Land of Oz

Terminator School?

I was wandering through the Detroit News web site and noticed this ad for a career site. Is it just me or does that look like one evil woman? I think she'd give T-X from Terminator 3 a run for its money. Imagine her sitting in front of a bank of monitors watching your every move. And who's that shadowy dude in the background. Gives me the shivers...

Labels: crime, government, religion

Weird Dreams

This holiday has been pretty stressed out in many ways. The other night I had a pretty odd dream. As in most of my dreams, it goes in short, semi-related episodes. Here's what I can remember.

It started on a space station of some kind. There was a breech in one of the windows and my space suit was several rooms away contrary to SOP. I could feel the panic of not knowing if I could get to me suit before I suffocated. I did manage to get into a suit before the air was gone, but I don't think it was mine.

I was being interviewed for a job and the question of religion came up. I answered that I wasn't very religious and didn't believe in god. After the interview was over, I stayed worried that perhaps I would lose my job over these negative religious feelings.

Somehow I knew that earth had been surreptitiously invaded and "they" were among us. They being canine-people. (For some reason, dog never came to mind in this dream, only canine.) At one time, when I was in my office, one of them came in and leaned on my desk with dog paws believing I was in the know as to who they really were. It seemed they could mask themselves as human. One other time I was in a store when someone walked in. As soon as the stranger walked in all the other people in the store began to act like crazy dogs. I'm not quite sure why some times they would mask themselves as dogs and at other times as humans.

It turned out the religion question had been to determine my possible status as one who could be trusted to work with them. Making me a quisling of a sorts, I guess. The idea being that if I didn't believe in god, I wouldn't have quite too much trouble dealing with leadership who were doglike pagans, instead of human.

When I look at all the little bits, it seems that we were in space at this time and there was a secret invasion of canine appearing aliens who could mask themselves as humans and needed humans to do their work. It seemed I had no problem accepting that - which I suppose is good and bad - and became one of their loyal minions.

I can see some of the stress with the past weeks in this. Job security, new leadership of the country, religious holidays, emergency response and management, and noisy next door dogs all blend into this mess.

Labels: misc, religion

Religion

Do you realize that Jesus probably never read the bible when he was growing up?

Why weren't/aren't people surprised when God told them to kill their own kid.

God had no problem killing a city (er, whole world) full of children because their parents were idiots.

Jesus was a bootlegger - remember the wedding?

If the bible is the word of God, why are there different versions?

Why do celibate priests offer marriage counseling?

Why doesn't eating meat on Friday constitute a sin anymore? When did God say it was OK to have a bologna sandwich for lunch? And if I did eat a hot dog on Friday when I was kid, has that sin been excused by the new law, or lack of one?

How did the lack of a head-covering on a woman when I was a kid, harm her church worshipping capabilities?

And if a woman has to keep a hat on, why does a man have to keep it off? (or at least we used to)

Why does the church keep asking for money for the poor, yet spend so much of it on vestments and church decorations?

Since Limbo is now much downplayed, what happened to the kids that were there earlier? Are they still screwed or have they gone on to heaven.

If the communion host was the body of God, why could we eat it on Good Friday?

Why is God still holding a grudge after 4004 years (or whatever is was since Eden and the apple)?

Labels: religion

USofA to Iraq

Sorry about shooting your prayer book. The rest of your country and 100,000 civilians? Oh well - that's the way it goes sometimes.

Labels: government, religion

Think Again

Another reason why I think religious people aren't quite all here. Around the world people are starving to death, dying of disease, and killing each other in wars so old, they don't even remember why they started anymore. On a purely materialistic level, people can't afford their doctor or house payment and ignore one and lose the other. Children are killing and raping other children in the cities and you have teenagers feeding their babies crack.

And with all that, people are going to waste their time and efforts praying so they can pay less for gas! If anything demonstrates just how completely fucked up we are getting, it has to be the fact that a church group is going to gather at a gas station to pray for cheap gas! How many SUVs do you think will be in worship?

They have a Web site (and a toll free number of course) and not only can you worship on it, but you can also place your order for a NutriSystem diet plan, get a free cell phone and get $5 in free calls to the Philippines. And the most annoying part of it, is that I'm only guessing mind you, but they are also probably tax free.

Labels: gripes, religion

Good Friday/Easter

Well, it's pretty obvious I'm going to hell thinking about this, but I really don't see the big deal about this holiday. Friday is supposed to commemorate the death of Jesus and then Sunday he comes back to life. As I understand it, one of the basic tenets of Christianity is that God gave his kid's life for us. My question is why is that a big deal?

If it was you who gave up your kids life (I don't have one to give up) for someone, that would be a big deal. After all, once your kid is gone, it's gone. God, on the other hand, is immortal and always been and always will be. I'm guessing that's genetic so so is his kid - Jesus. Which means that God lets his kid die for three days and suffers for a couple of weeks, knowing all the time Jesus will be coming back to life shortly.

Since he always has been and always will be, it seems to me that a couple of weeks of pain and agony and then three days dead, isn't such a big deal. There's a lot, too many actually, mortals who if they only had to suffer for a couple of weeks, would be ecstatic. Honestly, compared to mortals in places like Treblinka under Hitler, Cambodia under Pol Pot, European pagans under the Inquisition, Iraqis under Saddam and Nanking under the Japanese, and too many more to mention, Jesus had it pretty easy.

Now if God decided to let kids be born without birth defects, that would impress me. But giving up his kid for three days out of an infinite life - I don't think so.

Labels: gripes, religion

Theocracy

THIS week [Jan 19] the Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee proposed that the US constitution be brought more in line with God's law in the Bible.

"I [Huckabee] believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

Now this scares the hell out of me. It's bad enough the Middle and Near East are full of religious fanatics who are trying to get rid of the secular government and replace it with one they feel supports their vision of religion. Now we have an American who is thinking about the same thing.

If Huckabee gets in, I can see the next couple of years making the medieval crusades look tame. A weapon of mass destruction back in those days was a big rock - today it's a nuke. Can you picture the American flag now being the cross-spangled banner? The amount of religion in today's politics is getting very scary, especially when one of the front runners is already calling for Constitutional amendments to better match the bible. Once they - there's that infamous they again - get their hooks into that, how much longer before we'll be teaching that man played with dinosaurs and the earth is stationary (poor Galileo is probably moaning, oh no, not again...).

Labels: freedom, government, religion

Freedom of Worship

Veils and women. Guys and knives. Anyone and turbans. Feet washing and Friday night fish fries. Yes, as an immigrant you may have been used to those types of customs in your life. However, I don't see a reason for you to expect the country you immigrate into has to support the same customs you were used to at home.

Why do you expect the same customs in the new country? Obviously there was something wrong in your native country or otherwise you wouldn't have left.

If and when I decide to live in another country I wouldn't expect them to support my beliefs. If I have to give up gun ownership and accept stricter government control of what I do, then so be it. If there's higher taxes to be paid and some customs are unacceptable, then either I follow what they already have or I stay where I am. I don't expect a new country to accept me -- I expect to accept the new country.

Labels: freedom, government, gripes, religion

Catholics

I like this story. It seems the pope has reasserted that the Roman Catholic church is the only true church. As near as I can tell the main reason for this is that the Romain Catholic church is the only church that recognizes the pope as being the main man. And as a pope he's infallible, so he'd know right? So basically either you admit the pope is the greatest or you're going to hell - with or without a handbasket. The other reason is other churches can't trace thier bishops and such back to the original apostles. Considering how all priests are supposed to be celibate, I'm wondering how they manage that.

And they're going back to latin masses. I can remember latin masses - never understood them, but can remember them. I had to memorize a bunch of latin mumbo-jumbo when I became an altar boy. Right after I joined up, they switched to english. The good thing about having a mass in latin is that most people won't understand what the priest's are saying. So the priest can say anything, and as basis in faith, you just know he's saying the right thing. And we all know how trustworthy priests can be don't we. I know most are OK folks, but there seems to be way too many who have been stretching the boundaries of their vows, especially where celibacy comes to mind. It turns out one of the priests from my home town parish was up close and personal with some young guys, so it's not all that rare. But, it's nice to know the pope is infallible.

And people wonder why I'm a lapsed catholic.

Labels: gripes, religion