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| That's the funniest book title I've seen in a long time. At first I
thought it had to be a scholarly study of depression, but no, it's
actually a self-help guide for the depressed. Calling a person who
knows they're depressed a dummy seems kind of cruel to me, but who
knows, they might be more likely to read the book because they do think
they're a dummy. | | |
| My dog's dying. BJ, fourteen years old or so. I've been expecting
this for years, but that doesn't make it easy at all. He's wasting
away. He's not really eating at all, can't move enough to drink on his
own. He's been like this for a few days now. When I was sitting with
him a few nights ago, I thought that was his last night, but he's
hanging on. Can't even stand up, but he's hung on this long. Each
time I walk away from his house, I think that it's the last time I'll
get to talk to him, and that tears me up. But I know dogs can pick up
on moods, and me being sad around him probably isn't good for him
either. I'm not sure how aware of us he is anymore, he doesn't even
wag his tail when I come up to him. This is tearing me up. Yeah, this
is a morbid post, but I needed to get this out. It's sad how you don't
realize how much you love someone until you realize you're losing
them. I think about the positives, how he's been getting old for a
while now, and how much he is loved, and how he had a good life. It's
inevitable though, and that's what hurts. You know this is coming, but
when it does, it hurts, that you can't do anything about it. I think I
need to stop here.
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| I need to post more often. I'm still working all the time. Hopefully going to get promoted soon, excited about that. Still ready to move on though. Finished Harry Potter Sunday night, good book. Kind of in shock now that it's over. But the Half-Blood Prince movie is supposed to come out next November which isn't too long away. This is the year of stuff ending too-The Sopranos, Harry Potter, maybe Halo (at least the first trilogy). Reading Grimm's Fairy Tales right now. Entertaining stuff. Pretty gruesome. If Disney movies were more accurate, everyone would have at least one beheading. Read an anthology of Buddhist scriptures not too long ago. Entertaining stuff. Funny how many texts have people being generous and selfless for their own self-advancement and personal enlightenment. I really have no idea who I'm going to vote for next year; nobody really stands out to me. That's sad, I like getting into politics. I wonder sometimes about people; Christian people mainly, because that's who I know the most of. I've always wondered how so many Christians can see no problem with the way they treat people. I've been involved in a good number of Christian groups, and a lot of times people don't really make an effort to get to know unless you make an effort to be known. Not fun, if you're not the most outgoing person. I've wondered too how people can just totally cut people out of their life and ignore them without reason, or not even seem too interested in why they haven't seen them in a while. I don't think people take Jesus saying "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" and "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me" all that seriously really. Every little thing we do or fail to do to someone, it's as if we did or didn't do it to Jesus. That worries me, especially when you consider all the people across the world who die every day from things that are easily preventible. People talk about why God allows evil in the world, and I think a lot of times that's passing the blame off of us. I'd say the majority of things that we can evil in this world we have the power to prevent or at least do something about now. We just don't. People wonder why God allows someone to starve in Africa at the same time that they're shoving into their mouth food that actually hurts them. We call someone over here poor if they have a beatup car, or live in trailer, whereas the global definition of poverty is living on the street having no idea where your next scrap of food is coming from.I imagine a devout churchgoer on Judgment Day all proud before God, bragging about his perfect church attendance, regular tithing, teaching Sunday school, being nice to his wife, taking care of his kids, and other things like that, and then God asking what he did to help the 6.6 billion people in the world he didn't care about. A lot of Christians nowadays aren't all that different from non-Christians. We're nice to our own kind, to those who agree with our beliefs, and that's more or less it for a lot of people. I've actually seen arguments that when it comes to missionary work, Christians shouldn't do anything humanitarian, or anything to help out those they're attempting to proselytize; all the money and effort should be spent in stricy evangelism, because that's all that matters. That's a really good witness there: "Jesus loved you so much He died for you. Me? I'm not going to feed you or help you get medical treatment, but I will give you this lovely tract on the Romans Road. Have a nice day; I'm going back to my hotel to sing praise songs". We as Christians quote verses like "love your enemy" all the time, and very few of us actually live it. It's easy for us to rationalize it. "I'm at work, God doesn't expect me to follow the Golden Rule here, that wouldn't be profitable". Or we think that praying for someone is all the love that's needed. I've actually heard that one a lot. "I just lost my job, and I don't know what I'm doing to do". "I'll pray for you". I really doubt God takes our prayers seriously unless we've done everything in our power to realize them ourselves. And why should he? We want something badly enough to ask the God of the universe for it, but we're not going to give up some of our own time and money to make it happen? It's way too easy these days to be a casual Christian. We find a comfortable niche in a youth group or church, and think that we're doing God's will. In reality most of the time we're not doing much beyond making ourselves feel good while turning a blind eye to the suffering of the world. Ironic, considering Jesus cared so much about the world's pain He suffered and died to alleviate it. Seems like if we really followed Him, we'd be willing to do the same. | | |
| I'm relaxing from work right now. Worked the early shift today, and I have a tomorrow off and go in late on Wednesday, so I've got a decent little break. Work's not too bad, just kind of ready to move on in life. Been socially deprived lately too. Ever since I graduated actually. Been reading a good bit lately. Haven't written much lately, need to work on revising my first novel. Been planning out my second novel in my head lately, I'm getting excited about that already. Cricket's sitting on the chair with me right now. She seems tired which doesn't make much sense since she was alone most of the day with Christopher. Been watching The Sopranos all the time lately. Got the first five seasons on DVD now. Good show. Read The Satanic Bible last week. Funny book. Too many generalizations and misconceptions, though. I get tired of people lately saying certain things that people say are out of bounds, usually when those things have to do with race or sexual orientation. For example, Ann Coulter's faggot joke, the thing with Grey's Anatomy, the party at Clemson, etc. What does freedom of speech mean? Freedom to say things that are in the boundaries, and pass approval? It makes me sad. Especially after reading The Federalist and seeing how much freedom of expression was valued by the Framers. That's one of the best things about this country, freedom of speech. People should be able to say whatever they want to (in the right venue), even if it bothers people. | | |
| What's new in my life? Nothing significant. Had a job interview the other day, for PetSmart. Thought it went pretty well. But then I thought the whole three hour Wachovia assessment went well, and I never heard back from them. I'm tired of not having a job. Kind of at a loss as to what to do about that though. I think it's funny how a lot of people who say they're tolerant and openminded really aren't at all. They're tolerant and accepting of certain things and beliefs that don't offend them too much. But if someone has an idea or belief that really bothers them, they can be really vicious about it. This seems to happen a lot when it comes to abortion. Happens with drugs too. Found that out a while back. Apparently it's bad for me to think that drugs are bad and using them is a stupid decision. Also I've noticed that people tend to respond to people who have these beliefs by insulting their knowledge, that I hold the idea I do because I really don't know much about the situation at hand (meaning, not as much as them). It's like people don't want to admit that it's possible for two well-meaning, educated people to have different opinions about something. This happens on both the liberal and conservative sides unfortunately. A lot of churches and Christians tend to be pretty set against open discussions of elements of dogma (although if you look at what the Bible really says, as opposed to what's been piled onto and what people have interpreted it as saying for two thousand years, it holds up). The Christian church would be immensely better off if it managed to slough off a lot of the traditions and dogmas that go pretty much unquestioned today. For example, the ordination of women. If you really look at the Bible, you have several women in spiritual leadership positions, in both the Old and New Testaments. I think the only real argument to support not ordaining women would be the old crap about women being more wicked and sinful than men, and therefore not able to lead. For one thing, there have been far too many male church leaders who have sinned horribly, and caused tremendous damage to their congregations and Christianity as a whole. Maybe men are afraid to have women leaders because they would be tempted by them. Well, women are often tempted by male leaders (read The Grapes of Wrath). Is the risk of a man sinning worse than that of a woman? Or look at homosexuality. This is more complicated an issue than many people in churches act like. Yes, there are passages in the Bible that state that homosexual behavior is wrong. But most of these are tied together with fornication and lust. I'm not saying I think homosexual behavior is right; I don't. But a lot of churches and Christians today have elevated homosexuality to a level where it seems worse than any other sin. Look at how much preaching and yelling there is about gay marriage, and how it'll destroy civilization. Why is this any more liable to destroy America than greed, violence, lust, anger, or any other sin? Why is homosexuality any worse than these other sins? It isn't. You have pastors who would be glad if all gays were killed. Well, if you're going to kill them because of their sin, you're going to have to wipe out the entire population of the Earth. We've all sinned. Odds are the pastor who's screaming about homosexuality has anger issues, or has lied, or something else. Anger does much more harm to society than two people who love each other and are the same sex. Greed and selfishness are what's harming the world more than anything else. Christians talk about the high divorce rates these days. From what I know, the majority of these marriages aren't ending because of homosexuality. More of them end because of selfcenteredness, because of people not thinking before they go into marriage. Oppression is caused by greed, not by a gay conspiracy (despite what Michael Savage thinks). Environmental degradation, spouse, animal, and child abuse, pretty much any one of society's ills is caused by greed. Yes, homosexuality can be a factor in these things. But it's never the sole factor. I have friends who aren't heterosexual, and they don't beat me up or steal from me. This tirade's gone on a lot longer than I intended, but oh well, I don't get out much, and nobody really reads this. Tying this in to what I was saying earlier, I've read stuff recently (Matthew Fox, I think) that says that anyone who doesn't like homosexuality is a homophobe. Instead of admitting that it's possible to have disagreement on an issue, it's easier for people to just call each other names. But there is a point in that logic, although not the one I think was intended. Homosexuality is a scapegoat. Listen to Michael Savage's radio show for any amount of time. For a lot of people, it's easier to blame things on the gays (or the blacks/whites/Jews/anti-semites/Communists/capitalists/men/women/etc/etc) rather than to really look at the problems of the world. If people were to do so, they would realize that they are the cause of the world's problems. Not some evil conspiracy of Others out to get us. Look at Jesus' teachings. What really ticked him off? Hypocrisy. We have more than enough of a plank in our own eye to be concerned with sawdust in someone else's. America's (and the world's) problems won't be solved by banning gay marriage. The way to work towards solving them is to rid ourselves of anger, pride, lust. Sin. If we want to make a difference in the world, make it better, we need to look inside, and be more like Jesus. Not burn people at the stake. | | |
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