Monday, September 20, 2004

God told me to post this

Do I have something against God? Not really. I just have something against his followers.

Imagine a farmer starts his tractor and begins to plow in a straight line. It's a brand new tractor and the field is straight enough and flat enough that after a while, the farmer jumps off and goes back into his house to take care of something else. The tractor goes on straight after a while and then something happens. A rock or a rodent gets in the way of the wheels and the tractor is pushed off its course. The tractor weaves and wobbles for a while and then it completely loses its way and drives off the field entirely and starts heading down a nearby road. Down this same road a family is taking a drive in the country. They've never been in the area before and they have nothing but high hopes as they turn around the corner and WHAM!! are struck head on by the driverless tractor and the family is killed. The farmer is questioned later on and he tries to cover his own ass by saying the driver of the car should have watched where he was going.

If you asked most people who was to blame in this scenario, more than likely they would blame the farmer. He was absolutely irresponsible in his actions in leaving the tractor he set in motion unattended. In doing so he is liable for the deaths his tractor caused and the indirect, but very real damage caused by any surviving family members not with the people in the car. It would make little difference to people that this farmer provides food and shelter for his own family or that he provides food for other people or that he takes care of dozens of animals on his own farm. He still needs to be held accountable for the deaths that the events he set into motion caused.

Now imagine if the farmer had a more important role in the lives around him. What if he was the most important individual in that region? Would the lives of the family that died at the hands of the farmer mean less in comparison? If so, how many lives would need to be destroyed before people believed that the farmer needed to be held responsible for his continual inactions? How many lives would need to be destroyed before the farmer learned to pay attention to his tractor?

In this scenario: God is the farmer, religion is the tractor, and the family is anyone who has been attacked or prejudiced because of religion.

I am a devout agnostic. This means the more some bible-thumper pushes me towards any one denomination the harder I push to stay in the middle. I don't believe in God. Actually let me put that in other words. I don't believe in how modern churches define their deities and I have a personal grudge against monotheistic religions. All monotheistic religions all have the same underlying premise that "I'm right because I worship the ONE TRUE GOD and everyone else is wrong and/or going to Hell by default." Think about what this means for a moment. By its very definition, a monotheistic organization is incapable of accepting, let alone acknowledging, other organizations because they can't possibly be correct. Because of this majorly exclusionary and fucked up dogma everyone outside of a religion's cone of silence is by default in league with that religion's personal brand of the devil. I believe there will never be peace on earth as long as people adhere to this hogwash.

Special note: Religion is also directly opposed to freedom of expression. If you have an organization telling you exactly what is right and what is wrong, any freedom of expression can only be defined by that organization's freedom of oppression. This explains why most of the religious fanatics in America tend to hold their guns close and will protect their 2nd Amendment rights moreso than they will protect the ACLU's 1st amendment right to say these people are nuts.

Even if there was a massive planet-wide holy war and there was only one religion left (hardly matters which), there still wouldn't be peace because in any organization where there is power to be had and at least one person who believes they deserve more, there is going to be politics. And religion is nothing if not the ultimate political tool. In religion, people obtain political power by adapting "holier than thou" attitudes and stating that they are closer to God than their peers. Unfortunately this is not that uncommon since every person believes that God will understand their own personal dilemmas and be forgiving in the choices they take but be wrathful in how other people make their decisions. In this way every person makes God in his or her own image. Eventually you would be brought back to the beginning with multiple religions, each one fractured from the first because they couldn't agree with how to worship the same deity, and again each claiming how they are right and everyone else is wrong and bound for Hell by default.

And on and on and on and on. If there is a devil, he must be rolling on the floor laughing his ass off because God has allowed his "religion" to progress to this state through his inactions and, in doing so, has brought more evil to Earth than the devil ever could himself. If there is a God and he truly did care for his people, then he should come down to Earth and prove to everyone, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he doesn't exist. That would be the best gift he could give his people right now.

If God exists, then I find God to be irresponsible. Through his actions and inactions he has caused enough damage and enough horror to those who he is supposed to be watching over that he should not be awarded the gift of faith, blind or otherwise. If God doesn't exist and a few thousand years ago some innocent person looked up into the sky and asked "why am I here?" I would like to think that if there had been someone around with some amount of foresight, he should have walked over to that individual, kicked him square in the yarbles and told him to get back to work.

"The army that carries the Ark before it is invincible." -Raiders of the Lost Ark

Sunday, September 19, 2004

ZMG's Review of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

This wasn't a bad movie but it also wasn't a great movie. If it had been great, it could have been described as a Retro-Classic. It had the look and the feel of a 1930's sci-fi pulp comic done with modern day computer graphics. The movie was very stylish but it also lacked any real combat that a movie like this should have had. For example the final shot of the movie showed an all out attack against... NO ONE. It was a very anti-climactic ending.

The plot line was decent enough. I couldn't figure out why a german rocket pad would be counting down in english, however. Small plot point.

The various creatures and robotic monsters were very well done in the beginning but as I said before, they really needed to do something with them for the end as well. They kept talking about a Doomsday device and unfortunately it wasn't nearly as threatening as they built it up to be.

Polly Perkins gets my award for the most annoying character of the year. She is as reckless as Lois Lane and has the ego of Doctor Doom. How anyone could put their own self-interest so far above the welfare of the entire world is beyond me. She might as well be running with Mad King George. When Sky Captain finally punches her in the mouth it was probably the most satisfying moment of the whole movie.

Final Grade: B

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