Golden Compass pt. 2

Oh yeah, here's something else I just thought of.

The big bugaboo in these books that is so offensive to Christians is that God is killed by a mortal. Oooh. Blasphemous, isn't it?

Or else it would be, if it wasn't one of the TENETS OF THE FREAKING RELIGION!

God, in the form of Jesus, was what? Killed by mortals. This led to his resurrection and ascension into heaven, and life everlasting.

So I guess if you're going to protest His Dark Materials, you're going to have to protest the Bible too. God dies in that one as well.

Except in the case of the Bible, God died for real. In His Dark Materials, it's just a story - fiction (as in it's not really true).

The Golden Compass

Ok, so the Golden Compass movie is coming out this weekend, and the religious worriers are up in arms about it. Author Philip Pullman is an atheist/satanist, and the books supposedly further that agenda. Ok, so what? They're stories.

There's a lot of evil that gets done in stories. Faust makes a deal with the devil and gets all kinds of earthly rewards for it. Darth Vader blows up Alderan. Thomas Covenant rapes Lena. But that doesn't mean that partakers of these works of fiction are going to become devil worshippers, world-destroyers or rapists.

Instead of grousing about this movie, parents should point out to their children that this is NOT real. No world in "His Dark Materials" is the real world. Even the closest, the one John Perry comes from, isn't the real world! The real world doesn't have subtle knives, or holes to other worlds, or tiny particles that react the way dust does. The whole book is a fantasy, and must be read as a fantasy.

Sure, children are young and impressionable. That's why parents must actually parent. Many things in the world add to the collected jumble inside the mind of each person. People are constantly bombarded by images from TV, radio, friends, parents, co-workers, books, magazines, newspapers, internet, etc. etc. etc. The addition of this one trilogy isn't going to tip the balance much, and if it does, the child was in trouble to begin with because the parent's parenting skills were not up to snuff.

Consider the teacher in Sudan who was imprisoned for naming a teddy bear "Muhammed", or the outrage at the Muhammed cartoons. Americans generally (rightly) recognize those situations as ludicrous. We'd be outraged if something similar happened in the US. The wonderful thing about our culture is its openness. Pullman CAN write a trilogy in which his fictional representation of God is killed, without fear of imprisonment or death. And people can respond with protests and argument.

Neither side of this argument merits censorship. I am a Christian. I have read the books and I plan to see the movie. "His Dark Materials" is not even an argument against religion because it does not portray religion as it truly is, but some fantasy/nightmare of religion. My faith won't be shaken by non-arguments or cariacatures of God and the church. Instead, I will enjoy the movie as a story, period.

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize?!?!?

What the hell? Even ignoring the fearmongering pseudoscience of climate change that Algore carries like an overstuffed saddlebag on a diseased alpaca, what the HELL does global warming have to do with peace?

The only connection that I can see between global warming and peace is that somewhere, sometime, someone might decide to use violence to resolve the issue. I don't believe that this concept was part of the global discussion prior to the Nobel award.

By making this award, the Nobel committee has gone against everything the prize is supposed to represent. Let me explain.

By suggesting that Algore and his global warming cronies are promoting the cause of peace in their endeavors, the Nobel dudes have raised the suggestion that a non-peaceful option exists, thereby linking the global warming issue to the possibility of violence.

Therefore, the Nobels are actually promoting war by bringing forward the idea of using war to resolve this issue.

Shame on you, Nobels.

Heroes

I just got done watching the craziest news story I've seen since the war in Iraq started. ABC led off tonight with their big revelation that the US military exaggerated (they used the word "lied") about the exploits of some soldiers as a propaganda tool to create heroes and deflect attention from Abu Ghraib.

What the hell?!? Is this even newsworthy?

Ok, what if it's true? What if the military DID lie, destroy evidence, and make up heroic tales about American soldiers? The "news" story contained sound bites from various people (soldiers, relatives, etc.) who said this type of thing lessens the deeds of actual heroes. Um. No, that's the reporting of it and making it a big issue that does that.

People have always pumped up the truth where war heroes are concerned, from ancient times (The Odyssey, anyone?) to the Revolution, to the World Wars, to modern times. Notice how the currency of soldiers has gradually declined over the years (compare your perception of American soldiers in World War II to your perception of American soldiers in Vietnam or Iraq). Do your really think soldiers were just more heroic in the past?

No, obviously it's the way war and soldiers' activities have been reported. Reporters in the past have had respect for military professionals; modern reporters (I'm talking mainstream national reporters here) have absolutely no respect for American soldiers, sailors, and Marines and go out of their way to tear them down.

Pope Benedict

Ok, the Pope recently said some disparaging things about Muslims. So what? I understand the "Two wrongs don't make a right" mentality, but jeez! Muslim clerics have been disparaging Christianity like nobody's business and you find us demonstrating, burning down mosques, or getting all bent out of shape.

What the Pope said was not his own words, but those of 14th century Arabic scholars. He has since made it clear that he absolutely does not believe those words. But no, that's not good enough for Muslim fanatics, who want the Pope to not only apologize, but to say that he was wrong.

I'm not a Catholic, but I happen to know that it's a tenet of Catholic dogma that the Pope is the infallible prince of Heaven. Asking the pope to admit he was wrong would be like asking the highest of the high Muslim clerics to admit that Muhammed was wrong. It is against the principles of Catholicism.

From everything I've seen, Benedict's speech was an outreach to the Muslim world. It's as if he reached out his hand to a pack of dogs: Some dogs are willing to be petted, others will bite your hand off. One that bites your hand off makes up for a whole lot of petting.

More on racism

After my first real comment yesterday, I decided to make another post exploring my views on racism.

So what is racism? Here's my definition...it's not from a dictionary, it's from my head. But I think it's pretty close: Racism is any unfair or unwarranted bias based on race, national origin, or skin color. Let's look at that a bit closer. (NB - From here on out I'm going to lump "race, national origin, and skin color" under the umbrella term "race". Deal.)

First, ANY. Don't overlook this small word at the beginning of my definition. We're not just talking about majority-on-minority bias. ANY bias based on race is racism.

Next, UNFAIR or UNWARRANTED. Obviously some people would argue that any bias based on race is unfair and unwarranted. Mostly I agree. Race is mostly an arbitrary trait to use to make value judgments about people. The whole argument about "racial profiling" is a bit absurd, tho. If police are looking for a mass murderer who is known to be white, why shouldn't they wave all the black, Latino, and Asian drivers through their roadblocks? Why shouldn't all white drivers be searched?

BIAS. Note I don't say "penalty" or "persecution". Let's also hark back to that "ANY" word for this paragraph. BIAS can also be positive. Yes, I mean affirmative action. Affirmative action is inherently biased based on race. Yeah, we can argue over the "unfair" or "unwarranted". But if we can consider affirmative action unwarranted or unfair (yes, I still have never owned a slave) then affirmative action is racist.

RACE. As I understand things, there are three actual races. I'm not sure I'm using the right words here, but they're basically Caucasoid (white), Mongoloid (Asian), and Negroid (black). Yeah, I know there are some other groups that don't really fit (How far east do you have to go to be Asian rather than European, anyhow?), but those are basically it.

NATIONAL ORIGIN. This is where you're actually from, hereditarily.

SKIN COLOR. Figure it out.

The thing people need to get into their nigh-universally thick skulls is that we're all people. We look different. We have different superficial physical traits. Some studies have been done indicating different races have different average mental abilities, but it's unclear whether these are the result of genetic or cultural factors. Certainly there are extremely intelligent people of all races.

From what I've seen, many minority people (notice I deftly refuse to categorize generally) have the belief that all white people are racist, and therefore react negatively toward white people.

Mel Gibson

Ok, it's 3:40 a.m. I woke up about 1 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep, so I've been watching stuff on T.V. I watched the movie SubUrbia which was pretty good.

But the item which moved me to leave the comfort of my recliner and soar into the blogosphere on a cloud of steam was from CBS Up To The Minute (or whatever their early-early-morning news show is called) and was about the recent arrest of Mel Gibson for driving under the influence.

Apparently Mr. Gibson unleashed a stream of anti-Semitic remarks during his arrest. Of course, this is drawing criticism from Jewish pundits everywhere.

Actually, the arrest report says that Gibson was arrested without incident and was very cooperative with the arresting officers, and it was left up to a journalist (last name Levin, didn't catch his first name) to break the story of how Mel struggled with officers, attempted to escape, and spewed forth his anti-Jew bile during the arrest.

"Of course there was a cover up," Levin said during his sound bite on CBS UTTM. Of course.

And the report has prompted the (I think it was the) L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. to launch an investigation of the incident.

My question is, What does it matter? Why the investigation? This is not something to make a big deal about. If a drunk black person unleashes a diatribe against the honkey, cracker cops arresting him, it does not warrant an investigation.

I can understand perhaps a procedural, internal thing at the sheriff's station if the deputy lied on the arrest report, but that is not something that should invite public or press scrutiny.

I guess the big deal is that Gibson has long been under the anti-anti-Semitism microscope. But last I checked, this was the United States. People can believe and say what they want. I personally don't care whether or not Gibson is prejudiced against Jews. I don't care whether or not John Travolta is a Scientologist. I don't care to hear political views from Janeane Garafolo or Ben Affleck. Entertainers are for entertaining. At the point they stop being entertaining, I WILL stop paying to watch them.

In their private lives, I definitely support the right of celebrities (or any Americans) to embrace whatever beliefs they wish and speak out in support of them. I can always turn them off if I don't want to listen.

In short, IF Mel is anti-Semitic, it's all good. There are plenty of minority celebrities that are anti-White to balance the scales.

Immigration

Ok, here's my manifesto (lol) about immigration.

Immigration is a great thing. It's what made this country what it is today. But...

Immigration must be controlled. It is imperative that authorities know who is coming into our country and have the ability to control who and how many people enter our country. It is simply a security issue.

Those people that are currently in our country illegally may have nothing but the purest motives of working to support themselves and their families, but the fact remains that they broke the law. I don't believe they should be punished (unless, of course, they break another law), but they should be identified and, without prejudice with regards to future immigration, deported to their country of origin.

It's not a racial thing. I don't care whether they come from Mexico, Canada, or Timbuktu. They need to get here legally or stay out.

It would also be nice if countries who originate our illegal alien problems could feel some incentives to reduce the rate of illegal immigration. Perhaps foreign aid could be inversely tied to the rate of illegal immigration, or (if we owe the offending country) we could write off a portion of the debt for each illegal alien we process from that country.

GAH!

BILL MAHER SUCKS!!!