.
13) We admit to evolution. Listen people, coming from monkeys is an improvement.
14) We allow the terrorists to win. After all, who needs freedom of religion and speech?