Adventures in Christianity - Part I

This weekend, I went to not just one, but two churches. Was I there to vote? Was it a wedding? Was it a funeral? Was I just looking for a bathroom? Nope. I actually deliberately went into two different churches to sit amongst the faithful when they do that faith-y thing they do.

Before I start, I just want to relate a little story. Let's call it a parable. I think that there was some guy who used to speak in parables. He had long hair and some wild ideas. He didn't always do what other people thought was right. And that man's name was...I forget. But the point is... I forget that, too. You know what I'm talking about. He used to drive that blue car?*

Anyway, there's this project that I have my students do called a "Cultural Excursion" where they have to do a speech and write a paper on some sort of cultural experience. It can be a visit to a museum or a religious service (that's not their own) amongst other options. I had one student, who was a Christian, join a Jewish family for the Passover Seder. Basically, his presentation and paper were both rather offensive. Sure, the experience was new to him, but he pretty much mocked the whole thing and called the food "disgusting" amongst other things. I pretty much told him, in so many words, that his presentation made him come off as a grade-A asshole. I'm not sure if he got what I was even talking about. After all, them Jews are weird and not normal like Christians are.

So, I want to write about my experiences, but I don't want to be like that guy. Yes, I have my issues with Christianity and neither of these two experiences did anything to change that. If you really want to know what my problems are, I'm sure that I've written about them three or four times on my blog already. Go read the stuff that all the other atheists say; it's not too different from what I have to say. At the same time, I do want to be honest about how I felt, but I think that I can do that while still being respectful and not beating a dead horse.

Anyway, I think that I'll write about both experiences in two separate entries from this one, as I'm not sure that I want to stay up much longer. The first one was Justin McRobert's McChristmas benefit concert at the Hope Center in Pleasant Hill. The second was a Sunday service at Sanctuary in Concord. As to why I was there and what I thought, that's for the next couple of posts...

*This is a reference to an episode of The Simpsons called "Homer the Heretic".

Comics Roundup for 12/15/10

The Amazing Spider-Man #650 - Spidey has a new suit! Looks pretty cool, and I'm fine with it so long as it's a temporary change, which is the implication here. He created it solely to take on the new Hobgoblin, and he shouldn't need it beyond that. As far as I'm concerned, Spidey's best costume is his original, followed closely by the black costume. I like this one better than the one he wore during the first half of Civil War, and that's probably because it's so close to the black one. Anyway, speaking of The Hobgoblin, I like this current story, but it's not sitting right with me how seemingly permanently Roderick Kingsley was dispatched in the first chapter. I think that he still has some potential and any writer who wants to bring him back will have to do it in a rather lame way (considering that he had his head removed).

Wolverine #4 - This issue was nothing special, but the last page, where Wolverine meets his dad in hell, is setting up some interesting possibilities. I don't have much else to say than that, other than the fact that part of this story is similar to what Mark Millar did in his "Enemy of the State" story arc. We once again have a Wolverine who's not in charge of his own actions wreaking havoc. Let's hope the whole hell situation has enough payoff to make it stand out.

Green Lantern #60 - Has this series really been running for that long? It still feels brand-new to me, and I'd be surprised that I stuck with it for so long if it wasn't for the fact that I'm enjoying it so much. This has everything you want in a comic - good art, a bit of character development, some action, and a shocking reveal that makes you want to read the next issue. Here's to another 60 issues!

Boycott Thor? I say thee nay!

Perhaps you've heard that a group of white supremacists called the Council of Conservative Citizens is planning a boycott of Marvel's upcoming Thor movie. What's the reason? Apparently Iris Elba, a black man, is going to play the part of Heimdall, the watchman of the gods. This is bad because the gods from the comics are based from the gods of Norse mythology, and the Norsemen were white people, after all.

Yeah, okay, so what? It's a bunch of idiotic white supremacists getting all mad over something unimportant. That's not so much what prompted me to want to write about this. What made me want to write about it is that some fans of the comics are complaining about this particular bit of color-blind casting as well. To be fair, they're not calling for a boycott or using racist language to make their point, but the accusations are along the lines that this is political correctness run amock.

I disagree with this assertion, and I think that when it comes to casting somebody to be a god, then you want to go with the best actor, period. I should point out that I once wrote about how I thought it would be a bad idea to cast a black man as Captain America, so you can't accuse me of being PC when it comes to this issue. With the whole Heimdall issue, it's different for a number of reasons.

First of all, Heimdall isn't the main character. Nobody picks up an issue of Thor because they can't wait to see what Heimdall is up to. The title character is the main one, and if you're going to make a movie, it's important to at least have the title character look right. From what I've seen, Chris Hemsworth definitely looks like the Thor from the comics. Everybody else from Loki to Odin look as they did in the comics. Why would it be a big deal to change one supporting character's ethnicity?

The thing is, gods aren't human. Something like race seems to be a petty, human concern, doesn't it? I can't imagine the other gods treating Heimdall differently just because he has darker skin than them. It's not like if you had a black Captain America fighting in WWII and all the white soldiers, who were used to racial segregation, acting like there's nothing seriously strange about that. And yeah, I know, Captain America isn't real either, but that time period is real, and if you're going to have a fictional story take place in a real time period, it's disrespectful to pretend like it was some sort of prejudice-free zone. When you have the gods of Asgard, it's not even a real place and it doesn't have a real history, so if there's one random black guy, then hey, that's not any stranger than anything else that goes on there. In fact, I'll submit that it's LESS strange than Loki having a child that's a serpent that circles the Earth's oceans. (Just a bit.)

Lastly, I have to wonder: why is nobody complaining that the Thor of the comics doesn't have the proper red hair that the god was said to have? Is this some sort of prejudice against gingers? And let's not get started on how many white guys have played Jesus. When they finally get a guy with a bit more melanin to play the son of Yahweh, then we can talk about the accuracy of Heimdall's skin tone.

Get thee to an eReader

I don't read nearly as much as I feel that I should, even though I know that I read a whole hell of a lot more than most people do. Shoot, even if you only count the comic books I read, I still read a whole hell of a lot more than most people do. With that said, I recently started counting in my head how many books I've read since last June. Sure, a lot of those books remain unfinished, as I lost interest about halfway through. Not counting those, I've read about six or seven (can't remember off the top of my head) entire books since then. That's not too shabby, I'd say.

Why would I pick such an arbitrary starting point as June? See, June is when I bought my eReader, or my Nook, to be specific. I think it's pretty safe to say that having bought this trusty little device has led to me reading much more than I probably would have normally. Although I already wrote about it, I just have to say that if you like to read at all, you really need to get one of these things. I'm happy with my Nook, but I imagine that the Kindle or Sony's eReader are just fine as well. Even though the Kindle doesn't read ePub files, I'm starting to see Kindle-specific files and PDF's on some of the sites that offer public domain books.

Somehow, I doubt that I'm the only person with an eReader who now reads more. One of the reasons is that it's so darned handy. It's far easier to read the Nook at the dinner table than an actual book, as I don't have to hold any pages down. It's also easy to read while I'm feeding/burping Logan. The size is also nice, as it's smaller than an average book. That will make it nice to carry with me the next time I go out of town for a few days.

Even though I'd recommend one to anybody who likes to read, I have to give a warning about the Nookcolor. When I first heard about it, I was contemplating getting one. After all, it can do all the things that my Nook can do, but it's all in color, and users can subscribe to magazines like National Geographic. I got a chance to check one out at Best Buy though, and I'd have to recommend against it. At least, if all you want to do is read books, then your more standard eReader is the way to go. With those, it's as easy on your eyes as reading a real book. With this new color device, it's like looking at a computer screen. I can't imagine reading an entire novel this way.

What I'm really hoping for is that one day these will come down so much in price that they'll be used in the classroom. Imagine a student having all of the novels and textbooks on one eReader. Sound expensive? How much do you think all of those books cost? Shoot, I know that students are fined about $100 if they lose the literature book - and that's just one of them. Yeah, I know, those textbook companies have quite a hold on the school system, but how can they maintain it when budgets are constantly cut back? Getting the kids eReaders might be the only way to go.

It was once said that you could get a good sense for how a kid is going to do in school based on whether or not their parents had a bookshelf full of books in the house. While I think that I will always want to have some old fashioned copies of certain books, I know that an eReader will be one of the first things that I'll make sure my son has when he's old enough to read.

Oh, and for eReader newbies, here are some great places for free books:

Project Gutenberg

Feedbooks

Google Books

Project Gutenberg Australia

Internet Archive

Comics Roundup for 12/8/10

If this is your first "Comics Roundup", then here's the deal: I'm not attempting to write detailed reviews. I basically do this for myself, as when I force myself to write about what I'm reading, I tend to be a little bit more cautious with my comics buying habits. If you find it interesting at all, then that's fantastic.

The New Avengers #7 - I complained a bit about last issue, but this one more than made up for it. Now that I think about it, it was really heavy on dialogue, and I don't think that there was even a moment of action. That's okay though, there was plenty in the last several issues. I especially loved how this addressed one of the big problems with Spider-Man serving as a member of The Avengers. I remember writers saying years ago that having him be on the team would take away from what's appealing about the character - namely, it would solve all of his money problems. When he first joined, nobody was getting paid, so that wasn't a problem. Now that he's on an official (two, actually) team, he's still not getting paid because he hasn't revealed his identity. Considering everything that happened during "Civil War" and "One Moment in Time" it makes perfect sense that he wouldn't even reveal his identity to get a decent paycheck. Not only was this issue resolved, but it was resolved in a fun way. Good stuff.

The Flash #7 - This issue revolved around Captain Boomerang, one of The Flash's villains. It was fine as far as a villain origin is concerned, and it set things up nicely for issues to come. Nothing special with this issue, but considering how much I've enjoyed every other issue of this series, there's no way I'm dropping it.

Wolverine #3 - Damn, but there are a lot of Wolverine books out on the shelf nowadays. I'm not just talking about all the team books in which he appears. He also has about a billion solo books. Hopefully this is the best one because I just can't commit to much more. Anyway, I enjoyed this one as well, and I loved the cameo by Spider-Man. While this is quite different from any Wolverine story I've read before, it's doing the one thing any good Wolverine story does - and that's dishing out some serious abuse to old Logan.

Echo #26 - I just finished re-reading all of The Astounding Wolf-Man, and I'm thinking that it's going to be time to start going through this entire series again. I enjoyed it the last time I did it when it was on the 14th issue or so, and I reckon that I will again. The problem is that I just don't remember a lot of stuff from issue to issue. This particular one didn't have much going on in it, but it was good enough to keep me reading through to the end and wanting to re-read everything, so that's saying something.

Superior #2 - Did I dream it, or was this supposed to be an all-ages book? It sure as heck isn't that, as there's a lot of harsh language going on in it. It's not that I mind it at all, it just seems to me that the subject matter of this series doesn't lend itself to that. Basically it's like the plot of Big only the boy is in a wheelchair and instead of just becoming an adult, he becomes a comic book superhero. (The comic itself even makes reference to this similarity.) That said, this was an entertaining read, just like pretty much everything Mark Millar's been writing nowadays.

The problem with "hating the sin"

I've heard the term "love the sinner, hate the sin" for some time now. Usually it comes up when Christians discuss homosexuality. Shoot, there was probably even a time when I either said the same thing or something very similar. Basically, it's a way for Christians to handle the cognitive dissonance that they experience when they know that it's wrong to discriminate against people, yet they feel that they should follow the rules of their holy book which tells them that dudes shouldn't do it with dudes.

It sounds kind of nice, right? Love the sinner? Who can be against love? Christians will tell you that we're all sinners, and according to their mythology, we are. It's impossible to not be a sinner, really. Homosexuality is just one more sin, kind of like lying, cheating, or stealing. In this light, homosexuals aren't any better or worse than anybody else.

Here's the problem - it's bullcrap, and it's still hateful. If you have a son/daughter who tells you that he/she is gay, are you going to say this to them? Of course, you love your kid, but are you going to say that you "hate" their "sin"? Do you really think that's somehow better?

Most people in the world want to do the right thing. We want to do what our parents think is right. It's good to know that they still love us when we screw up, but there's a serious problem with calling homosexuality a sin. We've learned a few things over the past few decades. We understand that it is not chosen. Calling it a sin is telling somebody that they're doing something bad just for being who they are. Sure, this is better than telling them that you hate them, but what if my son is left handed and I told him that I loved him even though he was a southpaw? What the hell kind of love is that?

If you use that phrase in the case of homosexuals, you're not "loving" anybody. Maybe it makes you feel better, but I doubt that it does a whole lot of good for gay people out there. How about we just accept them and don't get too concerned over what some ancient book of mythology tells us? You know, the same book that can't be bothered to tell us that it's not okay to own people as property.

Limbaugh is a racist, end of debate

I realize that a lot of people are writing about this particular issue, but in case you haven't heard, Rush Limbaugh recently accused Native Americans of doing far worse to those of European descent than the other way around. He asks the question, "How many people have died since the wm arrived due to lung cancer, thanks to the Indian custom of smoking? Who are the real killers here?"

He has a good point. After all, Native Americans run all the tobacco industries and are responsible for most of the cigarette advertising. Let's also not forget that most people who smoke had their first one when a gang of injuns tackled 'em down and forced a peace-pipe into their mouths. Damn you, Native Americans! Will there ever be an end to your atrocities? We oughtta force them off their lands and make them live in areas that are reserved especially for them! That'll show 'em!

Seriously though, I've talked to many people about Limbaugh. By this point, anybody who doesn't see him for the evil little troll that he is simply never will. His supporters will hem and haw yet again despite the fact that this is probably the millionth racist thing that he's said. The guy could put on a pointy white hood and they'll still defend him.

Anybody who excuses him by this point is either a racist or so blindly loyal to the "conservative" cause that they push their own values to the side. Seriously, the man is a troll. He eats billy goats, lives under a bridge and turns to stone in the sunlight.

EDIT: Between the two blogs where I’ve posted this, I’ve already received the usual lame-ass excuse about how Limbaugh is joking and somehow I’m missing that it’s all done as entertainment. I declare horsecrap on this excuse. Do Limbaugh’s fans hear this and laugh at it, saying, “Wow! What a ridiculous thing to say! It’s funny because it’s so absurd!” I doubt it. The man is not a comedian. In order for him to be one, he’d have to be funny. He just says horrible things and then when he gets called out on his vileness, his fans use the old “It’s humor” excuse. Bull and crap.