Kill for Peace

Religion, of all things, never ceases to amaze me at how well it's been organized to control and manipulate. Whether this was the original design of organized religion, or whether its a recent perversion, is lost in the swirl of time, but nonetheless, it provides for some fuzzy logic.

Christianity, the shining beacon of salvation in North America, is a prime example of the "Huh?" religions. Based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, the fundamental beliefs of love, peace, and forgiveness, zealots have twisted his message to justify war, bigotry, hate, and division. An example recently is the debate over same-sex marriage.

Jesus taught that to know love is to know God, and that, despite our sinful nature, we all have access to heaven if we only repent and ask forgiveness. Not so if you're gay. See, the way the rights see it, if you're gay, you not only deserve damnation in the next life, you deserve misery in this life as well. Well ain't that just poop in the honey-pot? Jesus taught us not to judge others, and yet we do so in his name. He tried to teach us to love everyone, and yet we are still selective about who we extend a hand of fellowship to.

"Believers" preach that gays do not truly love, that their love for each other is somehow lesser than straight people's because they cannot beget children through sexual acts. So that means... that infertile couples are also lesser in love because they also cannot beget children?

And the defense of culture... that's a rich one. People who believe that allowng gays to marry, and that doing so would damage their culture or their beliefs... Uhh, hate to break it to you, but you tried that already with black people. Let me repeat: You have already tried to do this before, and failed, and look, your precious culture is still intact.

And yet, if you do not fall in line with the "believers," then you are immediately damned to the burning hells for all eternity. Nothing like eternal torture to spur support and frighten the small-minded into obedience. I don't fear damnation, for it is in God's hands where I go. If he deems me unworthy of heaven, so be it. I tried.

Time for a Break

Pardon the delay in Blog updates. I've been ground into some form of pulped human over the last couple of weeks, and I thought I should get back to what's important.

I would also like to remind the infrequent readers of this blog that you are very welcome to comment here, as long as you keep it civil.

I jsut thought I would share a personal thought today. I'm quitting my job to make room for school. Natural, a lot of people do it, but to me it's foreign, quitting my first job for my first real edumafacation.

I also thought I should do something else. Take a break to reflect back on the last couple of weeks. The tsunami comes to mind, but so does the upcoming election in Iraq (which most people forgot about).

I rue the bloodbath that approaches with that election, as polling stations are targets for attacks by insurgency. This sort of disqualifies the vote, as many people will be staying home out of fear. On top of that, martial law is declared in Iraq, which places many locations on a list where the public may not vote. Democracy in the bloom? Hardly. I think an attempt at a free nation in Iraq was nipped in the bud when Bush decided to go play Cowboys and Terrorists.

I was happy to see the Ukrainian election wrap up. It is a positive thing to see a faulty vote redone with a resounding victory, a slap in the face to media-driven politics like we see in Canada and next door in the United States.

Well, with all that's done, I think everyone deserves to sit back and rest... well, maybe not everyone.

Humour

Look closely at the words on your monitor.

Read very carefully.

With every word, every line, your image of yourself grows bloated with stupidity,
and self-assurance.

When you start this line, you will feel full, haughty, and indignant.
You are SOMEONE, and not something to be trifled with.

YOU have money, and you are important.

Sit straight in your chair, look around you. Look down at the insects that scuttle in your mighty prescence.

This is the pin to burst your bubble.

You deflate, all at once. Slump suddenly in your chair, sit forward, head downed in shame.
Your thoughts go to yourself. How could you act so pompous, so arrogant?

Simple.

It's all in the frame of mind.

Now that you've experience both arrogance and humility, go around today and watch how other people walk around, how they treat each other. Hell, when that hag in the green sweater comes by to give you trouble at work, you can know, she's riding around on a balloon filled with her own pride and arrogance. And when something happens to burst the bubble, she's going to be one with the shit that hit the fan.

Just think about it. There's humour to be had by watching people who think they're somebody.

Signing off.

Creative Slump

I've been in sort of a creative slump recently. Well, slump, hiatus, whatever. I basically have been doing nothing creative. Instead, I've been looking around (basically poking around the internet and the city) at what passes for creativity in today's day and age. I've noticed that there is a very disquieting rift between true creativity, and marketed money-whoring.

On one side, I see original music, art, and programs, and on the other, I see mass-churned pop-shite, mall-angst driven self portraits, and stolen code.

All of this makes me want to hide and put my nose to Word, and hope that I can finish a story that will wipe the corruption of art off the earth, but sadly, that doesn't make money.

Hey, if something works, what's stopping you from selling it, over and over? And when it gets boring, what's stopping you from wrapping it up differently, maybe adding something a little more risque?

The answer is: nothing.

That role was usually reserved for our morals, but money is a cruel and seductive mistress of silence, prompting our usually rapt and vocal Jiminies into stunned and vapid silence.

We like what we like, and ultimately, that will be what makes us or breaks us. We like change, and we like to stay the same. The paradox that rips us in two. Some of us like change more than constance, and we are called Liberals, or Revolutionaries. Some of us like constance and fear change. We are called Conservatives, or Reactionaries. See, based merely on what we like, we have division.

I personally like change, at a moderate pace. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting on the fence. Being tardy has cost us innocent lives, and brings about mental obesity and bloated self-image. However, charging forward like the famed 7th Light Cavalry can cause just as much hardship. When one person is reckless, it's dangerous, and possibly even deadly. When a nation is reckless in it's pursuits of change (or even reaction to change), it is beyond tragedy. It's beyond travesty. There is no word strong enough to describe it when an entire nation of people band together and begin the gears of destruction.

There is no description to the feeling of helplessness that comes over me when I see so many people band together, in a common cause which is none other than self-gratifying and destructive.

It's like being a gnat, watching a giant infant wade through the candy shop, all the while being laughed at, because after all, what can a gnat do to an infant?

However, a bloated baby, coated in greed and self-righteousness soon attracts the wasp's ire.


Note now, that I did not allude the baby to the United States. If anything, it alludes to the whole of the developed world. As was once said, a person is smart. People are stupid. The mob mentality grows ever more pervasive with the internet and improving international relations.