Pickles, the Guiding Light

PZ Myers aptly said of the video:

Christianity is like sticking a fork in your face and your rectum and plugging them into a wall socket. Your insides will smoke and sizzle, you'll glow, sparks will shoot out of you, and you'll become a cooked vegetable.

At the end, he says, "don't try to do this at home, because it can be very dangerous". That's the honest part of his example. Kids, don't do religion! It's very, very bad for you!

Mind you, this is now right up there among my favorite quotes.

title h/t to Herra Efahyggja

E-mail forwards

Why is it that those obnoxious e-mail forwards with the 'feel good' message - the ones where bad things will happen if you don't pass it along - always have Christian undertones? For me, they're just plain annoying, to begin with, but I would imagine they would irritate Christians, too, simply for sticking the Christian brand on worthless SPAM.

But I was amused by the fact that one of these forwards had the following message to try to get people to keep passing it along:

The Lotus Touts must leave your hands in 6 MINUTES. Otherwise you will get a very unpleasant surprise. This is true, even if you are not superstitious, agnostic, or otherwise faith impaired.

I'm "faith impaired"! How stellar is that? I can't decide if they were trying to be politically correct or if they wanted to offend us non-believers. I'm fairly sure that I'm one of many who don't feel a deficit or handicap for not believing in a supreme being. Granted, I would imagine there are some who focus more on the doubt, and they may indeed feel discomfort in their state.

I hadn't really thought about it, recently, but it is really interesting how there seems to be a similar sense of peace in actively believing and actively disbelieving. It's the ones who aren't sure if they believe who seem to struggle. Once you sit down and open yourself to what you really do believe, then you're good - be it that there is indeed a God (and maybe a savior) or not. Cool deal.

Note: Also, that little block of text doesn't really make sense, if one observes the syntactical rules of the English language, but... oh well...

atheist at confirmation (of faith)

so i know my sexual frustration post probably is a lot less relevant to anything or anyone (not that anyone is reading this, anyway). but i've gotta say, it's really a strange experience to be atheist and be asked by your little sister to go to her confirmation of faith ceremony. seriously weird. and frustrating. i love my sister very much, so there was no question that i would go and support her. i'm proud of her - it's so great to watch her grow up, to watch her become a beautiful and smart young woman. but... it's really hard for me to stand up with her as someone says "dear lord stir up in [...] mara blah blah blah" when it's not something i believe, something i support. but the whole thing... it was just... weird.

another weird thing about the experience: one of the confirmation group leaders was really excited about a spear he'd gotten as a gift from some... tribe... somewhere... and he had it up front with him, and he was waving it around... and he was likening his students to the head of the spear - they go in first. it was weird and kind of creepy. i was vaguely hoping he would touch the spear on both shoulders of each student, in the fashion of knighting. that would have been hilarious and awesome. sadly, no.

oh, and it should be noted that women should probably not sing josh groban's "you raise me up" without transposing to a [significantly] lower key... holy crap was that painful. i mean, she wasn't that bad, but a) it was way too high and she wasn't hitting her notes, and b) she was doing the groove with the spirit jam-style singing which just makes me laugh inside (and sometimes outside). after having heard the original, i just... was not impressed.

good things that came of the day: whether or not i agree with the specific connotation of "confirmation," i do agree with the concept of acknowledging the "coming of age" of young adults. well... adolescents, really. but still. and it was also kinda neat that both sides of my sister's very divided family were able to come together for this.

okay. done, now. :)