The Cult of Leif

Oh, for fuck’s sake

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:57:18 -0600

The vast majority of conversation is an absolute waste of breath. Apparently, what separates us from the rest of the animals (fuck you, Ben Stein, we evolved. Deal with it) is the ability to communicate abstract thoughts using language.
Such as “Happy New Year.” Year? New? Happy? All relatively abstract. It would be hard, say, to explain them to a dog using bacon and hand signals. Although I have communicated to a few ex-girlfriends in just such a manner.
The idea of a new year is a completely manmade and abstract concept. The idea that it starts January 1 also is. In fact, Jewish people and Chinese people don’t agree that Jan. 1 is the new year. Oh, I think Muslims also disagree. Whatever. The point is it doesn’t matter. Almost all the concepts on which our society is based are relatively arbitrary and pointless.
I was thinking about martial law today (don’t ask how I got there. it’s complicated). Martial law, prison and execution are uniquely (and I think detrimentally) human concepts.
The more I think about it, the more I hate the idea of prison for all but the worst and most violent criminals. What gives us the right to take someone’s liberty away and essentially render their lives useless except when it is in the urgent best interests of keeping everyone else safe? In the old days, they used to exile lesser criminals. The animal kingdom also uses exile to keep malcontents out of society.
Don’t fucking pull the Bible out on me, either. The first murderer in the Bible was sentenced by God himself to what? Exile. Fuck you, right-wing douchebags.
So happy new year. Enjoy your abstract concepts.

Happy equinox or whatever

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:26:44 -0600

Christmas is a stupid holiday, but I mean that in a sweet way.
Everyone knows it has nothing to do with Jesus, but they celebrate it that way anyway, and the douchenozzles who piss me off the most about it are the ones who get irate that people “don’t remember the reason for the season,” as if there’s some great conspiracy to take Jesus out of a holiday that pre-existed him and has never had anything to do with him.
Or the “Keep the CHRIST in Christmas” crowd. Yeah, we’ll get right on that.
Or how about this instead, why don’t we just admit that we celebrate “Christmas” because we like decorating our houses for the season and giving gifts to each other and cooking fun stuff and eating it? Why do we have to blame Jesus for it?
Jesus never had a Christmas tree, never “celebrated the season,” and for all we know, even HE didn’t know when his birthday was.
The wise men (actually astrologers) never came to visit the baby Jesus. He was fully a child by the time they arrived. A big star didn’t blaze through the night sky so that everyone knew something special had happened. In fact, according to the Bible, the only people who noticed the “new star” were the astrologers from the east, whose jobs it was to study the sky and note any tiny differences while reading mystical meanings into the stars. The “new star” was probably something they either hadn’t noticed before or that just became visible at that moment. Either way, it’s not like a lot of people saw it.
No one gave gifts to each other, either. The astrologers came bearing gifts for Jesus. That’s all.
The manger was likely very nice and comfortable, as most such places were in those days, as people valued their cattle sometimes above their own children.
Mary probably got Joseph’s dick shoved into her a few weeks after the birth because he was a dude and they were married and the Bible says they did it after Jesus was born. So sorry to all you “ever virgin” papist types. Mary fucked. Probably a lot.
I’m not in a foul mood. I just think Christmas is stupid.
Bye.

The mouse trap of morality

Tue, 9 Dec 2008 09:44:45 -0600

Well, technically, I killed two mice today. I have a mouse problem, apparently, and I can’t have mice eating my house.
So I sat out two mouse traps last night, baited with peanut butter. The traps, made by D-Con, were supposedly guaranteed to kill, but this morning, one cute little mouse was alive and in shock, his leg trapped in the trap. And of course, that presented me with a dilemma.
I could have left him alive, taken him outside and freed him, but realistically, the mouse was in shock and he had a broken leg. He wouldn’t have survived. I could have left him in the trap, but he would have starved to death, which seems rather cruel to me.
So I took the third option: I had to finish the job the mouse trap had not done. I had to kill the mouse.
But I’m not a cruel person, so I couldn’t bring myself to just club the poor thing to death. I decided the most humane way would be to drown the little guy. I got a big cup, filled it with water and, using the trap as a handle, held the mouse under water until he stopped trying to swim.
And I hated every second of it. All the poor mouse was trying to do was get some food. I can understand that. I’m not sure I have the right to kill these little critters, yet pragmatism insists that I do something before they destroy my house and bring disease that can potentially kill me, my loved ones and my pets.
And therein lies the rub, I think.
I killed the mouse because I’m bigger and smarter, not because I have a more inherent right than it to survive.
Whether you believe in God or not, you have to admit that the mouse came from the same stuff humans come from. If you believe in God, the same God who created me also created the mouse. If you don’t believe in God, the mouse came from the same ancestor I did, even if that ancestor was alive millions of years ago.
I happen to believe in God, and even though my picture of God may be different than yours (I believe God set up the rules for how things are made and procreated and then left that process largely to itself), each of the mouse’s little toes were made according to God’s intricate plan. It came to its end not so some larger predator could eat, but so that a larger predator could have peace of mind.
The mouse became my victim simply because I have the power to make it so.
And if “might makes right,” then that’s as it should be. But I’m not so sure that it’s so.
NBC’s CEO, Jeff Zucker, today announced it would be laying off up to 500 employees so that it could remain profitable. The rich, powerful men in charge of the company decided to make the less affluent employees of the company even less affluent because they had the power to make it so and keep their peace of mind. To them, the employees they fired are numbers in service of a greater good. They’re steps en route to saving the company millions of dollars.
Just as the mouse was a mental obstacle to my loved ones’ continued health and peace of mind. I had the power to kill it, so I did.
It put me in a bad mood.

Doing someone else’s job

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 10:47:04 -0600

Here’s the thing. In some ways, I’m glad I have to do other people’s jobs, because it means I’m rather indispensable. In other ways, however, it sucks having to do other people’s jobs, because at some point people just assume it’s your job.
And (of course, this is all hypothetical and in no way actionably related to my real job) if you end up carrying someone for a few years, they’ll get adjusted to being carried and people will just assume they’re working 40 hours a week instead of getting even fatter and lazier while you do their job.
Worse, if you do your job and their job comfortably, people will always assume you can do more. So you’ll end up doing other people’s jobs on top of the people you’re already carrying. Eventually, you find the company laying off people and giving their work to you while you still carry the lazy fucks who are still employed.
Then, one morning, the lazy fuck might come up to you and ask — in an annoyingly upset voice — why you didn’t do his or her job differently.
At which point you might — if you’re easily annoyed, that is — tell them to get back to pretending to be a useful member of society and get out of your grill before you point out to everyone how little they actually work.
And they slink back to their holes wondering why you’re not doing more of their job.

Gay people are abominable ... so are shellfish

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 10:06:54 -0600

I’m sick of this shit. It’s time we come down on one side or the other on the issue of what the Bible says, because despite our founding fathers’ best efforts, right-wing hypocrites seem intent on jamming their interpretation of the Bible down everyone’s throats by force of law.
I’m often asked this question: “How can you, a Bible believer, still condone homosexuality, knowing that the Bible condemns it?”
First, I don’t “condone” anything. I just refuse to condemn it, because, thank God, I’m not God. Second, let’s look at the Bible’s condemnation.
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as
with womankind: it is abomination.”
(Leviticus 18:22)
I guess blowjobs are OK, at least according to that verse, since you really don’t lie down to get your pole waxed.
Still, seems pretty straightforward, at least in English. But let’s look at what else that book in the Bible forbids:
Heterosexual intercourse when a woman has her period (Leviticus 18:19)
Harvesting the corners of a field (19:9)
Eating fruit from a young tree (19:23)
Cross-breeding livestock (19:19)
Sowing a field with mixed seed (19:19)
Shaving or getting a haircut (19:27)
Even a mildly disabled person from becoming a priest (21:18)
Charging of interest on a loan (25:37)
Doing any work whatsoever on a Saturday
Wearing of clothes made from a blend of materials; today this might be cotton and polyester
Eating of non-kosher foods such as shrimp, lobster or ham
Yet, I can’t think of a single Christian who doesn’t do or benefit from at least one of those things. Find me the Christian who has never shaved or gotten a haircut.
According to the same Levitical law, it’s OK to sell your children.
It also requires:
A child to be killed if he/she curses their parent (Leviticus 20:9)
All persons guilty of adultery to be killed (20:10)
The daughter of a priest who engages in prostitution to be burned alive until dead (21:9)
The bride of a priest to be a virgin (21:13)
Ritual killing of animals, using cattle, sheep and goats (22:19)
Observation of 7 feasts: Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Firstfruits, Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles (23)
A person who takes the Lord's name in vain is to be killed (24:16)
Tell me, who can stand up to such a law? And why do those who quote it today single out the part about homosexuality while they’re working on Saturday, eating shellfish and getting haircuts while wearing their textile-blended starched suits and shirts?

Abomination?
But let’s talk about God calling male-on-male fucking an “abomination.” The Hebrew word translated as “abomination” can also be validly translated as “gross,” as in Genesis 43:32: “...because the Egyptians could not eat food with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians.”
Or Leviticus 11:10, which calls eating shellfish “an abomination.”
Or Leviticus 11:41, which condemns eating “every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” as an “abomination.”
Or Deuteronomy 22:5, which condemns women who wear “anything that pertains to a man” as an “abomination.” Presumably, that means women who wear pants.
So, by all means, throw out the shellfish. Don’t do anything on Saturday. Women, quit wearing pants. Men, quit wearing kilts. Stop eating snakes, too. Kill children who talk back to their parents. Kill all adulterers. Start ritual sacrifices of cattle again. Murder people who call upon the Lord and don’t mean it. If a man has sex with his wife while she’s on her period, they’re going to hell. And you evil fucking sinners who keep shaving and getting haircuts, your time is coming. God will judge the unholy!

New testament
Christians say the NIV and KJV of the Bible clearly condemn homosexual behavior at 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Romans 1:28, which interpret the Greek words "malakoi" and "arsenokoitai" as referring to homosexuals. Those words are obscure, but are generally interpreted to mean “victim of sexual abuse” or “men who sexually abuse boys,” in other words, pedophiles and victims of pedophilia. I guess the self-righteous right-wingers couldn’t be honest about that one, because it would point too many fingers at themselves.
We can be fairly certain that homosexuality is not the meaning that Paul, the writer of those Bible books, wanted to convey. If he had, he would have used the Greek word "paiderasste," which means “homosexual.”

How about this
Let’s stop getting all worked up about who likes to fuck who and who likes rim jobs and whatever. Why don’t we follow Jesus’ advice instead: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” (Matthew 7:5)
If you can successfully follow all 613 laws in the Old Testament without ever breaking one, then by all means, condemn away. But if you’ve broken even one, the Bible says you’re guilty of breaking them all and you need God’s grace just as much as the person who methodically breaks every one of them.
So shut the fuck up and let people live under the same grace you keep singing about.