Crystal's Purposeful Blog

Roland Martin and Flaming Faggots: What’s Hate Got To Do With It!

2012-02-09T15:09:00.000-05:00

On a popular social networking site, CNN correspondent Roland Martin, made the following observations:

"If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham's H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl”

"Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass,"

As a result of using his freedom of speech, Rolland Martin, a man I am not a fan of btw, was suspended from his job, had his reputation sullied, and will forever been known as a homophobe. Forgive the cliché, but the punishment does not match the crime.

There are two interpretations of his statements 1) Is the reasonable assumption that a man who is excited about David Beckham underwear (or David Beckham wearing underwear) may be playing for the other team. 2) That a man excited about soccer or a soccer player is not a truly committed American football fan. To both of these interpretations I yawn and say so what? What’s the problem? Well the problem is that the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and its supporters got their feelings hurt and collective panties tied in knots. For that they cried that they were offended (boo-who) and pressured CNN to suspend Martin. Really????? You don’t like what a man writes on his personal twitter account and so you elect to have him fired. Now if Martin had said, “Hey after the Superbowl let’s get together and assault a group of homosexuals,” there might be some cause for offense. But the man did not say anything that would reasonably incite violence. Censorship pisses me off.

In response to this idiocy, I wrote on my own personal Facebook status:

“so this politically correct garbage is way out of hand. You fire someone cuz he implies that a man who likes david beckam underwear is gay! What!!! Of course any many who wears underwear like that is a flaming faggot! Yeah I said it. Now try to fire me GLAAD.”

And there were people who actually intimated that I was using ‘hate speech’. HUH??? Save such rhetoric for Rev Phelps and his “God hates fags” cronies. Anyway, being a level headed person who does not substitute emotions for logic. I decided to research what exactly hate speech was. According to Wikipedia, “hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group.”

This definition is inadequate because basically anything a person says that makes someone else unhappy could be potentially labeled “hate speech”. In fact by writing this post, somebody could call Google and have my blog removed because my unapologetic way of addressing censorship can be construed at‘hate speech”.

This ambiguous definition of “hate speech” makes me ask:, ‘who was hurt by what I said? Who suffered serious repercussions because of what Martin said? Did one of Martin’s Beckham-loving Superbowl friends get assaulted as a result of his comments? Were any people scrutinized, harassed, or subjected to serious consequences as a result of those statements? Whose rights were seriously infringed upon? Martin’s! Martin loss his right to tweet, his job, and his reputation.

For the love of reason! People say and do offensive things every day. What ever happened to simply saying “I disagree with that” and keeping it moving? I hate Fox News, for example. I think the entire network breed hate. Many of their commentaries and pieces of yellow journalism “offend me” and even make me angry. So what? Does that mean that those commentators don’t have a right to say these offensive things? Does that mean that the entire network should be shut down? Guess what my solution is to Fox News: I simply don’t watch that it because I know that their reactionary jargon is going to offend me.

And there is another News Flash: people can say something that makes you angry without hating you. I used the words “flaming faggot” yesterday in a Facebook status to be openly defiant against GLAAD (the nice gays that got Martin suspended), Big Brother, and the censorship police of the week. What happened? My initial point was discarded and people accused me of using “hate speech”. Then, the conversation that followed became a debate about the legitimacy of homosexuality, and gay marriage, and religion and all those things I never intended it to be. For the record, I don’t typically use the word faggot (which I vehemently refuse to call the “fword’). I used it simply because I could! And because I have the right to post whatever I want on my Facebook page until the censors shut it down and they campaign to have me fired. My point was that I refuse to develop a case of political correctness like the majority of the world has succumbed to. I also used that derogatory word because I thought it would draw attention to the article I posted about Martin.

Interestingly enough, many of the same friends (and yes, I consider you friends) who posted on my wall, listen to music that repeatedly uses the word nigger and disparages women as bitches and hoes. So we can listen to music and support artists that demean black Americans and women, we can even use post inflammatory anti-Christian photos on our wall (you know who you are), but we better not use the word “fag” lest we hurt someone’s feelings? Give me a break. And I say this respectfully, because I like having friends!

The last issue I want to address in this run-on blog is a sentiment that angers me to the core of my being: that the homosexual agenda is on par with the black civil rights movement in this country. Let’s be clear, the gay agenda is NOT as much about equal rights as it is an “in your face’ approach to coercing people to accept a sexual preference or lifestyle as legitimate. Yeah I said it. When was the last time a gay community was taken out of their native country, had their culture ripped away from them, enslaved, considered 3/5’s of a person, subjected to legally imposed segregation, disenfranchised (for those of you who don’t know, gays have always had the right to vote) and told to sit in the back of the proverbial bus. Give up, historians? NEVER! Truth: gays as a community have not been subject to the same level of historical discrimination, violence, segregation, and enslavement as black Americans, or the genocide that Native American people and other true minorities have had to suffer through. Have individual gay people been subject to discriminatory practices? Absolutely! But to compare their plight with that of African American civil rights in this country is tantamount to likening the Holocaust to a traffic jam or the Rwanda Genocide to an inconvenience. There’s just no comparison.

So back to my original point. Just because a comment is mean-spirited, derogatory, or a bad judgment call, does not mean its hate speech. We have devolved to a society where almost any other group is fair game to demean (especially Christian groups) and almost anything goes, but homosexuality has become our sacred cow. If we imply anything about a homosexual person we are labeled homophobic and must be stigmatized subject to the most extreme consequences? We have gotten to a point where all someone has to do is cry “hate speech” and any person or organization can be castigated! We have collectively become a bunch of overly-sensitive toddlers, who will demand the most serious of repercussions if someone says something we do not like. Our selective hypersensitivity and political correctness is going to lead to a muted society, that’s afraid to speak out against social ills for fear of offending someone.

Because I support free speech, feel free to disagree with me.

Fat: Me Against the Scale

2012-01-30T22:37:00.003-05:00

I am fat. I do not type that statement out of a desire to elicit sympathy, nor do I wish for anyone to contradict me. I have a mirror. I have access to a scale. No I am not obese (yet) and no I don’t have any health problems (yet) or weight-related illnesses (yet). What I do have is a genetic predisposition for weight gain and an almost insatiable desire for high fat, high sugar, high carb foods. This is a deadly combination that frightens me enough to want to take control of my life, my health, and my appearance before it’s too late.

How it all began

I have always had a weight problem. As a child I was underweight. A turbo metabolism coupled with a finicky palate made gaining weight virtually impossible. Doctors prescribed fatty concoctions and regimens. Nutritionists struggled to come up with a short list of foods I would actually be willing to eat. But to no avail. My grandmother simply prayed for me and believed that when I was ready to eat I would eat. As I approached my teenage years something miraculous happened. I began to enjoy food (albeit the wrong kinds of foods) and my family quit worrying about my inability to gain weight.

Fast-forward to my teen years and even though I only weighed about 100 lbs soaking wet I could out eat any teenage guy I knew. My metabolism was so fast that I could eat an extra-large cheese pizza, and drink a liter of soda without any ill-effect.

Emotional eating and non-eating

Hormones, stress, craziness, personal losses, breakups, and all the up and downs of life wreaked havoc on my appetite especially as I entered my twenties. As a result my appetite had two speeds, super hungry, or food loathing. Most of the time I grazed or grabbed snacks to go. Occasionally though, I made every day a buffet and packed away calories as if there would be no tomorrow. When an upsetting event happened I ate. When an extraordinary horrible event happened I would become too depressed to eat. I would survive off of a glass of juice, or crackers if I ate anything at all. When a boyfriend broke up with me in college (conveniently the same week as final projects and exams, and the same week I caught the flu) I ate nothing at all for almost an entire week. Now as an adult I am an indiscriminate muncher. High pressure interview? The moral support can be found at the bottom of a box of cookies. Insane deadline to meet? The mental fortitude can be found in the leftover cake in the break room or the vending machine in the hallway. PMS/Menstrual depression? The bakery and the buffet line can melt away all that tension and anxiety. And that thinking is exactly what led to me ballooning from 118lbs at 23 (I’m 5’6-5’7 so that wasn’t an ideal weight either) to 165lbs today at 27. That’s not an easy statement for me to type, but because I have promised to be transparent on this blog I have to keep it real.

The Ups and Downs of Dieting

Like most women I have done really stupid diets. When I first started gaining weight, a girlfriend and I went on a weekend fast in hopes to do some damage control. That Sunday when the fast was over I celebrated by eating a one pound hamburger, fries, and pizza at a local restaurant. Net loss: Zero. Then I tried meal skipping. I was hungry and irritable. The all-juice diet I tried made me loath my existence and pee my life away. Last summer I began the most productive diet I've tried to date. I kept my calories low, ate fruits and those disgusting vegetables (I hate then with an inextinguishable passion) and exercise multiple times a day. As a result I lost 5 pounds. But this diet was capsized when my friends all moved away and I began to feel lonely. Then financial stresses ate away at my willpower, until I said “screw it” and began eating whatever I wanted. Living in cold, dark, dreary Ohio, doesn't exactly make you want to have a beach body. So as the months went by the needle on the scale gradually moved closer and closer to the 200 mark.

My Saving Grace

So why am I not obese? Why do I only weigh 165 and not 265. Easy! I like to move it move it! I lead an active life. I prefer the stairs to elevators. I walk when I could choose to drive. I do aerobics at least a few times a week. And this summer I took swimming classes and hiked for miles every day. I can’t stand being sedentary. In fact, during my last two cruise vacations I walked the stairs (sometimes up to 12 flights) danced, swam, and moved whenever possible. Yes, my daily routine sometimes prevents me from exercising, but at my best I work out every day. Yet that’s not enough. Chocolate cake and large pizzas, shakes, and break room finds do not burn off easily. My age, water consumption (I drink way more than 8 glasses a day) and relative good health are also in my favor. However my diet is a hot mess!

The Plan!

So after doing tons of research consulting a dietitian, and carefully praying over the decision, I have concluded that I need to make some serious changes. I have watched the biggest loser and those other weight loss reality tv shows. Most of us assume these people gained such massive amounts because they are lazy, stupid people. But those people didn't one day wake up fat and sedentary. Weight gain is gradual. So before I end up on a TV show balling my eyes out because I am 946 pounds, I am facing this issue head on! My plan is simple. Smaller portions, more exercise, less dessert, more revolting vegetables. No starvation. No denials. When I want a small slice of cake I will have it, but I won’t eat the whole cake! No pills, no surgeries, and no liposuction (I’ll save lipo for when I am at my wits end). I will document my weight loss on this blog and share with you which things work and which things do not. Lord willing, I will be down to a weight I can live with and feel happier and more energetic as a result of it. Pray for me, because this is not easy. I am an emotional eater. I get fed up. I get pissed off. I get discouraged, but I intend to press on. Feel free to hold me accountable. Together maybe you and I can lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle!

Update: Since writing this blog, I have lost 2 and a half pounds.

I Would Rather Become a Lesbian than Date a SDA Man

2011-09-29T07:50:00.004-04:00

It’s five in the morning and I can’t sleep. And because my last post was an extremely vulnerable one for me to write and I don’t want the first thing people seeing or associating my blog with is my sex life or lack thereof I will write another post. Been thinking about what to write for a long time. This too will be a personal post and because of that I have to do something I hate and start off with disclaimers (Lest I be misunderstood). 1) I love my religion. No one is forcing me to stay in it. I have the liberty to choose whatever faith or nonfaith (if that’s a word) that I want. And I choose this one because I believe in its mission, its message, and its doctrine more than anything else. 2) I love many SDA people: Men and women, black and white etc. So when I make statements like the one I posted on my Facebook about preferring to be a lesbian than date an SDA man it’s not because there are not nice, kind, well-meaning, men in my faith. They clearly exist. It's because they do not appeal to me personally. Okay enough disclaimers.

I will explain my points of view as best I can at five in the morning, by telling two short stories.

I had the pleasure of going on a short nature retreat. I like being outdoors from time to time so this was a welcome treat. Joining me was a successful business man and also fellow SDA. Since it was a lengthy car ride and because I wanted to do some hypothesis testing, I began small talk with the gentleman. “So tell me about your business? What’s the market been like?” He answered in purely droll technical terms and I politely feigned interest. “Sounds like a lot of work? What do you do when you are not in a suit and tie?” Long pause followed by a snore of an answer sprinkled with the right religious terms so as to ensure me that he is serious about his faith. “Oh wow so you’ve read (insert important book written by founder of my faith here), I have as well. What were your thoughts?” To which I got text book answer about how wonderful it was, how awesome it was that people were willing to die for their faith, blasé blasé sort of answer. I tried once more this time changing the subject to current events. Failed. So being persistent, I tried to engage the young man by asking philosophical questions (What would you do if) FAILED. I tried to encourage the conversation, in hopes that he might ask me some questions in returned and that the convo would not be so one-sided. And indeed he did. He asked me how I felt about the killing of Osama bin Laden. Great convo to have on the way to a reprieve from societal woes. No he did not ask me what my hobbies were (I volunteered that) or where I’m from or what I do for a living nope nope, just wanted to know how I felt about bin Laden’s death.

So since I have radical political views (also known as independent thoughts and original ideas) I answered tactfully in order to see what this young man’s views were. He replied with BORING sanctity of life bull crap. FAIL. Well you can’t win em all!

Allow me to tell another story. A year or so ago I went to a Christian youth fellowship. Now there is a certain young man who I am very sure is attracted to me. I mean what’s not to like? No matter where I am this man finds me and starts conversation. Now he is not the type I usually go for, but because he is kind, respectful, and gainfully employed I would give the guy a chance. All he would have to do is ask. Take some initiative. Grow some balls! But nope. He sits back and does nothing because that’s what SDA men do. They watch from a distance thinking they are being intelligent and discerning. Then when they are finally ready to make their move the object of their affection is off the market because she has been taken by a man of another faith. Then they complain about it and throw out 1Cor 6:14 and condemn the poor woman all because she picked a man who actually stepped up his game.

And then there are the conversations. Is it too much for me to ask to NOT know what a guy is going to say before he says it? BORING. I met one guy who went on and on about his vision of a perfect wife (aka obsequious slave) and 596 children he wanted to have because he is a genetic masterpiece with the income that rivals the GDP of a small nation.(I really hope you catch my sarcasm). Any way, I whipped out some of my original thought on the subject and started cogently using these things called facts (potential for children to be born with various genetic predispositions, potential for children to be unhappy because this world sucks royally, the potential of him not having the means to support these children, and the potential that he will meet a nice woman who doesn’t want to have 3,847 children). Of course he dismissed these facts, quoted that ever popular line from Genesis about being fruitful and multiplying (Gee that’s original, when you want to support your lowbrow point be sure to utilize a text out of its context) and went right back into his fantasyland that included kind well-behaved children who will be the glory of the universe and be translated directly to heaven at the age of 12. At that point I got bored and dismissed the stupid bastard.

Okay so I know that these are just a few anecdotes, but please believe me when I say that these men I’ve written about are representative of the kinds of men I constantly meet in my faith. They are predictable. They are boring. They want the same thing: a bland un- opinionated wife (they refuse to pursue btw) a bunch of children, and to save every lost soul. Apparently, I am one of these lost souls because you should see the tender pity they have for me because I think so outside of the box. Because I question statements that don’t seem to have biblical or rational support. Because I’m adamantly anti-procreation and prochoice, because I won’t go along with something because a nice man in a suit said it to me while he was standing on a platform. Because I make my own decisions and live my own life even if that life is contrary to traditional conservative views. Because I cannot be pigeonholed.

I don’t fit the SDA good girl image. Long skirts, bashful, repressed, loves to cook, clean, change diapers and sing hymns. I do love to sing hymns though. And I do read the latest Christian lit and I have read the major books of my faith, I can match theological wits with the best of them, and I live the best moral life I know how to live, but that does not matter because I am black, and direct, and unashamed of my opinions and where I come from. Because I challenge peoples traditional ideas, and upset the status quo. So it’s fair to say SDA men don’t like me much either--or maybe they would prefer me if I were to shut up and go to the kitchen and prepare vegan meal for them.

And let me talk about race for a minute. See I am an open-minded person, which SDA men translate to mean liberal. I must correct them because I am not a religious liberal (just a political one) or conservative for that matter. I am merely open-minded. For example, I think interracial dating is just fine. WOW. I know that’s radical right? I have been attracted to all kinds of men. But there are those WASP in my faith who cannot see past color and embrace the individual. So I can be friends with many SDA white and Asian and whatever men, but dating one is still taboo and marrying out of the race is out of the question. I simply can’t imagine one of these typical republican-voting-tofu-eating men taking outspoken me to their lily white home and having me share a bowl of walnuts (I’m allergic to nuts btw) with their lily white missionary mom and lilly white minister dad. Then explaining to them that I am prochoice, I don’t cook and that I refuse to have children because of my Malthusian ideas. Yeah that’ll go over well.

(But I’m sure there are many liberal men of my faith who would not date outside of the race. Where I’m from when you judge someone purely based on the color of their skin we call that prejudice, but what do I know I’m “crazy”.)

Imagine me dating an SDA man. The first date I ordered the steak the relationship would be over. But supposing it made it past all that, I would have to wait 4 months to hold hands 5 months and after the engagement for a first kiss (a peck) and sex would have to be planned out and prayed over when we got married (6 months). I would be so bored and lonely I would likely off myself. Or if I dated a liberal SDA he would try to have sex with me on our first date and try to justify it with the Bible (supposing he owns one) or he would ask me why I still believe in creation, and whether I would like to explore New Age ideas as a means of “enhancing” my SDA beliefs. (Both sides suck).

And so because of their intrinsic sexism, their belief in antiquated gender roles, there punitive stance on women’s sexuality (which is evidenced by their pro-life belief system) there rigidity, their failure to be masculine (I mean how are you supposed to “stand for right though the heavens fall” if you can’t even ask a girl out on a date), their obsession with veganism, their dating discrimination, and close-mindedness, I can’t date them. No matter how many nice men in suites stand on platforms and tell me SDA men are the only men I should ever marry, no matter how many sob story lectures and books are published in which an “unequally yoked” woman lives a life of miserable regret because she dated outside the faith, and no matter how many sincere exhortations I receive from well-meaning friends I just can’t. (Funny, most of the women who are preaching an SDA only dating agenda are single themselves or miserable. Hmmm).

Now I’ll concede that the idea sounds nice. I meet a man and I don’t have to explain to him what SDA’s are. I meet a man and we can finally go to the same church on the same day of the week. I can use SDA lingo with him and he knows it well. We share a love for hymns and an appreciation for SDA literature. He knows what Amazing Facts, GYC, and Audioverse are etc. He understands why I love my faith so much because he loves it too. But I’m not willing to sacrifice other things (affection, romance (SDA men have no idea. They think romance is listening to Audioverse over a plate of tofu) and my individuality in order to have these things. How can I possibly date or consider marriage to a man I might feel friendship for but I am not attracted to. I would rather date a woman which is a strong statement for me for two reasons 1) I think homosexuality is wrong 2) I have never been attracted to women.

If I am wrong and I meet that 1 in a billion SDA man (there aren’t even a billion of us on this planet BTW) I will eat humble pie and post an entirely new blog. But I don’t do false hope. So I remain single, “radical”, original me.

The 26 Year Old Virgin

2011-08-02T11:33:00.004-04:00

Ok let’s say the word. Breathe in “virgin.” Now breathe out. Good. See, it wasn’t that bad after all. Stats show that most girls lose their virginity around the age of 17. Let’s just say I’m a very late bloomer. Like 10 years late as I am approaching my 27^th birthday (with fear and trembling I might add). And let me dismiss the haters right now. I am NOT asexual, gay, or insecure. I am not a naïve country bumpkin who was homeschooled and reared in some uber-conservative evangelical home. To the contrary, I am an educated, conscientious, Baltimorean, who grew up in a home that was less than ideal. I was raised in the ghetto and graduated from public high school, and I was never insulated from society’s woes because every day they smacked me in the face. I have never had an issue with my sexuality and I have always been attracted to the opposite sex as long as I can remember.

Oh perhaps I am so ugly or have such a disagreeable disposition that I am incapable of attracting a man who could want me? I find this assumption dubious as most people who meet me find me pleasant, and open, and to quote my cousin “you can put a paper bag over someone’s head and [have sex with] them anyway. So yes, even ugly and disagreeable people get laid.

Of course, when I originally made the abstinence commitment I was a child and then I recommitted to it as a teenager. I watched what sex, in the wrong context, did to people. I saw 13 year olds give birth, single mothers contract AIDS, hearts broken and families torn apart and decided that maybe God’s way was the right way. But I’m not 16 years old making an abstinence vow. I’m 26 and I live in a sex crazed culture. I’m aware that I look like an idiot. Try being 26 and explaining to the person your dating that you won’t have sex before marriage and see how that pans out for you. There is a strong correlation to my commitment to abstinence and my being single. So how am I going to get the monogamous relationship? It’s a sick cycle.

What has my commitment to my convictions done for me? I have been laughed at severely. I constantly have to justify my decision to people who are closest to me. (After all it’s not like I wear a placard with an arrow pointing at my crotch that says “virgin territory”.) I always have to answer the question “why don’t you have a man?” (Umm this isn’t caveman times. I can’t hit some poor dope upside the head and drag him back to my apartment by his hair). Also I don't like to be treated poorly. In fact, I'm allergic to mistreatment and so any
relationship that is not based on egalitarian principles and that isn't mutually beneficial aint for me! In short, I'd rather be alone than abused!

And let me state vehemently that I am NOT “saving myself for marriage.” I have always thought that was, Um, stupid. It implies that if one does have sex that they are somehow tarnished and unworthy. There's a tacit snobbery in that arrogant line of thinking that, quite frankly, pisses me off. You're not holier or superior because you "saved yourself." In fact, the experienced person has more to offer in the way of, let's see, EXPERIENCE when it comes to sexually satisfying their spouse. Let's just keep it real people! Nor do I care at all what my (nonexistent) future husband thinks about my sexual choices. I’m not naïve enough to think that, should he exist, he is saving himself for me. I made my choice because I believe the Bible. Shoot me. I believe that God invented sex (not Trey Songz) and so He should know a thing or two about how it should be had. The context that He gave for sex, and the safest most emotionally intimate context, is marriage. And so my decision is to please God, and I could care less about my future husband, my church, my clergyman blah blah blah.

I think back to my college years. I was dating a guy I found very attractive. We were making out, and touching, and pieces of clothing were coming off and I was blissfully enjoying the moments, but conscience wouldn’t let me go through with something that violated God’s commandments. To quote Joseph from the old testament when he was seduced by Potiphars wife,” how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Gen 39). The answer was that I couldn’t. So I grabbed my things and left. And that’s been my life. Yes I’ve slipped up and taken things to sexual levels they shouldn’t have been. I never try to paint myself as innocent. But I write here knowing that I have never had anal, oral, or vaginal sex. I do not masturbate or watch porn or engage in any other sexually immoral behavior. And for the last three years I’ve been as celibate as a person can be. No dating, no kissing, no NOTHING.

And yet as adamant as I am about my decision, there is a quandary. A few weeks ago I watched a documentary that once more discussed the singleness of black women. 45% of black women have never been married. There was one woman who had a particularly profound influence on me. She was 44 and still a virgin. I almost cried. Perhaps that would be me and I’d be on some documentary as a social anomaly. I felt pain. To live that long and to never have been intimate with another person seems like a sentence worse than death. Perhaps I am cursed too I thought. See, when I made my decision I didn’t think I’d be nearing my thirties and still unsexed. Not that I want to rush into marriage, but I figured that I’d be in a solid monogamous relationship by now and that sex would be somewhere on the horizon. As I look now the whole thing seems hopeless.

I am an incredibly sexual person with urges and needs just like anyone else. And here I sit disillusioned that my desire to do the right thing has been rewarded by a singleness and celibacy I never asked for or imagined. Some morally weaker days I think maybe I’ll just experiment and have sex and at least I won’t have to dry up or die a virgin. But I can’t imagine myself having sex without love, without intimacy, to do so would make me no different than an animal in heat. So what do I do? Or rather how long won’t I do it? I don’t know. I don’t consider myself an optimist, despite being a Christian. My thoughts about this world are bleak. And so on days like this when disillusionment and loneliness are most acute, I sit and type this bitter, yet honest blog. Sorting out my thoughts and wondering why God would leave me in this state. Is the right thing ever rewarded?

I don’t know. But I still press on. Clinging to my antiquated moral positions, knowing that few even understand and even fewer empathize with me, until…..

Dear Mr. Obliviously selfish

2011-04-04T10:51:00.000-04:00

When we met you were so kind and so sweet to me. You won me over with your words, but then I realized your actions did not correspond.

You said you wanted to protect me

You said you wanted me to feel special.

You said you would come see me.

You said you would call me.

You said you were honest.

You said you were different from the other guys.

You said I could trust you

You said you were a Christian

You said I should give you a second chance

You said you were looking for a good woman

But….

You showed you would hurt me if it benefited you.

You showed your idea of making me feel special was to make me feel disappointed and angry.

You showed you’d back out of plans cowardly at the last minute it there was any sign of conflict.

You showed you would call me when things are going well and disregard me the other times.

You showed you would lie if the truth painted you in a bad light.

You showed that you were fair weather and that your interests came with strings attached.

You showed that I cannot trust you because your idea of truth depends on what bests suits you.

You showed you would jettison your morality if the temptation was sweet enough.

You showed that second chances turn to third and fourth chances and yet you possess no real remorse nor do you evidence any real change.

You showed that when a good woman came along you wouldn’t know how to treat her

So why should I continue to keep you in my life? I would give anything if your words were reinforced by your actions but your character has been called into question. So that leaves me with a hard decision to make.

I Should Have Been Born a Man

2010-12-06T17:28:00.007-05:00

I’m not really sure when this all began. Probably when I was lying on my back with my legs spread eagle while an stranger poured hot wax on my lady parts and then yanked it off with a cloth. Or maybe it was the painstaking hours I’ve spent in front of the mirror plucking hair from my chinny chin chin only to have it grow back even thicker a week later. Or the hours I’ve spent in hair salons, or the thousands I’ve spent on moisturizes, dark circle cream, hair removers, paint, acne medication, creamy crack (i.e. relaxers), weaves, wigs, toners, perfumes, diets etc. And lets not forget the days (yes literal days) I’ve spent trying to find pants that fit my ample rear end and wide hips without being too big in the waists, too short, or too baggy around the thighs or chicken legs I have. Or maybe just maybe it was the time I pulled my hair back and vomited in my sink because of a particularly bad bout of naseau brought on by my menstrual cycle. Yes all these things together have served to persuade me that I should have been born a man.

I’ve written before that I’m not particulary good at being a woman. I can’t wear high heel shoes because of my bad back and even if I did not have said back issue no amount of money would convince me to pry them on because wearing them is equivalent to medieval forms of torture. I hate bra’s. In fact I would write an entire blog of my absolute hatred of these circulation cutting, itching, yucky devices and my quests to find one that can fit breast that are the size of two silver dollars. And let’s not forget face paint. My first experiment with mascara almost left me blind and I have never ever figured out how to wear eyeshadow without getting little bits of pigments stuck to my eyelashes. Oh and I’m still suffering from the time I let a good friend of my arch my (already arched naturally) eyebrows. Now I have little fuzzy hair that grow outside of my natural arch and a light unibrow. Alas I don’t even want to talk to you about my experiences with acrylic nails. I now have permanently destroyed nailsbeds where I used to have naturally healthy ones. Most days I face the world without giving any thought to my gender until I have to pee or adjust a bra strap or blood starts oozing out of my lady parts or a conversation on women’s rights comes up and then I turn into uber-feminst defender of all vagina bearers.

But really I don’t tend to think much about it. I’m a natural chick. I don’t like chemicals and sprays, and girl stuff. My beauty products consists of a loafer, a bar of soap, deodorant, unscented lotion, and whatever’s on sale that I can wash my face with. If I’m feeling really glamorous I’ll wipe on a bit of witch hazel as a toner and wallah! It takes me 10 minutes to get ready in the morning. I’m a pragmatist and this is definintely revealed in the types of products I buy. So I was born to be a man.No foo foo cosmetics, a refusal to starve myself to loose weight, a desire not to throw up my food (accept when my period makes me nauseous), or poison my hair and pores a love of reclining and relaxing, and a practical cynical outlook on life, yeah I should have been born a man.

And yet for some reason beyond my comprehension I was not. In fact I was born one of the most loathsome creatures in western society: a funny looking black woman. Now a woman is already considered second class. And a history of racism has made being black not so fun. And being an unattractive woman it to be so low on the social ladder that you may as well have been born a handicap cockroach. Now combine all of these things and well you got me: just a regla colored chick trying to eke out some kind of subsistence. Now I’ve never been a fisherman, so needless to say I don’t bait for compliments nor do I wish to receive any self pitty or psychoanalytic bull crap. I keep it real. And real talk: I’m an unappealing black woman with a boatload of baggage and a cynical outlook on life (Google depressive realism).

I’ve tried to tally up the amount of time and money it would take for me to become socially acceptable. Chemical peels, concealers, laser hair removal treatments, scar removal, microdermabraisons, etc etc. But there is no solution to stretch marks, manly legs, an assymetical figure, and decidedly unfeminine frame. In fact, in the time it would take me to “fix” these defects I could have gender reassignment surgery. Growing a penis is a lot easier than trying to be beautiful whatever that means this week.

Imagine me as a man! My broad shoulders would be appreciated, my facial hair and mustache a sex symbol. Pores? What are pores? My split ends and coarse hair solved with a razor. My asymemtical physique and my man legs unnoticed because both are buried behind layers of ill-fitted man clothes. My big clown feet a tacit sexual statement about my perceived virility. In fact, a little time in the gym combined with a few protein shakes and I’d bulk up. Then I’d have tons of captivated women at my disposal and I could finally manage to get laid! And while we are on the subject of reproduction I would never have to worry about getting pregnant as a 2 minute doctors appointment could render me capable of having orgies of sex without having to making babies! Yes! I could belch and fart and scratch in public! I could wear practical clothes, and shower 3 times a week. I could sweat and sit with my legs open. And I’d never have to wax anything again. Society would have no expectations of me and yet reward me for having nothing to offer the world accept my penis. No I’m not man bashing. I’m penis envying!

But alas I don’t have enough money to be “beautiful” or the resources to change my gender. So I must press on. Laugh at my self-depreciating wit, cover my mirror in wax paper, and cry myself to sleep when rejected for the umpteenth time by some cad I happen to catch feelings for. It could have been worse. I could have been born a handicap cockroach.

Top 10 Reasons I Hate My Job

2010-12-06T17:10:00.010-05:00

Dangerous: According to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), 80% of all convenience stores are crime-free in any given year. Somehow as stats crazy as I am that number does not make me feel any more comfortable. I read that as 20% of convenience stores DO have crime problems. I live in constant fear that this may be the day someone shoots me in the face so that they can steal the $100 we keep in the cash register. Everyday I pray that God would keep the store safe, not just for me but for the dozen or so other young people who work there.
Fear of being fired: Already we have lost one poor sole who accidentally forgot to ID an undercover cop. No matter my job performance, or how many pain-laden hours I dedicate to the company I know that they will let me go in a split second, and prosecute me to the fullest extent of the law if I don't card a 17 year old that looks like a 45 year old man! And while we are on the subject allow me to say something very contentious. White people don't age well at all! Sue me. Also the lifestyle of partying, smoking, doping and who knows what else that SOME people involve themselves with certainly doesn't make my job any easier! How the heck am I to know that the balding guy, with the crow's feet, and a few strands of gray hair is only in his early 20's!!!!!
Big Brother: Yes big brother is always watching me and listening to me, and video and audio recording my every movement or sigh. “I always feel that somebody's watching me, like I have no privacy,” goes the familiar tune that encapsulates my entire experience. No I'm not psychotic (yet), but one of the perks of my glamorous low wage position is that the company watches me like a prisoner at Sing Sing. I'm pretty sure they know that I am in my bedroom right now typing this. I suspect they might fire me for it too. Today I had a minute between chores and decided to check out the “Sexiest Man Alive” so I skimmed through a copy of People while checking out customers, and dumping cash into the safe. My coworker came out grabbed the magazine and hid it informing me that the big whigs who sit in their living rooms in their boxer shorts watching me on camera would have a fit if they saw me. Sure he was only looking out for me but I was livid because I work so hard and I can't do ANYTHING without fear of getting fired. I mumbled to the recording “What else is new everything here is against the rules!”
Ohioans: I suppose Ohio's close proximaty to West Virginia (the armpit of America) has had a dramatic affect on it's collective IQ. Basic things like reading small words, counting, pissing in the toilet bowl instead of the floor (or trashcan) and pumping one's own gas without supervision seem disturbingly difficult for this group of people. On any given day I'm amuse/baffled at how many times I have to explain the concept of pay first, select your grade, and then remove nozzle to grown PEOPLE! And the next time someone comes in, flings money at me, and tells me they need gas (no pump number, no car description just a plain “I need some gas”) I will direct them to the hot dog grill. Two of those babies and I'm sure they will have all the 'gas' they need! And while I'm venting, I should add that I have NEVER ever had a problem figuring out how much gas I need in the car I drive everyday! People come in, look at me as if I'm the person who drives their car and ask me how much I think will fill it up. Next time my response will be “$500” and when the stupid dope is gone I will pocket the money and walk out! Also to my dear Ohioans and beloved Canadians who may be reading this, allow me to introduce you to a new concept! It's called change. If you overpay at the pump we will give you your change back! Rest assured, dear moron I do not want your $3.56.
Bathrooms: I am tempted to say “nuff said” but that doesn't truly encompass the utter humiliation of scrapping a grown man's feces off of a toilet, or cleaning the left over menstruation from the toilet bowl, or trying to get the urine stains off the floor. The first week I did this I came home and cried myself to sleep. I believe in humility but this indignity combined with the paycheck I receive and taking directives from an 18 year old has the culminating effect of making me feel utterly worthless. Take my advice people: don't bother going to college, unless of course you want to be the most educated gas station attendant at your place of employment!
Injuries: Running, tripping, cutting fingers, pulling muscles, etc.
Sweeping outside: Cold, rainy, whether the weather whatever the weather whether I like it or not I sometimes have to go outside with a broom and sweep the crap up the liter bugs leave behind. Perhaps the worse litter offender has to be the smokers! I find butts within 2 inches of the trashcan. The problem is the butts get stuck in the grooves and crevices of the pavement and sweeping them takes extra muscles and extra time in the cold. But I suppose if you have no regard for your own body than you certainly don't care about the people who have to clean up behind you.
Trash: Trash happens...alot! But worse part is when little 18 years olds on the shift before mine don't pull the trash up and place it in the dumpster. So that means that by the time I get around to taking out the trash it's way heavier than it needs to be and I have to pull and strain and struggle to get the bag out of the trashcan. Then I have to drag said bag several feet to the dumpster and figure out how to get it in there. See number seven for the results of what happens to me when I try to do this.
Immorality: Though my faith has been at a low point lately, I am a very moral and conscientious person. I have never done any kind of drug (not nicotine, not alchool) that wasn't prescribed, I HATE pornography, I think premarital sex is wrong so there is definitely a conflict of interest for me working at XYZ convenience store. At my work we sell every tobacco product you can imagine (I now know almost every brand of cigarettes and every mixture and flavor they can come in) I ring peoples alcohol purchases up for them though I absolutely LOATHE the stuff, I help people donate to the state of Ohio buy selling them their losing lotto tickets, I provide soft core porn and magazines on how to get high, and I ring up peoples condoms for them.* I also contribute to people's obesity by ringing up their 9,000 calorie snacks for them.
Pay check. I made more money when I was an undergraduate. I let tears fall on my pay stubs and count down the weeks I have before I can quit. If Hell had a nickname it would be XYZ convenience store. (I so wish I could print the name!)
Bonus one! The customer is always right. Including the mean ones who yell at you and make you wish that medieval forms of torture were legal. Scaffold anyone?

*I feel mixed about condoms. On one hand I am a safer sex advocate and very vocal about it on the other I wish people would wait to have sex until they were married. And, No, I don't see rings on the fingers of the people who come in to buy the condoms!

Tortured

2010-09-01T12:58:00.003-04:00

A surge of anxiety pumps through me as trembling palms desperately grasp the steering wheel of my Nissan Sentra. After 8 hours of driving, exhausted, hungry, and battling the rising torrents of panic the dam finally breaks. My heart rate accelerate and tears force themselves from my eyes. The panic attack has climaxed. Dizzy, tired, terrified, without a shred of comfort I make a failed attempt to grip the wheel and stare up ahead to find out the reason for the traffic jam. To my left is a huge mountain to my right a precipice descending into a lush valley, in front of me grid lock bumper to bumper traffic. Stuck between a rock and a hard place there is no where for me to go, no where for me to turn for escape. This frightening realization increases my panic exponentially. Having lost all control I recite Bible passages in my mind, I pray ever prayer I know to pray still the panic rises and persists. Am I going to die? I think. Surely this is not the way I wanted to die. Not almost 26, broke, alone, and unaccomplished. I'm still young. There still so much I want to do and want to see. Soon panic attack melts into a series of attacks and I am paralyzed with irrational fears.

Probably the worse part of having panic disorder is knowing that no one understands it! The fear is triggered by stress, depression, excitement, or subconscious feelings or thoughts and there is no release from it. No way of predicting it. No way of stopping. I have no control. Instead I am tortured. Plagued by things in my past too horrible to recount in this blog, and troubled by thoughts of an uncertain future my life is a sick and twisted maze of misery. In many way the opening narrative is a glimpse into my everyday life. I want so much to succeed and to be happy yet I am trapped. Stuck in predicaments I did not make and force to cope with situations I did not facilitate. I am probably one of the most unhappy people in the world.

Fast-foward to Tuesday August 17, 2010. It's my 26 birthday. I am on a luxurious cruise ship with my family, adsorbing unfathomable ocean beauty and imbibing fresh fragrant air. Yet my mind is somewhere else. I can't appreciate the all-you-can-eat buffet, the intoxicating dance music, or the playful banter of my loved family members. Instead my thoughts turn inwardly. Why am I here? Will this be another year of panic attacks? Will this be another year of failures? Will I be able to have more than a few minutes of clarity and happiness or will it all just crash and burn? My mind zooms back to my “normal” life where the highlights of my days are playing online scrabble and watching youtube clips. I recall the thesis paperwork, the deadlines, the criticism, the labyrinth of self-inflicted confusion that dominates my graduate school experience and I wonder if I can ever been happy.

The depression melts into a spiritual crises. I long to see people saved and accepting the truth about Jesus. I have passages of scripture memorized, I understand deep theological nuances, and passionately believe every ounce of God's word. I try to be the best Christian example I know how to be. Yet not one person has ever made a decision for Christ based on anything I have done. So once more I have failed. And just like a the final kick in the stomach the realization becomes perfectly clear: No one will ever make a decision for Christ based on my example, because regardless of how I struggle to hide it I am one of the most tortured individuals in the entire world.

I'm longing to find wellness and peace. I'm praying that this year is happier and more blessed than subsequent years. We'll see. Hope is fading fast and tension is mounting. I'll keep you posted about the good, the bad, and the in between of my “sick cycled carousel”.

The Blog: Past, Present, and...Future??

2010-06-09T04:02:00.001-04:00

This particular post is dedicated to those who have been reading the blog since day one. You all know, back when the blog was called “Crystal's Random Blog”.Almost 3 years ago on July 7th 2007 the blog was born. To date I have written 87 different posts not including the current one. I am a different person from when I first started the blog, yet in many ways I am the same. I like to go back and reread the archives just to remember the old me: fiery and uncertain, unapologetic yet insecure, sarcastic and probably just a little irreverent from time to time. What changed? Well sad to say I am not 22 anymore. I miss 22, but I really never want to be that dumb again. In fact, in just a few months I will be celebrating my 26th birthday—that's a long way from 23 fears. And yes I am still terribly afraid of growing older.

My hopes initially when starting the blog were to “impale people with the truth”, promote honest discussion, and challenge peoples traditional opinions and ideas. I started this blog a year after I graduated college. I was feeling alone. I needed an outlet. I felt like my life was stuck in nowhere and I longed for the mental stimulation that I was not getting from my dead-end job as a strawberry dipper (I really was a strawberry dipper see here for more info). Moreover, I was tired of reading other people's commentaries and opinions. I felt I had a voice and that a blog was one vehicle I could use to make it heard.

Along the way I made some good friends. Mostly from my most popular post “I'm not buying it” which was a response to a fellow blogger who was charging black women to read her blog on how to get white husbands. LOL. Yes I was a bit to hard on her, but I apologized in my post “I'm still not buying it”. That blog got me a whopping 15 comments but it made me pretty notorious in the blogosphere as I found links to my blog all over the web LOL. Funny thing is that I'm not happy that such a blog was my most successful and I'm kinda sorry that people stopped reading my blog because I failed to deliver more anti-Evia content. That's not my style and I hardly think that was any of my best writing.It seems the blogs I like the most are the ones that received the least traffic. Irony.

I also made friends with a religious conservative who frequented my blog during it's early days mostly as a courtesy because I read some of his stuff. Later, I exchanged comments with an openly gay political blogger who's humor I richly enjoyed. I only stopped reading his blog as it became a bit too vulgar for my particular taste. (Hello, friend wherever you are? I hope you have finally found solace). I even experimented with vloging but found that it was not really my style as I'm not much of a video editor. It's sad that I didn't get into the vlogging game back in 07. Now black women vloggers are taking over youtube talking about topics that I addressed ages ago here. Sigh. I could have been one of those women, but you live and learn.

On this little dot in cyberspace I have been loved, hated, and everything in between. It really has been an interesting ride and I don't regret any of it. That's why I have not deleted my old posts, even if I don't agree with them anymore because I am in a different space now. I know that those post represented an important growing time in my life. I can't just delete my past because it has helped to mold me into who I am today.

So over the years I have covered such topics as the presidential election, domestic abuse, relationships, my breaks ups, ethical quandaries, eugenics, panic disorder, breast implants, the Jena 6, graduate school and everything in between. I have stripped myself bear recording my failures, and successes, my joy and my pain.

Then on New Years day 2009 the blog changed! The name was changed to Crystal's Purposeful Blog, emphasizing my belief that life is not just random, but that it does indeed have purpose. My writing then took on a more spiritual tone, focusing on the existence of God, the importance of Biblical prophesy, the sabbath, my own spiritual struggles, and my ever-growing love/hate relationship with the media. 2009 was a somber year. After I moved here I rediscovered a passion for God that I had not had in years. I wanted and still want the whole world to share my passion. Yet I realize that I have probably alienated most of the people who used to read this blog. That hurts a lot because my faith is such an important part of who I am. I thought I could use this blog, instead of a sounding block for my trivial opinions, as a way to evangelize, to bring people to make solid decisions for Christ. I have failed in that attempt. So what next?

I am still on fire for God, and yes I am unapologetic (as always) about that! But I also want to try to focus on other topics ( which of course will be infused with my Christian perspective). I long to explore other aspects of my faith, yet still write about social, political, and random topics. I think with all my transitions, grown-up responsibilities (rent? Bills?), that I lost the essence of what this blog is and what it meant to me. At the end of the day one of the things that has not changed about me as I continue to evolve is my LOVE of writing. That's what I lost! In typing up a witty note on my facebook page the other day I re-discovered why I used to write :To be funny, to humorously express serious things, to receive feedback, to poke fun at myself and the world around me, because it's my ever-burning passion. I think that's why I've not written consistently these past months. I lost my drive. I got fed up the that blog wasn't as successful as I'd fantasized it being, I got sad that no one was reading it, and forgot the promise to myself that even if no-one ever read me I'd still write.

So what's the future of this blog? I don't know. For one thing I have a thesis to write (though admittedly it would be kind of funny to talk about my experience with that). Then, I'm not sure if I want to export my blog to a safer site. Apparently, I have attracted a spamming troll who harasses me everyday by leaving sexually explicit comments and links on my posts. (GET A LIFE STUPID TROLL!). It's a bit frustrating that I have to have comment controls, and yet even with these safeguards the troll returns over and over again with different aliases. And then there is the fact that I'm not sure what kind of writer I want to be. Can I really find a way to share my faith, while being relevant, funny, and outspoken? Maybe. Will my blog ever have any real impact on anyone, particularly concerning their spiritual considerations? I don't know. Lots of unanswered questions. So the future of this blog is up in the air.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think I should do.

If I never write another blog again know that I have loved doing what I do. I have love you (all 2 of you that still read me), and that you and this blog have really made a difference in my life. Thanks,

Crystal Clear

CUT IT OFF!

2010-05-19T23:38:00.002-04:00

There is something evil in your house—another dimension in which morality, love, and basic human kindness are replaced by lasciviousness, violence, and hatred. In this dimension every one of God’s laws are broken incessantly, God is blasphemed, and human pride and extravagance are exalted. The sad part is that every day you sit down to enter this dimension. You invite this evil into your home and you don’t even realize the spiritual implications of what you are doing. I am talking about secular media (TV, the internet, video games, and magazines etc).

According to recent estimates the average person spends 9 years of his life watching television. With the invention of TiVo, On Demand, and internet TV sites a person literally has the whole world of media at her finger tips. To make matters worse, so- called Christians spend just as much time and money investing in secular media as non-Christians. This series of blogs is particularly geared to those who profess to be Christians. In the current blog I will highlight some basic Biblical principles that should guide your life and especially your media watching.

First I don’t believe that all media is bad. I’m clearly communicating with you via a 21^st century media technology: blogging. So, that said, the first principle I would like to highlight is what makes us Christians. According to Exodus 19:5; 1 Peter 2: 9; Titus 2:11·14, God’s people are to be peculiar. Another word that floats around in the Christian vernacular is sanctified, which means to be set apart for a holy purpose. “What fellowship has light with darkness?” the apostle Paul asks in 2Corinthians 6:14. Every Biblical example points to God’s people as standing out and refusing to conform to the wickedness around them, from Noah who was ridiculed and mocked for 120 years, to Abraham who seemingly without reason up and left all his familiar circumstances to move to a strange land, to Stephen who was stoned for confessing Christ. All these people were nonconformists! Hebrews 11 gives an entire list of them. Moreover Christ explains to us simply that if we love Him we will keep His commandments (John 14:15).

What are God’s commandments? Well here is an abbreviated version of them.
1. We shouldn’t have any God’s before Him

2. We shouldn’t make any images or idols.

3. We should reverence God’s name

4. We should set aside each 7^th day because it’s God’s Sabbath

5. We should respect our parents

6. We should not kill

7. We should not indulge in any sexual immorality

8. We should not steal

9. We should not use deception

10. We should not covet

Exodus 20:4-17

Let’s consider secular TV and movies. How much time do you spend watching secular media? The bible asks rhetorically, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” Romans 6:16. So secular media breaks the 1st commandment. Let’s consider the second. Many of us have idols. In fact we refer to our favorite sports and music celebrities as our idols. Secular TV promotes created beings above the creator! (I don’t thing shows like American Idol are misnamed). And let’s just forget about the 3^rd commandment. God’s name is thrown about so randomly in secular media and it is paired with the most vile curses, yet Christians embrace and promotes these types of programs. We are not even offended when we hear the words “O My__? “ because we have become desensitized. I don’t even have to go into how TV promotes lying, sexual immorality, covetousness, and murder, disrespect for authority, and denounces God as creator. The Bible is explicit, if we break one commandment we are guilty of breaking them all James 2:10.

But you are probably thinking that you aren’t actually engaging in these behaviors when you watch TV. You aren’t swearing, lying, stealing, and killing. Well Jesus would disagree with you. He said “You have heard that it was said to those of old,‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:26-28. Notice that you do not have to literally have sexual intimacy for it to be sin, but you can be looking and lusting and guilty of it. Paul puts it more plainly when he says” being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality^, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. Romans 1:30-32. This text rocked my world! Not only are people who sin deserving of death but people who gain pleasure from these sins deserve to die too! Ouch!

Let’s consider a definition of sin. The bible says that sin is transgression of the law 1John 3:4. So if what we are watching clearly violates the commandments of God and violating the commandments of God is sin than that means many of our media habits are sinful! And we know what the wages of sin is Romans 6:23. To be more frank consider what David says, “ I will set no wicked thing before my eyes” Psalms 101:3.

If we consider ourselves Christians we shouldn’t have a wicked thing before our eyes either. Jesus says that if one of our limbs causes us to sin we should cut it off Mark 9:43. The wise Christian should react the same way when it comes to most secular media and CUT IT OFF!

You Can't Get Rid Of Me That Easily

2010-02-20T00:10:00.002-05:00

Greetings Everyone. I have written on here so infrequently that perhaps many of you felt that the blog was over. Nope. The blog has changed because I have decided that I want to write for God. That's why there are some blogs on here that are not 100% Christian. I think the blogs have become increasingly spiritual as my spirituality deepens. Don't worry they're will still be personal revelations, sarcasm, commentary, etc but this time with an emphasis on God. Hey God gave me the ability to write, it would shameful if I did not use the ability for him. Hope that answers the questions about why some of my past blogs are a little less than spiritual. I do not want to delete them because they still make interesting points and they remind me of what I was going through during those particular times. Also I think that readers of this blog will be able to see my personal growth as a Christian as a struggle to grapple with obstacles and reconcile my personal beliefs with the Word of God.

The second FAQ about Crystal, is why do you go to church on Saturday? I wish I had a dollar for every time I got that question. It's an excellent one and certainly one I do not want to gloss over. I will be addressing that question a lot in the upcoming blogs, but here is an article that answers that question better than I can right now. It's call Seven Facts About the Seventh Day. I hope this answers your question. I love you and pray for each person who stumbles across this little blog.

Seven Facts About the Seventh Day
"Part of Satan’s strategy to destroy humanity’s trust in God has been to attack His claim as the Creator. Obviously, the theory of evolution is part of this deceptive and soul-destroying effort. With its amoral humanistic emphasis, Darwin’s doctrine has turned millions into religious skeptics and enshrouded in darkness their need for the Savior.

Yet while many Christians rightly denounce this unscientific belief, ironically, many are still falling into the devil’s trap of denying God’s sovereignty over the earth. That trap is the ages-long effort to twist and destroy the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.

Through Satan’s false information and man’s trust in traditions over the sure word of Scripture, millions of Christians have been led to discount or even reject the importance of observing the Sabbath. “The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord: … in it thou shalt not do any work” (Exodus 20:10). No one disagrees with the clear meaning of this text, yet millions are finding ways not to follow it.

Why? The general Bible ignorance of the church and the clever arguments of Satan have created a climate of prejudice against the holiness of the seventh day in favor of the observance of Sunday. So in the interest of promoting God’s law over the theories of men, let’s take a moment to rediscover some amazing facts about the seventh-day Sabbath.

Fact #1: The Seventh-day Sabbath Establishes God’s Sovereignty 

Why does Satan hate the Sabbath so much? Because the Sabbath identifies the true God and His claim of ultimate sovereignty.

God certainly anticipated the controversy over the Genesis account of Creation. He knew that after the fall of man, there would be doubts about His claims of manufacturing all the staggering mass of matter by merely commanding it to exist.

To safeguard His sovereignty, He established a mark that denoted His absolute right to rule as Lord. He chose to memorialize His display of creative power by setting aside the seventh day of the Creation week as a holy day of rest and remembering.

God wrote these words: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work. … For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is: … wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8–11).

Once a week, as the earth rotates on its axis, the Sabbath reminder travels around the earth reaching every man, woman, and child with the message of an instant creation and the one who did the creating.

Why did God say remember? Because to forget the true Sabbath is to forget the true Creator.

Does it really matter that much? See “The One Unimportant Commandment?” below.

Fact #2: The Seventh-day Sabbath Was Made for Everyone

A multitude of Christians call God’s fourth commandment the “Jewish Sabbath.” But nowhere is this expression found in the Bible. The seventh day is called “the sabbath of the Lord,” and it is never called “the sabbath of the Jew” (Exodus 20:10).

Luke, a Gentile writer of the New Testament, often refers to things that were particularly Jewish. He writes of the “nation of the Jews,” “the people of the Jews,” “the land of the Jews,” and the “synagogue of the Jews” (Acts 10:22; 12:11; 10:39; 14:1). But he never refers to the “sabbath of the Jews,” although he mentions the Sabbath repeatedly.

Christ also taught that “the sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27). Adam and Eve were the only two people who existed when God actually established the Sabbath. There were no Jews in the world until 2,000 years later, so it was never meant just for the Jews. Jesus uses the term “man” in the generic sense, referring to all mankind. The same word is used in connection with the institution of marriage that was also introduced at creation. Certainly no Christian can believe that marriage was made only for the Jews.

Fact #3: It’s Not About Just Keeping Any Day

Every word of God’s Ten Commandments was written by His own hand in stone. Every word is serious and meaningful. No line in them is ambiguous or mysterious. Sinners and Christians, educated and uneducated, are not confused about the words “seventh day.” So why do they discount those words if every other word in the commandments is considered to be ironclad?

Satan wants the world to accept Sunday as the day he has chosen for worship, but any day will do for him so long as it means we’re breaking God’s command.

Genesis describes the origin of the Sabbath like this: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. … And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:1–3).

Which day did God bless and sanctify? The seventh day. How was it to be kept holy? By resting. Could any of the other six be kept holy? No. Why? Because God commanded not to rest those days but to work. Does God’s blessing make a difference? Of course. Parents pray for God to bless their children because they believe it makes a difference. The seventh day is different from all the other days because it has God’s blessing.

Has God ever given man the privilege of choosing his own day of rest? No. In fact, God confirms in the Bible that the Sabbath is a matter settled and sealed by His own divine power. Read Exodus 16. For 40 years, God worked three miracles every week to show Israel which day was holy: (1) No manna fell on the seventh day; (2) they could not keep manna overnight without spoilage; (3) but when they kept manna over the Sabbath, it remained sweet and fresh!

But some Israelites had the same idea as many Christians have today. They felt that any day in seven would be okay to keep holy: “It came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.” What happened? “And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” (Exodus 16:27, 28).

God met them and accused them of breaking His law by going forth to work on the seventh day. Would God say the same thing to those who break the Sabbath today? Yes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

But why the seventh day, exactly? See “Why the Seventh Day?” below.

Fact #4: We Know the True Seventh Day

Some reject the seventh-day Sabbath over the belief that we cannot know which day it falls on today, so picking any day should be okay. But this is fallacy. Here are four proofs that identify the true Sabbath.

1: According to Scripture, Christ died on Friday and rose on Sunday, the first day of the week. Practically all churches acknowledge this by observing Easter Sunday and Good Friday. “This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. The women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23:52–56).

This is clear evidence that Jesus died the day before the Sabbath! The day of His death was a “preparation day” because it was the time to get ready for the Sabbath. Notice, then, that the women rested over the Sabbath “according to the commandment.” The commandment says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath,” so we know they were resting on Saturday. The very next verse says, “Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared. … And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre” (Luke 24:1, 2).

2: The calendar has not been changed so as to confuse the days of the week. Just as we know that Jesus and His followers observed the same day as Moses, we can be positive that our seventh day is the same day Jesus observed. Pope Gregory XIII did make a calendar change in 1582, but it did not interfere with the weekly cycle. What did Gregory do to the calendar? He changed Friday, October 5, 1582, to be Friday, October 15, 1582. He did not affect the weekly cycle of days.

3: The Jews have observed the seventh day from the time of Abraham, and they still keep it today. An entire nation of people, all around the world, continue to observe a Sabbath they have known for more than 4,000 years.

4: Over 100 languages on earth use the word “Sabbath” for Saturday. For example, the Spanish word for Saturday is “Sabado,” meaning Sabbath. What does this prove? It proves that when those languages originated long ago, Saturday was recognized as the Sabbath day and was incorporated into the very name of the day.

Fact #5: The Sabbath Is Not a Memorial of Deliverance Out of Egypt 

This is a belief taken and twisted out of the Old Testament: “The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day” (Deuteronomy 5:14, 15).

Some people suggest this means that God gave the Sabbath as a memorial of the Exodus from Egypt. But the Genesis story of the making of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1–3) and the wording of the fourth commandment by God (Exodus 20:11) reveals the seventh-day Sabbath as a memorial of creation.

The key to understanding these two verses rests in the word “servant.” God said, “Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt.” And in the sentence before, He reminds them “that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.” In other words, their experience in Egypt as servants would remind them to deal justly with their servants by giving them Sabbath rest.

It was not unusual for God to harken back to the Egyptian deliverance as an incentive to obey other commandments. In Deuteronomy 24:17, 18, the Bible says, “Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge. … Thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing.”

Neither the command to be just nor to keep the Sabbath was given to memorialize the Exodus, but God told them that His goodness in bringing them out of captivity constituted a strong reason for them to deal kindly with their servants on the Sabbath and treating justly the strangers and widows.

In the same way, God spoke to them in Leviticus 11:45, “I am the Lord that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt … ye shall therefore be holy.” No one would insist that holiness did not exist before the Exodus or that it would be ever afterwards limited only to the Jews!

Fact #6: The Sabbath Is Not Meant to Memorialize the Resurrection 

It is true that Jesus rose on a Sunday. It is one of the pivotal moments in the history of the world.

But nowhere does the Bible hint that we should keep Sunday holy. Many other wonderful events occurred on certain days of the week, but we have no command to keep them holy either.

There is, of course, a memorial of the resurrection commanded in the Bible, but it is not to determine a new day of worship. Paul wrote: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Baptism is the memorial of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. However, the Sabbath is a memorial of creation.

Still have a question about this? See “The Upper Room” below.

Fact #7: The Sabbath Will Be Celebrated for Eternity

The Sabbath is an arbitrary arrangement of God that serves a powerful purpose. It is His claim — His seal — over the world and all human life. It is also a sign of the redemption He offers to every single one of us.

Surely this is why God will preserve Sabbathkeeping throughout eternity. That’s right! “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 66:22, 23).

The Sabbath is so precious to God that He will have His people observe it throughout all time in the beautiful new earth to come. If it is so precious to Him, should it not be precious to us? If we are going to keep it through all eternity, why not keep it now as our pledge of obedience to Him?"

I invite you to prayerfully consider joining me in the keeping of God's sacred day.

Taken From http://www.amazingfacts.org/Publications/InsideReport/tabid/123/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/459/7-Facts-About-the-Seventh-Day.aspx

An Analysis of Hate

2009-11-01T14:40:00.003-05:00

I look like a normal grad student. Professional dress, hair pulled back in a stylish bun, black purse draped across one shoulder, boldly marching off to class or running frantically to finish another project. On the surface I appear intelligent and friendly, but inside there is what I have termed a “justifiable hatred”. The truth is, I hate men. Now before you start some kind of speculative psychoanalysis I have to explain that I have a great relationship with my Dad, who I have written about in many places on this blog. There are also some males I love, my brother, my family members, and friends of mine. Also I have never been raped, beaten, or physically abused by a man. On the contrary my break-up stories are not traumatic or heartbreaking like many of the stories I have heard from friends.

My hatred manifests itself in different ways. I have been know to show brief affection to some males, to engage in casual banter, and even to go out of my way to assists some of them. But my regard for most of them (with the exception of family members) is always tainted with some contempt. Now I am not interested in dating them. I'm simply talking about trying to have meaningful friendships with the other gender. This hatred reveals itself in passive aggressive remarks, sarcasm, eye-rolling, direct confrontation, and blunt dismissals. I just can't help thinking that they are somehow beneath me and to make matters worse their own behavior buttresses my belief in their inferiority.

The vast majority of them are chronically lazy. They are incapable of intelligent, thoughtful conversation. They are habitual liars almost incapable of telling the truth. They do not possess any empathy or depth of emotion, just superficial, sexually-based feelings. They are morally impotent, incompetent, arrogant, sociopathicly self-centered, and bankrupt of any authentic character. This has been my experience of the Christian male, and the atheists, white and black, rich and poor. Yet this venomous species lives a life of selfish ease. They are guaranteed the top positions in society, based solely on their gender. They enjoy simultaneous sexual relationships with a plethora of single beautiful women. They need not fear loneliness or pain. They need not be attractive or witty. To quote one feminist writer “men's physiology defines most sports, their needs define auto and health insurance coverage, their socially designed biographies define…successful career patterns…their experiences and obsessions define merit”... and essentially they are promised every advantage, not because of any hard work or character, but simply on the basis of their genitals. That in a nutshell is why I hate men.

It is this unmitigated injustice that plagues my thoughts and emotions. It interferes with my spiritual development and stunts my relationships. I am keenly aware that as a Christian I am not supposed to think this way. Yet I can not help but wonder, how is it that their inadequacies are rewarded while women's sagacity and dedication is trampled on. This is my internal struggle: I am commanded to love everyone, and that includes the parasitic male species.

I could go on and on with examples and statistics to support my point of view, but I will share just one brief story. I attended a Christian development conference. Of course you understand that because the conference was spiritually-related that the attendees were mostly women. Most of them were young, attractive, and perhaps more Christian that I am. Many were missionaries, intellectuals, of all shapes, backgrounds and ethnicities. I happen to come with one of the few males there. He is of average attractiveness, slender and effeminate. He is not charismatic,or particularly charming, intellectual or humorous. He is just a garden variety male-- a regular Joe. I could go on and on about Joe's past, but out of some sense of compassion for him that is perhaps undeserved I will protect his identity. But I will say that Joe has a shady past. Now at this particular event Joe is hit on, and flirted with, not because of any quality he might possess, but solely based on the poor ratio of men to women. Joe realizes his fortune and seeks to use the opportunity to his advantage, interviewing prospective women to insure that he gets the best women when in reality should he end up with the worse behaved and least attractive women in the group he would have left off with his superior! This situation bothered me. It bothered me more when I returned to my hotel room and talk to three of the most beautiful women. None of them had ever had a boyfriend all of them were in the 20's college educated, deeply spiritual and still holding out for hope that one day they might find some wonderful man. Statistically, they may not even find a Joe, no less then the quality industrious man they long for and deserve. My heart breaks for them

As it does the other women I have talked to. The divorced sisters, the abused sisters, the sisters with low self-esteem, the broken-hearted ones that call me crying, the ones who ask me “why am I single?” when if life were the least bit fair they wouldn't be, the ones who dress provocatively for the hope that some one might appreciate their beauty and acknowledge their worth, the ones who keep hope alive in vain waiting for a man who does not exits, the sisters who are cheated on, demeaned, taken advantage of, unappreciated, raped, and scorned...they break my heart and reinforce my opinion of the insidious male species. These sister's make me ask where is justice?

...And the Joes, the extra regular dudes, the baby daddies, the liars, cheaters, drunks, and unscrupulous patriarchal dregs of society live happily ever after so that they might inflict pain another day.

My Most Controversial Blog To Date

2009-10-22T21:51:00.005-04:00

First I want to say I miss you all. I've been quite busy as expected because I am a graduate student. Also I had an assignment of putting together an education blog so I have been so busy making entries for that that I didn't have a lot of time for the Purposeful blog. I am about to show you something so controversial you've probably never seen or heard of it before. At first is seems like some sort of religious fanaticism or denominational hatred, but it's backed up by God's word. I have gone through painstaking efforts to show that God is real, His word is valid, and that we can trust Him. At this point I'm done with addressing the skeptics. Skeptics will always find places to hang doubt. At this point I'm talking to Christians and believers in God. Our world is about to face things we have never seen before. We are living at the very edge of time. Some of you will just write me off as crazy. Some of you will unsubscribe to the blog or never speak to me again, but maybe one of two of you will keep on reading these truths (and compare them with Scriptures) and maybe some soul will be saved because of it. If so it's worth any consequences I might suffer as a result of posting this video.

So here is the video. My next few blogs will expound on it in more details. There is no longer any excuse to be ignorant. It's time to worship God in the manner he asks and in spirit and in TRUTH.

The Naked Truth

2009-08-27T20:18:00.002-04:00

Unless the transformation has taken place unbeknownst to me and in the last few seconds, I am not a man. Nor am I particularly sensitive to the plight of the male species. So the blog you are about to read is from a woman’s perspective. I’d like to talk about a problem that I started seeing on my campus. “Seeing” is the best way to describe it as I am talking about the lewd, trashy, and down-right pornographic way that women on my campus dress. Yeah, I said it. (Of course I realize that what I am seeing is only a microcosm of what’s going on all over Western society).

Now let me take a few minutes to address all of the haters. No, I am not jealous because some of these women may (or may not) have better figures than me. No, I am not ultra-conservative in my views on modest dress, and no, I am not a lesbian. In fact, it is precisely because of how repulsed I am to see the nudity of my fellow women that I am writing this blog.

The other day I went to the administration building to pay off my school bill. I was simply in line minding my own business when I was confronted with it! (though I as was standing several feet away). --A nicely-shaped woman in a see-through dress. Now this woman probably never even saw me. In fact, she knows virtually nothing about me, and yet I have seen her most intimate parts. It’s not just the nicely shaped women who are parading their goodies, no it’s everybody. So cellulite, stretch marks, bulging bellies and all are on display for the world to see. The problem has nothing to do with the shape or beauty of the woman, but of a lack of self-respect and respect for others.

A quick brisk walk to one of my classes and I can could count the thongs, breasts, thighs, behinds, and midriffs all belonging to woman of various levels of attractiveness. In fact, sometime this week I noticed a woman who had on CLOTHES! I gasped. I was not quite sure what to say or how to react. She had on a stylish outfit and yet nothing inappropriate showing. The sight was almost mind-boggling. I had gotten so used to seeing people’s anatomy that when I encountered someone who was fully clothed it was as strange a sight as a flying saucer.

Men notice it too. In fact, I dare say that men share some of the blame for why women dress the way they do. Which woman get’s male attention (positive or negative) the one who is baring all her body for the world to see or the modestly dressed sophisticated woman? We know the answer to that. If men didn’t stare and gush over the naked women or if the few decent men would show their appreciation and kindness to those women who do dress appropriately, I think we would see a shift in women’s fashion. I’m not holding my breath for that one.

Still one of the few half-decent guys on my campus had a conversation with me in which he expressed how difficult it is to study or simply walk to class when there is a smorgasbord of flesh before your eyes. In frustration he asked “What am I supposed to do? If I look one way there’s a naked woman, if I look the other way there is a naked woman. I don’t want to look, but I can’t help but see it!” I nodded my head in agreement, but there was nothing I could say to this poor Christian brother, except that some women aren’t aware of what they are doing.

I don’t believe all these women are out to be sluts. I’ve been to the clothing stores. I know what they sell. The fashionable trend seems to be nudity. The more naked the more “in” the style is. The beginning of this summer I went on a quest to find a modest bathing suit. I need something comfortable that I could swim in without having to worry about it coming off. I also wanted something modern that didn’t look like my grandmother should be wearing it. Alas I nearly gave up. With so few pieces of material I figure I could save money and be more conservative if I simply wore my birthday suit! Finally, I spotted a comfortable pair of swim shorts and an unrevealing halter top. Mall shopping is not easy either. My aunt and I were out on a leisurely shopping trip when my aunt pointed to what she thought was a top. “This is pretty” she suggested. I looked at it in agreement, and then I saw that it was not a top at all but an entire outfit! That day my aunt and I had to read all the clothing labels in order to discern which pieces were tops, and which were dresses and outfits! I found a couple of tops that worked, but only if I wore other tops under them or covered them with a jacket or wrap. Unfortunately, I have to spend more money buying extra pieces to cover up the revealing outfits if I want to dress appropriately and stylishly.

Sometimes it’s not that all women want to dress like hookers, it’s just that that may be what is most easily available to wear. I am also thoroughly convinced that some women don’t know how disrespectful and distracting their clothing (or lack thereof) is.

Another reason I am so concerned is because of sexism in our society. We live in a world that does not value women. Women are simply looked at as objects of beauty instead of God-created, intelligent, persons, endowed with basic human rights. Men are quick to generalize women’s behavior, concluding that we are not worthy of respect or are somehow inferior to them. In fact, some writers suggest that when a man meets a woman he has to decide whether he wants to respect her. Instead of showing her basic human dignity, a man will size her up and force her to prove she is worthy of respect. Men don’t view women as equals. They automatically assume that women are less than or somehow unworthy. Now I’m not talking about what is fair, I’m talking about what is REAL. Why should we give men (whether they be our employers, professors, mailmen, or companions) any assistance in forming their misguided stereotypes. In essence, why would we want to add fodder to their patriarchal attitudes. Like it or not we are all interconnected and the behavior of just a few people can affect how people view the rest of us.

So here is some practical advice to women.

I should not know what you look like naked. I don’t know you!
I should not see your underwear or lack of underwear.
Your private parts are called “private” parts for a reason.
Consider the length of your clothes when you are standing and sitting down (often times there is a huge difference in length).
Beachwear and everyday clothing are two very different things.
Thighs, breast, stomachs, lower backs, crotches, and behinds are NOT for public display. Save that for your husband the rest of us don’t need or want to see it!

And that’s the naked truth.

Five Cent Notebooks

2009-07-30T21:03:00.005-04:00

I pulled into the Walmart parking lot with the intention of picking up a few odds and ends. Mechanically I went in and started towards the health and beauty section. AND THEN I SAW IT! My glance fell on a miraculous sign "5 Cent" posted at the front of the store. I blinked. I thought I was reading the sign wrong. I went over and it was real! Tons of spiral notebooks packed the shelves and they were all 5 cent. Two other young ladies were filling their arms with as many notebooks as they could carry. I joined them and excitedly packed my arms with the notebooks. I brought about 28 of them. Not that I need that many, but because they were so cheap. Then I noticed the other dirt cheap school supplies and I decided to load up on them as well. For about $7 bucks I brought enough pens and notebooks to last me my entire time at school. Then I got on the phone and started texting. A deal this good can't be kept to myself. No, I needed to share it. My hands shook with enthusiasm as I tapped out the message "Walmart has 5 cent notebooks!"

Yes I knew that this was God's way of providing for my needs. I was not able to find a job and finances had been more tight than I could remember them being in my life. Yet another lesson came to mind. Naturally, it seems that when people are excited, really excited about something they can't wait to tell people about it just as I couldn't help but want to share my find. But this does not always seem to apply to the Gospel, which certainly trumps any notebook sale. In other words, I don't believe that people are excited about God's truth if they don't enthusiastically and intentionally want to share it.

”Oh well let's leave that to the minister, the Bible worker, or the missionary I'm not qualified for that you might be thinking”, but Christ's words contradict this notion. Check out His last words in the book of Matthew (28:18-20)
¹⁸And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Notice that first Jesus establishes His divine authority than He gives what Christians call The Great Commission, and ends it with an eternal promise.

Who was Jesus talking to? His disciples. Aren't Christians supposed to be Christ’s modern-day disciples? In fact the word Christian means follower of Christ. A follower is another word for a disciple. Not only does Jesus give us this direct order, but he tells us how to go about doing it.

Examine Act 1:8. Jesus is again speaking.

⁸But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Christ doesn't just send us out alone. He promises us the gift of His Holy Spirit. This should be encouraging to us because God does not expect us to do it alone. He sends His Spirit to do the work with us. Then He instructs us on how we are to do evangelism: First in Jerusalem, then in Judea, then in Samaria, and then all over. "What? Crystal have you lost your mind”, you might be thinking. Let me explain. The disciples were currently in Jerusalem so Christ was telling them to start where they were. Being a missionary is not limited to foreign missions. It about witnessing to those in our immediate sphere of influence. Then we can go out further and further and eventually maybe God will use us to reach the whole world, but it has to start somewhere.

Notice also that the first word in Christ's commission is "Go". Go is an action verb. We can't just stand here we have to do something. We have to take on active approaches to reaching out to others. Take for example Andrew.

Not much is recorded about the disciple Andrew. In fact we get the idea that he is the quite type, but we know a whole lot about his brother Peter. Yet Andrew was the quiet behind the scenes guy that God used to reach the outspoken Peter. This is an illustration one of my Favorite Pastor's uses here. God might want to use you to reach someone who will go on to reach thousands! We meet Andrew in John Chapter one, than again in Chapter 6 and finally in Chapter 12 and all three times this little known disciple is doing the same thing: humbly and quietly bringing people to Jesus. We might not all get to be charismatic preachers like Peter, but we can be gentle behind the scenes witnesses for Christ.

What are you enthusiastic about? Sports, entertainment, or in my case bargains at a local Walmart? Whatever it is it is nothing in comparison to the treasures that Christ has planned for us. This should be enough motivation for us to do what Christ instructed and “GO!”, do something.

A Code of Lies

2009-06-22T14:42:00.004-04:00

I've been meaning to write a blog on how I feels about Dan Brown's writings, but I just never had the time to get around to it. Many people ask me if I've seen the movies based on his blasphemous books. In fact just last week my girlfriend was discussing them with me. Since I fear the that lies found in the ludicrous propaganda that is Dan Brown's writing have shaken peoples faith and extinguished the hopes of new believers I want to fight back. If you've ever heard of the Da Vinci Code or it's notorious author than I urge you to read this article by Shawn Boonstra called Breaking the Code. Enjoy and as always feel free to write me or comment on the blog.

....[The Da Vinci Code is essentially based on]a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail, written by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, a book that had appeared on bestseller lists a few years earlier. The whole premise behind the book questioned the Christian church’s historical understanding of Jesus Christ, suggesting, among other things, that Jesus was married, had a child, and never actually died on the cross of Calvary.

As the book hit stores across the nation, a review in the Los Angeles Times suggested that the secrets revealed in the book were “Enough to seriously challenge many traditional Christian beliefs, if not alter them.” Well, a few years later it’s obvious that Holy Blood, Holy Grail did nothing to topple the Christian church, and with good reason. No credible historian took that book seriously because the weight of actual historical evidence falls very firmly on the side of traditional Christian understandings of Jesus.

Most people simply didn’t take the Baigent book seriously, because there wasn’t much between its covers that you could actually substantiate. Like so many other flaky conspiracy theories, it was destined for the trash heap of history, until The Da Vinci Code hit bookstores.

For some reason, this time it struck a much deeper chord with the public, even though The Da Vinci Code was basically a rehash of the same conspiracy theory. The Da Vinci Code borrows so heavily from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, in fact, that one of the lead characters in Dan Brown’s book, a man by the name of Leigh Teabing, has a name that’s actually derived by rearranging the names of two of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail: Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. This time the theory that Jesus was married with children took off like wildfire, selling tens of millions of copies and filling theaters all across the country.

And then, at the same time, in a move almost certainly calculated to maximize publicity for their magazine, National Geographic announced that it was in possession of the gospel of Thomas, a hitherto secret version of the life and death of Jesus Christ.

The result of all this media activity was that an otherwise obscure theory became front-page news. All of a sudden, everybody was talking about the Templars and the hidden bloodline of Jesus. Popular news magazines ran stories about it. Hundreds of spin-off books were written, and the TV airways were full of historical specials on the secret societies of the Middle Ages. And of course, Christians found the whole discussion deeply troubling because if Dan Brown was right, then the foundations that hold up 2,000 years of Christian history have essentially been ripped out from under out feet.

So, the question I want to explore with you today is very simple. Is there any truth to The Da Vinci Code?

Well, before we get started, let me underscore something that a lot of people have already been saying about The Da Vinci Code: You’ll notice it’s for sale in the fiction section of the bookstore. And that’s because nobody has ever claimed that the story is true.

However, the fact that Dan Brown writes in such a convincing style—and makes several statements to the effect that the story is based on truth—makes it necessary for people to think about it very carefully. Even if Dan Brown didn’t want people to believe—and I think he did—but even if he didn’t, a lot of people are still taking The Da Vinci Code to the bank, and it’s made a shambles out of some people’s faith.

So, today, let’s take a look at it. We’ve only got a few minutes together, so we’re only going to be able to skim over a few of the highlights, but I think that it will be more than enough to prove the point.

Here are some of the major claims made in the book. Number one, that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and together they had a child. Number two, that Jesus was never considered as God by the early church until the Council of Nicea declared it to be so in 325 AD. Number three, that the four Gospels presented in the New Testament were included in the Bible by the Roman Emperor, Constantine, to cover up the conspiracy, and something like 80 other gospels were rejected so the lie could be perpetrated. Number four, that secret societies like the Knights Templar and the Prieure de Sion, a group whose members are said to have included Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci, have carefully guarded these secrets for centuries in the face of violent persecution from the organized Christian church.

Now, again, I think it’s important that we emphasize that the whole book is clearly labeled a work of fiction, and that no publisher has ever claimed that any of these ideas are historically verifiable. Yet, the clever way Dan Brown presents them has a lot of people confused, if not convinced. And again, there’s an author’s note in the book telling us that all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate. So even though it is a work of fiction, I have to say that it gives the average reader who isn’t familiar with Christian history the distinct impression that The Da Vinci Code is, at the very least, historical fiction based on real events.

The lines between fact and fiction have been carefully blurred to lend credibility to undocumented theories, many of which we know are wildly inaccurate. Let me give you an example. In one spot, the book suggests that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain some of Christianity’s earliest documents, which have been carefully suppressed by the organized church. Now, I want to give Dan Brown the benefit of the doubt, but it should be pointed out that the documents discovered in the Dead Sea caves were exclusively Old Testament and all of them actually pre-date Christianity.

Then there’s the claim that ancient documents discovered at Nag Hammadi in the 1940s contain the “earliest Christian documents available, older than the New Testament.” Now, that’s simply not true, because the New Testament was finished before the end of the first century and the Nag Hammadi documents mostly date to the end of the second century, a difference of more than one hundred years.

I guess what Dan Brown is trying to convince us of is that the older the document, the more reliable it is, and that the stuff they found at Nag Hammadi tells a wildly different story of Jesus than the one you find in the Bible. The conclusion we’re supposed to come to is that the Bible’s been lying to us, even though it does happen to be the older document.

And that brings me to the pages of the Bible itself. The Da Vinci Code says that the four Gospels in the New Testament are only there because the Roman Emperor, Constantine, put them there. It supposedly happened at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., when the Church needed Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to prove their brand-new theory that Jesus was actually God in human flesh. We are told that the church actually sifted through something like 80 different gospels before they came up with something they could use to present their lie to the public.

Of course, while that theory makes for pretty riveting reading, there’s not a stitch of truth to it. No reputable historian has found anything to back it up. It just didn’t happen, and the truthfulness of the New Testament Gospels, well, that’s been established for hundreds of years. It was established even before the Council of Nicea, which is proven by the fact that earlier church writings make constant reference to them as authoritative documents for Christians. And all those other gospels? None of them is mentioned at all.

So the question is: Where did Dan Brown get these ideas? What he didn’t borrow from somebody else, he just made up. Another good example of just how wrong The Da Vinci Code is can be found in the claim that nobody thought of Jesus as God in the flesh before the Council of Nicea. Now, again, that’s just not true. The doctrine of Christ’s divinity was well understood by the Christian church right from the start, when the very first believers wrote about his miracles and His claim to be equal to the Father.

So, the question is, did anybody really discuss the divinity of Christ at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325? Well, the answer to that is yes, but the only topic of discussion was how God the Son is related to God the Father, and nobody ever discussed whether or not Jesus was actually God.

You know, you can search all through history and you’ll never find an occasion where the Christian church launched a massive conspiracy to claim the divinity of Jesus. And what’s really ironic about The Da Vinci Code is that while Dan Brown is trying to convince us that someone is lying about Jesus, it turns out he’s the one who is doing it.

Let me give you another good example. In The Da Vinci Code we hear that Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, and we’re told that this fact has been carefully hidden from us for centuries. Why would the church hide the marriage of Jesus? Well, supposedly it’s because the Christian church actually frowns on the institution of marriage and the whole subject of intimacy between the sexes. Now, I have to admit that over the years, on occasion, the church has taken a less than healthy attitude on this subject, but biblically speaking, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Book of Hebrews makes it abundantly clear that marriage is honorable among all in the bed undefiled. And let’s not forget what Jesus Himself, said about marriage in the Matthew 19 (Matthew 19:4-6):

“And He answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?” So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.’”

Again, it looks to me like Dan Brown is kind of making it up as he goes along. Don’t forget the Gospel of Matthew was supposed to be one of those fakes used by the church to run down the institution of marriage. And yet right here in the middle of this same Gospel, Jesus announces that marriage was invented by God Himself.

Just like the rest of Dan Brown’s book, it just doesn’t add up. And neither does the claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. To prove his point, Dan Brown goes to the apocryphal gospel of Philip, which was probably written sometime in the late third century. The gospel of Philip, which was penned by a group of heretics known as the Gnostics, says that Mary was a companion of Jesus and that He kissed her.

Now, I can’t deny that’s what the gospel of Philip says, but let me point out just a few things. First of all, the gospel of Philip is not an eyewitness account, like the four Gospels of the New Testament. Even if there are any shreds of truth in that book, we shouldn’t forget that it’s essentially a work of fiction written a long time after the original disciples died. Secondly, when it calls Mary Magdalene a companion, that’s hardly the same thing as a spouse. Thirdly, many people greeted each other with a kiss in Jesus’ day, and a kiss wasn’t necessarily a sexual thing. Don’t forget that Judas greeted Jesus with a kiss on the night of his betrayal.

Again, Dan Brown’s just making it up, and the only support he seems to have are these other strange gospels that on average were written more than 100 years after the New Testament. And who wrote these other books? Well, as Christianity spread in the first few centuries, so did bad ideas about the Christian message.

Some pagan cultures, as they embraced Christianity, were simply hesitant to give up pagan philosophy. One of these groups was the Gnostics, who had a radically different understanding of the universe than you or I do. They believed that an inferior god, known as the Demiurge, created the material world that you and I live in. This, according to their understanding, was a big mistake, because the material world is imperfect and evil. They believed we should have never been created to live a material, physical existence. According to the Gnostics, the mission of Jesus was to set us free from the prison of the physical world and to set us free from the horrible mistakes of the Creator.

Now, to promote this kind of thinking, the Gnostics wrote a number of so-called gospels and other books, some of which have survived to this day.

Now, of course, this idea about Jesus is just plain wrong when you check it against the Bible. There is nothing in God’s book to suggest that creation was a mistake. In fact, in the book of Genesis, it says that when God created this planet He stood back and said, “It is very good.” And then in the New Testament we discover that Jesus didn’t come to fix the mistakes of the Creator; He came to fix our mistakes. In fact, when it comes right down to it, we discover in the first chapters of Hebrews, Colossians and John that Jesus Himself is the Creator. According to the Bible, there’s nothing wrong with a physical, material existence, because that’s the way God made us in the first place. And after Jesus comes again, we’re eventually going to be restored to a newly created world—another physical existence.

You know, there’s a good reason the early church rejected the Gnostic gospels, and it’s because they were in direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus and the writings of the Old Testament. And worst of all, the Gnostics missed the whole point of why Jesus came to earth in the first place. Read the four Gospels of the New Testament very carefully and you’ll notice something remarkable. All of them drive relentlessly toward the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. They drive to the very heart of what Jesus did for us.

In a great book on The Da Vinci Code phenomenon, author Ben Witherington III makes a great point. Listen to this:

“…the term gospel (“good news”) is not just a Christian term, but rather one that was already in use in the Greco-Roman world before the canonical gospels were written. Because the ancient world didn’t have a free market economy, public gifts from higher-status persons were what greased the wheels of society and commerce. Emperors were lauded for their good deeds of benefaction and their triumphs in wars. The “gospel” was good news about actions taken on behalf of the people by the emperor (or another wealthy person). The benefactors weren’t in the main, praised for their great philosophical or wise utterances.

When early Christians picked up the term Gospel, they had in mind the good news of things Jesus had done, while also including some of His teachings.”

So, how is that different from the gospels the Gnostics taught? Well, the difference is very important. They present a radically different Jesus than the Christ of the Bible—a mysterious teacher who spoke in riddles and filled His disciples’ heads with vague philosophical teachings. Following the footsteps of the Greek philosophers, and the philosopher Plato in particular, the Gnostics believed that we would ultimately be saved from the evil, material world through our own personal wisdom and understanding.

I guess if you want to boil it down to one simple idea, it’s salvation by knowledge. And the really lousy part of Gnostic theology was that the kind of knowledge you needed for salvation wasn’t available to just anybody. In fact, only the very brightest and best were going to be elevated above the misery of this world. Their message stands in sharp contrast to the open invitation of the Bible, which says,

“Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17) And it stands in direct opposition to the words of Jesus, who said, “If I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32)

Now, you’ll never find that kind of openness in Gnostic books because they never really wanted anybody in their group except the intellectually elite. According to the Gnostics, if you can’t wrap your head around their so-called secret knowledge, then there’s no hope for you, and frankly, that’s not good news. It’s not a gospel because the Gospel is the story of what Jesus did for you because you couldn’t do it yourself.

You know, I’ve just got to ask a question: Why in the world would people find The Da Vinci Code so appealing? I mean, there’s not a lick of good news anywhere in it. If we chose to believe the fabrications of Dan Brown’s mind, we’re left without a Savior. We’re left without a solid place to stand. All we’ve got left is a mere man who never rose from the dead, and that would mean we’re all destined for a meaningless end.

You’ve got to wonder why people find that such a wonderful way to look at life. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that if we accept the record of the Bible as true, then we have to admit there’s a Creator who has some claim on our lives. And some people find that a little uncomfortable because they have this idea that the claims of God on our lives are going to enslave us and rob us of genuine freedom.

Simply put, nothing could be further from the truth. When you come face-to-face with Jesus, you discover that the Bible is reliable and that the words of Jesus present both hope and truth. “If you abide in my words,” said Jesus, “you are my disciples, indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Let me ask you something important. What exactly is freedom? For Dan Brown freedom appears to a release from the claims of the biblical Christ. But in the end, that leaves you with a serious problem and it forces you into a horrible slavery. You’re going to have to sort out the sin in you life all by yourself. You become a slave to the material world, fighting to escape it with all your might, and believe me, that’s not freedom, because you’re going to discover you’ll never break free of the misery and sin of planet Earth.

As Jesus stated so plainly (John 8:34-36):

“Jesus answered them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.’”

You know, it’s hard to imagine someone who is truly delighted in the message of The Da Vinci Code, at least if they really understand what Dan Brown is saying. Where’s the hope? Where’s the good news? And frankly, where’s God?

You know I think a lot of us fell for this book because it’s been a while since we actually looked at what the Bible says about Jesus and what He’s done for us. We’re running on assumptions and urban legends and we’ve set ourselves up for the likes of Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code. To a small extent, I suppose we only have ourselves to blame.

For the entire program please feel free to go to www.itiswritten.com

The Blog You Might NOT Want to Read—that is, if you want to hold onto your biases.

2009-06-04T00:47:00.006-04:00

What would you do if I told you that there was a book that predicted the rise and fall of kingdoms and the end of the world? And what if I told you that this book was located inside of a huge encyclopedia of books written on three different continents, by over 40 writers of diverse backgrounds, over a period of 1500 years? You’d probably dismiss me as some kind of religious lunatic. And you might even be justified in doing that unless of course I could back it up. But suppose that one event in this prophetic book came to pass and I could verify it through history and archeology. Then you might be skeptical but more willing to listen to this lunatic. And what if there were 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 events that this books predicted centuries before it happened and once more I could verify it. If you were serious about your biases you could ignore me, click off this blog and never return to it. Yet if you are really open-minded and you love truth perhaps you would listen and believe in the divine power of a volume of books bound together that the Christians now call the Bible. Perhaps you could give it a fair chance, evaluate it, and draw your own conclusions. Friends what I’m about to share with you is nothing short of prophetic. If I’m correct than you’ll have serious biases to confront. This one prophecy written in a little-read book of the Bible has been responsible for converting more atheists and skeptics to Christianity than perhaps any other.

So decide for yourself now. You might not like what you read here or you might be like some who have gotten angry at me for sharing it. But know that once you read this you will not be the same. Leave or keep reading. The choice is yours.

For those brave souls that are still reading I will proceed. 2500 years ago in 600B.C. A Hebrew named Daniel wrote the prophetic book that now bares his name. He and his friends were taken from their homes and forced to walk across the dessert to Babylon and become slaves. Their names were changed and their culture was ripped away from them. They were to be educated in the Babylonian system and then set up as puppet rulers over Hebrew provinces to proclaim the might of Babylon. But then things get interesting. The king of Babylon has a strange dream and wakes up overwhelmed with anxiety. Immediately he calls together his wisemen in hopes that they might reveal to him the dream and the interpretation. WHAT? You might be thinking. How can someone tell you what you dreamt if you’ve forgotten it? Well, that’s what they were on the royal payroll for. Frustrated, his wisemen told him that “there is not a man on earth who can tell the king’s matter” Dan 2:10. So the king gives them an ultimatum. Either they tell him what he dreamt and what it means, or they could be slaughtered and have their houses turned into bathrooms. If they could reveal the dream to him than they would be richly rewarded and honored.

Enters Daniel.

The kings guard knocked on Daniel's door ready to kill him and his friends too. So Daniel does the only logical thing he can do: he asks for more time. See Daniel doesn’t know the dream, but he is confident that his God knows it. He and his friends have an all-night prayer session and God reveals the dream and interpretation to him in a vision.

Boring! You might be saying. Big deal nice story but what about all that stuff you said at the beginning of this blog? Well I’m getting to that now. So Daniel goes to the anxious King. Keep in mind Daniel is only about 20 years old at his time and now he standing before the most powerful man on earth! The conversation went something like this. “So can you help me or not” ask King Nebuchadnezzar. “No I can’t. I’m not wise or special, but my God has revealed these truths to me”. “Ok I’m listening.”

“You had a dream of a huge metal man. It was awesome to look at. It had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, long legs of iron, and feet of clay and iron. Then suddenly a rock is cut out with out hands and hits the metal man on the feet and crushes the whole thing into to smithereens so that nothing was left of it! Then the rock grew and became a mountain that took over the entire earth.” I can just imagine that pagan king jumping up and down. “Yeah! Yeah! That’s what I dreamt. That’s it!” But here is where stuff gets interesting. Now what if the Bible just stopped right here and we had to guess what all this stuff means. We’d probably all come up with different and bizarre interpretations, but the Bible interprets itself! We don’t have to guess it will tell us what it means.

Daniel 2:36-46 gives the interpretation. Daniel tells the king that the head of gold represents Babylon. Now that was an appropriate symbol of such a rich and powerful kingdom. We’ve discussed this kingdom and just how it went down in 539 B.C. here. Afterward another inferior kingdom would arise--just as silver is inferior to gold. The image had two arms which represented the Meads and the Persians the two kingdoms who would join ranks to overtake the massive Babylonian kingdom. They ruled from 539 to 331 B.C. until another kingdom came and took them down. This kingdom was the Greece Empire which ruled from 331 to 168B.C. Interestingly enough the Grecian soldiers wore bronze armor, but they were trashed by the “iron monarchy of Rome”which ruled for 700 years. (Guess what kind of armor these dude wore?)

Now if this were just a guessing game we could keep naming kingdoms. But the vision tells us (and world history corroborates it) that Rome would NOT be conquered it was instead divided. And into how many pieces you might ask? Well how many toes do you have? How many toes do you think this metal man had? 10! Let’s count. Rome was divided into the following kingdoms.

1) Alamanni/ modern-day Germans
2) Burgundians/ modern-day Swiss
3) Franks/ modern-day French
4) Lombards/ modern-day Italians
5) Saxons/ modern-day English
6) Suevi/ modern-day Portugese
7) Visigoths/ modern-day Spanish
8) Heruli/ Extinct (I’ll tell you about that in future blogs)
9) Ostogoths /Extinct
10) Vandals/ Extinct

That’s 10! Don’t believe me than you can check your encyclopedia. These world empires really did exist and they came on the scene in the exact order the Bible predicted. But it gets better! Daniel 2:43 says of the clay and iron feet that just as iron and clay do not mix (just ask any chemist) neither would these kingdoms. They would “mingle themselves with the seeds of men but they would not adhere to one another.” In other words, Europe would try over and over again through intermarriage to unite all of its kingdoms again into one huge Empire but the Bible says it would not work. So the Princess of this country would marry the Prince of that country but still Europe would remain divided. What’s happened to historical figures who’ve tried to outsmart God? Let’s see.

Charlemagne- Unsuccessful!
Charles V- Unsuccessful!
Louis 14th- Unsuccessful!
Napoleon- Unsuccessful!
Hitler- Unsuccessful!

The Bibles says that Europe would never again be united and it is not! Daniel tells the king that the dream is certain. He’s sure about what God has revealed to him.

But what about that rock that would hit the image on the feet. Well the feet represent the time we are living in now: the time of divided Europe. Daniel says that during this time which he refers to as the “latter days” (Daniel 2:28) a stone would be cut out without human hands (divine hands) that would destroy all these other kingdoms completely. This kingdom would take over the entire earth and never be conquered. It would reign forever. This kingdom is none other than God’s kingdom!

Now don’t take my word for it. Go to your history books and encyclopedias and you’ll see that 600 years before the time of Christ, God revealed the future to a pagan King. Daniel says “the interpretation is sure”. What does it mean if the Bible predicted all of these events. If it really did than why would we not trust it to predict the final event: The eternal reign of God’s kingdom? This book has to be supernatural! I don’t know what you believe. I don’t know what biases cloud your mind, but intellectual dishonesty won’t cut it. If your historical research pans out and supports what I’ve written here than there is only ONE conclusion you can come too. Friends I’ve already come to mine. What would keep you from making your decision too?

For more information you can read Daniel Chapter2 in its entirety here.

Back to Honesty

2009-05-21T01:49:00.007-04:00

Last blog I discussed how to be intellectually dishonest. Today I’d like to get back to good old-fashion honesty. Pluralism essentially is a bunch of garbage. So if we conclude that all paths CAN’T lead to God, how we can be sure which path does? Now some people say that you have to experience all religions for themselves, but with all the world’s religions and the new one’s they are inventing everyday it’s just not practical to test drive them all. Wouldn’t it be good if there was a challenge? I mean these religions can’t except you to just accept them blindly? Can they? Let’s ask them.

Hinduism says “…we have to accept it as it is; otherwise there is no point in trying to understand the Bhagavad-gita and its speaker, Lord Krishna.”Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Preface, p xix

Buddhism says that, “Absolute truth… is unconditional undeterminate and beyond thought and word.” KKS Chen, Buddhism, The Light Of Asia, 1968, p76 So in other words I know nothing unless I experience this religion for myself.

Islam dares anyone to be able to produce 10 chapters or even one that is like the Quran.

Quran 11:13 and Quran 10:38

Now on the surface that sounds like a challenge. But what’s my measuring stick? Who determines if what I’m writing is akin to the Quran? In the words of Dr. Subodh Pandit “a subjective, nebulous challenge…..is not a real challenge.”

What about Christianity. Now I have said before on this blog that one of the distinct things about Christianity is that its sacred scripture the Bible contains prophecy. In fact 30% of the Bible is prophecy. Although the other religions make many wonderful, astounding, and even supernatural claims, none of them supposes to predict things before they occur. But God says in Isaiah 41,

21 “ Present your case,” says the LORD.
“ Bring forth your strong reasons,”…
²² “ Let them bring forth and show us what will happen;
Let them show the former things, what they were,
That we may consider them,
And know the latter end of them;
Or declare to us things to come.

²³ Show the things that are to come hereafter,
That we may know that you are gods;
Yes, do good or do evil,
That we may be dismayed and see it together.

That sounds like a challenge to me. In this text God is giving a challenge to all others gods. He’s saying “If you guys are really what you claim than you should be able to know what will happen before it does.”God says something like this again in Isaiah 46:10 “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done…” God is declaring in a nutshell “I am God, No one else is God, and I’ll prove it, I know the end from the beginning and I will tell you before it takes place!” Jesus says, "And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe" John 14:29. Now those are bold statements, but they are rather empty unless God can back them up.

Let’s say that I told you that the US was going to be destroyed in one night. Not only did I tell you it was going to be destroyed, but I told you how. And not only did I tell you how, but I told you who was going to take it down and then what would remain of it afterwards. And lets say all this came true. I think I would have people following me to the ends of the earth throwing money at me and begging me to tell them what was going to happen next. But when it comes to the Bible people allow their own biases to keep them from believing in truth. Let’s investigate this massive claim God is making in the Bible.

Now in Jeremiah 51 God tells just how Babylon is going to be destroyed.

³⁶ Therefore thus says the LORD:
“ Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance for you.
I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
³⁷ Babylon shall become a heap,!
A dwelling place for jackals,
An astonishment and a hissing,
Without an inhabitant.

Now at this point I think I should pause to tell you some things about Babylon. It was a flourishing city 54 miles south of modern day Baghdad in Iraq. At the time of this prediction, said to be about 595 BC, Babylon was at its zenith. The ancient kingdom of Babylon was an amazing kingdom, one of the great cities of antiquity. The city was 15 miles on each side and its walls were 200 feet high in some places. One of the seven wonders of the world was in that city-- the great hanging gardens. The river Euphrates flowed right through the middle of Babylon. In fact the city had enough food inside to last 20 years. Historians say that on the night it was conquered Babylonian people taunted the enemy armies by throwing food over the mighty walls. Babylon reigned supreme from 605-537BC and then things got interesting.

In Daniel chapter 2 God predicted that an inferior kingdom would take down this Goliath of a nation. And 150 years before he was born God names Cyrus, as the Persian general that would pulverize Babylon.

Isaiah 41 says

¹ “Thus says the LORD to His anointed,
To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held—
To subdue nations before him
And loose the armor of kings,
To open before him the double doors,
So that the gates will not be shut:

(Isaiah was written in 680 BC by the way.)

Now what does the last part of that description mean? On a certain night when the Babylonians were in a riotous drunken feast, Cyrus, in an act of military genius, went up the river several miles, he dammed the river, and diverted the river off into an adjacent field, so that the river went down and his army could march in through the double doors underneath the city's impregnable gates. And Babylon, that great city of antiquity, fell in a single night!

Let's review.

The Bible says Babylon was going down. Happened!

The Bible says an inferior kingdom would take it down! Happened! The Meads and Persians were inferior.

The Bible says the river Euphrates would become dry. Happened! Cyrus effectively dried the river to gain access to the city.

The Bible says Cyrus would be the dude to do it. Happened!

The Bible says he would open double doors (describing how this whole thing was going to go down) Happened!

How do we know all this? Well the Cyrus cylinder is a rock record housed in the British Museum that authenticates the Bible’s account of what happened.

And now for the last part of the prophecy! Fasten your seat belts for this one yall. God said that Babylon would not be rebuilt. It would become an uninhabited heap where jackals dwelled. Alexander the Great tried to rebuild it and failed. Saddam Hussein tried to rebuild it and the US captured him before he could. Today those who visit the ancient site of Babylon describe it as desolate place full of jackals.“Few words evoke as many images of ancient decadence, glory and prophetic doom as does ‘Babylon’. Yet the actual place…is flat, hot, deserted, and dusty.” Smithsonian, June 2003, p50

Is this all coincidence? No random person could accurately predict all this. My conclusion is that this prophecy had to be supernatural. You see in Christianity God gives us a challenge. He says I am God, I’ll prove it too you: I can tell the future. Any regular person can put His prophecies to the test to see if they are accurate. Why don’t you put aside your biases and honestly take up the challenge?

How to Be Intellectually Dishonest

2009-05-07T22:56:00.003-04:00

You shall seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all of your heart. Jerimiah 29:13

I had quite a journey ahead of me. I was in the process of relocating from Baltimore, MD to Northwest Ohio. Having had less than two hours of sleep that night, the following morning I packed up the Sentra and with my family trailing close behind me we hit I-70 and were headed west. After about two hours of traveling the adrenaline wore off and I asked my then boyfriend to take over the wheel while I caught a quick nap. A short while later he woke me up and asked, “Which way do I go now?” It took a minute for the question to register. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and noticed that we were reaching a point where the highways split into two. On one side we had I-76 and on the other I-70. I looked at the directions my cousin had hand-written because my printer was not working. “Um it says take I-70.” I mumbled. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Yeah, that’s what it says here and this looks familiar to me any way. Get over in the next lane.” He obeyed and I positioned my head against the window and resumed napping. My family followed us as we traveled the lonely highway.

Nature woke me up a short while later. I needed a bathroom break. When I woke up for the second time I realized that the road looked different. Nothing seemed familiar, (my Dad and I had traveled here previously). The road became increasingly mountainous. “Where are we?” I yawned. And then I noticed in the foreground a sign that said “Welcome to West Virginia.” Then it hit me! For hours we had been traveling the wrong way. “We should have taken I-76! The directions are wrong! We don’t have to pass through West Virginia. We are going the wrong way. We were heading south when I needed to be heading north. But it was too late. At this point we had already traveled well pass I-76. We drove a little ways more in hopes that we would find a rest station where we could get a map and figure out where we were and how to get to Northwest Ohio expediently. What else could we have done?

Let me answer this question the way some secular and religious minds would. See according to some just realizing that I was lost and that those who were following me were lost would have been enough. Why bother to try to get on the right path? To others there is no right path. I could have just stayed on I-70 because after all it does not matter whether I am on I-70 or I-76 because all roads lead to the same place. Eventually I would have arrived at the place I wanted to be, right?

Now you’re probably thinking “Crystal that is ridiculous! Who on earth would believe something like that. I mean everyone knows two roads going in opposite directions can’t get you to the same place!” Perhaps you have a point, but this is exactly the kind of nonsense that secular AND religious authorities (some of them Christian FYI) are trying to tell us. And they even have a fancy word for it too. It’s call pluralism! And no, these aren’t all ignorant low brow people promulgating this train of thought. No, many of pluralisms proponents are Phd’s, scientists, and intellectuals. They are not just peddling a unifying philosophy; they are indoctrinating us with pure intellectual dishonesty.

Suppose you are trying to get to work. You overslept and you are running late. So you throw on your clothes, grab your briefcase and you hit the main road. Then you get a brilliant idea. Instead of driving on the road that takes you to your job you will take the road that goes the other way. Maybe this road even goes to another state! Or maybe you don’t even know where this road is going to take you! Your postmodern university did tell you that all roads lead to where you want to be. Tell me honestly would you really want to play this kind of game with your career? I would hope not! But that’s exactly the dangerous game that millions are playing with their spirituality and the consequences are a hundred-fold more costly and perhaps even deadly!

Now to be sure, pluralism on a very micro level is not necessarily bad. In the United States for example we have a multitude of different cultures, languages, traditions, religion etc. Nothing wrong at all with diversity. God did not create us to be a bunch of clones. The problem begins when we start believing that everyone’s philosophy is correct, especially when it comes to religious matters. In a sense the pluralism of today has little to do with diversity and tolerance and everything to do with an agenda (I’ll talk more about that later). So we say all roads lead to God because we want to be all-inclusive. Let’s not leave anybody out! Yet this is completely intellectually dishonest, so much so that most of the people that subscribe to this philosophy instinctively know that it is bogus!

That’s quite a statement, you’re probably thinking. But I can back it up. In logic they teach you about various types of propositions named after vowels. Suppose we have two statements.

Statement 1: All the lights are on.
Statement 2: All the lights are off.

Now question: can these two statements both be true simultaneously in the same space? The answer is no. That simply defies all logic. Why? Because there is a law called the Law of Non-contradictions which essentially postulates that two completely opposite things can’t both be true at the same time. Duh!

I can give you a better example. Suppose you are out and you bump into an old friend of yours. You give her a hug and you asked her how things are going. “I’m pregnant!” she exclaims. Just as you are about to congratulate her she follows that statement with “I am not pregnant.” Now you are scratching your head and ready to take her to get some mental health. Why? Because at the core you realize that it is impossible for the women to be both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time. She can either be one or the other. And the same goes for religion. In fact, it is more logical to say that absolutely all religions are false than to say that all these religions (and denominations in Christianity) teach completely contrary things and ways and means to God, but that all ultimately lead to Him any way. Nonsense!

There is a Zen saying that goes “To understand God is to Listen. Listen to Jesus and Muhammad and Buddha, but don’t get caught up in the names. Listen beyond them; listen to God’s breath.” Now doesn’t that just sound poetic. This is the heart and soul of religious pluralism. But the bad news is that pluralism is a lie. In our postmodern society we want to be so tolerant that we abandon the true meaning of the word (treating diverse people with respect) and accept a quixotic philosophy of believing everyone on everything because everyone is correct. We are so scared that we will be politically incorrect that we sacrifice truth in order to save face.

Instead the world says all religions and all roads lead to God, so that we don’t exclude anybody. Well let us let the major world religions speak for themselves.

Hinduism: “Let there be one scripture… for the whole world– Bhagavad– gita; Let there be one God for the whole world– Sri Krishna: one hymn, one mantra, one prayer– the chanting of his name.”-- Intro to the Bhagavad-gita

Islam: “Allah! There is no God but He– The Living, The Self-subsisting, Supporter of all– His are all things in the heavens and on earth– His throne doth extend over the earth– He is the Most High, The Supreme”-- Quran 2:225
“Verily I am Allah; There is no God but I.”-- Quran 20:14

Buddhism: “This Lord is truly the Arhat, fully enlightened, perfect in his knowledge and conduct, well-gone, world-knower, unsurpassed, leader of men to be tamed, teacher of gods and men, the Buddha, the Lord.”-- Buddhist scriptures

Christianity: “For there is no other name under heaven, given among men by which we must be saved.”--Acts 4:12
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”-- John 11:24

Well there you have it. This doesn’t sound pluralistic at all. I don’t know about you but it sounds like each religion is claiming exclusivity! Not just Christianity, but all of them are suggesting that they are the ONLY way to Truth. That’s interesting. How can we reconcile these opposing belief systems? The answer is that we can’t! Not if we want to be completely honest.

In the beginning of this blog I told you how I got lost on the way to Northwest Ohio. But let me tell you how the story ends. We did not continue on I-70 because otherwise we would have ended up in Utah. Instead, even though it took us forever to find a rest stop in mountainous West Virginia, we found one and we got a map--an honest map. We admitted that we had lost our way and that we need to find it again. The map showed us how to get to where we desired to be. We followed its directions and we ended up in Northwest Ohio. And because I don’t subscribe to logical fallacies the story ended happily. Albeit it took us some 15 hours to get to our destination, just as it might not be convenient to go out of your way to search for Truth. But it is well worth it when you find it.

The logical outworking of religious pluralism is chaos, and my God does not dwell in disorder. Why don’t your reevaluate your position on pluralism, make that U-turn and get on the right path—the one and only path that can take you to where you long to be.

*For more information on this controversial topic I recommend this book. It is the awesome story of how one man put aside his biases and preconceptions and after 20 years he found the Truth. You can learn more about him here.

The Mysterious Book

2009-04-17T20:17:00.004-04:00

Want to start an argument? Go into a so-called intellectual space and began a discussion with the words "the Bible says". Or better yet go to your ethics or philosophy class and when they are examining current events such as abortion, gay marriage, cohabitation, or evolution try to base your answers on scripture. Watch as people either cut you into piece or laugh you to scorn. But why? Why are there all these different opinions about the Bible with some believing it is the Word of the Living God, some reducing it to just a good moral book, and some criticising every aspect of it? The following interview attempts to answer the hard questions about this mysterious book.

SHAWN: Hey listen, the big question today is this: Is the Bible really God's Word? I mean, does the Bible actually make that claim for itself?

MARK: It does in fact if you look at Isaiah, chapter 40 and verse eight. It says, Isaiah 40, verse eight: "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever."
In other words, the Word of God is eternal. In 3,000 different places the Bible says it is inspired. It either says, "The Lord said" or "God said." So to deny the inspiration of the Bible is to deny 3,000 different places.

SHAWN: You said, 3,000, not three or 30, but 3,000 places.

MARK: Exactly. There are passages like this found in Second Timothy, chapter three and verse 16, one of the classic texts of Scripture. In Second Timothy three and verse 16, it says: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God."

SHAWN: All scripture?

MARK: So, the totality of scripture is God inspired. God revealed Himself in scripture either through visions in the night, or dreams in the night, or He directly impressed the minds of the Bible writers. The Bible was written over a 1,500-year period of time by 44 different authors and 66 books. And that's why Peter says, that holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So this is not a human book, but it claims itself to be a divine book.

SHAWN: Now, that's amazing. It says that scripture is inspired. Yet, often today, we say, well, Beethoven was inspired to write music and Einstein was inspired when he discovered this or that. What's the difference? I mean, we talk about inspiration all the time. What does the Bible actually mean when it says it is inspired?

MARK: There is a difference between human inspiration and divine inspiration. I can be inspired to write a good book. That's human inspiration. Divine inspiration is authoritative. In divine inspiration, God reveals Himself in a vision, or dream, or God directly impresses the mind. Now God doesn't dictate every word. The Bible writers write in the context of their own personality, their own background. But the product, the end result of what they have written, is indeed the living Word of God. If I write an inspiring book, it's still my word. But the Bible claims to be the Word of the living God. It has divine authority and that's the difference.

SHAWN: Now, you know, one thing I've noticed is that when I get into the Old Testament in particular, you hear the prophets, every one of them, saying: This is the Word of the Lord. They understood this inspiration to be the Word of God. Is that right?

MARK: Correct.

SHAWN: What about the New Testament? I mean, often in the New Testament, people would quote the Old Testament. They all knew that to be scripture. So I've heard a lot of people say, "All right, the Old Testament is Scripture." They all believed that. The New Testament is man's word.

MARK: Well, in the New Testament, you have face-to-face encounters with Jesus Christ. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the four Gospels are written by disciples who had face-to-face encounters with Jesus. The Apostle Paul, of course, was dramatically converted on Damascus road, and again had an encounter with Christ. So throughout the New Testament, you have first-hand, reliable histories, inspired by the Holy Spirit of encounters with Jesus. And that's why, in the text we quoted earlier, in Second Timothy, chapter three, verse 16, says all of scripture is inspired by God. There is a unity, there is a wholeness, there's an integrated wholeness of all of scripture.

SHAWN: Now, that must be why Peter talks at one point, doesn't he, about Paul's letter? He says they are hard to be understood. But then he calls them scripture. So they did understand the New Testament to be scripture as well as the old.

MARK: Certainly.

SHAWN: All right, well still, you know they claim that it was inspired and I know what a lot of people again are thinking today as they listen to us talk about this. You can claim anything you want, but surely, over the years, as we have become wiser in history and wiser through archeology, we have discovered that the archaeologist's spade disproves the words of the Bible.

MARK: Shawn, I really think that the opposite is true, that the spade of the archaeologist confirms the authenticity of the Bible. Let me give you a variety of examples.
Take the Moabite stone, for example. The Moabite stone was discovered in Jordan in 1868 and over the last 140 years, we have had a chance to confirm the authenticity of the Moabite stone. It records, in the rock, the Moabite attacks on Israel. Now you can read about those attacks in the Old Testament. But here you have the stone record. Or take for example, the Lachish letters. The Lachish letters were discovered in southern Israel, north of Beersheba, about 24 miles, from 1932 to 1938. The Lachish letters record Nebuchadnezzar's attack on Jerusalem in 586 B.C, and so you can read it in the Bible. You read it in the rock records.
I remember when I was living in England, I often went to the British Museum and looked at the archaeological discoveries there; and there are two of particular note. One is the Rosetta Stone.

SHAWN: Sure, we all probably learned about that in school.

MARK: It's about three and a half feet high, about a foot and a half long. It's black basalt stone. When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, he took with him probably two to three thousand artisans and scholars. They went down and they were digging in a place called Rosetta. They came across this Rosetta Stone.
Now the Rosetta Stone was significant because it had three languages on it. The top was hieroglyphics, the center was a cursive Egyptian language, and the bottom was Greek. And so, as they saw this, they looked at the hieroglyphics and nobody could understand, of course, at that time, 1798, the picture language of the Egyptians. So these monuments were looking down on humanity. They were towering over all humanity and nobody could understand the meaning of them.
But the interesting thing is they began to look at the Rosetta Stone and they saw the hieroglyphics; and they noticed that in the hieroglyphics there was a little circle around some words. It was called a cartouche. And they guessed, they said that circle must encircle king's names. They began to compare it with the cursive Egyptian and the Greek, and they worked backward from the Greek.
And there was a brilliant French man by the name of Jean Paul Champion and he was able to figure out a translation of the hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone. Once that happened, those picture monuments began speaking to us. Now let me tell you one example of how they confirm the authenticity of the Bible.
There is a group of people called the Hittites, mentioned in the Bible 47 times. Now up until we unlocked the meaning of the hieroglyphics, the scholars said the Hittites never existed.

SHAWN: Yes, I have actually read some older books that say, "Those dim Christians believe in Hittites. There never was such a thing"

MARK: Exactly. And the Hittites are mentioned in the Bible as having major attacks on the Egyptians and being a major nation. The scholars said for years, they never existed, the Christians are ignorant to believe in them. But all the while, the hieroglyphics were speaking to us of battles between the Egyptians and the Hittites. And once we unlocked the hieroglyphics through the Rosetta Stone, today there is not a modern scholar in the world that disbelieves the Hittites. So the Bible rather than being disproved by archeology is indeed proved by archeology.
SHAWN: Didn't they actually find some Hittite ruins up in Turkey I think they actually discovered the civilization.

MARK: Numerous Hittite cities. (And I have great graphics of those and we use them in our lectures on archeology all the time.) The major cities had thousands of people living in them.
The other thing that, to me, is significant in the British Museum is the Cyrus Cylinder. The Cyrus Cylinder is a barrel cylinder. It's about this long and it's round and the ancients would often write on these cylinders. Now in the Bible in Isaiah, chapter 44, there is a remarkable prophecy, made 150 years before Cyrus was even born.

SHAWN: That was Isaiah 44?

MARK: Yes, Isaiah 44 and Israel was in captivity to the Babylonians. And the Bible predicted that a man by the name of Cyrus, Isaiah 44, verse 28. It says of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd, He shall perform all my pleasure even saying to Jerusalem, you will be built." Now, verse 27 says that Cyrus would dry up the rivers. Now this prophecy was made 150 years before Cyrus was born. It was made by Isaiah.

SHAWN: Humanly, that's impossible.

MARK: It is. You see, this prophecy was made 680-700 B.C., before Christ. And Cyrus, the Persian king, attacked the Babylonian empire in 539 B.C. So here is a prophecy made well in advance.
Cyrus, the Persian king came down, went to attack Babylon, and recognized that he couldn't do it. The Babylonians had a 20-year food supply in the city. The River Euphrates ran through the center of the city supplying it with a constant water supply. Two chariots could race side by side on the top of the walls of Babylon. You just couldn't attack it.
Cyrus, brilliantly, in a major architectural engineering feat, diverted the Euphrates River into large reservoirs. On the night of a drunken feast in Babylon, he marched his soldiers down through the riverbed and they came up inside the city, attacked and overthrew it.
Now here is the remarkable thing. The Cyrus Cylinder in the British Museum, describes Cyrus' attack. It says that he dried-up the river. It says that he was the leader; and remarkably enough, he says that he let the captives of Israel go free to rebuild their temple. Exactly, like predicted in the Bible, confirmed in the rock records.

SHAWN: So the general pattern of non-Biblical historians has been to corroborate what the Bible actually says.

MARK: Exactly. That is true in the Dead Sea Scrolls. You look at the Dead Sea Scrolls in the shrine of the book in Israel, the Dead Sea scrolls of Isaiah. It's some 54 feet long and Sir Frederick Kenyon, one of the leading archeologists in the world, a Bible student, says that the Christian can take the Bible in his hand and know it's the Word of God as corroborated by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
You take the Ebla tablets.

SHAWN: Now, those are interesting.

MARK: They really are, because I think the importance of the Ebla tablets is that there are two or three significances in them. One is, it's one of the largest, extensive libraries in rock records that we have found, it's thousands and thousands of volumes. But the Ebla Tablets mention the creation story very similar to the Bible creation story. A flood story very similar to the flood story. The Ebla tablets talk about Abraham, they talk about Isaac, and they talk about, here's the bombshell, two sin cities, Sodom and Gomorrah.

SHAWN: You are kidding.

MARK: They do in the Ebla tablets. So it's quite amazing and in my mind archeology confirms the authenticity of the Bible. But it's only the Spirit of God speaking to your heart as you study the Word that proves to you its authenticity.

SHAWN: Now, I know that somebody who is watching today is going to say, "Well, all right, the history checks out, but still there are contradictions and mistakes in the Bible all over the place." Now often, when they say that, I've asked them, well, where are they? And they don't know. But I remember, as a boy, I was reading through the Gospels and I noticed that Matthew gave a genealogy of Jesus and Luke gave a genealogy of Jesus, but they were different. And I thought, my word, is that a mistake? Why do there seem to be contradictions in the Bible?

MARK: There are apparent contradictions. And notice I'm careful in the choice of my words, I say apparent contradictions. I had that same question, Shawn, and I went to my theology professor when I was a college student. His name was Mel Clemons.
And I said, "Pastor Clemons, why is it that there are contradictions in the Bible?"
He's a very wise man. And he hesitated a moment and he said, "Mark, do you know what I do with the contradictions in the Bible?"
And I said, "No."
He said, "I have a little jar in my mind. Every time I come across an apparent contradiction, I just put it on a little scroll, a mental scroll and I put it in the jar in my mind."
And he said, "Do you know what happens? I'm studying the Bible three or four weeks later and I take the cap off that jar and I take out that one and I cross it off and I say, well, now I understand. Because it's just an apparent contradiction."
Shawn, I would rather know all that I know and not know all that I don't know than know all I don't know and not know what I know.

SHAWN: You've got to say that one more time for me.

MARK: I would rather know all that I know about God and His Word and not know all the things I don't know, than cast out all my certainty of what I do know and base it on the uncertainty that I don't know. What I'm really saying is that there is adequate evidence to believe in the Bible. You may read the Bible and come across something you think is a contradiction in your mind. You mentioned the genealogy.

SHAWN: Those genealogies right, I was about 12, maybe 13 and it bothered me to no end.

MARK: On that point, there is a simple answer which, of course, you and I both know now and that is, one genealogy is penned from Mary's perspective or Mary's genealogy and one is penned from Joseph's genealogy.

SHAWN: Right and as I looked at that, there's a reason for it. One traces Jesus back to Abraham and one traces Him back to Adam. So it proves that He is not only the covenant child, but He is also part of the human race. He is the second Adam.

MARK: And as we mature in our faith and as we mature in life, we are able to say in all honesty, yes, there are some things I don't understand about the Bible. And I would be less than honest if I didn't tell you that, yes, there are some passages that I read that are apparent contradictions. But the longer I mature in Christ, the more confidence there is that this word is the Word of the living God. This Word is inspired by God. And I will put the things I don't know on the back shelf of my mind, because here is the principle: You never let what you don't know keep you from enjoying and experiencing what you do know.

SHAWN: Fantastic. You know, as I've thought about that, if this book is everything it claims to be, if God inspired it, that's an infinite story, an infinite mind inspiring infinite men to write. And so every time we come to it with our infinite minds, what are the odds we are going to get it all? That's not the only criticism that people have leveled at the Bible. I've heard people say, "Well, the Bible's just a good piece of propaganda. That book is so much in favor of Jews and Christians and it's just written to make them look good and so we can't trust a book like that. It's propaganda."

MARK: Well, did Moses look good when he slayed a man? Did David look good when he committed adultery with Bathsheba? Did the sons of Jacob look good when they lied, and they cheated? You know, the people that say that they don't read the Old Testament because those people often don't look very good, and Peter didn't look good when he denied his Lord.
You know, to me, Thomas didn't look good when he doubted. To me, the Bible is so honest. It's one of the greatest evidences of inspiration that it is fair-handed. Many books try to cover up the sins of their main characters. When you look, for example, we were talking about hieroglyphics and tomb paintings a little earlier in Egypt, when you look at those tomb paintings, do you ever see a fat Pharaoh?

SHAWN: No, you don't.

MARK: You never see a fat Pharaoh in those tomb paintings. Why not? Because the guy knew if he painted a Pharaoh with a potbelly, he'd be slain. He would be killed! So you have an Egyptian that's living right next to the Israelites. And you know, you always see these slim, muscular pharaohs. Every pharaoh is handsome. Why? Because you paint them in the best light.
The Bible, written at the same time, is very fair-handed. It shares the joys and the sorrows of its leading characters.

SHAWN: And it doesn't take God's people and say, "Look how wonderful they are."It actually does quite the opposite.

MARK: Well, you look at Israel, the history of Israel. It's the history of a nation that failed God often, but yet responded back as prophets led them to repentance, it responded back in obedience.

SHAWN: Now so, if it's propaganda, it's pretty bad propaganda.

MARK: It is.

SHAWN: It's not good propaganda at all. Well, you know, we've talked a little bit about the question: Can you trust the Bible? I think, ultimately, people don't begin to trust the Bible until they begin to prayerfully read it with an open mind and open heart. Here is the question: Why the Bible? I mean, why do we have it? For what purpose did God give it to us?

MARK: I remember a time in my college years when I was 21 years old. I was living and working in the jungles of Brazil. I was a student missionary there for a number of months; and I was up on the Amazon River longing for family, the first time I had ever traveled out of the United States and longing for home. I was dating a wonderful girl, who is now my wife. I could not wait to get back to port to Belem, Brazil, because I knew at least there I could get mail and I could get a love letter from my girlfriend.
And you know, the Bible is a love letter from our best friend. It's a love letter from God to us. God would love to communicate with us face to face. And He did that in the Garden of Eden, but because we are separated from God by sin, God impressed the minds of the prophets to write down the message of His love to reassure us through all time. And that's what the Bible is all about. The reason we need the Bible is because we are separated from face to face communication. So God reveals Himself.

SHAWN: Mark, thank you so much for joining me today and talking about this book that has changed so many lives.

MARK: I have seen all over the world, Shawn, the Bible transforming people's lives. The greatest evidence that the Bible is inspired is that it inspires me when I read it. And my friend, it will inspire you. As you read that book, it will be life-changing.

SHAWN: Thank you, Mark. You know, I have an obsession with books. I love the way they smell, the way they feel in my hand, and of course, I love to read them. But of all the books in my collection, there is one that stands out from the rest, and not just because it's a religious book. There really IS something different about the Bible.
When I open God's book, it seems as if I am suddenly ushered into the presence of God Himself. In those quiet moments when everyone else has gone to bed and I sit at my desk with an open Bible, it's as if Jesus is right there with me.
Now, no other book is quite like that. There is no doubt that some books have had a huge influence on the way I think, but nothing has so completely revolutionized my life like the Word of God.
You see, when you read the Bible, something begins to happen in your heart. It changes you. It molds you into the character of Christ. The Apostle Peter says that we are "born again" by the Word of God.
****************************************************************************
Want to know more about this mysterious, yet accurate book? Keep reading this blog! I have some amazing things to share with you these next few weeks!

Interview from It is Written television show. You can find them on the web at www.itiswritten.com

Does it matter?

2009-03-09T14:42:00.005-04:00

The fool has said in his heart there is no God. Psalms 14:1

If you have not already read it, please read the blog Does God Exist? In this blog I will explore the second part of the question Does It Matter? Be warned I will not sacrifice the truth on the altar of political correctness. If you want PC you should probably hit the “Next Blog” button at the top of your screen. Let me summarize my argument for you. There is NO legitimate intellectual argument against the existence of God. You might be asking the question than why doesn't everyone believe in Him then? When someone says God doesn’t exists it is not because that is what logical, philosophical, scientific, and mathematical evidences points to. Hardly! No this is not an intellectually rooted claim this is a MORAL claim. These same people don’t want there to be a God so that they are free to follow the perversions of their own heart.

Let’s examine Psalms 14. In this passage God is looking down on the earth and considering all the evidence that points to His existence and his conclusion is absolutely amazing. He says, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God”. Huh? What? Let’s be clear. God isn’t trying to be immature and insulting. Remember when you were a kid and you would stick your tongue out at somebody and say Nana Nana Na Na. God’s not doing that here. Instead He makes an assessment of all the evidence and instead of siding with the atheist and saying, “Poor atheist, there is just not enough evidence", He calls the unbeliever a fool! This means that according to God the atheist is being completely irrational! So what reason does God give for people choosing not to believe in him? He says, “They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.” Psalms 14:1.

Aldous Huxley, renowned atheist writer, wrote a book entitled “Brave New World” and in it he is more honest than most atheists. His explanation is compelling. He writes,

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning. Consequently, I assumed that it had none and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. Most ignorance is vincible ignorance: We don’t know because we don’t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon which subjects we shall use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because for one reason or another it suites their books that the world should be meaningless. For myself, as no doubt as for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”

Did you catch that? He wanted there to be no God so that there would be no morality and thus no obstacles to his sexual explorations! Search your own hearts, friend and I am willing to bet that the times where you were most inclined to doubt the existence of God is when you have been most attracted by sin! I can say this unabashedly even if I don’t know you personally because the Bible clearly says in Psalms 14 that to doubt the existence of God is a moral consideration, not an intellectual one!

So let’s say that you read Does God Exists and lets say that you went along with it. Let say that you conclude that there is a God. Big deal so what?

There are 4 questions that every culture and philosophy must answer in a cohesive and internally consistent way. Any philosophy that does not answer these questions is useless because these are the questions that every human being universally longs to know.

Origin: Where am I from?
Meaning: Why am I here?
Morality: How should I live?
Destiny: Where am I going?

Most atheists are intellectually lazy and just want to live a life of selfish ease. So my challenge to the atheist is to just try to answer ONE of these questions using their worldview. Friends, take God out of the equation and try to answer ONE of these questions.

Origin: Can’t answer it. Evolution violates the laws of biogenesis, thermodynamics, enthropy, the anthropic principal etc.
Meaning: If I am the result of a cosmic accident what meaning is there? If I am a speck of dust than there is no transcendent meaning beyond what I invest in. Hitler found meaning through genocide, while you might find meaning in philanthropy but there is no substantive difference between these two and no criteria to measure the difference!
Morality: None. Everything is based on preference. Mass murder is the same as selfless heroism. There is nothing to distinguish Hitler from Mother Teresa. No one can decide which is better than the other. There are no criteria in which to judge any moral standard apart from a theistic universe.
Destiny: None. When we die we aren’t going anywhere. The atheist should never lament death. This is simply a naturalist process. He should be glad to go into the dust. The atheist may as well commit suicide. In fact, acclaimed atheist Jean Paul Sartre said that he would off himself but that he was too afraid he would mess it up.

So that’s door number one. Now lets see how easily these questions can be answered using the Christian worldview.

Origin: Genesis 2:7 Human beings came from the very hand of God and were created in His image (Genesis 1:27). We did not come from apes! This is a rational, meaningful, defensible statement.
Meaning: Ephesians 1:5 and 1Peter 2:9 our purpose is to know God and to enjoy Him eternally.
Morality: John 14:15 we are to keep God’s commandments which are found in Exodus 20
Destiny: John14:1 God has prepared a place for us and will come to take us home with Him.

A life lived without answer to these four questions is a substandard life. God matters. Take Him out of the equation and you have nothing but brutal nihilism. To believe in God or not believe in God really is a choice between ALL or NOTHING. Which will you decide?

*Based on Pastor David Asscherick’s lecture “Does God Exists? Does It Matter?” You can listen to it here.

Does God Exist?

2009-03-07T04:09:00.006-05:00

In the Beginning God…Genesis 1:1

There are some people who have an idea about faith that is not biblical, or even reasonable for that matter. Some people think that faith is believing what you know isn’t true. Contrary to popular belief, the biblical picture of faith is not a leap into darkness. It’s not blind belief. It is an intelligent step into the light. God never asks us to believe without giving us sufficient evidence for us to base our faith. Consider Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the EVIDENCE” it says. God’s existence is based on evidence that appeals to our reason. In other words, it’s not unreasonable to believe in God. People who really want to know the truth will find plenty of evidence to base their faith.

Having said that I’d like to add that I am a Seventh-day Adventist Christian so it is quite hard for me to approach this topic without any biases. My goal for this blog and for the following blogs is to start by assuming that you know nothing and then build up. I also need to say that I have read tons of apologetic material in my life and that I have listened to dozens of apologetic lectures, but I am NOT a Christian apologist. This blog is not based on my original ideas. Instead, based on my research I have chosen two sources to get the information used in this blog: that of Pastor David Asscherick’s lecture “Does God Exist Does it matter?” (you can listen to it here) and Come Search With Me a book by Dr. Subodh K. Pandit. I’d love to claim credit for these fascinating ideas but apologists and scientists that came before me have already posited them. Here’s my spin on them. In this blog I’d like to introduce eight compelling lines of evidence that support the existence of God.

1) The law of biogenesis
This law states simply that it is impossible for life to come from nonlife. More than 200 years ago Louis Pasteur of pasteurization fame demonstrated that if you took a pile of trash and placed it in a dark place no life would come from it. Maggots and mice don’t just spontaneously generate from trash. Instead these things have to have already existed. There has never been any experiment, biological or otherwise, that has shown that life can come from nonlife. This presents an insurmountable problem for the atheist and committed naturalist because to explain life based on their philosophies they must buy into some metaphysical cosmology that sounds a bit like this: “The princess kissed the frog an he became a prince”. Those who don’t believe in God have to explain life by suggesting that it spontaneously burst into existence.
The logic is simple friends. If you’re reading this blog you are alive. You are a sentient living and breathing being, so based on the law of biogenesis there must have been a living being that bought you into existence. Luke 3 gives us one of those long genealogies that most Christians just love to read (sarcasm), but they are important in that they trace man’s ancestry all the way back to the hand of God. This is not just a religious explanation. No it is in fact quite scientific. It provides the theists with a starting point because it provides an explanation that is consistent with scientific evidence. Life comes from life. In the theist view God is the eternal life giver.

2) The existence of things or the cosmological proof of God’s existence.
This idea can be packaged nicely in a simple little syllogism.
Everything that exists has a cause
The universe exists
Therefore the universe has a cause.

Not long ago scientist believed that space was infinite. Fast-forward to the time of the Hubble Telescope, which has established that there are places where the universe stops. The Universe actually has an end!! So if the universe has an end it must logically have a beginning. Even evolutionists now understand that the universe is finite. This is perfectly consistent with Genesis 1:1 which starts by saying, “In the beginning God…”. Oh no! This presents a problem for the atheists because if the universe has a beginning what caused it? And what caused the Big Bang?

3) Teleological proof or the evidence of design.
There’s a cute little syllogism that can show this too. Here it goes.
Design necessitates a designer
The world exhibits the qualities of design
Therefore the world has a designer

Let’s examine the middle premise. Even microscopic organisms have systems that are incredibly complex. Consider such things as the human eye or the lung of a bird. No one would look at a car and say that it just spontaneously came into existence. The world is infinitely more complex than a car so we can safely conclude that it too must have a Designer.

4) The Anthropic Principal or the theory of a life sustaining universe.
Modern cosmology tells us that there are no less than 47 measurable characteristics of the universe. Each characteristic is fine-tuned to such a degree that if you move even one of them in either direction to even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent it would render existence ANYWHERE in the universe IMPOSSIBLE. Consider gravity for example. If gravity were a little stronger or a little weaker the entire universe would either implode or explode. I want to emphasize that we are not just talking about planet earth here, but the prospect of supporting life anywhere in the universe. The Anthropic Principal basically says that it appears that the universe had humankind in mind.
There’s a story of a theist who came to a university looking for an atheist to debate. The atheist association at that university sent out letters to the various departments, including the cosmology department. The head of the cosmology department sent a letter back to the association saying “if you’re looking for an atheist you’ve got the wrong department. There hasn’t been any atheist here for the last 40 or 50 years”. The incredible discoveries about our universe are demonstrating to many astrophysicists and cosmologists that there is a God somewhere. In the last decades there have not been less than 15 prominent cosmologists who have converted to Christianity, NOT based on religion but based on their studies of the universe. The Bible clearly supports the Anthropic Principal. In Isaiah 48:18 the prophet writes that “God created the earth to be inhabited!” So it’s true the universe really did have man in mind.

5) Axiological proof or the case for existence of a universal moral code.
Yup, there’s a syllogism for this one too.
If God does not exist objective moral values do not exist
Objective moral values do exist
Therefore God exists (He is the moral law giver)
David Asscherick puts it best when he says, “Apart from some objective, transcendent, moral code whose to say that there is any substantive difference between the magnanimous, benevolent acts of say a Mother Teresa, and the hideous atrocities of an Adolph Hitler.” If there is no universal morality than everything is simply a matter of preference akin to preferring a red car to a green car. To talk about the atrocity of the Holocaust or 911 is a non-meaningful statement.
C.S. Lewis puts it like this. There are numerous different languages and there is nothing that holds them together. Language is arbitrary. We can call a “car” a “lollipop” because there is nothing within language that says that we can’t. Let’s consider morality. There are common moral strands that run through every moral system, in every culture on earth. For example, there is NOT a single culture on earth where is considered honorable and appropriate to do cruelty to those who have treated you with kindness. This is what we call a moral norm. There is no such thing as a language norm, but there is evidence of a transcendental moral code. Otherwise you would find societies that say that it is honorable to treat someone with cruelty who has treated you kindly. This demonstrates that there is some anchor that links common moral codes across cultural boundaries.

6) The historical reliability of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I will expound more on this in future blogs.

7) The case for the accuracy of the Bible. Again I will expound on this in future blogs, so please stick around.

8) Personal Experience.
I have a personal experience with God. I know he exists much like I know that my brother exists. Suppose you were trying to convince me that JD doesn’t exists. You wouldn’t get very far because I have an experience with him. I know that he exists. Most people haven’t been to Madagascar, but these same people know that it exists. Suppose you go on a trip to Madagascar and you call one of you friends who lives in the states. You say “I’m in Madagascar” to which your friend replies “Madagascar doesn’t exists” Your most likely response would be “That’s nonsense. I’m IN Madagascar. I’m experiencing it. I know it exists!” Nothing your friend could say could convince you otherwise.
Now not all experiences are created equal. If you have an experience, but it is not consistent with reality than you need to give up that experience. Suppose you called that same friend and you told him you were in Narnia or the Land of Oz. See the problem. That is not consistent with reality. It’s not the same with God, which is why I saved this point for last. There is rational, scientific, mathematical, cogent, evidence that points to His existence. It’s not inconsistent with reality to believe in Him so my experience is valid.

So let’s say you’ve bought into the compelling arguments I’ve attempted to make here. Let’s say that you accept that God does exist. The next question and the most crucial one is does it matter? I will explore this in the next blog, which is sure to be one of the most pivotal blogs I’ve ever written.

Graduate School Drop Out

2009-02-16T20:41:00.000-05:00

Most people know that I am a Christian, but what they don’t know is that once upon a time I used to worship an idol. It was the most important thing in my life--more important than my health, my family, and even God. I’m referring to my ambitious career goals. They sounded something like this:

I will get all A’s in school at any cost.
I will graduate top of my class.
I will enter the prestigious universities.
I will get a PhD and become a renowned professor.
My research will be published in the top-tiered journals.
I will have a large house and live comfortably.
I will walk on whomever I have to walk on and compromise almost anything in order to achieve my lofty goals.

Compare this self-centered ambition with that of another being mentioned in Isaiah 14:13,14.

For you have said in your heart:

‘ I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’

That being was none other than Satan himself. Of course my ambitions were motivated by other factors. I grew up poor and I became determined to never experience poverty again. That however, does not excuse my self-centeredness.

Oh how the pendulum has swung! Fast-forward just a few years later and here I am a graduate student in my apartment typing a blog entitled graduate-school drop-out. Perhaps I’ve ventured into the dangerous territory of indifference, but somehow none of that stuff that I prized and worshipped so much really seems that important in the long run. Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias once said that “The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced what you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it has let you down.” And how correct he was.

It took me two years to get into graduate school. I had to delay applying to graduate school as a college senior because of some unexpected issues. I applied hoping to be accepted fall 2007, but because of low GRE scores I didn’t get in. No problem I’ll just work harder. After all, nothing’s more important than my personal advancement. So I applied again this time I did get an acceptance letter. When that letter came in the mail I was nothing short of elated! Now I will be a success. I won’t have to wash dishes, clean windows, and serve french fries anymore. Now I will have purpose!

So here I am a graduate student. I spent every cent I had to move to 475 miles away from home. I often worked for 10 to 12 hours straight at the restaurant last summer so that I’d have enough money to move. I said goodbye to everything familiar and important to me in order to sip from the fountain of intellectualism. And what a pathetic, sour fountain it is! What a lonely moment!

No. I don’t regret moving, but I do regret going to graduate school. Instead of the fountain of untapped knowledge I anticipated, I stood face to face with pluralism, secularism, postmodernism, atheism, relativism, and nihilism. Class discussions scoffed at the idea of creation. Students and professors frequently bashed God and His sacred teachings. Indeed I met people who were “forever learning but never coming to knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 3:7)”: People who spat on religion but referred to “my kind” as the close-minded ones.

The so-called scholars are indeed, as Ravi Zacharias put it, educating themselves into imbecility. The studies are ostentatious and esoteric, but lack even a shred of wisdom. Such jewels of knowledge such as parent’s behavior affects children, Gender and race discrimination still exists, and divorce is bad pepper their sacred literature. Millions of dollars every year are emptied into the intellectual abyss and for what? To prove--I’m sorry I’ve misspoken because research never proves anything it just suggests or provides evidence for--what common sense already tells us. What a Godless wasteland! I want nothing to do with it. How quickly do dreams crash and burn. Alas “Vanity of vanities… all is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecc. 1)

As I look back on all the opportunities I had to learn more about God, all the opportunities I had to witness, all the time I could have been spending “seeking first the kingdom of God” I am reminded of another quote from the band Lifehouse “I know where I’ve been and I don’t wanna go there again.” With these thoughts in mind I consider abandoning transient university dogmas in order to pursue the Way the Truth and the Life.

Does Jesus Christ Have a Twin?

2009-01-15T00:51:00.002-05:00

Consider the evidence and you decide.

To watch the rest of this incredible presentation follow the links below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3jMeu3Oz4A&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWvMUnoQz4&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG_rGzeNzAc&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNeypeODUdI&feature=channel
Remember the best way to avoid deception is by learning the truth. This presentation is part of a longer seminar entitled Eleventh Hour Evidence. I hope you get a chance to watch it. There are so many so-called Christian resources on the net that much of what I review I would not recommend any body watch. I am also a harsh critic, so if I recommend something most people tend to agree that it's good. Besides, I will only recommend those resources that are Holy Spirit blessed, Biblically-based truth and only the best and most essential of those resources that fall into those categories. In other words, Crystal Clear won't waste your time. After you watch please feel free to post a note or write me to let me know what you think. And as always don't keep it to yourself. Share! Share! Share

The Wager

2009-01-11T01:02:00.011-05:00

For the living know that they will die, but the dead don't know anything...neither have they any more reward. Ecclesiastics 9:5

Today my friend's brother died. When I typed that sentence some of you were tempted to offer condolences. Some might have even been a bit shocked that I would begin a blog on such a blunt and ominous note. Why? Why is death sad? Why should it matter?

My friend's brother was just 20 years old. To everyone's knowledge he was completely healthy, strong, and athletic and now he's dead. 'Oh he was so young', some of you are tempted to say. We don't like that do we? We don't like hearing about young people dying. I pose the question why?

Approximately 5 hours ago at the time I write this post this young man was alive. He was playing one of his favorite sports when he collapsed. We don't understand how things like this can happen. We don't understand the suddenness of it all. Intellectually we know that we all are going to die. If you are alive now you know that you are going to die one day. That's a sad fact. Death is unfortunately something we all have to live with.

My question right now is what does the agnostic say to the family of my friend? What can the skeptic offer? At the very most he can mumble a half-hearted "I'm sorry". Friends, when your son just died inexplicably "I'm sorry" just doesn't cut it. The skeptic is ill-prepared to offer an explanation for why this event took place. He may try to rationalize it by saying that all life began, through the process of evolution--which is basically an argument that suggests that life is predicated on death. In order for one species to arise many others had to die. This soulless naturalistic explanation does nothing to console the family of those who have lost someone. If life is predicated on death and death is completely natural we would care no more about the dying or the dead than we would about a blade of grass growing in concrete. Why do we mourn death? Why do we cry for hours when someone has passed? Why do we attend funerals, send flowers, mutter "I'm sorry's" if what has taken place is just a natural occurrence.

I have an answer to those questions. It is because death is not a natural process! It is because there is One who has placed eternity in the human heart. There is One who shaped and molded and designed us. One who says unabashedly "I am the way the truth and the LIFE!" We think death is unjust for one reason: because it is unjust. We morn because it is unnatural! Because even in the heart and soul of the skeptic he realizes, even if his mouth will never admit it, that human beings were never meant to die in the first place! That's why we look at death and loss as a tragedy. Indeed our emotions are right! It is a tragedy. A great one, because God did not create us to die.

Blaise Pascal, the 16th century scientist, logician, mathematician and philosopher turned Christian apologist offers a fascinating argument to the skeptic. He proposes that there are two choices. Either God exists or He does not. There is simply no logical middle ground. He posits that through evidences of design in nature and through the scriptures it is logical to believe that there is a God. If one lives life as though God existed and the Christian life was the way to Him, and then dies and finds out their is no God such a person would have lost absolutely nothing. However if one lives as though God does not exist and assumes that Christianity is all fairytales and then one dies and faces God, such a person would have lost EVERYTHING. Essentially there is a wager or a bet if you will. On one side there is the chance to gain everything, literally all eternity if what the Christians say is correct. One the other side if one lives a Christian life, which empirically is not inferior in either quality or quantity but arguably superior to the non-Christian life one would lose nothing. Such a person would have lived meaningfully and died.

In our lives we face a choice. We can either wager to gain everything at the risk of losing nothing or we may gamble to gain nothing and lose everything. We know we are going to die one day, just like my friend's brother did. But before we die what choice are we going to make. Friend, you are free to make whatever decisions you like, but you know what I wager. I'm afraid I just can't risk losing eternity. How about you?

What On Earth Is Going On?

2009-01-10T00:30:00.002-05:00

If you have ever asked the question than I invite you to take a seat and watch the following clips with an open-mind.

This is part of a 23 part series. Like what you saw check out the rest here start with episode one to find out more about what on earth is going on.

New Year New Blog New Resources

2009-01-01T22:15:00.006-05:00

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.--Apostle Paul 1Cor 13:12

Happy New Year to all who read this blog. I am very blessed that people take time out of their day to read over the words of one neurotic misanthrope. Those who read this blog will never know how much their time and dedication have meant to me over the last year and a half. This year is going to be a bit different that the previous one. Yes, I will present sarcastic social and political commentary and attempt to defend some of my wild and crazy ideas, but the focus this year is on the spiritual rather than the political and sociological. As I grow in my relationship with our Lord I long to share whatever little knowledge I have with those I know and love. I am not a theologian or an apologist, no, just a lowly seeker of the Truth who desires only that those who read my blog will walk away thinking critically about their beliefs or lack there of.

I am thoroughly convinced this New Year that there may not be many more. All the signs that Christ predicted in Matthew Chapter 24 are steadily coming to pass. Many people are running in fear as economic hard times, natural disasters, crime, and political crises overwhelm their day-to-day lives. Fortunately there is hope and solace even in the darkness. There are answers even when the postmodernists, and cultural relativists tell us there are none. These are the last days and I don't say that to be ominous, but because it is the truth. Because we are living at the very brink of the end of time we need to arm ourselves with truth so that when we are faced with deceptions (as the Bible clearly predicts) we will be very aware. The only way not to be deceived is to abide in the Truth.

Friends ultimately their will come a time when we have to make a decision to follow God or to follow the doctrines and traditions of man. Can you honestly say that you would take a bullet rather than compromise your beliefs? Do you daily seek truth in Scripture? Are you a skeptic or an agnostic invested in secular pursuits for answers? How honestly can you answer those questions?

I'm not here to be a prophet of doom, but instead I'd like to share with you my favorite spiritual resources from 2008. I've sent many emails, I've presented people with tons of material, but most people tell me that while they are interested in the resources I have to offer, they just don't have time to watch or read them. That's interesting, but these same people have time to watch TV, party, shop, and live life as though this planet and this meager existence is all that we have. Most don't give thought to the fact that there is so much more than this. Now I realize we are all busy. I am a graduate student, I understand busy! But a few minutes in the Word, reading spiritual material, and listening to apologetics, will make us stronger and better able to defend our beliefs.

I also know that many people who come across this little blog aren't Christian or aren't even religious for that matter. Some are seekers and some are disillusioned atheist. Friends these resources are appropriate for you as well. So I invite you all, regardless of your background to open your hearts and minds to the truth. I pray that this year you will try to incorporate some of this material into your lives. Please write me to let me know if this has helped or influenced you in any way. The resources are not in any particular order I just have them listed based on whatever ones comes to my mind first.

1) The Great Controversy. This is an invaluable resource to my Christian friends. Many people go to church every week, but have no idea about the violent history of the Christian faith. A lot of so-called Christians can't even name a reformer! If you'd like to know the history as well as the future of the church than this resource is a MUST read. You can find the entire book FREE right here

2) David Asscherick Prophecy Seminar. More than 30% of the Bible is prophecy. That’s what separates it from other religious readings. But most Christians just scratch their head when someone asks them to explain the prophetic works in the books of Revelation and Daniel. David Asscherick is a former atheist turned Christian apologists who has a remarkable gift of explaining Bible prophecy. If you've ever asked questions about whether Jesus is the Son of God, or what will happen in the last days, or who or what the Antichrist is than this resource is for you. I urge you to consider this resource first because I'm not sure how long it will be offered free of charge. Just click here for all 23 episodes. This series will change your life. This is probably one of the most shocking and yet completely Biblically based series I've yet to come across.

3) Dr. Ravi Zacharias. So you don't believe in God. That's fine. But can you intelligently defend your disbelief. Why not let former atheist Dr. Ravi Zacharias explain to you why he's no longer an atheist. This is not emotional blah blah blah, but deep intelligent, rational argument on the authenticity of the Creator. Click here and please check out the broadcast Let My People Think here

4) Discoveries 08 with Pastor Mark Finely. I have promoted this resource over and over again, but I have a sneaky suspicion that most people just read the blog, said they come back to it later and never managed to get there. Friends we have an enemy who is determined to keep the truth away from us. He will do EVERYTHING in his crafty power to make sure that we are confused and deceived. Instead of watching youtube clips why not allow Pastor Finely to show you the archeological discoveries he has seen that prove the authenticity of God's word and answer numerous questions about His character. This is a MUST see. click here

5) It is Written. I stopped watching TV regularly a long time ago. I concluded that there was just nothing good on. And then I found this little jewel! Instead of wasting 30 minutes on a sit com, why not watch an exciting, yet relevant broadcast that helps elucidate the Word of God and it's truths? Click here and don't be afraid to search the site for important spiritual resources. In case your thinking, but Crystal I don't have time for all of this. Do you have 3 minutes a day? If so that you can watch A Better Way to Live. It's a devotional podcast for busy people intended to give them three minutes of hope, joy, and biblical knowledge for the day. And best of all it's from the same folk that produce It Is Written. Just click here to subscribe.

6) Bible Gateway. Don't have a Bible? Don't wanna buy one? Not a problem. Read it free in whatever translation or language you prefer here. I recommend that you read a passage everyday. And if you still don't understand what on earth you are reading check out the next resource.

7) Bible Info. We all can't be talented theologians. That's why people wiser than me put together bible info.com which has a wealth of resources to challenge the skeptic and the believer. Just click here. And you can't leave the site without checking out the discover Bible guides here

I don't want to totally overwhelm you so I'll just stop at seven resources for now. I just wanted to take a few minutes to deal with some of the arguments that I'm sure I'll get from people NOT checking out these resources.
1) I don't have time.
Yes you do. How do I know that? Because I do. I make time for what's important to me. We donate tons of times to lies and garbage, can't we dedicate an hour or less to truth? When God comes back how bout looking him in the eye and telling him that "I would have studied your word and sought your truth but I just didn't have time." I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that.

2)I don't have any money.
Neither do I. Which is why every last one of these resources is 100% absolutely FREE.

3)But Crystal I'm already in the church. I study the Word. I don't need more resources.
Peter was in the church too. He was one of Jesus's best friends as a matter of fact, but that didn't stop him from denying Christ three times when the pressure hit him. If you want to be a soldier for truth you have to have the right resources. In fact I'd argue that you can't have too many weapons when you go to war.

4) But I only consider resources that are put out by my particular denomination.
I'm not here to promote denominations. I'm only here to espouse truth. These resources are rich in truth regardless of the denominations that put them out. As Christians we shouldn't be searching for a denomination, but truth. If our denomination isn't speaking 100% truth we should leave it. Jesus said not every one who claims his name will be saved. Think about it.

4) Crystal I am not a Christian or a religious person. Your blog is cute and all, but I don't have time for any of this religious blah blah blah.
True intellectuals are willing to consider all kinds of options if only to strengthen their arguments and beliefs. So you had a bad experience with the church, but does that take away from the truths that it offers? I can't force anyone to do anything, but I urge even those skeptics to consider these resources, they may change your mind OR you might just throw them out, either way at least you can say that you gave it a try. In fact my challenge to the skeptic is if you have considered all the resources and have found no light or truth in them you have my permission to throw them out, delete my blog from your favorites or blog roll, and never speak to me again. I'm so serious yall!

If you have any more objections send them to me. If not please let me know what you think of the resources. Send me your thoughts on them and share them with others if they have strengthened you.

To my Christian friends. I can only say that the devil is busy and one of his latest tactics is to keep us so busy that we forget to search for truth or we have no time for it. That's tragic because we are about to embark on a time that's unlike any other in history and many of us are going to war without our weapons and armor. That's sad, but as for me and my house...well you know the rest. Please prayerfully consider these priceless resources. They are my New Years gifts to you. Happy New Year!

Your Enemies

2008-12-25T23:49:00.003-05:00

Is it just me or do some people deserve to be hated? I mean some people just ask for it. Case and point, THE EX! Now everyone has an ex or some relationship that just didn’t quite work out but then there is THE EX! That person who steps into your world for however brief an interval and turns it on it’s head then they go about their lives lollygagging while you’re forced to pick up the piece of your shattered universe. Can I get a witness? That person that treats you like the vomit he accidentally stepped in on his way from the urinal. THAT person. That’s the one the Bible tells us we are to love. THAT person! But how?!!!!

Once upon a time I made a stupid mistake. When I was an undergraduate I met a very shy self-effacing guy who did me a huge favor. I didn’t know the guy but he assisted me by volunteering to participate in my research study. What a nice guy and he just happened to be there in the nick of time when I needed help. Later I bumped into him on campus and engaged him in light chitchat. Because he seemed polite and friendly I didn’t think much when he asked me for my phone number and soon we became good friends. BIG MISTAKE. I should have just walked away. I mean the guy was definitely a bit strange, but I decided to befriend him any way. Fast-forward two years later and out of some perverse form of schizophrenic neediness I entered into a relationship with this young man. Fast forward 6 month later and I was crying bitterly on my birthday, alone in a new community, broke, and broken up. Just like that it was and is and will remain over.

It’s dead without the possibility of resurrection and so is our once friendship.

Of all the things in the Bible the most difficult thing to do is to love your enemies and to be kind to those who intentionally do you harm. Up until this point I hadn’t done too bad of a job at that. Occasionally resentment would boil up inside of me but prayer and mediation and focusing on God’s love would always change how I felt around. But then there was HIM. Like a cancer that refuses to be cut out he clings to me in the worse way. I almost hate him.

Yeah I know that’s not Christian and I know I have a lot to answer for because I have harbored this resentment in my heart. I thought I was a big girl--that all was forgiven and that I had moved on. I even accepted his facebook friend request and engaged in light small talk with him via the net. Alas I am super Christian I have forgiven and moved on! Or so I thought. Then this Christmas morning I woke up to a missed call. It was HIM. No problem I’ll call him back later. After all I’m a big girl right. I did just that. I engaged him with some how are you’s, how the family, hows life etc. Ah this isn’t too bad I thought. This will be a cinch. After all I am so glad that I got over him. Or had I? I just had to ask a question. A question that should not have been asked because I did not like the answer.

Are you happy with your decision? By that I meant was he happy with that fact that his behavior had pushed away a wonderful young lady who at one point loved and cherished him. Did he have even that slightest regret that something that once had so much promise turned out so ugly? The answer: Not really.

See while I was crying my eyes out and missing him and praying for him every night…while I harbored the false hope that one day he would change and perhaps, just perhaps we could be friends again. While I agonized over the fact that he had betrayed me and thrown me away, he was happy about his life. Going on about things as if we’d never broken up. I meant no more to him than a used piece of toilet paper. Tactfully I hung up the phone after wishing him a good holiday and telling him to have a nice life. I did and said all the Christian things. I didn’t curse him out. I didn’t threaten to run him over with my Nissan. I didn’t tell him what an awful person he was. I didn’t plot his revenge. And you know what, I wish I had! But then there is a little voice inside of me that says “love your enemies.”

Even now I want to write all his secrets out on this blog. I want to tell his friends and colleagues all his dirt. I want to show him what I think he is, but I can’t. I am to love my enemies. Perhaps that’s the hardest thing the Christian faith teaches. Sure there is nothing wrong with being angry, but we are to be angry without sinning. After all even rapists and child molesters can love people who treat them with love, the challenge comes in loving those who have treated you like used toilet paper.

Dear God,

I know that I have been treated unfairly. I will never really understand why, but I know that your own Son was treated infinitely worse. Father even while they were driving nails through his sinless hands He never uttered one harsh would against them. Instead Jesus asked you to forgive them. Father please put that kind of love in my heart. Please help me to love those who have harmed me. Please heal me of this hurt and help me to move on. Grant me the strength to forgive. And Lord please bless the ex fill him with your love and your presence so that he will treat people as you would have him to.

Amen.

Watch This!

2008-11-03T00:37:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I'm a cynic, so when my church told me about an evangelistic telecast series they were having I pretty much thought it would be much of the same. I especially didn't think it would change or bless my life they way it has. Why do we believe in the Bible as Christians? What evidences do we have that the Word is any more authentic or significant than the Koran, or the Book of Mormon, or any other sacred writing? This series answers these questions in a unique way. In fact many who DID NOT believe in the Word have come to accept its truth as a result of previous telecasts given by the host of the series, international speaker Pastor Mark Finley. I encourage you to take a few minutes out of your day to be blessed. I challenge the skeptic, the agnostic, and the atheist to watch these series with an open mind. I pray that these truths penetrate your heart like they have mine.
Learn all about the series at http://www.discoveries08.org/ and watch the archived videos. Have a question about what you are watching? You can ask Pastor Finley himself via youtube video, or via the website. And more importantly if you are blessed by this ministry DO NOT keep it to yourself. Share it with others, that they too might learn about our Lord.

Peace and Blessings,
Crystal Clear

Happy Valentines Day Everybody!

2008-10-29T14:13:00.007-04:00

And so it is that another Valentines Day is upon us! This is the scariest pagan holiday of our year. A holiday of monsters, ghouls, and long departed souls. A celebration of all things evil and decaying. Yes, my friends, it’s time for us to go trick and treating, set fire to stuff, dress up as things we are not, and revisit haunting, long gone relationships of our past. Now that’s spooky!

Valentines day is a morbid day of cemetery walks, sugar rushes, and frightening romantic comedies at the box office, but unfortunately our modern society has turned this perfectly innocent day of death into a capitalistic enterprise. So tragic that this refreshingly sordid day should be turned into a day of consumerism and avarice. While we gorge ourselves with candy, it seems like every store is having some kind of holiday sale. Costumes for sale, candy for sale, pumpkins for sale, candy apples with razor blades inside of them for sale!! Oh what have we done to the depraved occult-centered festivity we now call Valentines Day!

Hold on a second. Some one leaning over my shoulder just told me that it’s not Valentines day!!! What!!! It appears I have mixed up my holidays again folks. I’m so sorry, but I just keep getting these two self-centered, meaningless, and mournful holidays all mixed up. C’mon you can’t blame me. Candy corns? Conversation hearts? Costumes? The façade of superficiality? Death? The destruction our relationships? Gaudy decorations? Watching your teeth rot or watching thoughtless, cheap flowers rot in a tacky vase? Will someone please explain to me the difference!

Or perhaps it doesn’t really matter what the difference is as our relationships are failing quicker than our stock market and so far there’s no marriage bailout plan. Narcissism reigns and we are lost in an orgy of our own cupidity. All around us things are dying, yet we feel the need to pay to watch death in every brutally gruesome form imaginable portrayed on the big screen. We adorn ourselves with skulls and crossbones, and then scream that we want to be free to live life. We concern ourselves with the rights of those not yet born but we are callously indifferent to the plight of our soldiers who die everyday. Any way I’m tired. This whole world is far too much for one cynical blogger. So happy Valentines Day or Halloween or whatever “hollow day” it is. Maybe we can get together and conjure up the long-forgotten spirits of morality and altruism.

Ha! No, I still don’t believe that.

R.I.P
Values

Crystal Clear’s Bad Experience With Ebonyline.com

2008-10-02T21:02:00.004-04:00

I know the title isn't clever, but I wasn’t looking to be witty or punchy. I just wanted to get my point across. If you are one of the two people who read this blog you know that I am a broke graduate student who lives in a predominately white rural town (which some people allege is a city, but I’ve yet to see the proof of that). Any way buying black hair products has become an impossible feat for the very reason listed above. So you can imagine my enthusiasm when I came upon www.ebonyline.com, a beauty supply web outlet that sells everything from the latest wigs, weaves and extensions, to hair conditioners and treatments, fragrances, skin care products, and accessories and for very reasonable prices. Having compared this site to several of their competitors I decided to give them a try because they had the lowest prices and the most reasonable shipping. So I purchased a wig on September 6th, 2008 for $37.92 from them and waited excitedly for it to arrive.

The wig came just a few days later and I rushed to open the package. Surprise! The wig didn’t look like the one on the model. It looked a lot shorter and the hair color was not exactly what I expected. No problem, I thought, I’ll just try it on and if it doesn’t fit or look nice on me I’ll send it back. I checked to make sure ebonyline had a return exchange policy before I forked over 40 bux of my hard earned money. I was careful when removing the wig from the packaging, taking special care to leave all of it’s original tags on it. I then placed a wig cap on (over my freshly washed hair) and tried the wig on. Just as I suspected, the wig did not look right on me. No big, deal. It’s not ebonyline’s fault that the wig doesn’t suite me. I’ll just send it back for an exchange.

As the site suggested I sent an email to their return services. A short while later I receive the following response.

Hello Customer,

You may return the item(s) as long as it is in its’ original sellable condition. Also, all exchanges or returns must be received within 10 days from the authorization date. We will give you 80% refund on your return due to restocking fee. Please note that wigs and other beauty accessories (e.g. irons, ponytails, half-wigs, etc.) can only be returned for an exchange or store credit. You will be responsible for any extra fees that might be required to process an exchange. Please notify as us soon as you sent the item back to us. Our return address is:

Ebonyline
5639 W. Howard St.
Niles, IL 60714

Please make sure you check our return policy before taking any action:

http://www.ebonyline.com/returnpolicy.html

Thank you for your cooperation.

An 80% refund or store credit didn’t seem that bad. Sides it was better than completely wasting my money on a product that didn’t suit me. So I followed the instructions, put the wig back in it’s original packaging with all of it’s tags and off I shipped it for $4.80. Then I sent an email back to the customer service rep stating that the wig was on it’s way. I receive this email back:

Hello Customer,

Thank you for your inquiry.

We will be able to process an exchange for your return if the return was properly processed by our return policy. We will calculate the difference and make charge to your credit card account you used to place an order with.

Thank you for choosing Ebonyline.com

So far so good. I’m still a happy camper at this point. Then two weeks later I receive this email.

Hello Customer,

Thank you for your return.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept your return for S-ALBA. The hair has very strong odor coming out of it. As the result, we concluded that the product is not in original condition. We can send the wig back to your address if you are willing to be responsible for the shipping cost. Otherwise, we have no choice but to dispose the item. Please reply back to us with your decision.

Thank you for your cooperation,

WHAT THE HECK!!!!! STRONG ODER!!!!. So in other words yall aint given me my exchange or store credit and I STINK!!!!! And to top it all off yall are allegedly going to throw the wig away if I don’t pay yall more money to get the wig back!!!! At this point I’m pissed because I’ve already spent $42.72 and I still have no product and no exchange, and now I have to pay more money for a product I’m quite unhappy with. Now maybe $42.72 is no big deal to the rest of the world, but to a BROKE graduate student living off of a stipend that would make a McDonalds employee cry, it’s a BIG deal. So I sent the following unfriendly email back to customer service:

Dear Sir,

I am not satisfied with the service I have received from your company. I have spent approximately $40 dollars (including what I spent to ship the wig back) and now you are telling me that I am out of a product and I don't even get my money back. That's bad business. Is there someone I can speak with about this matter? Is there a customer service number I can call? I assure you that when I sent the wig back there was NO odor coming from it. All I did was take the wig out of it's original package examine it and determined that it DID NOT look like the wig on the model. So I sent it back in the same condition I got it in. Now you are telling me that unless I pay you MORE money I am out of the product and I don't get a credit or even an exchange. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't suffice. It seems very convenient and very suspicious that you all would get the returned wig and then accuse me of ruining it so that you all don't have to reimburse me or give me a product. Who can I take this matter up with?

I receive this response a little while later:

Hello Customer,

Thank you for your reply.

I have already spoke to my manager regarding your return and she also came up with conclusion that we cannot accept your return. As we state on our website, the return product must be returned in original sellable condition. You may contact us by calling:

847-647-9791

Please be aware that the refusal on the return package is the final decision. You must decide if you wish to receive the item back by being responsible for the shipping cost or dispose the item from our side. Please reply back to us with your decision on the order.

Thank you for your cooperation,

So basically I’m screwed and I have to hurry up and make a decision about whether or not I want this wig and make it fast before I’m out of even more money! So I sent the following email back:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your quick reply.

Because it seems I have no real choice in the matter, please ship the wig back to me. I will pay for the shipping. Please know and please tell your superiors that I am very dissatisfied with the treatment I have received. This is the first time I have ordered from your company and because of my experience it will be my last.

INHO they could have at least given me something—a discount on my next purchase, a coupon because I’m a first time customer, an offer to ship the wig back for free, but no they did not! Instead they charged $7.93 to my debit card to send the “STANK” wig back. That brings my total to $50.65. Swell.

So what’s the moral of the story? I’m just suggesting that there are many online retailers out there for those of us who must buy hair products from off the internet, but that Crystal Clear CANNOT recommend www.ebonyline.com. Shop there at your own expense, but remember you were warned by this blog. If you still insist on shopping there don’t expect to return any of the products you purchase. I spose if you purchase earrings from them they will send you a note back saying that there’s an odor coming from those too!!!!! You’ve been warned. And please send this to anyone you know who shops for beauty products online.

UPDATE: Today I got the wig back from ebonyline.com and guess what? It DOES NOT stink! The only odor coming from this wig is that of the box it was shipped in. Most things smell a little like cardboard if you ship them in, I don't know, CARDBOARD. But the wig smells just fine. That suggests to me that the whole "odor thing" was a BS story they made up so they would not have to give me my much deserved exchange. Congratulations Ebonyline, you just lost a very good customer, and potentially many more depending on how many people read this blog.

So You Don't Believe in Creation?

2008-09-27T15:48:00.007-04:00

This is an amazing broadcast. Please take the time to watch it or bookmark it and come back to it. It's long, but it's WORTH the watch. Learn about the LIES they teach us in science class.

To purchase the 4 part series check out www.hopevideo.com. These are powerful evangelism tools so please do not keep them to yourself. Please email them to someone you know who could use them. Also I don't usually ask people to do this, but if you do watch the series please write and tell me what you thought of them. You can email me or leave me a message. Thanks

Branches and Trees

2008-09-24T00:09:00.007-04:00

Those are powerful words. I remember watching Madea Goes to Jail shortly after I broke up with my ex. Those words helped to put things into perspective. See I thought the guy I had invested so much time and energy into was a root--someone who would support and nurture our relationship, someone who I could depend on. But when it came time for me to step out on him--when I really needed him--he broke and left me to fall hard. I sustained some massive injuries. I kept begging him to give me what I needed, but it just wasn't in him. He was a branch, only meant to hold for a short time before breaking.

Which brings me to my next point. When I have to face a decision where it's my self- preservation or someone else I have to instinctively pick me. If I don't how will I survive. My ex made a choice. He decided that temporary sexual indulgences were more important than his 'love' for me and his commitment to our relationship.It all boiled down to my staying and allowing myself to be disrespected, hurt, disregarded, and degraded or leaving. He chose computer images of people who could NEVER love him back over a woman who loved him immeasurably. Perhaps one day he will regret that decision. I don't know. I pray for him everyday. My regret is that I wish I had seen it coming.

Like Madea says, if someone is doing something that hurts you, and you confront them and tell them that what they are doing causes pain and they still continue to do it, that person DOES NOT really care for you. I don't care what they say. Actions speak volumes about a person. But if that person even tries to change a little don't throw them away. I would never toss anyone aside, but my ex boyfriend decided that he was not going to change, and he did not care at all how much his actions hurt me. How can you love a narcissist (someone who can only see their own perspective)? How can you commit to someone who only care about what they can get out of a situation, even if you suffer because of their self-centeredness? Doing so does not show love for that person, but hatred for self.

Every day is an attempt to move past the hurt and betrayal and to see the beauty in each day God has given me. I strive to have a close relationship with God. I work towards excellence in all that I do. Yet I am still haunted by the termination of that relationship. I am still suffering from the effects of confusing a branch with a root. But that's life. I don't have all the answers. But I am growing and learning. That's why I wanted to share this simple blog with you. I implore all of you to evaluate your relationships according to Madea's wisdom. Sometimes, even though it may break your heart, you have to let people go. Just let them go.

Walk Away

2008-09-01T15:57:00.006-04:00

"Find me I'm falling
and fooling myself that it's flight
Imperfect I plummet
And ponder
Pushed away on principle...
I searched your eyes for an answer
And shuddered at what I found there
As my skin shrunk away from conclusion
That you lack the strength to care
Walk away and I stare
Would you stand me up again?
Wonder if I've said too much
And we'll never speak again
This is the way it has to be
That you would turn your back on me
And you and I should walk away...
And we'll never speak again
--Mad At Gravity "Walk away"

On August 14th I joined the ranks of millions of other black women: I became single. I've written about being single here, here, here and at least a couple of other places on my blog. I'm no stranger to the single life. In fact, I'm resigned to being single for the rest of my life. I think single is a better alternative than being abused, cheated on, lied to, betrayed, dumped, etc. You see I'm back to where I started. Having zero faith in relationships and negative faith in those sexed-crazed creatures we call the male species. Life is a "sick cycle carousel", to quote Lifehouse, my favorite band. The good news is that the male-bashing, love-hating cynic is back and here to stay! I missed that part of me.

So why? What happened? Weren't things going along so perfect? Weren't you two planning a future together? Well I'm not sure where to start or how to answer those questions. Life is complicated. People are complicated. They change. Perhaps one day I'll have the guts to talk about what happened. I suppose I will after I fully understand what happened. I did everything I could to try to make it work, but one cannot hold together a relationship by herself. It seems men aren't interested in doing what it takes to make it work. They don't believe in fighting for their relationships, they don't believe in sacrifice, they don't believe in the power of prayer to change things. Men as a species just DON'T. They lack depth and genuine empathy. They abhor morality and cling desparately to their vices. I'm much happier without them.

The worse part about the break up is that because of my ex's pathological self-centeredness we aren't even friends. I wash my hands of him. Even after a 2 1/2 year history you never really know a person. Everybody has a darkside, his was just more sick and twisted than most. It would be dangerous to my self-esteem as well as to any sense of intergrity I claim to possess to remain in any kind of relationship with him, especially when he is callously indifferent to the entire situation. He lacks the strength (if not the ability altogether) to care. In his own words he is just too immature to ever change. So to him it doesn't matter if his behavior hurts and exploits others even those he claims to love. To him it doesn't matter if he loses relationships, breaks hearts, lives a lie, or demolishes his already strained relationship with God. As long as he can hide behind his calulated subterfuge and play innocent--as long as he can comfortably sit in the church pews satuared in his abominable sins no one will ever discover what he really is. And you know what, I'm sorry I ever did. So my only choice, however painful and whatever the consquence, was to walk away.

The Land Of Ohio

2008-08-13T15:48:00.007-04:00

It has been so long since I have published a blog. I haven't forgotten about it. In fact, almost everyday I've thought about settling down and thinking up some new blog topics. I supposed I have a case of writer's block, mixed with lazy apathy, combined with just a tinge of work-alcoholism. I guess it's only fair that I update you on what has been happening in my life. Around the same time I wrote "Networking for Tits", I took a job working at a kosher restaurant in a Jewish neighborhood. The experience wasn't too bad. In fact, as jobs come, it was probably one of the best I've had. I worked almost all the time sometimes up to 12hours a day in order to save up for my big move. Yup, liberal, black, city-native me, moved to a strange conservative, predominately white, rural little place. This is probably the largest transition of my life. I now reside in the Land Of Ohio (northwest to be exact). For those of you who weren't aware, I got accepted into the Sociology Masters program at Bowling Green State University. If you say you've never heard of it you wouldn't be the first. But this school, unlike the other universities that I wasted my money applying to, accepted me, funded me, and even considered me one of there top recruits.

So what will I do with a Master's in sociology? Well for starters I'll have more reasons to stand a-top my soap box and impale people with the truth. I'll have more ammunition for my sardonic, yet brilliant social commentaries; and prayerfully, I'll be able to help more people think critically about our culture and our world. Stay tuned for more unapologetic and sometimes cynical, and lets not forget random musings.

P.S. In the mean time if you're just dying for a hot piece of political commentary you should read this article by my very astute friend Laila.

Networking for Tits

2008-05-21T21:34:00.003-04:00

Every once in a while I’ll read something that will make my skin bristle. I’m talking unbridled stupidity mixed with a heaping cup of self-hatred. Imagine a social networking website that donates money for breast implants to its female members. Well no need to imagine any more, look no further than www.myfreeimplants.com. You can read the whole article below.

Women seek cash for breast implants on Web site

Saturday, October 13, 2007

By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Its promoters call it a new form of social networking and online "community."

Its critics say it shows the extremes to which some women will go to mend a broken body image and fulfill a male fantasy of what a woman should look like.

But for a North Hills woman named JoAnne, who asked that her last name not be used, Myfreeimplants.com is merely a quick, convenient way to raise enough money to pay for surgery she's wanted since the eighth grade.

Since its launch two years ago, the Web site has become an increasingly popular venue for women to solicit donations from men -- who happen to be total strangers -- for breast implant surgery.

Besides being the latest manifestation of the American obsession with physical appearance, the site also illustrates how the Internet is transforming social relationships and creating bizarre new notions of "community" -- by distancing people from actual human contact and enabling them to indulge in activities they might never consider outside of cyberspace.

Some might call the site, with its cheesy graphics and suggestively posed women, pornography. JoAnne does not see it that way, and technically, she's right -- no nude photos are allowed.

"I know the feminists will be coming out of the woodwork and see it as demeaning, but it's been great for me. I've raised some money and I've had some great conversations with people," she said, adding that for her, breast implants carry no more psychological baggage than losing weight might for someone else.

Plus, she is in a committed relationship with her boyfriend, "who supports me whether I do this or not. I don't care about the women who may want to bash me for what is essentially my choice."

But Nili Sachs, a Minneapolis-based psychologist who specializes in human sexuality and couples counseling, said she found Myfreeimplants.com profoundly disturbing.

"When you first see the site, you can for a brief moment think, 'OK, this is all in the spirit of helping women feel better about themselves.' But take a closer look at the photos of the women and their blogs. They're all posing in very suggestive positions, and when a man pays money for that, it's pornography. For the women, it's a form of virtual prostitution."

The brainchild of two 29-year-old California software designers, the site allows women to chat with men online in the hope they can persuade them to pay for breast implants. Jason Gunstra, one of the founders, said he and his partner started the site as "a joke" after meeting a cocktail waitress at a bachelor party in Las Vegas who said she wished she could have the procedure.

For women, the service is free, and they can contact any man on the site. Men, on the other hand, must pay a small fee of $1.25 for each e-mail, or "message credit," with $1 going to the woman, and 25 cents to the Web site's owners.

At that point, though, all bets are off. E-mails between the two parties are unmonitored by the site, and JoAnne says she gotten plenty of requests for photos of herself in the buff, which she rejected out of hand, but was able to start and sustain online conversations with several men who ended up donating money -- $768, so far -- to an escrow account maintained by the site's owners. Once she's raised enough money, about $4,000 on average, the site will pay her surgeon for the procedure.

More than 20,000 women have signed up since its inception, said Mr. Gunstra, with 2,500 "active" members at any given time. To date, 35 women have raised enough money to pay for implants, he said.

He bristled at the suggestion that the site is in any way degrading or risky for women.

"MySpace.com is more dangerous," he said, noting his site's strict rules against women identifying themselves, while "really pushing the community aspect of the site and encouraging communication and friendships. Think online pen pals, with an added benefit of a bigger bust at the end of the journey."

With 17,000 men signed up on the site, "you end up messaging your fingers off" trying to talk them into donating, said Lindsay, of Columbus, Ohio, who raised $3,950 for her surgery from 10 different donors, out of about 2,000 she e-mailed, in August.

Lindsay asked that her last name not be used, and, in fact, on the site, women only post screen names, not actual names or addresses, to protect against stalkers.

While some men asked for sexually explicit photos, "I didn't do that," Lindsay said. "If a girl wants to make money that way, she can always just sell herself on the street."

It's that talk of "choice" and the linkage women make between implants and self-confidence that deeply concerns independent filmmaker Carol Ciancutti-Leyva , whose 2007 documentary, "Absolutely Safe," tracks two women -- one who was scheduled for implants and one who was having them removed because she believed they had made her sick.

While examining safety issues and the FDA's approval process for implants, the film also explores what motivates women to get them -- and what Ms. Ciancutti-Leyva believes is manipulation of the issue by manufacturers.

"I think the breast implant industry co-opted the feminist argument, making it about choice instead of safety," said Ms. Ciancutti-Leyva, who is based in New York but grew up in Penn Hills. "The discussion of safety is gone, it's obsolete, we don't talk about it anymore. The old prejudice was that a woman who got implants was the stereotypical 'bimbo,' but today it's your next-door-neighbor, your doctor, lawyer, your average woman."

Dr. Sachs maintains that the growing demand for breast implants isn't necessarily driven by sex -- at least for the woman -- as much as it is on a cultural and anthropological need for uniformity, fueled by advances in medicine and technology.

"The human body has continually been put to use as a medium for the expression of cultural, tribal or genealogical needs," she said. "Nations, tribes and other groups demand that their members reflect sameness in their physical appearance," although what they define as the ideal appearance varies from culture to culture.

In Asia, women aren't having breast implants; they're having their eyes altered to look more Western, she noted. "This drive for uniformity is about belonging to the desired class or species."

And you can get there without any of your friends or family knowing how you did -- by sitting alone at a computer.

"I am essentially a nameless face and body on a Web site," said JoAnne. "It's kind of impersonal for me. Disengaged is how I put it."

"You always have a mask on when you're on the Internet," added Lindsay. "Really, the site is all about conversation, about being friendly, and not boring, otherwise no one is going to talk to you. And in the end, it got me what I wanted, for free, while having fun. It was not degrading at all."

Dear Illness

2008-05-03T17:17:00.005-04:00

Dear Illness,

Hey it’s me. You know the woman whose life you’ve been trying to take over. Oh don’t be coy. We know each other intimately. I know you as well as I know myself, in fact some days it’s hard for me to separate me from you. I understand how you entered my life. How the traumatic experiences I’ve had in the past combined with every day hassles, heartbreaking disappointments, and my highly sensitive nature to produce you. I also know that you won’t be satisfied until you’ve succeeded in completely dominating my life.

I remember the first time we met. I was really quite young and didn’t understand you fully then. You began by producing irrational fears in me. Then slowly the anxiety attacks began and by the time I was in middle school you brought on panic attacks. But then through prayer and mediation they went away. I cried out to God at such a young age and ask him to fight you for me, because I was too weak to do so. And slowly throughout the years you began to dissipate. You lost the hold you had on me and I began to live life more courageously, swearing that I would never let you win again.

Oh but you are slick. You went underground. You lay dormant for a while, until my college years. Don’t you remember? Just when I thought you were exorcised from my life, you waited until some traumatic experiences happened and then exacerbated them by the stresses of college life. Then you resurrected the painful memories of the past. You gave me nightmares, despair, and fatigue. You resurfaced in the form of depression. I hurt so bad sometimes I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t feel hope. I slowly started giving into you and the anxiety gradually began to build overtime. I was too afraid back then to face you. I was too afraid to call you what you were. So I hid behind my type A personality. I masked you with workaholism and over-ambition. I didn’t know that you were using those things to drive me. As a result, I became quite successful at convincing myself that you didn’t exist. That is, until the day I started to hyperventilate, my heart pounded as if it were trying to burst from my chest, dizziness washed over me, and feelings of impending doom overtook me. You had trapped me. I couldn’t breath, I was terrified, and everything became frightening. I feared I had lost my mind. Ah but you had other plans. You convinced me to keep these spells to myself for a time. You told me not to tell anyone until they became worse and worse and their frequency made me lose more and more control.

Finally, I went to the doctors. Convinced you were something more fatal than what you actually were, I spent wasted time and money seeing various specialists from neurologists to gynecologists. I had CAT scans and several thyroid tests. I had tons of blood tests done, but the doctors couldn’t find you. Then you really turned up the heat. You began plaguing me with episodes of derealization and depersonalization. When these two symptoms showed up I just knew I had gone mad.

I went to counseling. I tried with the help of the therapist to work through past traumas. Just as I was experiencing some success with the psychotherapy my money ran out. I thought that I was better. But you still pressed on relentlessly until agoraphobia began to take hold. I became too afraid to leave my house and now I am scared to go out alone for more than a few minutes. For months I couldn’t work. I rearranged my entire life to accommodate you, thinking that if I ran from you--if I hid from you--you would leave me in peace. But that wasn’t enough. See you weren’t content to have part of me. You wanted all of me.

You have abused me so much. You almost stopped me from graduating college, you stopped me from being able to enjoy life, you forced me to stay in my room and hide from you. You wreaked havoc on my self-esteem, you destroyed my relationships, you took my dreams away and caused me to self-limit.

YOU MAKE ME SICK.

I’ve been through so much with you. The medication that the doctor gave me to help me recover from you often makes me quite sick. I have good days and bad days with it, as the side effect sometimes leave me drained and exhausted. I’m still often ashamed to tell others about you. You make me feel as if I’ve done something wrong when I haven’t.

I’m starting to recover from you though. I’m getting stronger with the prayers of my pastor, family members and friends. I’m starting not to be so afraid of you. I am beginning to take some of my power back. I go out more lately. I laugh a bit more and I feel a deep desire to live life again. Swimming, playing piano, taking soothing walks, shopping, driving--all of these have a new found significance in my life, because I remember just a few months ago I couldn’t do many of these things. Each day is a battle. Sometimes I have anxiety attacks, occasionally I have limited symptom attacks and even more rarely I have full panic attacks.

In fact that’s why I’m writing this letter to you. To let you know that you have no real place in my life anymore. To let you know that I’m going to keep fighting. So if you knock me down one day, I’ll be up the next. I’m writing to let you know that you can’t win any more. To let you know that I want to live, and laugh, and love and that you can’t have me any longer. I’m letting you know that there are people praying for me even as I write this. I’m letting you know that God still has the power to heal and that ultimately He is in control, not you. So I’m kicking you out of my life.

Take this opportunity to pack up your symptoms and GET OUT. But if you don’t and if it’s a fight you want, I will fight. I will not passively let you have everything I have worked so hard to build.

Sincerely,
Crystal Clear

For more information about panic disorder and other anxiety disorders please see www.adaa.org

Turning Men into Monsters

2008-03-23T16:25:00.007-04:00

A reader of this blog wrote me chiding me for my uncompromising stance on pornography; that is that pornography of any kind on any level is evil, spiritually and psychologically dangerous, and irrevocably harmful to women. I don't just say that because I am a feminist/womenist, or because I am a Christian, but as someone who has seen the deleterious effects that pornography has on relationships. Think about shows like the popular "To Catch a Preditor". We view these shows and think that these men are crazy deviates, but what do these men have in common: all of them admit to viewing pornography. I'm not saying that every man who glances at a triple x site is going to end up face to face with Chris Hansen, but I am adamantly declaring that porn is as harmful as it is ubiquitous. Many suggest that it is perhaps more crippling and difficult to stop than drugs, alcohol, gambling, or any other addiction. If you don't believe me talk to some who has tried to stop watching it!

Incidentally, I'm not the only one starting to see a correlation between the downward spiral of our relationships and the rapid growth of the multi-BILLION dollar porn industry. Many secular thinkers are now discovering (surprise) that watching people exploit their sexuality for cash, might actually be (gulp) bad! Here's what a secular writer is saying about porn. Enjoy the article, it's long but worth the read. Also for those of you who think I'm going to back down or that you are going to tell me what to write on my own blog, you are profoundly mistaken! Yeah, I SAID IT!.
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Men and porn

Pornography is ubiquitous, more profitable, more acceptable than ever. We argue about the effects on women participants but scant attention is given to the millions of mainly male users. What does porn do to men? Edward Marriott investigates

There's an episode of Friends - The One With The Free Porn - in which Chandler and Joey discover they have tuned into a porn channel. And it's free. They leave the TV on, afraid switching off will mean no more pornography. By the end of the episode, Chandler is seeing the world through porn-tinted spectacles. "I was just at the bank," he complains, "and the teller didn't ask me to go do it with her in the vault." Joey, bewildered, reports a similar reaction from the pizza-delivery girl. "You know what," decides Chandler, "we have to turn off the porn."

As a society, however, we are further from turning off the porn than we have ever been. Pornography is everywhere - it masquerades as "gentlemen's entertainment" in the form of clubs such as Spearmint Rhino, it infiltrates advertising and it will soon be available in our back pockets, thanks to a deal by adult entertainment giant Private Media Group to beam porn to UK mobile phones.

In its hardcore form, pornography is now accessed in the UK by an estimated 33% of all internet users. Since the British Board of Film Classification relaxed its guidelines in 2000, hardcore video pornography now makes up between 13% and 17% of censors' viewing, compared with just 1% three years ago, a rate of growth that is being cited as a causal factor in the recent bankruptcy of Penthouse, at one time the very apotheosis of porno chic but in recent years little more risqué than Loaded. In the US, with the pornography industry bringing in up to $15bn (£8.9bn) annually, people spend more on porn every year than they do on movie tickets and all the performing arts combined. Each year, in Los Angeles alone, more than 10,000 hardcore pornographic films are made, against an annual Hollywood average of just 400 movies.

Pornography is not only bigger business than ever before, it is also more acceptable, more fashionable, more of a statement of cool. From pieces "in praise of porn" in the normally sober Prospect magazine, to such programmes as Pornography: The Musical on Channel 4 last month, to Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton's book, published last year, about making a porn film, to the news that Val Kilmer is to play the part of pornography actor John Holmes in a new mainstream movie, there is a widespread sense that anyone who suggests pornography might have any kind of adverse effect is laughably out of touch. Coren and Skelton, former Erotic Review film critics, focus on their flip comic narrative, scarcely troubling themselves with any deeper issues. "In all our years of watching porn," they write, in a rare moment of analysis that doesn't get developed any further, "we have never properly resolved what we think about how, why and whether it is degrading to women. We suspect that it might be. We suspect that pornography might be degrading to everybody."

With pornography, it seems as if the sheer scale of the phenomenon has, in time-honoured capitalist fashion, conferred its own respectability; as a result, serious analysis is hard to come by. Only occasionally, amid porn-disguised-as-documentary that distinguishes much of Channel 5's late-night output, is there broadcasting that gives any kind of insight. Channel 4's documentary Hardcore, shown two years ago, told the story of Felicity, a single mother from Essex who travelled to Los Angeles hoping to make a career in pornography. Arriving excited, and clear about what she would not do - anal sex, double-vaginal penetration - she ended up being coerced into playing a submissive role and agreeing to anal sex. Felicity - the vicissitudes of whose own troubled relationship with her father were mirrored by the cruelty of the men with whom she ended up working - eventually escaped back to the UK.

Hardcore offered a rare, unadorned look at the inside of the industry, as did Pornography: The Musical, albeit in a more surreal form, with actors interrupting sex to break into song. Yet what about the millions who consume pornography, the men - for they are, despite pornographers' claims about growing numbers of female fans, mostly men - who habitually use it? How are they affected? Is pornography, as most these days claim, a harmless masturbatory diversion? That episode of Friends, albeit with tongue in cheek, suggested a heavy diet of porn might encourage men inappropriately to expect sex. Is that true? And what about more profound effects? How does it affect relationships? Is it addictive? Does it encourage rape, paedophilia, sexual murder? Surely tough questions need to be asked.

First, though, some definitions. According to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, the word "pornography" dates to 1864, when it described "the life, manners, etc of prostitutes or their patrons". More recently, it has come to signify material, in the words of Chambers, "intended to arouse sexual excitement". Its most common themes, however, are power and submission. By contrast, "erotica", which is pretty hard to find now, carries additional connotations of "amorousness" and is far less concerned with control and domination. No, it is pornography plain and simple, from teen magazines such as Front to venerable "wrist mags" such as Playboy, to the almost daily bombardment of teaser pornographic emails, that confronts all of us on a ceaseless basis.

The received wisdom, pushed hard by such mass-market magazines as Loaded and FHM, is that men derive a pretty uncomplicated enjoyment from pornography. That, certainly, is the argument put forward by such proponents as David Baddiel, AA Gill, who has directed his own pornographic film, and the musician Moby, who once said in an interview, "I like pornography - who doesn't? I don't really trust men who claim to not be interested in porn. We're biologically programmed to respond to the sight of people having sex." Danny Plunkett, then features editor of Loaded, takes an equally relaxed view: "We know that a lot of people enjoy it and take it with a pinch of salt. We certainly don't view it as dangerous."

But is it as simple as this? One of my best friends is a man for whom pornography has apparently never held even the slimmest interest. Moby may choose to distrust him, but his sex life otherwise has always seemed to me perfectly robust. He is, however, so much in the minority as to seem almost an oddity.

For most men, at some point in their lives, pornography has held a strong appeal and, before any examination of its effects, this fact has to be addressed. Like many men, I first saw pornography during puberty. At boarding school, dog-eared copies of Mayfair and Knave were stowed behind toilet cisterns; this borrow-and-return library system was considered absolutely normal, seldom commented upon and either never discovered by the masters or tacitly permitted. Long before my first sexual relationship, porn was my sex education.

No doubt (though we'd never have admitted it then) my friends and I were driven to use porn through loneliness: being away from home, we longed for love, closeness, unquestioning acceptance. The women over whom we masturbated - the surrogate mothers, if you like - seemed to be offering this but, of course, they were never going to provide it. The untruths it taught me on top of this disappointment - that women are always available, that sex is about what a man can do to a woman - I am only now, more than two decades on, finally succeeding in unlearning.

From men everywhere come similar stories. Nick Samuels, 46, an electrical contractor from Epping - now, with a wife and four children, the very image of respectable fatherhood - says he first discovered the power of pornographic images at the age of 16, when he found a copy of Mayfair in his father's garage. "I can even remember the picture. There was a woman walking topless past a building site and the builders were ogling her from the scaffolding. It was pretty soft stuff, but it heightened my senses and kicked off my interest in pornography. Before long, I was reading Whitehouse and then, through a friend at my squash club, I was introduced to hardcore videos."

Si Jones, a 39-year-old north London vicar who regularly counsels men trying to "come off" pornography, admits that, for him, too, it was his introduction to sex. "As a teenager, I watched porn films with my friends at the weekend. It was just what you did. It was cool, naughty and everyone was doing it." Set against today's habit of solitary internet masturbation, Jones's collegiate introduction to porn seems peculiarly sociable. Today, boys no longer clandestinely circulate magazines after school; nor do they need to rummage through their fathers' cupboards in search of titillating material. Access to internet pornography has never been easier, its users never younger, and the heaviest demand, according to research published in the New York Times, is for " 'deviant' material including paedophilia, bondage, sadomasochism and sex acts with various animals".

At its most basic level, pornography answers natural human curiosity. Adolescent boys want to know what sex is about, and porn certainly demonstrates the mechanics. David Morgan, consultant clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Portman Clinic in London, which specialises in problems relating to sexuality and violence, describes this phase as "transitional, like a rehearsal for the real thing. The problem with pornography begins when, instead of being a temporary stop on the way to full sexual relations, it becomes a full-time place of residence." Morgan's experience of counselling men addicted to porn has convinced him that "the more time you spend in this fantasy world, the more difficult it becomes to make the transition to reality. Just like drugs, pornography provides a quick fix, a masturbatory universe people can get stuck in. This can result in their not being able to involve anyone else."

For most men, the way pornography objectifies sex strikes a visceral emotional chord. Psychotherapists Michael Thompson and Dan Kindlon, in their book Raising Cain: Protecting The Emotional Life Of Boys, suggest that objectification, for boys, starts early. "By adolescence, a boy wakes up most mornings with an erection. This can happen whether he is in a good or bad mood, whether it is a school day or a weekend ... Boys enjoy their own physical gadgetry. But the feeling isn't always, 'Look what I can do!' The feeling is often, 'Look what it can do!' - again, a reflection of the way a boy views his instrument of sexuality as just that: an object. What people might not realise when they justly criticise men for objectifying sex - viewing sex as something you do, rather than part of a relationship - is that the first experience of objectification of sexuality in a boy's life comes from his experience of his own body, having this penis that makes its own demands."

But the roots go back further still. Research has shown that boy babies are treated more harshly than their female counterparts and, as they grow up, boys are taught that success is achieved through competition. In order to deal with this harsh masculine world, boys can learn not to trust their own feelings and not to express their emotions. They become suspicious of other men, with whom they're in competition, after all, and as a result they often feel lonely and isolated.

Yet men, as much as women, hunger for intimacy. For many males, locked into a life in which self-esteem has grown intrinsically entwined with performance, sex assumes an almost unsustainable freight of demands and needs. Not only does the act itself become almost the only means through which many men can feel intimate and close, but it is also the way in which they find validation. And sex itself, of course, cannot possibly satisfy such demands.

It is into this troubled scenario that porn finds such easy access. For in pornography, unlike in real life, there is no criticism, real or imagined, of male performance. Women are always, in the words of the average internet site, "hot and ready", eager to please. In real life, by contrast, men find women are anything but: they have higher job status, they demand that they be sexually satisfied, and they are increasingly opting to combine career and motherhood.

Men, say psychologists, also feel threatened by the "emotional power" they perceive women wielding over them. Unable to feel alive except when in relationships with women, they are at the same time painfully aware that their only salvation from isolation comes in being sexually acceptable to women. This sense of neediness can provoke intense anger that, all too often, finds expression in porn. Unlike real life, the pornographic world is a place in which men find their authority unchallenged and in which women are their willing, even grateful servants. "The illusion is created," as one male writer on pornography puts it, "that women are really in their rightful place and that there is, after all, no real and serious challenge to male authority." Seen in this light, the patently ridiculous pornography scenario of the pretty female flat-hunter (or hitch-hiker, driver with broken-down car, or any number of similar such vulnerable roles) who is happy to let herself be gang-banged by a group of overweight, hairy-shouldered couch potatoes makes perfect psychological sense.

The porn industry, of course, dismisses such talk, yet occasionally comes a glimmer of authenticity. Bill Margold, one of the industry's longest-serving film performers, was interviewed in 1991 by psychoanalyst Robert Stoller for his book Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century. Margold made no attempt to gloss over the realities. "My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don't care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn't have when they were growing up. So we come on a woman's face or brutalise her sexually: we're getting even for lost dreams."

As well as "eroticising male supremacy", in the words of anti-porn campaigner John Stoltenberg, pornography also attempts to assuage other male fears, in particular that of erection failure. According to psychoanalytical thinking, pornography answers men's fetishistic need for visual proof of phallic potency. Lynne Segal, professor of psychology and gender studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, writes: "Men's specific fears of impotence, feeding off infantile castration anxiety, generate hostility towards women. Through pornography, real women can be avoided, male anxiety soothed and delusions of phallic prowess indulged, by intimations of the rock-hard, larger-than-life male organ."

Pornography, in other words, is a lie. It peddles falsehoods about men, women and human relationships. In the name of titillation, it seduces vulnerable, lonely men - and a small number of women - with the promise of intimacy, and delivers only a transitory masturbatory fix. Increasingly, though, men are starting to be open about the effect pornography has had upon them. David McLeod, a marketing executive, explains the cycle: "I'm drawn to porn when I'm lonely, particularly when I'm single and sexually frustrated. But I can easily get disgusted with myself. After watching a video two or three times, I'll throw it away and vow never to watch another again. But my resolve never lasts very long." He has, he says, "seen pretty much everything. I've even seen pictures of men being buggered by a pig. But once you start going down that slope, you get very quickly jaded."

Like many men, McLeod is torn. Quick to claim that porn has "no harmful effects", he is also happy to acknowledge the contradictory fact that it is "deadening". Andy Philips, a Leeds art dealer and, at 38, a father for the first time, says there have been times when he has been "a very heavy user". His initial reaction, like that of many of the men to whom I spoke, is studiedly jokey: "I love porn." Yet, as he grows more contemplative, he admits: "I've always used it secretly, never as part of a relationship. It's always been like the other woman on the side. It's something to do with being naughty, I guess."

Again and again, despite now being married, he is drawn back. "You can easily get too much of it. It's deadening, nullifying, gratuitous, unsatisfying. At one point I was single for three years and I used a lot of porn then. After a while, it made me feel worse. I'd feel disgusted with myself and have a huge purge."

Extended exposure to pornography can have a whole raft of effects. By the time Nick Samuels had reached his mid-20s, it was altering his view of what he wanted from a sexual relationship. "I used to watch porn with one of my girlfriends, and I started to want to try things I'd seen in the films: anal sex, or threesomes." Sometimes, he says, this was OK - "She was an easy-going person." At other times, "it shocked her". Married for 15 years, he admits he has carried the same sexual expectations into the marital bedroom. "There's been real friction over this: my wife simply isn't that kind of person. And it's only now, after all these years, that I'm beginning to move on from it. Porn is like alcoholism: it clings to you like a leech."

Psychoanalyst Estela Welldon, author of the classic text Mother, Madonna, Whore, has treated couples for whom such scenarios spiralled out of control. "A lot of men involve their partners in the use of porn. Typically, they will say, 'Don't you want a better sex life?' I have seen cases in which first the woman has been subjected to porn and then they have used their own children for pornographic purposes." When couples use porn together - a growing trend, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by - there is, says Welldon, "an illusory sense that they are getting closer together. Then they film themselves having sex and feel outside themselves. This dehumanising aspect is an important part of pornography. It dehumanises the other person, the relationship, and any intimacy."

Even when in a loving sexual relationship, men who have used porn say that, all too often, they see their partner through a kind of "pornographic filter". This effect is summed up eloquently by US sociologist Harry Brod, in Segal's essay Sweet Sorrows, Painful Pleasures: "There have been too many times when I have guiltily resorted to impersonal fantasy because the genuine love I felt for a woman wasn't enough to convert feelings into performance. And in those sorry, secret moments, I have resented deeply my lifelong indoctrination into the aesthetic of the centrefold."

Running like a watermark through all pornography use, according to Morgan at the Portman Clinic, is the desire for control. This need, he says, has its roots in early childhood. "A typical example might be a boy with fairly absent parents, either in emotional terms or in actual fact." The boy, wishing his parents were more present - more within his control, as it were - can grow up wishing "to find something over which he can have control. Pornography fills that space."

But the user of pornography is also psychologically on the run, Welldon adds. "People who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that's why pornography is so repetitive - you have to go back again and again."

Lost in a world of pornographic fantasy, men can become less inclined, as well as increasingly less able, to form lasting relationships. In part, this is due to the underlying message of pornography. Ray Wyre, a specialist in sexual crime, says pornography "encourages transience, experimentation and moving between partners". Morgan goes further: "Pornography does damage," he says, "because it encourages people to make their home in shallow relationships."

Jan Woolf believes it might also prevent a relationship getting started. A former special needs teacher, she lasted only six months in the job of BBFC censor in 2001. During this time, she watched hundreds of hours of hardcore videos. At the time, she was single. "If I'd been in the early stages of a relationship, it would have been very difficult, because I'd have been watching what I might have been expected to be doing, except it would never have been like that." She left the job because the porn was starting to make her feel "depressed - I wanted my lively mind back".

The more powerful the sense of pre-existing internal distress, the more compelling becomes the pull towards pornography. For John-Paul Day, a 50-year-old Edinburgh architect in his first "non-addictive" sexual relationship, the experience of being a small boy with a dying mother drove him to seek solace in masturbation. He says he has been "addicted" to pornography his entire adult life. "The thing about it is that, unlike real life, it is incredibly safe," Day says. "I'm frightened of real sex, which is unscripted and unpredictable. And so I engage in pornography, which is totally under my control. But, of course, it also brings intense disappointment, precisely because it is not what I'm really searching for. It's rather like a hungry person standing outside the window of a restaurant, thinking that they're going to get fed."

Day, who has attended meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous for 12 years, says, "Pornography is central to my own sex addiction in as much as sex addiction has to do with the use of fantasy as a way of escaping from reality. Even in my fantasies about 'real' people, I am really transforming them into pieces of walking pornography. It is not the reality of who they are that I focus on, but the fantasy I project on to them."

Like drugs and drink, pornography - as Day has realised - is an addictive substance. Porn actor Kelly Cooke, one of the stars of Pornography: The Musical, says this applies on either side of the camera: "It got to the point where I considered having sex the way most people consider getting a hamburger. But when you try to give it up - that's when you realise how addictive it is, both for consumers and performers. It's a class A drug, and it's hell coming off it."

The cycle of addiction leads one way: towards ever harder material. Morgan believes "all pornography ends up with S&M". The now-infamous Carnegie Mellon study of porn on the internet found that images of hardcore sex were in far less demand than more extreme material. Images of women engaging in acts of bestiality were hugely popular, the most frequently downloaded being of a brunette with - in the pornographer's trusty lexicon - "a huge horse cock in her tight pussy".

The mechanics of the pornographic search - craving, discovery of the "right" image, masturbation, relief - makes it, says Morgan, work like "a sort of drug, an antidepressant". The myth about porn, as a witness told the 1983 Minneapolis city council public hearings on it, is that "it frees the libido and gives men an outlet for sexual expression. This is truly a myth. I have found pornography not only does not liberate men, but on the contrary is a source of bondage. Men masturbate to pornography only to become addicted to the fantasy. There is no liberation for men in pornography. [It] becomes a source of addiction, much like alcohol. There is no temporary relief. It is mood-altering. And reinforcing, ie, 'you want more' because 'you got relief'. It is this reinforcing characteristic that leads men to want the experience they have in pornographic fantasy to happen in real life."

In its most severe form, this can lead to sexual crime, though the links between the two remain controversial and much argued-over. Wyre, from his work with sex offenders, says, "It is impossible not to believe pornography plays a part in sexual violence. As we constantly confront sex offenders about their behaviour, they display a wide range of distorted views that they then use to excuse their behaviour, justify their actions, blame the victim and minimise the effect of their offending. They seek to make their own behaviour seem normal, and interpret the behaviour of the victim as consent, rather than a survival strategy. Pornography legitimises these views."

One of the most extreme examples of this is Ted Bundy, the US serial sexual murderer executed for his crimes in January 1989. The night before his death, he explained his addiction to pornography in a radio interview: "It happened in stages, gradually ... My experience with ... pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality is that, once you become addicted to it, and I look at this as a kind of addiction like other kinds of addiction, I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder, harder, something which gives you a greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far ... It reaches that jumping-off point where you begin to wonder if, maybe, actually doing it will give you that which is beyond just reading about it or looking at it."

Bundy, as damaged as he was, stopped short of blaming pornography for his actions, though it was, he believed, an intrinsic part of the picture. "I tell you that I am not blaming pornography ... I take full responsibility for whatever I've done and all the things I've done ... I don't want to infer that I was some helpless kind of victim. And yet we're talking about an influence that is the influence of violent types of media and violent pornography, which was an indispensable link in the chain ... of events that led to behaviours, to the assaults, to the murders." In the understated words of Wyre, "The very least pornography does is make sexism sexy."

The average man, of course, whatever his consumption of pornography, is no Bundy. Yet for those who have become addicted, the road to a pornography-free life can be long and arduous. Si Jones advises accountability: "Make your computer accountable, let other people check what you've been looking at."

And the alternative to pornography, says Morgan, is not always easy. "Relationships are difficult. Intimacy, having a good relationship, loving your children, involves work. Pornography is fantasy in the place of reality. But it is just that: fantasy. Pornography is not real, and the only thing human beings get nourishment from is reality: real relationships. And, anyway, what do you want to say when you get to the end of your life? That you wish you'd spent more time wanking on the internet? I hardly think so."

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*Feminist writer Naomi Wolf has written profound pieces on this topic. Check out some of her stuff.

Hypocrisy is Bliss

2008-03-21T16:31:00.002-04:00

The other day an associate of mine called me to ask a deep spiritual question (sarcasm). He asked if it were appropriate for him to eat chicken and fish during his Good Friday observance. My answer was that different denominations have different ways of honoring the Easter weekend, but that Biblically there was nothing wrong with it. After all there is nothing in scripture that mandates us to fast. Fasting should be voluntary as it helps us to build our relationship with Christ. I also suggested to him that if he felt convicted about the issue that he should simply abstain from eating it. One should never go against his convictions.

The most interesting thing about this situation is that this associate of mine is an avid porn watcher. I mean he has literallly gigabytes of his hard drive dedicated to the exploitation of God’s most precious creation for his sexual gratification. He has no problem heading out to the strip club or engaging in premarital sex, yet his concern is about chicken. Talk about screwed up priorities. I won’t take this time to go into a diatribe about why pornography is morally offensive, damaging to women, spiritually bankrupting, and unequivocally perverse, no I’ll save that for a later blog. I’m writing this to merely point out the day to day hypocrisy in which so-called Christians live. Sometimes I find my own religion overwhelmingly frustrating.

I believe a person should get his insides taken care of first and then work on the outward appearances. If someone is more concerned about his diet that his spiritual integrity then my humble opinion is just eat the chicken! After all such a person has bigger fish to fry! That's it for now. I'll revisit this topic in future posts.

New Growth

2008-03-10T21:57:00.007-04:00

Hmmm so some people believe that natural hair doesn't grow. To those people I say this....

This was my hair blown out back in September 07

This is my hair blown out now (March 08)

Black Hair ROCKS!

It's been almost a year since I cut off my perm and I'm still nap-tacular and loving it people! Don't let anyone ever tell you that black hair doesn't grow! Oh, and my hair has never been healthier! That's all for today, I'll have something of more substance for you all later.

And So The Relationship Ride Begins

2008-02-25T20:42:00.008-05:00

My blog writing has become a bit sporadic lately. Life happens and things have become pretty busy. For the next few weeks I will be opening up about more personal things than the usually social, political, life criticism that pretty much dominates this blog. Which brings me to today’s topic. Somehow, without my knowing it, or putting any effort into it, or wishing it, or hoping it, I, the self-proclaimed love-hater, stumbled into the convoluted land of the doomed modern day relationship. I don’t say that without enthusiasm, though I am still trying to figure out how it happened.

Right now I’m a neurotic mess. I suffer from panic disorder, which has essentially been a cocktail of mood swings, anxiety, insomnia, depression, agoraphobia, and of course unpredictable panic attacks. The worse part about the disorder is that not many people understand it. They think that I can just “calm down” or “get myself together”, however it doesn’t really work that way. I also am moving to Ohio in approximately six months (provided I have this disorder under control by then). Suffice it to say I was really not in the market for a relationship, but life, as usual, had other plans.

It began with a brutal argument between me and a friend of mine, that concluded with my ignoring his calls, blocking him from my myspace, facebook, hotmail, yahoo, and AIM, and pretty much concluding the our friendship was over. The issue resolved itself when he sent flowers to my house and a heart felt note (I’m a sucker, I’ll admit it). The next week I called him late at night crying my eyes out because of an encounter with the disorder. He showed up two hours later at my door, having caught the bus in the cold all the way from the other side of Baltimore. Then we stayed up all night talking about my issues and all the stuff I was going through. By the end of the night I was joking and laughing and beginning to see a little ray of sunshine. He left my house and went straight to work without even a wink of sleep. Having been friends for almost two years, this guy has seen me in my ups and downs. I have cursed him out, threatened to assault him, hung up on him, broken into his email accounts, drove him crazy with stories of some guy I was crushing on, forced him to go clothes shopping, ask him to buy me feminine products, complained to him about my menstrual cycle, stolen his social security number, and even put a bald spot in the back of his head. Through crazy fights, distances, fun times, and sad times he’s been there always showering me with unconditional positive regard. We drive each other crazy, we argue a lot and sometimes it seems we have absolutely nothing in common accept mutual respect for each other; but that has been enough to sustain us all this time.

We are an odd couple. He a stereotypical geek without any fashion sense whatsoever. Me a wild passionate person with a penchant for shopping and a knack for style. We will probably always have fundamental differences. Our friends don’t even understand why we are friends, but somehow we have a connection. Life happens. I’m still a love hater. I’m not sure this thing will work out, but is anything ever 100% certain? I just hope that we will have something meaningful based on mutual respect, honesty and trust. Should this relationship terminate, I’m praying to God that I can always call him friend, because he’s always been just that—a phenomenal friend...

And so the relationship ride begins once more. Life's hauntingly ironic.

Happy Very Hollow-Day

2008-02-10T14:41:00.000-05:00

Oh it’s that time of year again. The time of candies, costumes, cavities, and nightmarish fun. Yes, Halloween is upon us, my friends! It comes every February 14th just like clockwork. What?.....What do you mean it’s not Halloween? Isn’t it the time of year where people dress up and pretend they are things they are not? Isn’t it the time of tricks and lies, and going from door to door begging for sexual favors? Okay, I must have my holidays crossed again. These holidays seem so similar to me. They are both phony, morbid, diabetes-inducing holidays of absolutely no meaning. But at least Halloween is a bit more all-inclusive. So let’s all go out donned in our masks of superficiality and eat candy until all of our teeth come out and then go worship the dead or something. That’s more exciting than conversation hearts and watching grocery store-bought flowers rot in a jar any way. Hey with all its obligatory balloons, flowers, teddy bears, and hearts Feb 14 is certainly more scary than any Halloween prank I could fall victim to. So séance at my place anyone? Maybe we can conjure up real love and resurrect meaningful relationships... No, I don’t really believe that either.

R.I.P.
"Love"
Born: a long time ago
Murdered: Slowly over time

Happy Hollow-een everyone : )

Extra Regular Dude

2008-01-24T02:25:00.000-05:00

The only thing extraordinary about him is how regular he is! Mediocrity that’s just extraordinary in its” unexceptional-ness”

Extra Regular Dude: Hi. Nice to meet you

Applicant: Good to meet you too

Extra Regular Dude: So let’s get started. Tell me a little about yourself.

Applicant: Well I graduated from Harvard at the top 10% of my class with a degree in biology. I’m currently working on a master’s degree. During my free time I volunteer as a mentor to help underprivileged children. I go to church, believe in biblical principals, family, and hard work. I’m also a fun loving, social person who loves to have a good time.

Extra Regular Dude: Sounds good. Sounds good. So tell me, why are you applying for this position?

Applicant: As I’ve said I’m intelligent, strong, and hardworking. I figured you could use someone like me in your company. Hesitates a little. I think my curriculum vitae pretty much speaks for itself.

Extra Regular Dude: (Glances down at the resume. Clears throat.) I see. I see. (Pauses) You know I must be honest with you. I’m very impressed with your resume. The governor writing a letter on your behalf, references from the NIH, Rhodes scholar. It’s superb. But I’m afraid you’re not what we’re looking for at Me, Myself, and I Inc.

Applicant: Oh. What do you mean? I know I’m a very competitive applicant and that I am more that qualified for the position.

Extra Regular Dude: Let me tell you a little about Me, Myself, and I. We only want the best women--the cream of the crop.

Applicant: (interrupts) Yes sir, but if I may be blunt you barely have an associates degree and your achievements pale in comparison to mine!

Extra Regular Dude: (gets a bit impatient) Look I am a man and you know how hard it is to find a good man. I’ve not been arrested. I’m relatively well spoken, don’t have too many addictions, and I only play video games a mere four hours a day. I also go to church on holidays and sometimes give a buck or two to the homeless guy who stands outside the subway. That makes me an exceptional man in this day and age! I’ve not killed anyone, raped any one, and I haven’t been that promiscuous. I’m pretty much the cream of the crop nowadays; I’m the best single guy on the market. So as you can imagine I only want the best of the best woman by my side. And perhaps once I find this super woman, after I’ve used her, abused her, and played tedious mind games with her I may even put a ring on her finger and marry her. (Chuckles)

Applicant: But I am a driven and ambitious woman. Surely you can’t be the best offer on the table.

Extra Regular Dude: (yarns without covering his mouth and stretches). Yup. Sure am.

Applicant: But you’re not even that nice looking. And it says here that you still live at home with your parents!

Extra Regular Dude: Look it’s either me or a married guy or eternal singleness. So that means that for an average guy like me my value has tripled. I am now a commodity! And by the way don’t forget that I am the one here calling the shots. I’m the one who invited you on this date! And to think I was even going to pay for the tip on this meal!

Applicant: (Stunned) But-but if I am not what you want what are you looking for?

Extra Regular Dude: Someone who looks a little more like Beyonce, who cooks like a 5 star chef, gives porn star sex, and who doesn’t talk back! I need someone educated, and savvy, successful and of course she needs to be able to pop out kids when I’m ready to have them and sacrifice her whole life to take care of them and me of course. You just don’t seem to fit the bill.

Applicant: (gets out of her seat abruptly) You’re right! I’m certainly not what you’re looking for!!!! (Storms out of the restaurant and back into the land of perpetual singleness.)

Extra Regular Dude: (Shrugs his shoulders, snaps his fingers and ask the waiter to bring in the next victim.)

The above story is my interpretation of the modern-day relationship. In fact, it mirrors a relationship I had back in college. To put it mildly, this guy was trying to find wifey. He wanted a doormat chick who would have education, but would sacrifice her opportunities to become a stay-at-home mom who would have the six children that he wanted. He of course would run the household and make all of the decisions. When I asked him what the wife would get out of this arrangement he replied ever so cavalierly, “me of course, and a good family.” My follow up question was what if she didn’t want to have children, or disagreed on how many they should have. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “then that means she’s not the one for me.”

We were a match made in hell--I the evolving feminist/womanist type, he the chauvinistic-keep-em-barefoot-and-pregnant type. The thing exploded into a battle of the wills with even the most benign conversations boiling over into raging arguments. Needless to say he had to go! The Guinness Book of World Records needs to put that down as the shortest dating relationship in history.

People usually point fingers at the woman when she ends up with cocky, sexists, selfish, immature, jerkazoids over and over again, but I am a bit more sympathetic. I understand that most men fit one or all of the above categories and so there’s really not much else to choose from. That frustrating lack of choice inspired the above narrative. Everything about the modern courtship ritual feels like a job interview, from the initial questions to the psychological games to the knit-picking scrutiny. The romance and companionship that most women seek in relationships seems like a Hollywood invention—a beautiful lie, but nonetheless still a lie.

More troubling to me is the imbalance of power in the courtship phase. From what I’ve seen it goes something like the above scenario with sub-par man asking out brilliant goddess type, then grilling her to see if she is worth his time and respect. Don’t believe me? Well in her book "Why Men Love Bitches?” Sherry Argov argues that men in general don’t see women as equals. Instead woman have to constantly prove through their every action that they are on the same level as the man. Men instinctively pick women apart upon meeting them and then establish a woman hierarchy with the best picks on top and the rest relegated to the “friend” or “friends with benefits” zone. Anything a woman says, does, or wears, can land her in one of those undesirable categories. Men know that they hold the power and therefore can be as picky as they please and also as noncommittal as they want without consequence. (There is no social stigma for a man to live his whole life as a bachelor.) Because he holds the strings he can dismiss a woman over the most superficial nonsense, (e.g. he doesn't like her nail polish color). Suppose the relationship doesn’t work. He merely shrugs apathetically and finds his next victim. When it comes to relationships men simply have little to lose. Women, on the other hand, have everything to lose.

Women make the mistake of thinking that men are complicated creatures. Nothing could be further from the truth. They pretty much think the same way universally, with some variation in between. I’ve dated black, white, and Hispanic and each man pretty much operated on the same system. Does that mean the all men are evil? Not necessarily. That just means that women shouldn’t wreck their brains trying to “figure” them out. I’ve stated before that there are some games I do not play. Just as I wouldn’t place a large amount of money on a gamble I knew I didn’t have a chance at, I won’t put a whole lot of stock into the relationship market simply because I think that it’s a losing battle for me and most women. Just like our Applicant from my scenario who had perpetual singleness at stake after rejecting the “Extra Regular Dude” so it is with me and a lot of other women.

How can I write so candidly about the depressing topic of eternal singleness? Pure resignation! It’s perhaps an unavoidable fate and I (and many women) need to come to grips with the facts. We live in a fallen world and relationships aren’t what God intended them to be. We have sullied His plan of marital bliss and egalitarian relationships.

On a personal level, at 23 I am wired differently than when I was a teenager. You start to want more meaningful substantial relationships with the male species, simply because of how God designed us. A while ago I had to make the decision of dating Extra Regular Dude or having a self. I chose me. That’s great and feministic and wonderful, but the downside to having high standards and demanding respect is perpetual singleness. Today’s man just doesn’t have enough integrity, self-control, and spirituality to fit the bill and I will not settle for a man who doesn’t have a double dose of those qualities.

And so it is that women must face this great imbalance of relationship power, job interview-like dates, and monotonous scrutiny…If only our Extra Regular Dude had to face the same haunting fate. If only he had to contend with the reality of everlasting singleness...I have a feeling he would have treated women a whole lot more charitably.

*I will admit that one of the disadvantages of learning too much too soon about men and relationships is that it leaves you irreparably jaded. On the other hand knowledge is power.

Blacks, Koreans, Hair, and Cash

2008-01-15T05:08:00.000-05:00

If you have 50 minutes to kill please watch this documentary on the Korean takeover of the black hair product industry and encourage others to do the same. This represents yet another front where African American's are being disenfranchised. The black dollar loses even more of it's value. Madness!

Food for thought...

For more information about the black owned beauty supply association go to http://www.bobsaone.org/home.php

Thoughts on Illegal Immigration

2008-01-06T00:45:00.001-05:00

The process of getting into graduate school is a lengthy and onerous one. An ideal candidate has the perfect combination of stratospheric test scores, an exceptional G.P.A, phenomenal research abilities, and outstanding letters of recommendation. The process is far from ideal because universities turn down otherwise great applicants on the basis of test scores or failing to meet some arbitrary criteria. So what if someone applies and isn’t accepted into a graduate program? Or even better, what if a person concludes that because the application process is so demanding they are going to forgo it entirely? What should such a person do? I say pack their bags, head down to the university and attend the school anyway, even if the school never granted him admittance, even if he never applied. Everyone has a right to education, right? To not grant someone education appears discriminatory and we certainly can’t have that! And after the person enters the classroom without having applied or without admittance and they work really hard we should just automatically forgive their transgression and award them their degree. Sounds logical, right?

The above argument is absurd, but that’s exactly the line of thinking that some people employ to defend illegal immigration. The process of legally immigrating to the US is unfair, in that the United States gives preferential citizenship to persons of certain groups. The process is also lengthy and full of red-tape. Yes I have major criticisms of the process, just as I have valid criticisms of the graduate school application procedures, BUT I do understand that in a civilized society we have laws with the explicit expectation that those laws need to be obeyed; so when people break those laws there have to be consequences in order to maintain order. On the same token, I understand that many people who come to the US illegally do so because of oppressive situations and economic ruin in their own countries. Should not all people have access to freedom? Yes, but legally of course. Should not I have access to higher education that would solidify my future and provide greater job security? Yes, but only after I’ve followed the rules, gone through the application process and the university formally accepts me. Just as I should be kicked out and forced to drive back to Baltimore if I went down to Duke University and started taking classes as if I were student there, a person who comes here illegally and masquerades as a citizen should have to face consequences as well. In both examples a person is expecting to be treated like a student/citizen without having become one.

So let’s say that I succeed in driving down to Duke, and entering classes, and completing assignments, and lets say I do well in those classes (this is assuming I’m not thrown out of course) should the university award me the PhD even though I entered the university against their regulations? Most people would say no. But when some folk consider illegal immigration, they want to grant amnesty to those who have committed a wrong. How can we justifiably grant amnesty to over 11 MILLION people who live here and work here illegally? Sure illegal aliens want freedom (right thing), but they are going about it the wrong way. In my book doing the wrong thing for the right reason, is still wrong.

No, I’m not one of those hardnosed republicans. I can only describe my political views of late as “moderately liberal”, however my views on illegal immigration probably mesh better with those of the right wing than those of the left. Yet, while I adamantly disagree with Barack Obama’s stance that we pull out the welcome mat and give illegal aliens all drivers’ licenses, I don’t think that immigrations laws should be so punitive that they punish church workers and clergy who try to provide relief to illegal immigrants in need. Thus I realize that some bills like the harsh H.R. 4437 seem downright inhumane, while bills like Senate’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act seem to encourage the thing it’s trying to deal with (and hopefully eliminate): illegal immigration. To use a little hyperbole, on the one hand the Senates comprehensive immigration plan is so soft it practically screams "come into this country illegally and we will reward your efforts. Thanks for breaking in!" On the other hand the HR4437 says come into this country illegally and we’ll hunt you down and shoot you and anyone associate with you, scumbag!" I think we need a happy medium between the two extremes.

Let’s first consider the preventive approach to the problem. First we want to deter people from coming into the country illegally. The best way to do that is to have tougher boarder patrol. Ports with the highest number of illegal boarder crossings need better security. In an age where terrorism continues to threaten this country, we desperately need to patrol our entry points if only to discourage those who wish to do harm to our people. In a post-911 society why is it so easy to come into the United States in the first place? This presents a significant security issue. Secondly, we need to make it easier for those who enter into this country in order to seek refuge to obtain a legal status. This means that we need to revamp our current (very discriminatory) immigration policy. After all, if we look back into this country’s history wasn’t America established by immigrants who sought basic liberties and religious freedoms? Thirdly, we need to set up consequences for those who come here illegally (but not until we address points one and two) and yes one of those consequences might include deportation, especially if the person has a criminal background or comes here and involves himself in criminal activity. We have more than enough American citizens engaged in crime, we really don’t need any additional help on that front.

So what should we do to deal with the 11 million people we already have here illegally? Should we grant automatic citizenship to those who have been here for over a certain period of time and send the rest packing? These are the controversial questions that the next president must address. I think we should deal with these issues on a case by case basis, but unfortunately it’s hard to do that with millions of people. Perhaps those who have come here, kept all of our laws, established families, and contributed positively to society should have the opportunity to obtain legal citizenship AFTER they have gone through a vigorous process, which would include gaining proficiency in the English language. Unfortunately, if we implement my ideas, some people will inevitably face deportation, and at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing.

Lesser Tier Candidates Make Good Points

2008-01-04T04:04:00.000-05:00

Take a few minutes to listen to the issues. I'm currently undecided about the presidential election, though I unofficially support Barack Obama. Regardless of who I officially decide to vote for I have to say that sometimes the lesser tier candidates make some of the most profound points. I also think that Unity08, though perhaps only practical theoretically, is a refreshing idea. Well let me know what you think.

Putting a Little Electric into the Holiday

2007-12-28T20:25:00.000-05:00

This New Years will be just like the last two New Years, in that I will be single. That’s not the end of the world for me. In fact, single usually doesn’t bother me until SOMEONE ELSE points it out via a question about my single state. The familiar question that I get when I reconnect with friends I haven’t seen in a while is “So are you seeing anyone.” I have come up with all matter of sarcastic jokes to respond to this question. I’m used to single and have resigned (okay sometimes inured might be a better word) myself to it. But there is something about spending the New Year single that kinda nags me. No, I’m not going to go out and rent a date. No, I’m not going to make it a resolution to find a boyfriend because the whole relationship thing, at least in its modern form, seems masochistic to me. Perhaps it has something to do with that saying that goes however you spend your New Year will be how you spend your entire year—or something to that affect. But I think more than likely it has to do with those horrible horrible couples you see everywhere this time of year. They are in the mall holding hands. They are buying each other cutezy wootzy presents. They are cuddled up on the coach at the New Years Eve parties or they are making out in the streets to bring in the New Year.

You just can’t avoid them this time of year. On New Years, everybody’s dating, holding hands, and smooching it up. Couples don’t realize how incredibly sickening they really are. That’s why in my last couple of “relationships”(way way back a long time ago) I have tried to be as low-key as possible and as respectful to my single friends as I could be, but most couples have not learned this art--the art of chilling out on the public displays of affection and saving that business for PRIVATE. That is why this New Years, in anticipation of the dreaded nauseating couples I have elected to buy a taser! That’s right. So the next affectionate-I’m-so-in-love folk I see acting all disgustingly besotted will receive a little electrical shock (a few volts should do the trick) followed by a “Happy New Years” from me. They will always remember that on New Years of 2008 they had a positively shocking experience. Maniacal Laughter!!!!! SCREW ALL OF THE YUCKY CREATURES and their temporary romantic bliss.

***Please don’t write me. I’m only joking about the taser. The idea sounds great, but in reality those things hurt people and have even been responsible for hundreds of fatalities. I’m not a fan of tasers.
***Rather than buy a taser my plans this New Years are to spend time in an environment where there won't be many couples. Less couples=happier me.

An Argument Against Pregnancy

2007-12-22T21:00:00.000-05:00

Everyday I have something reinforce my belief that people shouldn’t have children. I’ve written about why poor people shouldn’t have children in two blogs back in July, suggesting that I believe in (at least on some minuscule level) government-mandated sterilization and government regulated pregnancies. My rationale is simply that if one has to be licensed to drive a car, to practice a certain profession, or to fly a plane how much more important is parenting than these things and we allow anyone—and I do mean anyone—to have children. You need no credentials, no abilities, and no skill to have a child. You don’t even have to take care of it after you bring it into the world if you don’t want to. Of course, I can’t reconcile my ideas about eugenics (in my case that only some small percentage of people should have children) with my Christian beliefs in the sanctity of life and the sovereignty of God so I’m always playing with these ideas in my head, almost the same way that someone would try to put together a jigsaw puzzle. Of course, I agree that such a system would undermine the democracy and equality I’m always preaching about. Of course, I understand that eugenics taken to the extreme can produce the same hate and prejudices that spawned the Holocaust. Just think, Hitler and his followers were doing more than exterminating the Jews, they were actually trying to play God by attempting to create their own race of people! Because I understand these things all too well my ideas, at least for now, are strictly hypothetical. Take that as my disclaimer, before I proceed.

The other day I watched a news story that made my stomach turn. According to the National Center for Health Statistics the fertility rate has soared to 2.1 “the first time since shortly after the baby boom ended that the nation has reached the rate of births needed for a generation to replace itself." So essentially not since the baby boom 40 years ago have we had such a dramatic shift in our fertility rates. There are several implications of the increased fertility rates, most notably that we are seeing a consequence of immigration as immigrants have statistically more children than native born Americans and that this will inevitably lead to “Overdevelopment; sprawl; environmental degradation; competition for good jobs, education, and so on.” It’s insane that in a time of economical insecurities, weapons of mass destructions, wars on terror, and mass uncertainty people have decided to procreate like rabbits. Oh and please don’t think that the increase in births simply refers to adult women, teen pregnancy, which had been declining over the last 14 years, is up 3%! And we all know what competent parents teenagers make, right? Depressing!

If people really understood biologically what could go wrong from conception to birth I’m not sure we’d be seeing such a surge in baby-making. One slight genetic mishap and baby could be born sick, deformed, or dead! The smallest most microscopic genetic happening could result in a child that’s strong and viable or frail and disfigured. Suppose a baby turns out healthy, then in all probability it will have genetic predispositions to certain diseases (e.g., diabetes, schizophrenia, high blood pressure, alcoholism.) None of us has perfection, so none of us can pass perfect health on to our offspring. So for the rest of a child’s life he must grapple with the curses and blessings his parents have passed on to him. If that sounds unsophisticated remember I’m not a biologist. My degree is in the realm of social science (that’s not to say I’m ignorant to all things biological; biology played a good part in my education as all of the sciences are interconnected at some levels) so I’m usually looking at the environmental consequences of our behaviors. Understanding environmentally what can happen to a child is more than enough to deter me from having any. Regardless, of how good or bad a parent you may be, invariably your child is going to look at you one day and ask the hard questions. Why people die? Why people commit heinous crimes? Why bombs are dropping in some obscure country? Why perversion runs amok? Just imagine how difficult it is to explain to an innocent child a tragedy like 9/11. To make matters worse regardless of how much you shelter a child sooner or later he’s going to get sick, he’s going to cry, he’s going to have his heart broken, and yes he’s going to eventually die. Life is relentless and cruel, why would any loving individual want to intentionally bring children into the world in order to share in its misery?

I remember a conversation my aunt had with my niece who was just in elementary school at the time. “If anyone touches you in a bad place or in a way that makes you feel bad you tell me, no matter what they say. Even if they threaten you!” My aunt delivered this speech delicately with the kind of love that only a mother can exemplify, but what upset me wasn’t the nature of the talk, but that the talk was necessary in the first place. Innocence dies younger and younger these days. For every practical way that we invent to safeguard our children some malevolent person comes up with a more depraved way to harm them. What harsh realities to bring children into.
*****************************************************************************
Yesterday I had a brief but telling discussion with a friend of mine to which he surmised that only the good-looking people should be allowed to breed so that the unattractive people would ultimately fade out. This isn’t the first time I’ve listened to his pontifications on eugenics. No doubt he considers himself one of the good-looking genetically superior people, which of course puts wholes in his own theory. Ultimately, who decides what’s attractive and what’s not? How would we determine such criteria, given the diversity of beauty? Is it possible to even comprehensively define it? Do we, for example, say that only a certain height, skin color, hair texture, etc is attractive and that only those with such traits should be allowed to have kids? See how subjective that becomes? Isn’t it also the case that attractive people sometimes have sick and or unattractive children and that the opposite proves true that unattractive people often produce attractive and viable offspring? Also notice the assumption that an attractive person is worth more than an unattractive person without even considering the other traits and characteristics that a person may have which makes him worthwhile. Implicit in my friend’s summation is a theory of a human hierarchy to which I cannot ethically subscribe.

On the environmental side of things, aren’t many attractive and genetically robust people criminals, murders, and child molesters? If one wishes to establish a paradigm for eugenics it certainly can’t be overly simplistic or too narrowly focused on subjective characteristics. My friend must have understood these issues, at least on some fundamental level, because he hinted that many should just elect not to have children at all. In this way we don’t have to establish paradigms, we don’t have to threaten democracy or infringe upon personal freedoms. We lose nothing and we don’t have to risk having dangerous Darwinian ideas that ultimately lead to atrocities like slavery, miscegenation laws, mass extermination, and superman-making.

I can almost see the responses to this idea. Someone somewhere reading this is thinking BUT OH NO! IF we don’t have children than we will die out!! I find this idea dubious, because even if scientists and leaders confronted people with the undeniable facts in support of my radical anti-pregnancy ideas, there will always be some know-it-all nonconformists who will fornicate like a rabbit on steroids. After all we have access to abortion, contraception, and prophylactics and teenage births are going up! In this day and age no one really has to have a child if they choose not to, but we continue to choose to have children. My guess is that we will even if we could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the effects could be detrimental! But let’s pretend hypothetically that everyone supported my ideas and that every person on earth decided against having children. The world would die out. But please tell me why that’s necessarily a bad thing especially considering the conditions that this wretched planet is in? For clarity’s sake, no I don’t support the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) goals (humans intentionally dying off in order to preserve the environment), but I can’t dismiss their methods (no procreation) without analyzing them thoroughly.

I know I’m going to get this argument too so I may as well address it here. But OH no doesn’t the Bible command us to be fruitful and multiply! Yes but it doesn’t say fornicate thy way into overpopulation and lack of resources either. You have to remember that when God gave this wise directive he was talking to a world that only had two citizens (and later when he spoke the words to Noah the earth had 8 citizens), now we have a populations of over 6 BILLION! Just as having no children would result in a decline in the human race, so would having zillions, in that our world only has but so many resources and currently we a pushing them to the limits. Ultimately, we could just as easily procreate ourselves into extinction too.

What can we take from all this discussion? Time and time again has proven that eugenics can only lead to destruction. Most recently, the worlds most respected geneticists and Nobel Prize winner James Watson made comments that blacks are less intelligent than whites. If one subscribes to theories of racial hegemony than it’s not a far stretch to accept that some groups should rightfully subjugate others. Dr. Watson has dedicated his whole life to such an approach, arguing that women should be made more attractive via genetic engineering, and that babies should be aborted if tests could show that they would grow up to be homosexual. Soon we’d have abortions based on not liking the child’s eye color or hair texture, which is morally reprehensible. I certainly don’t advocate that. But since we will never be able to ethically argue in favor of eugenics for all of the reasons cited above, and because the truth is we have insurmountable sociopolitical challenges and innumerable biological deficiencies, perhaps the only humane solution is not having children at all.

Snow Day

2007-12-05T17:11:00.000-05:00

Today I woke up, squinted to look out of the window and saw that snow covered every inch of the pavement. This is the first snow of the season, but it certainly won’t be the last. In fact, I think we’ll probably have an insufferable winter to make up for the “mild” one’s we’ve been having. I like snow; I just don’t like the accompanying cold weather. If only I could have one without having to deal with the other.

When it snow’s like this I don’t really mind it. This kind of snow is a light, wet, fluffy snow. It doesn’t have any ice or sleet or any other precipitation mixed with it so the streets aren’t that slick (at least for now they aren’t) and I don’t have to spend hours in subzero temperatures trying to dig my car out (my car only took me 5 minutes to sweep out today). When we get the first snow of the season I still get a little excited. Today was no different. I got up, grabbed my camera, and dashed outside to take pictures. Unfortunately, my camera obscures many of the brilliant details. The experience itself is a whole lot more vivid. I liken it to being inside of a snow globe. You know, the ones that have the little sceneries inside. When you shake them the little world encapsulated in the globe comes to life with sparkles and powdery little flakes.

My life of late has been a hellish little existence. No money, tons of bills. The little Avon business that I have to sustain me while I am unemployed hasn’t been doing well. To top it all off I have these graduate school applications that have been a thorn in my side for weeks. Two of my professors still haven’t turned in letters of recommendation. I’ve called them, emailed them etc. I still have to drive to the other side of town where my undergrad college is so that I can retrieve my transcripts. I have to re-edit a manuscript and take it to Staples to be copied and bound so that I can send it to those schools that requested a writing sample. And then yesterday I learned that on top of the personal statement I’ve already written (the one that took me weeks write, the one that nobody had time to proofread so I had to submit it anyway because my deadlines are fast approaching), yeah THAT wretched personal statement, I have to write a 2,000 word essay for one of the programs I’m applying to. Did I mention I just learned this yesterday! Of course they told me AFTER I submitted a nonrefundable $60 application fee.

I’m disillusioned about this whole process. After all I’ve been here before. I’ve been on the other side of a rejection letter. I know how it feels to have your dreams beaten out of you one by one—that’s been my life the last few years. That’s why I’ve branded myself an incurable cynic. I don’t know which one I’m more afraid of: Getting accepted into graduate school or not getting in. Getting in means that I work like a Hebrew slave taking on insurmountable workloads while subjecting myself to racism and discrimination on a daily basis. Not getting in means I continue to live at home with my parents while working unsatisfying, dead-end jobs, until the day I get so tired of the mundane that I lose my ever-lovin mind. (Yeah, I know I'm dramatic).

Life seems brutally cold and unfair. I feel as if someone has sucked all the joy, all the energy, all the good (however little there used to be) out of life and I’m left with the ashes of what once was. What remains? The monotony, the joylessness, and the madness! Outside of me and my problems, I watch relationships fail, dishonesty pervade, and integrity melt away into puddles of meaninglessness. I see the perilous situations that those I love must face, the poor choices that they have made, and the unrelenting consequences that follow. I shake my head. Try to keep moving. I stack one problem up atop the millions of others and file them away for another day. Like those math problems we all used to have back in high school--the ones that took a dozen sheets of paper to work out. After all the work trying to find an answer you discover that there is “no solution”. That’s how it all seems.

Today I felt something I hadn’t felt in a while: a twinge of childhood excitement brought on by the experience of the snow. It reminded me of building snow mounds in the backyard, drinking hot chocolate with long lost friends, and jumping up in down in ecstasy upon learning that school got canceled. I ache nostalgically for times long ago of snow angels, fireplaces, cider, promising embraces, and snowball fights. These are the moments that add the flavor to life. Like little snowflakes falling on cold cement, such things are the small treasures that take us outside of ourselves and point us to the Creator. Upon closer examination of the smallest of flakes is the faint realization that the bitter cold brings on wet fluffy blankets of the most breathtaking snow!

You can see the rest of my snow pictures by clicking here.

Snakes On A Stage

2007-12-02T19:54:00.001-05:00

Train wreck! It crashed. It exploded into meaningless parts. It died. I am of course referring to the 2008 CNN/Youtube Republican Debate. I watched this thing in its entirety, and I now know just as much about where these candidates stand on the issues as I did before I watched it: zilch. I was looking for an educational experience. I wanted to be objective and fair in listening to the arguments, but alas the debate shattered these desires. The thing was almost un-watchable, but somehow I suffered through it.

In today's post, I will attempt to decipher this thing in order to summarize the highlights. Please bare with me, as I am doing the best I can. Okay I'm taking a deep cleansing breath... So the first 30 minutes (or at least it felt like that) started off as a verbal smack-down between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. The issue was about illegal immigration and it went something like this.

Romney’s accusation: Giuliani created a sanctuary city, by aiding and abetting illegal immigrants when he was mayor of New York.

Giuliani: Did not! But you had them working for you so that makes you worse!

Romney: Prove it! I knew nothing!

Back to immigration, Fred Thompson doesn’t believe in amnesty for illegal aliens. Neither do I, so although I really don’t understand his cryptic logic, I was at least able to agree with him on that one issue.

Next came this issue of Christianity. Mind you, the men are all Christian men of the Lord so when they throw mud, name call, dance around the issues, and lambaste each other it is all for the glory of God. Depending, of course, on how they interpret the Bible and whether God is interpreted in the allegorical sense or in the literal sense or something in between. Why do I say this? Because when they were asked whether they believed in the Bible, Giuliani wasn’t sure and Romney said “uh uh maybe, but the Word is largely allegorical.” Luckily, Tom Tancredo gave the only Christian answer, “Yes I believe, and Yes it is the word of God.” Turns out all of the candidates are Pro-life (except Giuliani) and Pro gun. (What a Shocker) After all, little things like gun regulations infringe on the second amendment rights even though some people really don’t deserve such rights (two words: Virginia Tech). I really don’t understand how they reconcile this with their “Christian” beliefs.

I also found it fascinating that the snakes had to spend hours and hours and hours pretending to answer, but not really answering, the questions posed to them. None of them could stay in their 90 second or 30 second time frame. Poor Anderson Cooper had to keep pleading with them to shut up. And then there were the commercials! Each snake got the opportunity to create his own youtube campaign video/sleazy attack ad. So basically they proved to us that they can’t stand on their own merits. They have to resort to attacking each other or attacking Hillary. You should have seen Tancredo’s glowing countenance when his (dumb) video aired. He just couldn’t stop smiling. Ron Paul had the best video because he didn’t have to insult anyone to make his case. And, by the way, why the attack on Hillary? Although Mitt hated on Edwards a bit, most of the candidates decided to butcher Hillary, who, of course wasn’t there to defend herself. Huckabee went so far as to say he wanted to send her to Mars. Does anyone detect just a hint of SEXISM!

Ron Paul made the most sense although he wants to get rid of the Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy. Huckabee wants to get rid of the IRS, but supports the (un)fair tax. McCain, however, doesn’t support the fair tax. McCain later challenged Paul, likening him to Hitler and calling him an isolationist. Paul, who doesn’t believe that the US should police the world and who is the only republican candidate who doesn’t support the war in Iraq was booed every time he got the chance to talk (which was for all of 3 minutes during the entire debate). But he packed some good punches and remained on the defense, without having to play politics. He's my favorite out of all of the snakes, because he has the most intelligent, logical things to say. McCain said of Paul, “that kind of isolationism is what caused WWII”. According to McCain our troops don’t want to be pulled out they want to stay and “win”. But how do we define winning? When there is no Iraq left? I guess that’s the kind of "winning" he’s looking for. We also have to remember that because McCain spent Thanksgiving with the troops he knows everything there is to know about what’s best for them.

When asked about using torture as a form of interrogation Mitt seemed pretty ambivalent. He also had no idea what waterboarding was (neither did I til I looked it up but I’m not running for the highest office in the land) but he insisted on not answering the question. Instead he said that he would "seek counsel"[ing]. Okay so I added the counseling thing, but I really think it's a good idea. The consensus on Iraq? Most of them believed that we are all threatened by Radical Islamists who are going to kill us all! That's comforting.

One of my favorite parts of the debate occurred when Hunter says gays can’t serve in the military because they are “bad for unit cohesion”. Apparently, all of our military personnel have strong “conservative Judeo-Christian” beliefs and adding a gay to the mix would destroy their fragile sensibilities! Tancredo agreed saying that homosexuals decrease the morale of the soldiers. Mitt flip-flopped like crazy! He’s actually a democrat masquerading as a republican, but this week he want to be more “republicany” than he was last week. First he’s pro-choice, then he changes his mind because after all “he’s not perfect” (more crap) then he says he supports gays in the military, now he says “it’s just not the time” to have them in there. UGGG! Can he stand by anything that he says? Anderson Cooper got a lil upset about his flip-flopping on gay issues, probably because Anderson is one of the biggest closested gays on earth! Mitt stayed strong and defended his homophobic discriminatory agenda (until of course he changes his mind on it next week.) I have just one question for Mitt, When WOULD be a good time for gays to be in the military if now’s not the time? I suppose the answer is whenever he makes up his mind about it.

Toward the end of the discussion Ron Paul, the only voice of reason on the platform, disappeared. That's when the issue of of space exploration came up. Of course we need to expand the space program although we are TRILLIONS of dollars in debt! At least Huckabee wants us to. Tancredo responded saying "we can’t afford some things and going to Mars is one of them.” I have to agree. Finally, Mitt was asked about his views on the public display of the confederate flag to which he said “That’s not an issue I want to get involved in” and “We are a nation united.” What utopia is he speaking of? He then said that the Democrats, especially John Ewards are the really problem. After all racism is merely a Democrat’s invention used as one of their many ploys to divide the country. I think I dislike him most of all.

There. That about sums it up. I’m tired. I promise to have a more interesting, more coherent post for you next time. I have a political headache now. I don't suppose I'll ever recover from that "tomfoolery" (to quote my good friend). I need to rest my nerves now.

Blasting The Electoral College

2007-11-30T14:19:00.002-05:00

In my wonderful little web poll, I carefully worded the question to say, “If it were possible for you to vote for the President of the United States” thus implying that presently we have no such right. Essentially, we the people do not vote for the president of the United States. If you cannot elect the leader of your country, what do we call that? Disenfranchisement! Congratulations. Have a party! Your vote counts—FOR NOTHING! Okay so technically we have the right to vote, but does such a right matter if your vote doesn’t matter?

Let me back things up. There are people who are my age and older who actually believe that their vote counts. They’ve never head of the term “Electoral College”. They don’t have the slightest clue about how our electoral process works. That in itself is sad because we are becoming a nation of uninformed people who allow the television to do our thinking for us. So the first question is how does America elect her president? Check out this passage from the great “Wiki”,

“The election of the leader of the United States and the Vice President of the United States is indirect. Presidential electors are selected on a state by state basis as determined by the laws of each state. Currently each state uses the popular vote on Election Day to appoint electors. Although ballots list the names of the presidential candidates [To make you think you’re making a decision. Kinda like when you give a kid a toy that imitates some real thing that he isn’t allowed to play with. You end up making him feel special, while in actuality you still have all the power], voters within the 50 states and the District of Columbia are actually choosing Electors from their state when they vote for President and Vice President. These Presidential Electors in turn cast the official (electoral) votes for those two offices. Although the nationwide popular vote is calculated by official and media organizations, it does not determine the winner of the election.”

Suppose that your family was trying to decide what they wanted to have for dinner. It boils down to Mexican vs. Italian. You guys all vote for one or the other. Then your Dad comes in and says “Guess what I’ll make the finally decision based on whatever the popular vote is.” Grant it this is a crude example of how the Electoral College works because we the people actually elect our electors based on our votes (democrat or republican/ Mexican vs. Italian). How a state votes determines his elector. In theory an elected elector is one who has an allegiance to a particular party, but there have been cases of faithless electors or electors who vote opposite of the way they have pledged.

To make things more complicated, the number of electors (or electoral votes) a state gets is based on its population. So some states are more “enfranchised” than others based on sheer size! Its almost like George Orwell penned in his book Animal Farm, “All [people] are equal, but some [people] are more equal than others.” New York votes, for example, have more weight than Rhode Island votes because New York currently has 31 electoral votes while Rhode Island gets a meager 4. Poor Delaware gets just 3 votes. Theoretically, all a candidate has to do is win over the most populous states and then the election is his. If all this sounds a bit confusing to you there’s a good reason for that: because it is!

Again I’m no political scientist (far from it), but somehow this just seems, I don’t know, UNFAIR! Recall the presidential election of 2000 when Gore won the popular vote, but Bush ended up president because of the Electoral College (thanks a lot electors!). That means that people wanted Gore, but the electoral votes overrode that. Because the president of the US makes decisions that directly affect the people, shouldn’t the people be electing him directly? Isn’t that what we as a nation are always boasting about? Our liberties and freedoms? We brag about how we are the greatest nation in the world because we can appoint our leaders, yet our most important leader is elected by an arbitrary and antiquated system that ultimately disenfranchises us all. Aren’t we currently in a “War on Terror” ostensibly to ensure the Iraqi people are free from dictatorship? We want to make sure that the Iraqis can elect their political leaders, when in effect we cant! Emimen had it right when he labeled the US the “Democracy of Hypocrisy”.*

So now that you know what I think about the Electoral College, what conclusion can we take from all of this? This whole discussion of keeping the Electoral College, amending it, or getting rid of it altogether has been going on for ages. It has been discussed most recently with the proposal of the 2004 Every Vote Counts Amendment, which would support the popular vote. My guess is that because of the traditionalist’s attitudes of many Americans and because of the ignorance that many Americans have about how our political system works, we will probably always have the current system. But regardless of one’s personal opinion on the Electoral College, most of us can admit that it certainly has fallibility. In other words, it is something that we all need to think about because the system affects us all. We can’t blindly go along with it without questioning it. We have to understand it, analyze it and come to logical conclusions about it. As adamantly as I oppose it, even I can’t undermine the Electoral College’s significance. In the end, we must consider whether the system is inherently good by protecting us again demagogues and political extremists, or inherently bad by infringing upon our rights to select the leader that makes our most important political decisions.

*How seldom can anyone agree with someone as psychotic as Emimen? And for those who are thinking it…No I don’t listen to his stuff anymore but the guy, however screwed up he is, makes some good points sometimes.

Keeping it Moving--Hollywood and Christianity

2007-11-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

There’s nothing, NOTHING, more exciting than waking up in the morning and [fighting] for something that you believe—Eduardo Verástegui

I took some blows this week from a group of folk on an obscure online forum. Because I’m polite, I’ve chosen not troll their forum, but instead to respond respectfully on my own site. Three problems emerge from this. 1) People didn’t read the article, but had repugnant things to say. 2) People who couldn’t reasonably disagree with my article chose to attack me personally; the words “idiot”, “moron”, and “retard” were used. One person chose to criticize the text and colors I use on the blog. I suppose that if I had selected more “masculine” colors my words would be more valid? Another person attacked the way I look, implying that I was so unattractive as to not be able to find a mate in the first place. (That’s old. That’s what all people think of feminists it seems.) I really believe a lot of the hatred was racially motivated. As a black women, I’m certainly not suppose to have opinions no less than have the audacity to express them candidly. The hate goes on. 3) The reason this whole situation started was because a friend of mine took content from my blog without asking me and published it in this particular forum. That same “friend” didn’t even bother to defend my character when these cyber bullies were trying to take me a part. Of course this “friend” is a male. Had someone said such things about him I would have defended him to the last ounce, but isn’t that how woman are with men and folk they love. It’s amazing how little reciprocity we receive in circumstances where we need it. Lastly folk, you have to understand that there are some places I just don’t want my material going and had I been asked first, I would have NEVER allowed my work to enter such a seedy medium.

But after all that “discussion” on that forum, and all the bitter criticism I receive, my post Boycott All Men still stands! I’m NOT taking it down. I WILL NOT CENSOR MYSELF ON MY OWN WEBSITE And I WILL NOT BE COWED INTO RETRACTING MY OPINIONS!!! If you really hate what I have to say so much and/or you can't disagree with me in a civil manner LEAVE! DON’T READ ME! And I mean that with all the forcefulness and intensity in which it was relayed.

Now on to today’s posts.

Because no matter what I say I’m going to take heat, my resolve to be unapologetically honest has been reinforced. I’m not walking away from controversial topics, which brings me to one I’m sure I’ll get heat for: Media and Christianity. Yesterday, I took some time out from studying to check out some of the upcoming flicks. It’s the usually fare: gratuitous sex, barbaric violence, and sordid profanity all packaged in films with very little plot and character development, but amazing choreography and stellar special effects. It boils down to a ton of immorality skillfully wrapped with all the bells and whistles. Is anybody shocked? I’m not.

One movie in particular has Christian audiences talking. That movie is the upcoming novel turned film The Golden Compass starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The novel is avowed atheist Philip Pullman’s twisted version of Christian C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. One Christian website has summarized Pullman’s work as “atheism for kids.” You can read a very well written assessment of the movie and books here.

All this reminds me of when the church publicly protested The Da Vinci Code. The movie remained a success, grossing over 758 million dollars, despite, and perhaps because of the criticism. In other words, I really don’t think that appeals from the church are going to stop people from watching blasphemous and heretical content. That’s sad too. (Btw I don’t think that The Da Vinci Code sold all of those millions without some help from alleged Christians. I know many of us were in the theaters patronizing that blasphemy.)

My disclaimer is that I’ve not seen the Golden Compass, but I would be pretty leery about allowing “Christian raised” children to see a morality film or read a morality tale by someone who is openly hostile to Christianity. I don’t have any children either, BUT I think some things are just common sense. I didn’t have to read the books or the criticism about the movie to come to the conclusion that the movie is not for the child audience for which it aims. I did something very simple: I watched a trailer. Before I even knew who Pullman was, before I even knew what the church’s position was on the movie, I came to one conclusion: This aint Narnia! The movie, though it stars a brilliant child actress, is dark, gloomy, and cold. Those aren’t words that we usually use when we think of a children’s movie. I’ll tell you one thing, based on the violent, mournful trailer, that’s one film I won’t be taking my kid nephew to see.

Should Christian adults go to see this movie? Of course that’s a matter of personal conviction, but I won’t be seeing it. I’d rather watch Enchanted a light parody of Disney’s old classics—which is a heck of a lot more family friendly. The real world is dark enough for me; I don’t need to pay money to see bleakness!

Which brings me to my next point--Hollywood! Any person who believes that Hollywood has his interests at heart needs to take off his rose colored blinders. Hollywood is essentially a money-making machine. Why do salacious acts, graphic violence, and lewd profanity mar our films? Give up? Because it SELLS! If it didn’t sell than Hollywood would be making innocent family films. People often feel like they are powerless to control the media, as if they can’t do anything about the obscenity that’s further polluting our world and the mind’s of our children. It’s almost like folk are saying “oh no, I just can’t control my remote!” and “oh no, the movie made me buy it!” I loathe most of the content in our media so I don’t indulge in it! Ah simplicity.

That means I don’t usually watch television, except to see a political debate from time to time or catch pieces of the news. Here’s why? Even if, by some miracle, I am able to find decent content to watch, we live in a world where even our advertisements are scandalous. It seems folk gotta be naked just to sell a tube of toothpaste. I happened to catch a show last week and had to change the channel every time the commercials came on. I also don’t have the time to watch TV. I really don’t understand where people get the time to dedicate to hours of TV/movie watching.

Additionally, I don’t purchase movies with questionable content. A friend of mine invited me out to see a movie that I will leave nameless. I thanked him for his invitation, but politely declined to come. This was a very popular film that people were swarming to the movies to see, so he asked me why I didn’t want to go. I told him. He laughed at me, not in a callous/sarcastic way, but in a way the indicated that he thought I was overreacting. As a very broke person I have to be especially careful about how I spend my money. And as I’ve said on this blog before, I will not spend my money on things that go against my best interests. To do so would be funding, and thus advocating, the very things I oppose.

If only other Christians felt that way. Christians are supposed to use discernment about the types of things we take in. Even non-Christians are familiar with Philippians 4:8 which implores people to take in those things that are good, pure, and noble. Yet most of our media is blatantly evil, unpure, and filthy. Does that discourage Christians from taking part in it? Most of the folk I deal with are not Christian. They don’t call themselves by Christ’s name, yet many of them have better morals and stronger discernment than those who profess Christianity. I personally know non-Christians who won’t listen to certain music because it disparages women, yet I’ve gotten into a car with a “Christian” who’s music was saturated in obscenity. I know so-called worldly people who do not drink, smoke, and party because they believe these things are wrong, but I know so-called “Christian” people who indulge in these things! Yet we want to be a light to the world! How can we when we extol the same vices?

On a different note, is Hollywood really the biggest threat to Christianity? Some argue that it endorses everything that we are supposed to repudiate. Certainly Hollywood (and media in general) denigrates morality and promulgates corruption, yet I really don’t think Hollywood is the biggest threat to Christianity. I think Christians are. Our decisions, our cowardice, and our hypocrisy weaken Christianity. Most people would rather see a sermon than hear one any day. In other words, don’t lecture anyone about having premarital sex when every film in your house endorses it.

Lastly, I think that many people are starting to cry out for better content. I think maybe, just maybe, we’re all getting bored with the same ole violence, sex, and profanity. The evidence speaks for itself. What are the two top-rated films in theaters now? Bella, a low budget independent flick that tells a morality tale of love and friendship amidst difficulties and trials (it tells a convincing tale without one ounce of explicit content btw) and Why Did I Get Married, a drama/comedy that sings the praises of marriage, family, and friendship. Audiences want more. Even actors are getting sick of the garbage. Mexican actor and international sex symbol Eduardo Verástegui who plays Jose’s in the movie Bella states “I realized that instead of using my talents…to contribute to this world…I was poisoning our society by the projects that I was involved [in].” Well said.

My Response to the Hater's: Unscripted!

2007-11-20T04:00:00.001-05:00

Here we go again. This is in response to my article Boycott All Men. Took me a while to put this little podcast together. Forgive the length but I attracted a LOT of haters, and had such a limited time to address them. I was also quite tired, as I always seem to get inspired to do these things late at night.