People really believe this stuff?

I get that people are brought up to believe that gods are unquestionable lest you damn your eternal soul. So I can see how people would be afraid to question those beliefs. But ghosts? Seriously? And not even in a "well that was weird and I'm creeped out" kind of way. Some of the people commenting on this Cracked article are all "ZOMG, my Aunt Zelda saw a ghost woman who answered her questions!" The fuck she did.

It's one thing to believe this stuff when you're a kid. It's another to be in full-on adulthood and think that incorporeal dead people are flying around talking to you. Or anybody else. I can't even get my head around this. Do they think Sixth Sense was a true story? FFS people.

Nerd Crush Alert

I am crushing on Ricky Gervais right now. I've kind of had him on my nerd crush list since before he lost weight and was suddenly hot. But after reading the linked article and its followup, he's square in the nerd crush realm. He gets it. And he can explain it. And it's funny. That's made out of win.

I don't date, but if I did, I can't imagine being with a guy who was a believer. What would you say when they talk about their magical thoughts? I can hold my tongue or just agree to disagree with a friend, but I could never get serious with or live with someone who thinks gods are real. The notion is so absurd to me that I just can't get my head around it. And that's OK with believers who are just friends, acquaintances, relatives or whatever. You can believe that the moon is made of green cheese, that aliens walk among us and they want to mutilate cattle and experiment on hillbillies, or that you have a personal relationship with an invisible man in the sky. Just don't expect me to join in.

But when you are in a relationship, that's not really possible. No, I'm not going to church with you this or any other week, including Christmas. No, I really don't want to hang out at your church functions. No, I don't want to be The Atheist Girlfriend in the family. No, I didn't like Signs. Yes, I did like Contact.

I guess those two movies spell it out plainly. I had a religious friend who really did not like Contact. I think what bugged him the most about the movie was that he didn't believe Jodie Foster's character would be turned down because she was an atheist. And he didn't like the way they portrayed Rob Lowe's character. I totally believed it, and everything Rob Lowe's character said was something I've heard or seen Christians say. OTOH, I didn't like Signs at all. I barely managed to sit through it. But we were at the drive-in with a bunch of my daughter's friends for her birthday. They weren't really watching it; they got out of the car and sat on the ground in the drizzling rain (with no sound). But they enjoyed being out somewhere, so we stayed. The whole thing was completely implausible to me. All those things were related? Seriously? The aliens were defeated by WATER? WTF were they planning to do if it rained? I'm guessing an awful lot of religious people went "aw, God took care of those people." No, bad writing and a horrible premise took care of those people.

Actually, now I wish I had seen that movie with someone like Ricky Gervais. That would have made it infinitely more entertaining. Too bad atheist conventions cost money, require interaction, and are apparently not girl-friendly (elevatorgate much?). I don't know where else to meet sane people.

Happy Holidays

So it's that time of year again. The time when people pretend there is a war on Christmas. Now I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of Christmas. I tend to see winter shopping season as a reminder that I'm poor, fat, cold, and hate crowds. Religion doesn't even come into my equation. What other people do at this time of year is their deal, not mine.

And yet I've already seen multiple posts by more than one of my Facebook "friends," saying that it's "their" holiday, and anyone who doesn't like it should "go home." I posted this as my status last night in response:

Before you copy/paste somebody's status complaining about how you are getting your rights trampled on if you don't get to dictate the cashier's greeting at Target, please consider how that sounds to everybody who isn't you. Not everyone celebrates the same holidays, and asking stores to force, for example, Jewish cashiers to wish you Merry Christmas is more than a little unreasonable.

And then ask yourself how it is in keeping with the spirit of whatever winter holiday you celebrate to tell me that if I don't celebrate the same thing, in the same way, and using that same words that you do, then I need to "go home"?

What does that even mean, "go home"? Like to where I was born? You want me to go to California?? Or do you mean to where my ethnicity originates? Because I'm an adopted person, and I don't know where that is. So I guess Africa, like everybody else. Are you coming with me, then, since you're from Africa, too? Africa's going to get crowded.

Plus if we all go back to Africa, shouldn't we be celebrating whatever it was we celebrated when we were all Africans? What did we do back then, make antelope paintings on cave walls or something like that? This seems overly complicated somehow. Maybe we should just forget it and tell everyone that we hope they enjoy their holidays, and let them worry about how they want to celebrate them.

What I would be interested in learning is whether or not these same horribly oppressed people would be OK with a Jewish cashier wishing them Happy Hanukkah. Is that OK? How about a pagan cashier wishing them a Blessed Yule or a Happy Solstice? Can I say Joyous Saturnalia just to be contrary? Because Saturnalia was apparently way more awesome than Christmas. What if this hypothetical cashier is a Puritan (are there still Puritans?) or a Jehovah's Witness, and doesn't celebrate Christmas? Can s/he say Have a Nice Day? Or is it that everyone needs to just celebrate the modern religio-retail version of Christmas with its Coca-Cola Claus and STFU about their own beliefs and/or traditions? Because it feels a lot like that last one.

What is the point of government?

I had another conversation with my conservative friend today. He was saying that "class warfare" isn't the answer to our economic problems. Which is apparently his opinion on asking the people with all the money to quit hogging all the money.  I don't mind if people have more money than I do. I don't mind if people have a whole ton of money and I don't.  But I do mind that 1% of the people have ALL the money.  So I have been thinking today, if the government isn't here to provide the services that We The People need, then what is that point of it?  So I Googled. And I got this answer from Yahoo Answers (which wasn't even chosen as the best answer, but I think it should have been).

For the United States, the Constitution gives certain goals for the government in the preamble:

To form a more perfect union - Make it so the people of different states can conduct business, make contracts, have compatible laws.

Establish Justice - Criminals get punished. No running between states to avoid prosecution.

insure Domestic Tranquility - Enact such laws that allow people to live peacefully with each other. Provide institutions that enforce laws (Police, Courts, etc)

Provide for a Common Defense - Establish diplomatic capabilities for the whole of the union, establishment of a military.

Promote the General Welfare - See to the needs of the people. This includes making health care available to enabling charitable causes.

secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity - The government is intended to provide freedom. In essence, this is a 'do no evil' kind of statement. (Posterity - Those who come after us... eg. Children, Grandchildren, etc)

They're right. That is the point of (the US) government. I don't see "provide tax breaks to the wealthy" or "corporations play for free" in there anywhere. Hell, I don't even see "protect unregulated capitalism." Unregulated capitalism is evil, greedy, and wrong. But I suppose when you support a fascist theocracy, evil, greedy and wrong are small potatoes.

Damn, I'm on a roll.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Republican and Libertarian political stances. Most of these people, AFAICT, call themselves Christians. OK. But what I'm wondering is, if they're Christians, then why do their beliefs sound more like LaVeyan Satanism than like the things Jesus supposedly said?

Example: Christianity teaches that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. I think none of them read that page. Another thing they don't appear to have read is when Jesus tell his people that they need to give all their stuff to the poor if they want to follow him.

OTOH, "LaVey felt that intelligent and strong people spent too much time caring for psychic vampires — weak individuals who always demanded attention and care, yet would never give any back. He taught that Satanists should strive to remove themselves as much as possible from such people in order to live in accordance to their instincts and individual wills." (This is from wikipedia.) This sounds a lot more like dog eat dog Republicans to me.

Going for a Record

OK, it's not technically the same day, but I'm still within 24 hours.

I've been thinking today about how, when you tell Christians that there's no historical evidence for Jesus, they say things like "well how do we know" x person/place/thing from history is real? My favorite one was when someone asked how we know the Mayflower was a real boat. LOL. You're asking a girl from Massachusetts, honey.

The Mayflower is still a real boat. It's still anchored in Plymouth, and I've been aboard it. That's how I know. Also, my father is a direct descendant of Gov. William Bradford. I'm pretty sure my father is real, and he bears an unmistakable family resemblance to some of the pictures in histories of the Bradford family.

So yeah. Some things you can actually prove with evidence and stuff. Imagine that!

Two in One Day!

I had a conversation on Facebook with an old friend the other day. He had posted some cutesy Dr. Seuss poem about how much he doesn't like President Obama and his progressive policies. I responded that apparently the rest of the country does, since the GOP favorability rating is at an all-time low. He went on to tell me how he's not actually a Republican, because he votes "independent." Well I'm not actually a Democrat then, because I'm not enrolled in the Democratic party. I vote "unenrolled." But I am against pretty much everything the Republican party stands for.

Anyway, I was on FB today, and I saw on this sidebar that he had "liked" Michele Bachmann. That turned my stomach. How can anyone support her? Especially someone I consider a friend. I am still very upset about it. She LIES and makes up crap about the Constitution. She is ALWAYS wrong. She is dumber than Sarah Palin, and that's saying a lot. She wants a Constitutional BAN on same sex marriage. That's right. She actually wants to use the Constitution to TAKE AWAY PEOPLE'S RIGHTS! Why? Because her husband is gay, and hates himself for it because of people JUST LIKE HIM.  She wants to get rid of the minimum wage, because then, she says, companies could hire more people.  Seriously.  Oh, yeah, so instead of hiring someone for $8/hr., they can hire 12 people for $8/hr.! Hooray! Guess what, bitch? Having a job that pays you $.66/hr. is a lot like being a slave. She's basically the personification of everything that's wrong with this country. Her values and beliefs are not reconcilable with mine, and I don't see how, as a country, we can solve this problem.

I saw quite a few people over at Boston.com today who were commenting on Romney's "Corporations are people" thing. The Republi-trolls were all "you people are supporting the EUROPEAN way, rather than the AMERICAN way." Fuck off. Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, since the people of Europe have been doing this "having a country" thing longer than we have, they might just know WTF they're doing?