The Truth about Santa

(tip of the santa-hat to PZ Myers)

I can haz rest now?

I'm moving! Yay! But no time to post. Boss Lady is out of town so I get to run the store. Whee. Working 8 days in a row is good times. Yeah. And packing. And our stupid landlord wants to show the apartment WHILE WE'RE STILL IN IT.

Stupid retail holiday and crap. This about says it all: (don't play in a public area)

Suck it, Jesus!

Just a quick blurb tonight. I was never a big watcher of Kathy Griffin until she pissed off the Catholic League during her Emmy speech. Her new special on Bravo recaps the event and is quite funny. Here's a commercial:

500

Aparently, I'm the 500th person to join the Atheist blogroll! Wooooo! Praises be unto FSM, IPU and Father Squidmas! Now this means that I actually have to post more than twice a month if I can help it. No more slacking off. Honest.

And now, without further ado:

What I Don't Understand About the Birth of the Zombie Son of Sky Wizard

or

Letter to a Christian Shopper

(Apologies to Sam Harris.)

All of the canned Christmas music at the mall got me thinking, and I realized that there's a bit of your mythos that I don't understand (aside from all the other things like woman-hating, injustice, and ritual cannibalism). So, here's the scenario as I understand it:

An invisible wizard in the sky creates the world and aardvarks and people and jam. He is omnipotent and omniscient and supposedly benevolent, yet he decides to plant a forbidden apple tree on Man's front lawn. Man eats an apple, and Sky Wizard gets pissed and evicts him. Man goes on to live in other places, but every man who dies goes to H-E-double-hockey-sticks eternal torture. Sky Wizard, even though he's purportedly omniscient, somehow didn't see this coming. "Sorry," he says. "I'd really like to help, but my omnipotent hands are tied."

Fast forward to the dawn of the common era.

Sky Wizard finally decides he'd like to correct his monumental blunder. And while he's omnipotent, and could presumably snap his celestial fingers, he figures he'd rather add in some more torture and suffering. (Since he's omniscient, he's already a big Mel Gibson fan). So he has magical-not-sex with some poor young woman and gets her pregnant, and she doesn't even have the decency to name the baby Emanuel. Bummer for the prophets, but easier to fit on a bumper sticker. So the sole purpose of this kid is to suffer a whole lot, die, then beat up Satan (who, by the way, Sky Wizard also created and presumably never had free will, so can be assumed to be an extension of Sky Wizard) and then come back to life after being corpsified for a couple of days. So the boy grows up, and gets tortured, and tortured and killed all to do what Sky Wizard could have done by wiggling his magical nose, what with him being omnipotent and all.

Now I know one of your common arguments is somehow that "humanity needed to see it done like that." Yeah, that worked out really well: over a millennium of rampant anti-semitism, oppression and, well, those crusades were just super-nifty. And don't try playing the "free will" card. If Sky Wizard is omniscient, he'd have seen it seen it coming. (Except that then he's have missed out on Mel). So after needlessly torturing and killing his son, Sky Wizard resets the rules: now you can be as bad as you want as long as you like Jesus and feel sorry about whatever it was you did sometime before you die, and if you're good, but don't like Jesus, you get to be tortured eternally anyway. Sky Wizard sees this as an improvement.

And you celebrate the beginning of this torture cycle with obnoxious music and lying to children.

No, I won't wish you a merry Christmas.

Zazzle

Put up a couple of new things on my Zazzle page. A couple of Portal shirts and some photos that I posted here earlier. Lookie:


make custom gifts at Zazzle

Past Life = Aboriginal Watchmaking Bookworm!

PZ got it from Bronze Dog who got it from Randi. Now I have to play with the silly woo-woo machine.

Your past life diagnosis:
I don't know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern West Australia around the year 1325. Your profession was that of a jeweler or watch-maker.

Hm, an aboriginal watchmaker. I must have made them out of kangaroo bones, crocodile teeth and shiny pebbles! Of Course!

Your brief psychological profile in your past life: Inquisitive, inventive,
you liked to get to the very bottom of things and to rummage in books.
Talent for drama, natural born actor.

Primitive aboriginal books. Made out of pressed koala ears!

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
There is an invisible connection between the material and the spiritual
world. Your lesson is to search, find and use this magical bridge.
Do you remember now?

Mmmm, yes, and it will take me to Imaginationland where I get to meet Popeye, Glinda, Jesus and Morpheus! W00t!

Sad, tired, typing

Haven't written anything for a bit. Not much in the mood now, either.

Boss broke her foot, so I had to run the store for three weeks. I'm tired.

My dog died. He lived with my mom since I moved out, but he was always my puppy. He was old, and had diabetes and kidney issues, and today they had him euthanized.

I'm a sad Jen.

Pictures from Work (please don't fire me!)

My boss's baby and my boss's other baby's baby. (below and above)

Vivi (above) and Thanhthanh (below) posing in the store.

More Lovely Bodega

Lovely Bodega

Pictures of Things in my Backyard

Survivor: Nutcase

I want to gouge my eye out with a chopstick.

For lack of anything else on the TV, I'm watching Survivor: China. In the beginning of the episode, the soon-to-be castaways are greeted at a temple and are asked to participate in a non-worship ceremony of welcoming. One of these mammals is a "christian radio host" and halfway through, she walks out, all miffed and upset. Quoth the deluded mammal: "You know, I'm not a religious person, but I have a relationship with Jesus Christ."

Holy mother of fucking ouch.

Pardon me while I lapse into a coma.

Yarr, it be talk like a pirate day

Aye, it do indeed be talk like a pirate day. I wore me best pirate-themed getup, but yar, there were no others to enjoy the festivities with me. The mall were dead as a doornail, and not-a-one were doin' his part to decrease global warming. Scallywags.

On the Subject of gods (an anti-theistic rant with some naughty words)

Recently, in a conversation with my mother, she assured me that she really, truly believes/has faith in her religion "Orthodox" Christianity. I made dismissive remarks, but I rarely feel like I can accurately express myself on the spot. So here goes.

First off, the name is a dead giveaway that these people (albeit like almost every other religious group) believes themselves to be the ONLY right-thinking group there is. Period.

They believe in the Abrahamic god and identify him as a trinity. Three gods for the price of one, I guess. They of course have had (and in some places such as Serbia/Kosovo, continue to have) violent conflict with the Catholics of which the main issue is over just exactly how these three personalities interact. There are of course other socio-political tensions, but that's not what I'm on about at the moment.

As far as I can tell, the "orthodox" christian church teaches that the bible is more or less true. This, of course, is silly in its own right, since this collection of primitive stories, among other things, insists that the earth is flat and held up on four pillars (1 Chr 16:30, Ps 93:1, Ps 96:10, 1 Sam 2:8, Job 9:6).

Of course, the Old Testament is rife with all sorts of evils, oftener than not perpetrated by the god character himself. This sick, meglomanical, vindictive character is certainly no sort of deity I'd ever worship. Even in the extremely, EXTREMELY, infinitely unlikely event that he did exist, there would be no way I would ever revere or worship such a evil and cruel figure as that.

But point out the evils of the OT all you like, and you're likely to get a comment to the tune of "Oh, that doesn't count. When Jesus was born, he fulfills some such and brought about a new covenant. All that other stuff doesn't count." Why read the OT at all then, if it doesn't count any more? What, the good stuff still counts, but you get to pretend the bad stuff never happened. Like god's prolonged fucking with Job, or Abraham's attempted murder or god drowning everything because he didn't like how his stuff turned out, even the fluffiest of kittens and koalas and little adorable bumbling hedgehogs (but not the things that could swim, due to a Divine loophole...), or the "just and righteous" Lot offering to kick out his daughters to be gang-raped by an angry mob, or killing everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah- even women and children and babies, or turning Lot's poor wife into a pillar of salt(!) because she looked back at the ruination of her home behind her, or all the innocent Egyptian children (especially since this god "hardened Pharaoh's heart" i.e. usurped his free will, so he could go on with all the killing), et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But no, they say this god-son-of-himself gets them free taksies backsies, so there, neener neener.

Okay...:

This Jesus fellow says that looking at a woman and feeling lust is committing adultery and that if your eyes commits offence, that you should pluck it out. He says that he comes to turn families against themselves. He threatens punishment of cities that he says "shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." (And you remember what he did to them). He says that he speaks in parables in order to confuse people so they will go to Hell. He also says that nonbelievers will go to Hell, no ifs, ands or buts. (John 3:36, and that means me). Not to mention the ritual cannibalism (that the Orthodox and Catholics believe is REAL. Foolish [trust me, it tastes like wine-soaked bread, not blood soaked long pork], but ICK!) Also, in the NT: Homosexuals must die, murmurers are destroyed, people who "know not god" will be destroyed in fire. He totally approves of the flood and says things to come will be worse. Not to mention the loads of passages of being washed by his blood.

And, of course with all the others, Jesus doesn't care about women. (And don't go saying "it was a different time" Treating people as chattel is wrong. One would think that an omniscient being would be a little more, well, enlightened.) He says to leave your wife and family and you'll receive a heavenly reward, he also says his pa will make it awfully hard on pregnant and nursing women in the end days. And males are born holy, but not females. Oh, and "the natural use" of a woman is a sex object for men. (I should mention that females are not allowed in the alter area of the Orthodox church, lest they defile it with their woman-ness. Seriously. If you don't have a penis and testicles and a y-chromosome, you're impure and unworthy? Fuckers.) It's no secret, Paul reeeeeally hates women. From him we have that it is better not to touch women, but to avoid fornication, every man oughta have a wife. We're also supposed to be silent and obedient, he says. Husbands are supposed to be the head of the wife. Wives are supposed to submit. We're supposed to dress modestly, and not braid our hair, or wear gold or pearls. In the end, says the New Testament, "silly women" who are "ever learning" will be "led away with diver's lusts" (whatever that means). Peter says that Lot (remember him? He offered his daughters to be raped by a mob and later impregnated them himself) was a "righteous man."

And then of course there is the bad acid trip that is Revelations. Seriously. This is the work or drugs, a deranged mind, or both.

So that's what the Bible has to say. What about the specific teachings of the Orthodox church? Well, for starters it says that all souls will be reunites with their resurrected bodies. It doesn't allow for cremation. I guess if you were cremated or died in a fire, or if you were eaten by bears, no body for you. On the flip-side, it has a nicer version of Hell, being simply a metaphor for the inability to comprehend god's glory or some such. Let me be the first to say fine with me: I have better things to do than contemplate how durn kewl the insecure, vindictive, evil man-god is.

Of course, it almost goes without saying, I don't believe any of it and I see no reason why I should.

I could go on, but it's late and I'm sleepy. I'll post pics from my trip to Santa Cruz within the next couple of days.

-A silly, ever-learning woman

Brother Brigstocke's Traveling Secular Salvation Show

This is good stuff. Seriously... okay, this is a stand-up comedian, so with wit and sarcasm as well, but If you don't understand what it means that I'm an atheist, (or if you think you do understand, Mom, Dad,) this might help clue you in.

Start with this:



And then follow up with this:

Last Night, Tomorrow, and the Next Two Days

Saw Lewis Black last night at the LBC (a.k.a Wells Fargo Center for the Arts) on his Red, White and Screwed tour. It was fuckin' awesome. I laughed so hard I thought I might pee. If you don't know who Black is, here's a clip:



Tomorrow, Scion.

Monday, we're going to drive down to Santa Cruz for a romantic two-day getaway in the woods.

Gonatus onyx

Freakin' beautiful.



Good part's about two minutes in.

For more information, check out Pharyngula.

August Post

'Cause I can't bear to leave the blog blank for a month. Let's see, I should say something.

I'm sad there's no Dr Who this week. I likes me the Time Lordy goodness.

I'm watcing Stargate SG1.

I'm hungry. I'm thinking: pizza.

Vacation

Well, I'm back from my vacation to Philadelpha/New York/DC and I had a fabulous time! We flew out Monday and setteled in. Tuesday rolled around and we were up pright and early to the historic distrect to see Independance Hall, the Liberty Bell and the Mint. All were crouded, but emensly enjoyable. The humidity was oppressive, but indoor areas were all thankfully air conditioned. My bag was searched more times than I care to count, but it was great nonetheless. I'll post pictures here when I have time to convert the file type.

Tuesday evening we drove up to brooklyn via the mindlessly boring Jersey Turnpike. For your informaton, when someone says "underground music scene" they really mean it. Underneath Union Hall was a little bar and not much more than a nook with benches along the walls. Nevertheless, the performances by the Petersons and Jonathan Coulton were wonderfully fun and humerous. Coulton even hopped in on one of the Peterson's songs, a cover of Take On Me.

Fabulous.

Happy Independance Day. :)

Ah, yes, hooray for exploding goodies. As Apu said, "celebrate the birth of your country by blowing up a small part of it."

And hooray for waxing patriotic. I could go on and on, but never so eloquently as so many others before me. And that's usually not enough to stop me, but I'm enjoying my freedom to be lazy, so there.

Instead, watch this. This is my kind of patriotism:

Point and Click

So last month we went to Bodega Bay for no reason in particular. It was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Windy, but warm. We had lunch at the Sandpiper, a nice little restaraunt looking out accross the harbor that we eat at whenever we're in the area. After that, we drove around the bay and up to Bodega Head. The wind at the top of the head was a force to be reckoned with, but as we made our way down the arguably perilous dirt path to the beach, it subsided somewhat, giving way to a more comfortable breeze. To my delight, the beach was strewn with tiny blue jellyfish. These by-the-wind sailors, Velella velella, are usually found on the open sea, but were aparently blown to shore by high winds. Littered in a line of glimmering blue, they were quite lovely, if somewhat morbid in thier dead-ness.

In other news, we finally got the tickets for our East Coast vacation and for the Blue Man Group's Off Broadway show, "Tubes." Hooray!

Stupid Frickin' Politics....

So, since I don't have my head burried entirely in sand, I've heard a growing buzz as of late concerning one mister Ron Paul.

He's a different sort of candidate, at least somewhat. He's got strong statements... very Libertarian-y. He definately stands out of the horde of rich white Republicans. He's also a rich white guy, but he knows how to use this series of tubes to his advantage.

So I finally decided to look him up online and see where he's going with all of this. His website lists these as his key issues.

Debt and Taxes (lower taxes=good)
This is pretty standard Republican fare, as far as I know. Sounds fine to me. I like money.

Border Security and Immigration Reform (giant fence=good)
I don't know... Obviously imigration laws need some working on. It depends on exactly how it's done. I don't know about the fence thing. Hm.

American Independance and Sovreginty (UN=bad)
I don't know what I ought to, probably, about the politics surrounding the United Nations. I'll reserve any opinions on this until I've learned more.

Privace and Personal Liberty (Spying on citizens without a warrent=bad)
No argument there. Sounds fine. And if you're gonna do it, don't get caught. ;)

War and Forign Policy (War in Iraq=bad)
Hm.

Property Rights and Eminent Domain (Kicking people out of thier house=bad)
I like not being kicked out of my house too.

Life and Liberty (Abortions=bad/State's call)
His answer on this seems pretty sound. He's taken a strongly anti-abortion personal stance, but at the same time distinctly says it is the pervue of the State, not Federal goverment.

Here's what he doesn't tell you on his website. It frightens me, a little. I'll be the first to say that it's a private company's private call what if any religion they acknowledge with thier greetings/merchandise/whatever on thier private property. So long at they'll hire anyone without reguard to religion/race/whatever, what do I care? I can shop there, or not. And this is America, so I can bitch about it all I want. But the moment the government allows the Ten Commandments to be paid for and displayed by my tax dollars... well, it's just not acceptable. I'm truely frightened when I think on the fact that the President's Daddy doesn't consider me (despite the fact that I was born here and some of my ancestors date back to the Mayflower or the Ice Age's land bridge) to be a real American.

Shudder.

So, Ron Paul: so close, and yet so far.

When, oh, when will I have a candidate that supports Freedom From Imaginary Friends?

Yo Ho Ho...

...and a bottle of rum, or something.

So I saw Pirates last night. Three hours of rolicking adventure on the high sea, sword fighting and licking of strange objects. Three hours.

It starts with a hanging. A half dosen pirates and associates at a time, while the fellow presiding over the affair reads rights that have been repealed. Thanks, Disney, for that lame sort political commentary, but it didn't jive with the rest of the film. And I realize that they are trying to set up the pirates as the protagonists. I do. But really, I don't care how many singing children they hang, I can't bring myself to feel sorry for pirates as a whole. All geeky refrences aside, a pirate is a person who steals money and goods from honest hardworking people. The government it working to stop them? Good! Stoping criminals is their friggin' job.

That being said I continued to sympathise with Swan and Turner as that main protagonists. The movie continued along the themes of betrayel, vengance and becoming that which you revile. Everyone has double-crossed everyone else by this point, and interaction is laced with mistrust. If only pirates were better at communication.

The film continues the tradition of gritty, filthy and vibrant tapestry of setting that we have come to expect of the franchise. It also follows in the earlier movie's footsteps of taking the previous film's antagonist and making him a sort of sympathetic character. That's right, Captain Cthulhu not only has a love intrest, but he has moved from big bad monster to a sort of oceanic Charon. Or maybe Naglfar. His beau is the spot-faced Tia Dalma also known as the (arguably powerful) goddess Calypso. She gets released from her human form and responds by growing to epic heights before creating a giant swirly to punish everyone involved.

Here's how I figure they got in a fight in the first place: D.J. is pissed because he knows Calypso cheated on him with Jack. He knows this because she gave him crabs which she in turn got from Sparrow. Think about it, really. Crabs were the main motif of the movie. That's why everyone's in such a bad mood: they're itchy.

All in all, I ejoyed the movie. All three hours of it.

Three friggin' hours.

Plague Ridden Vermin

There's a rat on my balcony.

He's small and brown and keeps running back and forth. He used to come for the birdseed that fell from the feeders, but they're not stocked, there's no seed. He's just hanging out.

I might be more amused if it were a squirrel. Something about a bushy tail makes the whole thing more adorable. Nekkid tail, not so much.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea about my apartment complex, let me assuage your fears: my apartments are clean and lovely, near the foot of Fountaingrove hill area. It's a lovely, small complex with trees and a community vegitable garden and a creek that runs at the edge of the large yard. Most of the folks here have bird feeders and that's what the rats come for, scampering up the lush, green trees. Stupid rats.

I've got a sore throat.
Maybe it's the Plague.
Urk.

Blast from the Past

Nothing makes you feel better than seeing former classmates that have all gone to hell.

Yeah, I'm mean. And a little bit hypocritical; I'm sure there are plenty of folks from the Ranch that are better off than I. Nevertheless, at least I can dress myself and hold a job, which is more than I can say for the two girls who walked into my workplace yesterday. They looked like every other overweight hoochie that haunts Rohnert Park. Too-tight clothes, too-short skirt, black hoodie, plucked eyebrows and lipstick that did not stay within the confines of her lips. I treated them respectfully, like any customer, and after a little bit one piped up "Didn't I go to school with you? You know, at Rancho?"

Yes, I replied, I attended that school for a year and a half, or so.

"Yeah, like, you were in Choir."

Yes, I was in choir. She even remembered my name.

I never had a good memory for faces out of context, but I had absolutely no memory of her. At all. I faked it, of course. That's what you do in situations like these.

Oh yeah! Right! At Rancho, yeah. Uh-huh.

It's weird. I guess I was memorable for some reason or another. Maybe 'cause I was the class nerd, or something. I've had people that I haven't seen since kindergarten (I swear it's true) walk up to me and know me by name. ("Remember me? From Mrs. Dale's class?")

But the point is this: I like being more successful than those kids who picked on me back in the day. So there.

Quoth the Richard

And here's a use for the blog: quotes from Rick:

"You don't buy a lapdance for someone you don't love."

Lapdance: $50. Room: $20. Discreet going away present for a friend: $200. My roomate's tales of Slightly Unplesant Debauchery In The City: priceless.

Blogging Silliness

I don't know why I made this blog.

I don't write that well. No one will ever read it.

I don't really read anyone's blog. Unless you're involved in a TV show I like to watch (Joe Mallozzi, David Hewlett, Will Wheaton...), I probably don't care. I used to read my friend's blogs on myspace, but the drama was remarkably soapy, and I guess I lost interest. I might check up on them now and then, but for the most part I'm pretty uninterested in the whole shebang. I will probably change my opinion. Most likely sooner rather than later if I keep up this blogging thing.

If nothing else, it's a good place to rant and rave and link to things that seem interesting. I oughn't be so pessimistic. This may be cool.

Well, that's it for the introductory blurb that no one will likely ever read.

Later.
Maybe.