Do religious kids daydream of Jesus?
What kind of daydreams do religious kids have?
They start with the usual, I imagine. As far as I know, I was pretty normal in the drifting-off department. While I wasn't a sports kind of kid, I'd entertain the occasional fantasy of wowing the classmates with the home run they never expected, or knocking that ol' kickball all the way over the big tree in the grade school yard. Sometimes I had more exciting daydreams of gaining awesome superpowers. And, of course, there were no end to the fancies involving That One Girl in the next row or next classroom or whatever – just little secret stories that were clean and cute in grade school (less clean and cute in high school).
But uber-religious kids have got to have their own special brand of daydream – or at least, those kids with the "funny" religions that put them in the camp of outsider. I was a Jehovah's Witness kid, and that was considered a crackpot variant of the hometown's generic Christianity (when it was understood to be Christian to begin with!). As you'd expect, there was the occasional wisecrack to put up with, plus those embarrassing everybody's-staring-at-me moments when I had to publicly opt out of the Pledge of Allegiance or of a Christmas piece in band. To be fair, I can't say that I was treated awfully because of the wacky religion, but there were just enough jibes to spur a typically overly-sensitive and imaginative kid into irregular "I'll show them all!" fantasies. Here's how one of mine went. Readeth thou more
First Lady of Japan eats sun, rode UFO to Venus, knew Tom Cruise in previous life
Nancy Reagan consulted with astrologers? How sublunary. Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of new Japanese premiere Yukio Hatoyama, goes so much further.
As reported in outlets such as this CNN article, the good Ms Hatoyama relates in her many TV appearances and books that she knows Tom Cruise from a previous life, when he (and presumably she too) was Japanese. While busy chatting about politics and cooking on the talk shows, she still finds time for the occasional astral trip to Venus via "triangular UFO", as well as moments to "take a piece of the Sun and eat it".
So she sounds like a hard customer to please at those state dinners, though with that Venus trip on her resume, she sure beats "I can see Russia from my porch" Sarah Palin in foreign policy experience. (Despite the kinship to Tom Cruise, though, there's been no report that Ms Hatoyama embraces Scientology. Some things are just too weird for her.)
Of Darwinism and death panels
Do animals have it easy?
We all know they don't. Wild creatures struggle to find enough food to survive. They're on the run for ther lives 24/7, too; every day an animal keeps out of some other creature's belly is a minor miracle. Don't forget environmental dangers and the never-ending assault by parasites and pathogens. Nature is persistent in trying to kill its children.
Don't think that plants get off easily! They compete too for space, light, and water. And just when a young shoot thinks things are going well, bam, here comes a hungry deer or a locust swarm. Microbes too: it's the same struggle against starvation, predators, and hazards.
Living things are born onto a battlefield. Most never make it to the stage of creating the next generation. It's usually the fittest that run the gauntlet that far – if they're lucky.
This is something we all know. The struggle for survival in the wild is not a "finding of science"; it's universal common knowledge, obvious to everyone with a pair of eyes. Young people and old people know it. Medieval peasants knew it. Bronze Age peoples knew it. Cavemen knew it. It's as mundane an observation as the wetness of water.
In the 19th century, Charles Darwin pointed our attention to this common knowledge. As a prelude to a groundbreaking notion of how the struggle for survival shapes differences among generations, he reminded us that wild creatures struggle to thrive and breed, and that fitter and well-adapted specimens are more likely to make it. This is what everyone already knows as common sense.
Alas. Certain zealots with religious agendas decided, for reasons only they (possibly) understand, that the notion of change over generations was an affront to their interpretations of select scriptures. Thus began the shriek:
Oh my God! "Survival of the fittest"! Darwinists want the strong to kill the weak! They want eugenics and murder!
"Oh my God", indeed. What level of stupidity – what level of pithed, triple-lobotomized, saliva-dripping idiocy – can hear "As we all see in nature, creatures struggle to survive and breed, with the fittest specimens having the best shot", and claim to understand it as "The strong among us must kill the weak!"?
Jump ahead 150 years. We know people haven't gotten a lot smarter, as the zealots are still bleating the above in between changings of their drool bibs. But at least people can't have gotten dumber, letting that idiocy leach into additional issues, right?
Alas again. Gaze upon this sad scenario:
Many people face heart-rending decisions on caring for dying, incapacitated loved ones with no hope of independence from life support. They need to undertake difficult discussions with medical and legal professionals on medical prognoses, care options, legal issues, and the patient's own wishes as outlined in a living will. These consultations are vital, but can add to what is already a staggering financial burden for the caretakers.
As the US debates its national health care policies, legislation was proposed to allow existing social medical insurance to cover the expense of such voluntary consultations. Consultations that have always been available, recommended, and undertaken as required. Consultations that help people, and that could finally become affordable for all.
Enter the zealots, this time with political and financial agendas:
Oh my God! "End-of-life consultations"! The government wants to pull the plug on grandma! They want euthanasia and 'death panels' to kill the unwanted!
That is not sarcasm. As of August, 2009, those are literally the shrieks going 'round the nation. Again, what level of insanity – what level of gibbering, voices-in-the-head, pants-wetting lunacy – can hear "Let's extend Medicare reimbursements to cover voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues", and claim to understand it as "Let's set up government death panels to kill unneeded people!"?
This is one of those times when all you can do is slap a big hand to your face and pull it down like a flabbergasted cartoon character. Or maybe bonk yourself on the head with a hammer and watch the little birdies go tweeting around.
Really, at times like this I wish we could go back in time and reboot humanity, somehow starting mankind all over again with a little more reason this time.
Oh my God! "Reboot humanity"! He wants to kill all of us, and...
Oh shut up.
Another inexplicable church sign
I hope that this is a gag rearrangement of letters by wags wanting to make the church look bad.
I fear that's not the case.
(Source unknown.)
FOX News on new Egyptian exodus
FOX News Flash: Egypt itself has picked up, crossed the Red Sea, and settled in where Iraq once was. Curse you, Pharaoh!!!
via Fail Blog
None refused!
"Intelligent Design Supporters Strictly Prohibited" from "Darwinist, atheist, skeptic, freethinking, and infidel websites"? I think not! In general, we Darwinist, atheist, skeptic, freethinking, and infidel [DASFI?] webmasters love us the Intelligent Design supporters. And their friends, too! Seriously, drop by any time, and feel free to muse, amuse, educate, belligerate (?), or whatever you wish. Even pick up college course credit at select institutes of higher learning.
Just to make it clear, here's the no-sarcasm, honest-to-Mazda welcome mat. Feel free to wipe your feet (or not; Science made Roombas to take care of that).
I can haz LOL Bible?
"Invisible Man say, "I can has aminulz." It happen. Invisible Man make kitteh n' cowz n' snakez n' stuff. Iz good."
Source unknown. (But definitely written by humanz, not Invisible Manz.)
Click to enlarge.
The Onion: Viking God Odin Down to Last 4 Worshipers
It's almost over for the once-almighty ruler of Asgard.
Apologies for broken commenting system! It's fixed now.
I owe great apologies to anyone who's tried to post a comment, only to receive a message about the spam filtering system being unavailable. I found a misconfiguration in the filtering set-up; it's fixed, and comments appear to be flowing once more.
FYI, the spam-filtering system used is Mollom, which offers a nice benefit: It analyzes the text of comments, and unless it finds reason to suspect spam, won't bother you with a "captcha" or other "prove you're a human" test. I'd like there to be as little annoyance as possible for those kind enough to leave a message – which is why I'm very chagrined to find I've been unwittingly slapping down those good people for a long time now.
My apologies once again. I do look forward to your thoughts on what's good, wrong, or just plain dumb in this site's content.
i'm new... promise to brief nearly more oftentimes!
Either that, or I'm controlling Satan.
Hey Luce. Fetch me a sandwich. Pronto.
seems like you all are just letting satan control you.
what a hard hitting statement/quote.
And what's more, it's some nonsense about "God will set a judge". Big deal; humans have been...