Religulous

I just got through watching Jon Stewart's interview with Bill Maher about Maher's upcoming movie, Religulous. It's a pretty good interview, and if you want to see it, here it is:





Of course, I'd like to take exception to how Maher describes why he's not an atheist. He says that he sees atheists as being similar to religious-types, as apparently they're "certain" about their beliefs, and it's the certainty that he doesn't trust. I don't know what atheists he's talking to, but every atheist that I know (myself included) don't think of themselves as being certain that there is no God. We tend to view it more as the default position. We simply don't believe, much in the same way that everybody else doesn't believe in Zeus, Odin, etc. If there was some solid evidence, we'd be willing to be convinced.

Whatever though, that's nitpicking. What I like about the idea for the movie is that Maher is out there asking questions. He also brings up some good points. One time, while teaching my students about Hinduism, a student commented that it all sounded "made up." I responded by saying that it seemed that way because it was new to him, and if he were to tell somebody about his religion who had never heard of it before, it would sound just as strange to them. Basically, that's Maher's point when he describes the basic idea behind Christianity - God sends his son (who is him) on a suicide mission so we can be forgiven for not being perfect.

Anyway, I'm all over this movie. Of course, it's bound to spark some controversy. I'm hoping that he does a fair job of it. I criticized the movie Expelled because it misrepresented science, and in interviews Ben Stein showed that he lacked even some basic knowledge as to what evolution even is. Of course, if Maher does something similar, then he needs to be criticized for that. From what I can tell though, he's laying out exactly what the beliefs behind these religions are. It's not his fault if those beliefs happen to sound crazy.

Blog a day month!

Last year, my friend Scott made a challenge to everybody out there in blogland to blog a day for the entire month of October. That was before I was blogging fairly regularly, so it was both easier and harder for me. It was easier because I had a lot of stuff to say. It was harder because I wasn't used to writing so much.

Dammit all though, I'm determined to do it again! I declared myself victorious last time, and I shall have reason to do so again! Even if I don't, I shall do so again!

Oh, and November is Haiku-a-Day month.

Are you up to the challenge?

Proposition 8

I've been sitting here in front of the computer for about a half hour now, trying to think of something to write about. I currently have a few ideas buzzing in my head - I could continue to speculate on what they should do for the next Batman movie, I could write about the dangers of pet anthropomorphication, I also have been contemplating on a series of entries about what's so great about comic books. Oh, and there's also some thoughts about my fear that Sarah Palin might actually be as dumb as we all fear.

For some reason, none of those are really moving me. I've got gay marriage on my mind again. Why? Well, you know, now that it's legal in California, I'm looking to end my marriage with my wife so I can marry a dude. That's what it's all about, right?

Nah, it's not that. In fact, I was hesitant to write about it at all, as I've devoted a few blog entries to it already, and I don't want to just repeat myself. In fact, the joke that I wrote up above is basically a variation on one that I've already done dozens of times.

What got me thinking about this issue is that I heard the first ad (I was in the other room from the television) urging voters to vote yes on Proposition 8 - the proposition that would amend the state constitution to outlaw gay marriage. In all honesty, it made my stomach turn and left me with a rather morose feeling that dragged on for the rest of the day.

I was going to post a couple of video clips on this blog so I could compare and contrast the rhetoric of the anti-gay marriage crowd with the pro-gay marriage crowd. The problem was, when I watched some of the anti-gay videos, I just started to feel depressed. I'm so sick of these people and their specious arguments. Stop talking about "protecting" marriage. Stop talking about "values." Shoot, one video I saw showed Newt Gingrich comparing the "Yes on 8" cause to the cause of the American Revolutionaries. I had to stop, as I feared that such a concentrated dose of hatred and stupidity would melt my brain if I continued to watch it. Good thing he didn't say "judicial tyranny" 'cause that makes me want to vomit fire.

The thing is, I'm really starting to hate these people. I honestly don't think that hate is a useful emotion, and I realize that it does more harm to me than it does to them, but I can't help but feel this way. This whole thing is so colossaly unfair. It's not just unfair, but the arguments of those who are against same-sex marriage are so completely illogical. The combination of ignorance, hatred and irrationality is too much for me. Basically, I need to stop thinking about it, as I tend to dwell on things that depress me - and these people depress me.

The only glimmering light in all of this is that the polls show that Californians aren't likely to vote for Proposition 8. Times have changed in the decade since they voted to abolish gay marriage. Also, a lot of people might not be for it, but they're also not for amending the constitution either. Hopefully that'll be the thing that saves the day.

Oh, and Californians - No on 8, please. My slogan? "Don't be a total fucking douchebag - vote no on 8."

Do most Christians even know?

I wonder sometimes when I talk to people who identify themselves as Christian whether they even know the sort of things that the fundamentalists are endorsing. While they certainly aren't as dangerous as the extremist Muslims out there, there certainly is the potential within their belief system for them to become dangerous.

For instance, the bottom line with fundamentalists is that it doesn't matter how you live your life. All that really matters is that you confess your sins to Jesus and are "born again." That means that you can eat babies every day for seventy years, and then one day you can repent to Jesus and everything is a wash. Don't believe me? Check out this comic from Jack Chick, a fundamentalist cartoonist. (Click on the panel for the whole thing - but that one panel gets the point across. There's a criminal who goes to heaven, but the good marshall goes to hell because he didn't believe in Da Jeebus.)

Am I crazy to say that this is a potentially dangerous theology? While I don't think that we should try to be good to gain some sort of eternal reward (or avoid an eternal punishment), I can at least see some value in people believing in heaven and hell for the simple sake that it provides motivation to be a good person. With this though, what's the motivation if the bottom line is that it all simply depends on what you believe? (And let's not even get into the fact that this is a pretty screwy interpretation of scripture. I've read Revelation and I know that it says at least once that people will be judged on "their works". It's amazing how Bible believers can pay attention to everything that confirms what they already think is true and totally ignore the stuff that they don't want to be true.)

I also don't think that people are aware of the threat that these fundamentalists pose to science education in this country. While I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of home school or even private schools, I do fear for a generation of kids who are being taught that there's some genuine debate regarding evolution and the age of the Earth. I also have to wonder if your average Christian is even aware of places like the Creation Museum, which purports to be a science museum, yet it shows people with dinosaurs and claims that Noah put T-Rexes on the ark.

I've heard a lot of people say that the average Muslim needs to do his or her part to condemn the actions of the extremists out there. While the Christian extremists don't pose the same sort of a threat, I feel that the average Christian should be more vocal against these people as well - lest they become dangerous. ('Cause it's not like nobody's ever died in the name of Christianity. I sometimes worry that Christianity is a sleeping dragon right now, and when it wakes we'll enter a new dark age.)

Sssssssssssmokin'!

I've never been a fan of cigarette smoke.

Before I go any further with this, I should point out the fact that I live in California. I should also point out the fact that I grew up in the 80s and 90s, not the 50s and 60s where everybody pretty much smoked. So I'm aware of the fact that me having never smoked isn't really all that remarkable.

With that said though, I gotta say that I just don't get it. I've known people who've smoked all my life - from family members to friends. My parents smoked when I was young, but quit (for the most part) when I was still a kid. I had friends who smoked - some of them still do, if only during social events like when they're drinking.

I don't even get that. Here's the thing: it's stinky. Yeah, I'm aware that it causes cancer and all that stuff. Even if it had vitamins in it though, I don't think that I'd be interested in doing it. It's like carrying around a little cloud of pollution everywhere you go.

I remember when I would go to the bars before smoking was banned from them and I would come home with my clothes completely reeking of cigarette smoke. It was extremely nasty. I suppose that if you smoke, you get used to it, but I guess that's also true if you handled dog shit for a living (not sure what that job would be, exactly).

I remember I had an aunt and uncle who smoked a lot. They were from Germany, and when somebody here asked them about how so many Germans were smokers (I understand that's starting to change though), my aunt responded with how she did it because she "liked to enjoy life." I found that amusing, because while she was staying with us, I had to hear her wheezing, hacking cough in the mornings. I wonder how much she enjoyed that. So yeah, Bogart might look cool with a cigarette in Casablanca, but I'm sure if you got close enough to him, he'd be pretty darned stinky too. Plus, if the booze hadn't killed him, it's safe to say that the cigarettes would have done him in eventually.

I'm also baffled how there are people whom I generally respect who smoke. That's fine, I guess, but some people like comedians Greg Proops and Bill Hicks don't just smoke, but they incorporate their reasons for smoking in their bits. Generally speaking, their humor is pretty intelligent, but they sound like they're really reaching when they go there. It's almost like they have some sort of an addiction that they'll try to justify any way they can.

Let's not forget the tobacco industry. If ever there was an evil cabal of supervillains, it's those guys. Their representatives actually testified that there's no link between cigarette smoke and lung disease. (I don't remember the exact details - if it wasn't that exactly, it was something just as outrageously stupid.) As far as I'm concerned, these guys are just as bad as any Pablo Escobar out there. They make their money off of the suffering and misery of others. If that's not evil, I don't know what is. Yeah, sure, they also provide people with some temporary enjoyment - but didn't Pablo do the same? (I realize that I'm being a bit extreme with this analogy - but not as much as you might I was.) Why the hell would anybody want to support these devils?

I'm also sick and tired of the smokers who are out there acting like they're some kind of oppressed minority. Here's a newsflash, smokers - you chose to smoke! Sure, you might be choosing to stop, but the monkey on your back won't let you, but that doesn't change the fact that it was your choice to begin with. Yeah, you can't smoke in the office. Yeah, you can't smoke next to the door of the building. Boo-fricken' hoo. You want to complain about your rights? What about my right not to have to smell your filth? Do I have a right to smear poop all over the place? What if I want to smear it on myself? After all, I'm only hurting myself, right? Wrong. (Again, a bit extreme with the analogy - but only a bit.)

The bottom line for me is that I've always noticed that the people I knew who did smoke almost all wanted to quit. Many of them were trying to quit. Many of them had tried many times but couldn't quite seem to do it. (Oh, and as an aside here, it's really annoying when you have to constantly stop because your smoker friend has to light up before going in the car, right after coming out of the car, etc. etc. etc.) Surely when they started smoking, they knew people who were in similar situations. Why would I want to start something that most people who do it are trying unsuccesfully to quit?

Screw Chuck Norris

I was at Barnes and Noble today, and I couldn't help but notice a book called Black Belt Patriotism. Who was the author? No, not William Shakespeare! It was none other than Chuck Norris.

Needless to say, (and yet here I am, saying it - or writing it, but if you asked me to say it, I would,) curiosity got the better of me, and I had to take a look at it. Perhaps ol' Walker, Texas Ranger had some unique spin on this country's current situation that we've never heard before.

I couldn't get past the dust jacket. Apparently, the problems with America are that illegal aliens are flooding our country, Islamo-terrorists want to kill us, and "activist" judges aren't interpreting the Constitution in the way that conservatives want them to do it. Oh, and we're driving Da Jeebus (a.k.a. God) out of all of our public institutions. What's even worse, some people have the nerve to question whether there even is an all-powerful magic man in the sky! How crazy is that?

Ugh. Is this book really necessary? I mean, what, are Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Douchebag McFuckface, Assy McAnusburger, and Shitforbrains Q. Pundit-Ass not enough? I don't know, perhaps Chuck Norris actually has a new take on all of those things, but somehow I just don't see it happening.

The thing is, I've actually sat down and watched about half an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, and there's no way that the man behind that has an IQ that's higher than Cheez Whiz.

I realize that it's hip and retro to like Chuck Norris. I've read the list of things about Chuck Norris, like how his tears cure cancer, but he never cries. It's funny, I'll admit, but he didn't have anything to do with that.

So, screw Chuck Norris.

Batman movies - what next? Part II

A few weeks ago, I speculated on which villains that they should use for the next Batman film. In that one, I covered the possibilities of using The Riddler, Catwoman, and Hush.

While thinking about it some more, I realize that for as much as I love the two most recent films, they're still not the kind of Batman movies that I would make. For me, I would make something that's a little closer to the Animated Series, just with higher production values, obviously. That series (the one that ran in the '90s - not to be confused with The Batman - which is a decent cartoon, but not as iconic as the previous incarnation). That show managed to make Batman himself a realistic (I'm using that term very loosely here) character, and even his world was believable despite the fact that they'd incorporate elements of science fiction and fantasy.

With the current series of movies, they've established a world that's as realistic as this sort of a thing can possibly be. While I have no problem with it, and I definitely prefer it to the "anything goes" mentality of the earlier films, I realize that this probably leaves out a lot of villains and characters from the Batman mythology that simply wouldn't work in this current series.

So, with that in mind, I'm focusing on characters that I think are great, but I just don't think that they'd work well in the next movie.

Mr. Freeze - Just like how you should forget about Halle Berry as Catwoman, you should forget about The Governor of California as Mr. Freeze. I'm not talking about that guy - whatever the hell he was all about. Actually, Freeze was a pretty lame villain in the comics even - a "second-rate Captain Cold" as the Joker once said. It wasn't until the Animated Series came along that he became one of Batman's best, and most tragic, foes.

Dr. Victor Fries had his sick wife cryogenically frozen while he searched for a cure for her ailment. Thanks to the crooked boss who ran the company that worked for, he got into a horrible accident, leaving him unable to survive in anything warmer than sub-zero temperatures (hence the suit). Seeking revenge, he was willing to break the law in order to get satisfaction.

That's some classic comic book supervillain stuff there. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't work against Christian Bale's Batman. It's just wayyyyy too sci-fi. You'd have to change him so much that he'd be unrecognizable.

Poison Ivy - Forget about Uma, okay? She certainly looked good, but that's where the goodness ended. The problem with Pamela Isley is the same as Mr. Freeze. Her origin story involves a similar theme of corrupt businessmen and a freak accident.

It's a pity though, because she's a classic femme fatale/temptress figure. Much like how Catwoman could fulfill both a villain and love interest role, there are a lot of possibilities with her. I suppose it's possible to do something with her in the current series, but again so much would have to be changed. While a "fear toxin" seemed to work in Batman Begins, I'm not so sure that her kiss, which turns men into her mindless slaves, would work as well.

Clayface - He's a really cool visual, but I'm not going to get into his origin story. (It's wayyy too damn convoluted - but the Animated Series managed to simplify it.) But the problem is that you have a big shapeshifting guy. If they ever manage to create a new series where they inject some fantasy and sci-fi back into the mythology, then he'd be a cool one. I'd leave him out of the next one though.