At the End of the World

[vovat]

Sometimes, when there's nothing good on the car radio, I listen to Family Radio, one of those crazy Religious Right stations at the end of the dial. I have to say, if you haven't listened to this kind of radio, you've missed such things as:

• The host on a call-in show (where they find answers "from the Bible, not our own minds") backpedaling when called on the fact that he had said the world would end in the early nineties, and was now saying it would end in 2011. I think he eventually hung up on the caller.
  
• A "creationism moment," where some guy talked about how bees provide evidence for intelligent design. The amusing thing was that he sounded kind of like Sterling Holloway, which, combined with the fact that he was talking about bees, made me think of Winnie-the-Pooh.
  
• Another creationist type saying something like, "If birds and mammals have similar structures, that's because they were made by the same God." This guy kept saying that humans couldn't have evolved from "lower animals." Now, the general ridiculousness of his argument aside, why "lower"? I mean, I'm not a hardcore animal rights type, but isn't it pretty insulting to refer to other creatures that way? (I'll refrain from making a joke about many species of bird are actually "higher" than humans most of the time. [1])
  
• As an example of what not to say if your son says he wants to drop out of school, the words, "Do you want to grow up to be a dumbbell?"
  

On an unrelated note, I left for work early today because I was expecting heavy traffic due to wet roads, but it looks like most of the roads have cleared up. I had time to stop at Coconuts, where I bought used copies of Sloan's Pretty Together and the Fastbacks' Answer the Phone, Dummy. (For those of you who don't know, Kurt Bloch, the lead guitarist of the Young Fresh Fellows, was in the Fastbacks.)

Hotmail just had some weird problem where it kept showing me my mail backwards (i.e., with the newer messages at the top). I think it's always been possible to set it that way, but I never did (I have no idea why anyone would, really, but it's the default on some mail programs), so I don't know what was happening. I sometimes think I should switch to a different e-mail program, but is there any free server that DOESN'T have problems that are just as bad or worse? I tend to doubt it.

[1] Okay, so I DID make the joke. But I made it in a non-traditional and mildly self-deprecating manner, which makes it clever instead of lame, right? {g}

Comments

[bethje.livejournal.com]

"Do you want to grow up to be a dumbbell?"

HAHAHA! I miss all of the excellent parts. But I did learn how to make my nonexistent children make thank-you cards.

And hey, I think that's totally rude in the sense that they specifically said "son". What's up with that?

[jazzsammich.livejournal.com]

that's because they likes their wimmen stoopid.

--jim

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm actually not sure the guy did say "son." He might have just said "child." I'm pretty sure he used a gender-specific term at some point, though. He also referred to the hypothetical kid as "Junior."

[bethje.livejournal.com]

This guy kept saying that humans couldn't have evolved from "lower animals." Now, the general ridiculousness of his argument aside, why "lower"? I mean, I'm not a hardcore animal rights type, but isn't it pretty insulting to refer to other creatures that way?

Personally, I try hard to spread the idea that humans and animals are all on the same level. I feel that that notion gives me permission to 1. be a cannibal, and 2. to date outside my species.

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

lol, "from the bible, not our minds" ..for some reason i can hear that in bob odenkirk's southern senator voice, buut actually that whole backpedaling bit - david cross has a funny take on that. i think it was from his "the pride is back" special. it's like a preacher calling "my bad!" because his little kid was eating chocolate and left a smudge up the actual year the world would end. ...okay, it's funny when he tells it. {g}

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I saw that bit. There's always some way for those people to backpedal. Among other things, it's kind of unclear exactly what "the end of the world" means (The end of the human race? All the land sinking into the ocean? The planet actually exploding?), so they can always go back and say, "No, no, it's not the ACTUAL end of the world, just the beginning of the Kingdom of God!" or something like that. I've seen plenty of examples along those lines. This particular guy, however, insisted that he never actually SAID the world would end in the nineties, just that he THOUGHT the evidence was pointing in that direction, and that's it's now MUCH stronger for the 2011 date, but he can't really be sure.

That was quite a run-on sentence, wasn't it? {g}

[onib.livejournal.com]

I love preachers who give dates that the world will end - especially ones who say they give answers "from the Bible, not our own minds." Um, didn't Jesus actually say that even He didn't know when the world will end, and didn't the Bible goes on to say that no man will know the date? And yet, Joe Bob has figured it out? Yeah, right. He's a man to trust.

We got a mailing from James Dobson's Focus on the Family a couple of months ago. It was trying to give all the reasons that we, as a society, should be opposed to gay marriage. So, out of curiosity, we say down and read through it to see what their points were. My goodness, it's lucky for them that this way a printed document and not an actual debate. They gave something like 9 key arguments, and yet every single one of them fell through with the slightest bit of rational thought. One of my favorites was that if we allow gays to marry, then we will have to allow people to marry multiple spouces, and then we will have to allow people to marry animals. Um, huh? What's the basis for that argument? And my other favorite was something to the effect that gay marriage would inevidably lead directly to the collapse of all of Western civilization. Wow!!!! That's some claim. It's surprising terrorists aren't focusing their attentions on promoting gay marriage. It's a good thing they can say exactly what will happen when they can't give the slightest bit of evidence to back up any of their claims.


Oh, and as far as free e-mail, I've been really happy with Yahoo. They just increased the storage limit to 100MB, and I find it pretty easy to use. You might give it a try and see what you think. It also has the advantage of not being owned by Microsoft.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that Christianity sort of evolved from a religion that taught that the end WAS coming soon to one where the end MIGHT be coming soon. But yeah, I don't think the Bible mentions any specific dates, so people will pull out things from various passages and say, "Yeah, that must be referring to what's happening now!" when: 1) they're probably actually talking about something that happened, or was expected to happen, around the time when it was written, and 2) they're often so vaguely worded that they could refer to any number of events throughout history. ("Hey, the Bible says there will be a lot of earthquakes in the end times, and there have been a lot of earthquakes in California recently! This means Jesus is coming back!")

One of my favorites was that if we allow gays to marry, then we will have to allow people to marry multiple spouces, and then we will have to allow people to marry animals.

While I think polygamy and polyamory don't usually work, I wouldn't say it's the place of the government to decide this. (I guess my views are actually kind of libertarian in that respect. {g}) If someone really wants to marry multiple spouses, and all those people are willing, I would probably advise against it, but I wouldn't have a moral objection. (Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the Bible says it's okay for a man, at least, to have multiple spouses.) My reaction to the whole "OMG, they want to change marriage entirely!" argument is basically "So what?" If a particular religion wants to teach that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman, that's fine. I doubt homosexuals want to get married in the churches that teach that anyway. But if you say that your religion should dictate policy for the entire country, that pesky First Amendment gets in the way. I still can't see why separation of church and state is still such a difficult concept for so many people to get through their heads.

Needless to say, the "people will marry animals" argument is really stupid. An animal can't give consent. A child isn't legally allowed to. But another member of the same sex CAN. It's not a fair comparison at all.

I might end up getting a Yahoo account, to use as backup. I'm still hoping that Hotmail will iron out their problems soon, though.

[onib.livejournal.com]

I don't see any problem with churches refusing to perform homosexual weddings. That's their religious right. I don't understand why they can't be allowed as civil ceremonies, though. I was always a little bothered by the logic that homosexuals are obviously all promiscuous and sinful because they have sex outside of marriage, but they shouldn't be allowed to marry. Huh?

And yes, I think that, from all I've seen, polyamorous relationships are more likely to have difficulties than traditional relationships. Most people seem to actually look at them as a license to cheat. The successful ones I've seen require a huge amount of communication, openness, trust, and control of jealousy. That is a lot of responsibility on the people in the arrangement and is difficult to maintain, but I have no objection to multiple consenting parties entering into a legally binding relationship together. That should be their personal business.

The whole animal thing really is just stupid. I can't even conceive how that's a logical consequence of allowing any two humans to marry one another. Some of these people are just wacky.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I guess the people who use the animal argument THINK that it's an example of the slippery slope or give-'em-an-inch-and-they'll-take-a-mile concept. It's just that anyone with one or two functioning brain cells can see the huge flaw in their argument. It's a spurious comparison, sort of like the one about neo-Nazi rallies and prayer in public schools that I mentioned several posts ago.