Hate the ‘Sin’: Part III

I was recently involved in a heated (and utterly hopeless) youtube debate, with one of the classic notorious youtube douchebag posters. Honestly this guy, apparently in his mid-forties and a multiple major, seemed absolutely determined to crush any views that were not his own.

And I don’t mean just about Homosexuality.

This guy was on fire. At one point, as politely as I could phrase it, I said that while his opinion was valid, being gay, I believed homosexuality was okay. of course he came back with, “are you ashamed of being gay?”, “piss off kid,” and of course, “you are a little devil who wants to piss and spit on the Bible.” He just came back with anti-gay comments after another, and many were pretty irrational, insulting, and irrelevant to what I had actually been trying to tell him.

But what surprised me was his final post to me. He said he had no problems with gay kids and he believed that (while we are all going to go to hell), that he hated homosexuality but not the homosexual.

You see, this confused me because the statement was completely antithetical to what he had been trying to preach before. Many times I felt obliged to tell him to just shut up (but thankfully, since this guy seemed to be unstable, in very nice terms). Why? Because I had been prepared to take this kind of abuse. But I remembered what it had been like first realizing the truth. And I know what it can be like for other kids.

I still stand by with the Hate the ‘Sin’ and not the person philosophy. I believe it to be just. Everyone deserves their own views. However, I disagree with what this youtuber was “kind enough” to do.

Feel free to possess your own views. But even if you are only “Hating the Sin,” I would say to watch what you say (or type). And I am talking to everyone here. Gays, Straights, Bible thumpers, Atheists… Because you see, I don’t want people to stop sharing their views publicly, and it’s one of the great things about America. However, this privilege of the First Amendment comes with a responsibility. A responsibility to be conscious of others who might be reading/listening.

For example, the youtuber had his views, but they ways he expressed them were insulting and threatening. While I believe he was completely allowed to express his views, that he doesn’t think that homosexuality is natural, he had no right to call people devils, tell them they’re doomed to hell, or anything of the sort.

The line is thin, and it’s a difficult thing to do, but we all must watch both what we say and how we say it. In all honesty, we don’t want to risk that poor unstable soul out there who doesn’t know what to think. What the youtuber should’ve realized is, (and I don’t think he did) is that a desperate gay teenager could’ve taken what he had said the wrong way. It could’ve led to catastrophic results. If he truly believed that he only Hated the Sin and not the person, I think he should’ve realized that.

Hating the sin and having your views is one thing. Expressing it is another.

I beg everyone, of whatever “group” you might consider yourself to be, to express your views properly.

(Too Much) Pressure for Success.

Many people hold high expectations of others, and oftentimes, others will go into great extents to meet said high expectations. Although sometimes this can be productive and can act as an incentive towards hard work, these expectations can oftentimes be detrimental to the psyche of the individual.

Children end up spending too much time attempting to appease their parents rather than spending what precious time they have enjoying what they do. Today’s society places an increased emphasis on Universities and other forms of high-level education. Of course, the children are stuck receiving the brunt of the pressure, and they strive hard to meet the expectations their parents have placed on them. Furthermore, many parents hold high expectations for their children beyond university, expecting the children to become doctors or lawyers. Unfortunately, these huge life decisions and goals are not actually held by the children, yet they strive for them anyways, in hopes to please their families. However, the children oftentimes do not enjoy what they do, which can be detrimental to their psychological health. For example, among the boarding school population, it has become a well-known fact that while St. Paul’s is an elite and successful boarding school, the majority of the school’s student body starts doing hard drugs like cocaine. Because St. Paul’s has a rigorous course load, the students deal with the pressures with dangerous drugs. They use the cocaine to keep them alert and awake so that they can finish their papers or cram for their tests.

Teachers and parents oftentimes tell children that, in order to do well in life, they must go to a good university (usually that of Ivy League standards). So, children, driven by their parents and their teachers to do well in school, simply work too hard. The St. Paul’s students, concerned with their GPAs, did cocaine. At other elite high schools, students worried about their scores resort to cheating. Therefore, children simply spend too much time trying to appease others, thus leading to negative results.

Our Past And Our Future

Written by Lauren C.

Most of us think of time as linear.  I once heard once that the Mayans thought of time as circular and repeating itself.  The more I think about that idea and I look at history, I think it’s true. 

Let’s take Russia as an example.  It began with czars, who were like kings.  Communism then took over.  Now, from what I’ve heard, Socialism is supposed to make everybody equal by creating a sort of totalitarian government that makes it this way, but obviously, that government was never dissolved and the whole purpose was defeated, creating communism.  So basically, Russia had an unjust government and while trying to make a better one, they created one that was equally as bad or perhaps worse. 

Kind of the same thing happened during the French Revolution.  During the Age of Enlightenment, when this happened, there was a lot of thinking about democracy going on in Europe and in the newly formed US.  But then, Napoleon took over and created a new monarchy.  I suppose one could argue that that is simply a part of basic politics because since neither the Legislative Assembly nor the Directory worked and the French citizens needed some kind of leadership. 

If I could give one more example, the US meddled in with another country’s affairs in Vietnam just to stop Communism.  We did it again in 2003, and if I am correct, it was because we thought that Iraq had hidden weapons and we again got dangerously meddled into another country’s affairs (that is obviously up for debate, though). 

The list of these kinds of things goes on and on.  In more general aspects, dictatorships have replaced monarchies in countless countries.  Democracies have often replaced dictatorships.

I think that the biggest question of all is that if time is circular and history does repeat itself, is it because of the nature of the world, or the nature of people?

The Complexity of the Bible: Part II

Last time, I talked about how the Bible was difficult to interpret, and I talked about different ways to overcome this problem (http://ordinaryfreakshow.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/the-complexity-of-the-bible-part-i/).

Whether or not Christianity may be the “correct” religion, we must all keep an important aspect of the Bible or mind (especially since, despite the attempts of the Founding Fathers, the American government depends on Christianity). The New Testament alone is one thousand to two thousand years old. Despite the integrity of the text when it had been written, time changes everything.

For example, let’s look at rumors. Most every rumor stems from the truth. In fact, I think that the majority of the time, rumors start from the hard, cold facts (not always true). But as a rumor passes on from person to person, rumors change. It has become the inevitable cycle of everything. The rumor has become skewed.

The same can be said of the Bible. Over the thousand years (or more) for which the Bible has existed, who is to say that the Bible has not been, in some way, altered? Today, we do our best to uphold the integrity of important texts such as these, but in the past, it has not always been so. Many royalty, for example, would change portions of religious texts so that it would fit their needs. Past governments would actually remove entire chapters from texts such as the Bible (there have been, I’m afraid, reports of such abuse, and many historians today are searching for any missing texts that might exist, in what might turn out to be a fruitless chase, as I assume many would actually burn the texts).

Furthermore, any alterations of the Bible might have even been accidental. The Library of Alexandria, for example, burned down in 200 to 300 AD, probably held some of the texts. Any of the Bible’s texts stored in the Library would’ve been lost forever, in flames.

When we interpret the Bible, we must keep all these things in mind. In my earlier post, I said that we must always keep the context in mind when we interpret. Because many of the texts might’ve disappeared, we must keep in mind that the context might’ve been different when the Bible was first written. 

In the interest of the present social issues retaining to the Bible, many of those missing texts could even include statements in which homosexuality is considered acceptable.

The Truth About ex-President Bush

It’s been a while since Mr. Obama took up Mr. Bush’s mantle. So far, Mr. Obama has done good and has done bad. However, the States has successfully managed to stay a little bit under the radar… At least more so than it had been under Mr. Bush’s leadership. It’s safe to say that the majority of the world breathes a little easier now that the young Bush has left office. Anyone, it’s oft said, would look like a hero after Bush.

However, now that we’re well into Mr. Obama’s presidency, leaving Mr. Bush’s behind, I say it’s a good time to take a look at our ex-President’s work. There has been bad, and, despite what everyone might think, there have been some good as well. Now I can talk for pages and pages about Mr. Bush’s failures in office, but we’ve all heard them before. Repeatedly in the past eight years. So I’m going to talk about what the huge majority of us don’t know (either we are simply ignorant of the fact or we choose not to know). That is to say, this article will be about the GOOD of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

I’m going to start with saying that I don’t think Mr. George W. Bush is a bad man. He may have been a bad president, but I in no way think he was ever a bad man (though his father, George H. Bush, may have been more of a bad man). In fact, had he not fucked over America so badly, I think I wouldn’t have minded being friends with him. Needless to say, Mr. Bush spent the good portion of his first term screwing everything up. He screwed up so bad, he made Bill Clinton look like a god. Somehow, by some strange phenomenon (also known as Ralph Nader), Bush was granted a second chance.

Now here is my biggest question. If we were so willing to give Mr. Bush a second chance, how is it that we never actually took notice of anything he did in his second term? We elected him a second time, over Al Gore, and yet, we crucified him from the very begginning. Mr. Bush was inevitebly haunted by his past, the ghosts of the term past. You see, Mr. Bush is like a child. In the beginning, he misbehaved. He simply did not know what to do and how to act. Thus, his first term was like a failed year in kindergarden. I imagine that Mr. Bush saw these failures, and the dissappointment of his people. So, he tried. He tried, just as a young child, after a failure, toil to gain his or her parents’ attention, Mr. Bush toiled to gain ours. The only difference is, where the parents of that child might’ve acknoweldged the child, we did not acknowledge Mr. Bush.

Despite what the popular opinion may be, though Mr. Bush screwed up his first term pretty bad, he actually had a pretty good second term.

Let’s the Bush administation’s foreign policy as an example. In the first term, his foreign policy, well, sucked. It was on a non-face-to-face basis. Any negotitions done, therefore, probably came off as cold or mechanical. This put the States in some pretty deep shit, internationally wise. Countries like Iran and North Korea began to pester us, growing into what may become a catestrophic problem.

But let’s look at Mr. Bush’s foreign policy in his second term. Mr. Bush and his administration completely turned around in this aspect. In fact, they began to do face-to-face negotiations. Furthermore, some good actually came of this. The Bush admnistration was able to pacify Kim Jong-Il and his North Korea, even if only for a while. They even managed to get North Korea to destroy its largest nuclear plants.

Throughout his second term, Mr. Bush attempted to undo everything that had gone wrong in his first term. And in some cases, he was successful.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bush was forever shadowed by his first term, and his mistakes then had been so catestrophic that there was simply no way he could fix them all in a single term.

With Mr. Bush out of office, I’d like to give him some props. Although not the brightest egg in the basket, Mr. Bush actually possessed an important quality I think most people lack. He possessed perserverance. Mr. Bush was hated all over the world. His own people hated him. And yet, he was able to move forwar. and undo some of the horrors he had comitted

In this aspect, we can all afford to be a little bit more like Mr. Bush.

Boy Meets Girl.

There’s love everywhere. They swamp the radio. The billboards. The books. The movies. There’s love everywhere, but it’s really only one kind of love. Straight love. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy and girl hook up. Boy and girl break up. Boy and girl get back together. Boy and girl get married.

I sat in a bus today, as a team of boys lacrosse players passed us by. When I looked, I saw boys. Nothing special. Sure, a couple of them were good looking, but they were just boys. At that same time, almost every other girl in the bus were making comments: “Oh my god, he is SO hot.” “Look at that guy!” “Damn..”

I couldn’t help but think what my life would be like if I were straight. I would be commenting too. I would be part of the majority. I wouldn’t be different. Maybe I would say what a nice ass #13 has. Instead, I was thinking about a great looking girl I saw the other day.

The appealing thing about being straight is the feeling of belonging that comes with it. You’re not an outsider, and though you might be unaware of it, you’re part of THAT crowd. You don’t have anything to be afraid of. That security is the most desirable straight quality. If there was any reason for me to try (and fruitlessly, might I add) to be straight is the sense of belonging. I would never want to be attracted to a guy (honestly, it feels quite odd to me).

So what is the significance of all this?

The truth is, we, the gays, are the minority. And nature has it that we will always be the minority. But it is also true that we don’t have to be such a HIDDEN minority. 14% of Americans are gay. And those are just the openly gays. I’m almost sure that twice that number is closeted. What I mean to say is, while we will always be a minority, it doesn’t always have to be this bad.

We have to help each other out. Come out of the closet. It’s like having a child or switching jobs. There will never be a good time to do it, so just do it. Don’t think about the pros and cons of each moment. Just do it. If someone else in your community has already come out of the closet, join them! Don’t make them stand there alone.

Stupidity

In an age where intelligence is a deciding factor in life, I ask you to look at stupidity.

My experiences, you could say, have weathered me.  They have opened my eyes to see what others may not be able to see.  And I can see these things because I myself have experienced them first handedly.

Normally we see stupidity lesser than ignorance. It’s often said that while ignorance can be cured, stupidity cannot. But I beg to differ. Stupidity, in many ways, is an enduring form of strength. There is determination in stupidity. However, where there is determination in stupidity, there is stubbornness in ignorance. Those who are ignorant do harm to others, despite knowing better.

So what makes stupidity different from ignorance? What makes it better?

When I say stupidity, I don’t mean those who might be mentally challenged. There are many in our society who have been labeled as idiots, airheads. How often have we given these people the benefit of the doubt? How often do we say, maybe the stupidity is only one layer?

Weathered by my experiences, I’ve found that sometimes, I can see deep into a person’s eyes, or hear something in the tone of their voice. I am more acute to these features because I begin to recognize something I used to see in myself. I have recognized stupidity to be nothing more than a mask, a mask made of smiles and laughs rather than wood or paper mache. And these masks of smiles inherently act the same way as physical masks. They hide something about our true selves. What some people fail to notice is, every once in a while, a mask will lose composure for a split second, through a glance, a gesture, or tone of voice.

I knew this about myself, the theories of masks, and how at times, my mask would break. I came to an epiphany one night, as I observed a girl who was oftentimes seen as an ‘idiot.’ You see, though I knew about the mask, from firsthand experience, it was not until I observed from the outside could I understand the details of the mask. The mask is made of laughs and smiles. But the base of it, the core of the mask, is made up of stupidity. What strengthens the mask more than anything else is stupidity.

But one must realize that these masks of stupidity are heavy masks to carry. And not only are they heavy but we also must carry them for hours on end.

You see, what led to the epiphany was one glance, sprinkled with a tone of voice. In a split second, I knew everything. I saw the pain, I saw the hurt, I saw all these things in that one moment.

Everything as a whole led me to this conclusion. Life is damn hard. For all of us. But it takes someone with real fucking courage to put a mask on his or her face, to hold a smile.

It takes some real goddamned bravery to laugh in the face of pain

Going Green… Is it a Good Thing?

Ever since Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” hit the populace, the mindsets of people have changed (of course, most of us, upon seeing the film, immediately drove our cars home, turned up the lights and the AC, and took a long hot shower). Going green became the rage, inherently driven by the fear that Tokyo would be hit with a hail storm, New York with a tsunami, and that half the United States would be reduced to crossing the border between the US and Mexico. But let’s pause our fear for one second, and our desire to do good to the environment (don’t worry, natural disaster won’t hit us just yet).

I think we have failed to ask ourselves the most important question in this issue (and perhaps the most simple). Is going green really a good thing? Can it inherently hurt us rather than help us?

The human race worldwide has rushed into the green rage, without considering exactly what is involved. And while many of the green companies and non-profits do have best interests in mind, sometimes our strong held beliefs and views can blind us. Of course, going green may actually be a good thing.

I thought the best course of action would be to devise a Cross-Benefit analysis of the situation, dividing “going green” into a few categories, which include the renovated green water bottles, green light bulbs, the conservation of electricity, and green cars. Of course, while there are many other variables to consider (especially since there are quite a few other methods of “going green), this light study should give a quick glance as to whether or not it’s actually a good idea to “go green.” Keep in mind, however, that going green in this study only refers to the methods of going green we use today. However, other methods can and should be developed.

 

	COST	BENEFIT
“Green” Bottles	Contaminates water supply. -1 More chemicals. -1 More expensive -1	Less oil used +1
“Green” Cars	More Expensive -1	Energy efficient +1
“Green” Light Bulbs	Cost More -1 Extremely Dangerous (mercury) -2 Expensive and Difficult to Dispose -1	Energy efficient +1
Conserving Electricity	Wasted, excess energy -1	(Long Run): Less Energy used. +2 Cheaper +1

(Costs -9, Benefits +6)

All in all, it is, in fact, better NOT to go “Green.”  Green Cars, for example, are useless unless you do plenty of driving. In cities, Green Cars will be useless. However, if you do drive a lot, Green Cars end up being cheaper. Conserving electricity, is also usually a plus, but keep in mind your efforts could be useless if the rest of your community is doing nothing. These new Green Bottles/Plastics, and these new Green Light Bulbs fulfill the purpose they were made to do. But they are simply NOT WORTH IT. Green Bottles, since they are made if dangerous chemicals, when transfered to landfills or disposed up, the chemicals soak into the ground and enter our water supply. Furthermore, these bottles are much more expensive to make. Green light bulbs are energy efficient, but they are, in absolutely no way worth it. Firstly, they cost more. Secondly, they are difficult and expensive to dispose of. The most important aspect of the light bulb is that it contains HIGH LEVELS OF MERCURY. In fact, the government has warned buyers to evacuate the room if a Green Light bulb has broken there. Furthermore, if mistakes are made and these light bulbs improperly reach landfills (perhaps in order to shave off the cost), the mercury can spread into entire communities. Mercury poisoning, without proper medical care, can lead to death within 1-3 days.

Keep in mind that going Green is not a bad thing. The idea itself is a good one. However, the means we have chosen to go about Going Green is not only costly but dangerous to the environment and our health. If we want to go Green, we simply need to find better ways to do it.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: March in Washington

In response to Mr.Obama’s stance on DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell), protesters will be gathering June 27th, 2009. Yes, that means THIS coming Saturday. Protesters will be marching in DC, making it clear to our President – who, by the way, promised change – that DADT is an unnecessary outdated law, as said by military personnel themselves.

265 military personnel have been dishonorably discharged from the military on the account of DADT, some of which were – and are – vital in the Middle East wars. 265 is enough.

If you are in DC this Saturday, I encourage you to join the march. Otherwise, spread the word and show your support wherever you are.

RSVP here:

http://www.sldn.org/265

There is also an events page on Facebook, so check it out there too, if you want to see some of the details.

265 is enough. Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

The Complexity of the Bible: Part I

It has come to my attention, by a recent comment to a resent post (“To Those Who Despair…”), the issues concerning interpretations of the Bible.

Throughout the centuries, texts such as the Qur’an and the Torah (and others…) have been debated as to what the meanings of the words and phrases there might be. Interpretations of each sentence have been debated over by experts and leaders of the respective religions.

I believe that this route should not only be taken by our leaders of our religions, but also ourselves, the followers of the faith. I believe, that instead of swallowing the interpretations that our Fathers or Bishops have to offer, we should begin to either formulate our own ideas and interpretations or discover ideas and interpretations that we truly believe.

So, in what ways do we begin to interpret the Bible? There is no doubt we must be careful when doing so. We first must look at, not only the line(s) we are trying to interpret, but also the context surrounding it, both before and after. What people tend to forget about the context is it’s importance, that it can drastically change the meaning of a quote. Too many times have I seen people simply pull words or phrases out of the Bible and cite it as their evidence, to further their cause. However, these words and phrases, in their contexts, oftentimes mean something completely different than what people make them out to be. Furthermore, the very definition of each word is important. You must keep in mind two things. One, that there are many definitions of a certain phrase or word, and two, the definitions of words and phrases have changed since the time the Bible was written and now. You see, the problem here is that we, and I mean all of us, read what we want to believe. If we want to see wrong with Homosexuality, our brains will subconsciously read something as being anti-gay, though it may not be. The same goes for the other side. If we want to see right with Homosexuality, our brains will subconsciously read something as being pro-gay. This leads me to my next point.

Because we only read what we want to read, understand what we want to understand, we are all subconsciously biased, despite what we may like to believe. You are biased. There person next to you is biased. I am biased. The question then becomes, how do we overcome this bias? Unfortunately, I’ve found no way to internally fix this problem (if you have let me know). However, I have discovered a way to overcome this problem externally. The answer comes in the form of opposing viewpoints. By all means, formulate your own viewpoint with the most skeptical eye. Try to be as unbiased as possible, as objective as possible, looking towards the context and the definition of words to formulate your viewpoint. After, read up on other viewpoints and interpretations of the same point. In this way can you modify and strengthen your own hypothesis.

The Bible is a very complex text. Furthermore, it is a sensitive one, one which many lifestyles depend on. For, not only do the lifestyles of Christians depend on the Bible, but the livelihoods of non-Christians also depend on the Bible.

Thus we must take the upmost care in interpreting the Bible.