Stick It

..in the trash.

I watched Stick It last night. With the FSM as my witness, I have seen few worse movies. Cheesey dialogue, predictability, crappy character development, plot holes, flat acting, sappy theme, stock characters, cookie-cutter "punk-rawk" rebellion, and the list goes on.

My favorite part was how the standard bitchy, dumb girl flips this complete 180 degree turn to become a decent human being. This was all initiated by the line, "Don't you know how to do anything but gymnastics?". Her and the main girl, who were in a totally intense feud throughout the movie, become friends at the end. *Contented sigh*

Newsy Bit

I'm officially starting a new blog. No longer do my five or so readers have to be subjected to my religious and politically motivated posts. This blog is going to return to its original intent: anecdotal and observational posting. If anyone so desires, they can take a look-see at my new blog for slightly more serious posts. I've cleverly named it The Budding Atheist. There's currently nothing posted over there, but I plan on revisiting some of my previous posts on Generic Title and cleaning them up a bit. I'll be applying a more rigorous standard to the posts over there: no more sloshing something put, applying spellcheck, and then publishing the post (Although that will most likely remain the case here at Generic Title). I plan to format Budding Atheist posts in a columnesque way. Hope you'll take a look.

I Don't Understand

Why is it that when farting and pooping is done by a female, it's supposedly gross, but when a guy does it, it's funny? How is either that much different from sneezing or vomiting? They're all just bodily functions. People are dumb weird.

Science and Religion

Why is it that so many theists take the stance that because evolution can't, at this time, prove without doubt that it is an irrefutable fact, it becomes false. I disagree with that horribly hypocritical standpoint. These are the people who claim absolute truth based on nothing more than faith and pattern recognition where there are no patterns.

Evolution, or any science for that matter, does not need to verify itself beyond uncertainty. Unrevisable "truth" is the realm of the theist. Science is human's best effort to gain natural understanding. A scientist that believes what they know about science is absolute truth has missed the point. Science is a journey, not a destination.

My syntax professor admitted to the class last semester that he believed very little of what he was teaching us about current syntactic theory. This seriously blew away the girl I sat next to. She actually changed her major from Linguistics for that reason. She couldn't deal with the idea that science is not a realm of true and false (I got a very theistic vibe from her).

I love science. In some ways, I wish I was suited for a career in research science. I think that a life spent approaching understanding is the most valuable thing a person can do. But, I'm a writer. But a writer that will maintain a lifelong love affair with science.

I got off my original aim a bit (what's new?), but what I'm basically trying to say is that the black and white mentality of theism cannot and should not be applied to science. There's a circular principle at work here: the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth.

It's looking more like I'm going to have to start a new blog to keep these kinds of posts off this one. I just need a name for it. Once I think of a witty name, I can direct all my increasingly ardent atheistic posts over there. Then Generic Title can return to posting about guys I see peeing out the pant leg of their shorts.

The Meaning of Life

This was originally going to be a post about The Meaning of Life(TM). I couldn't organize my thoughts satisfactorily, so that will have to wait.

Instead, I'm going to discuss the Afterlife(TM)(C)(R). I never really took the afterlife seriously, even when I was a Christian. It never settled with me. The odd thing was that it was fear of hell that kept me in the religion longer than was necessary. It's an elegantly simple tactic to maintain membership.

What do I think about the afterlife now that I'm out of Christianity? I can't see it being much different than a dreamless sleep. When a person dies and the electrical signals stop firing in their brain, that's where I think life ends. There's no convincing evidence to the contrary. The only way someone can argue differently is by appealing to the divine. That is extremely suspect in my opinion.

Not believing in an afterlife does not make my life meaningless as many Christians would say. I assign my meaning in the same way that everyone else does, even Christians. I see life as worth living based on that I want to see my life play out and continue what I have started. The Christian says life without God is not worth living. To that I respond: every single person who lived and died before word of the Judeo-Christian God spread to their area.

While life has no inherent meaning, that does not make it not worth living. I enjoy daily activities and look forward to where my life is headed. That's all the meaning I need.

Looks like this ended up being about the meaning of life after all.

I didn't really mean to go off on Christians. Most of the Christians I know are really super people. I don't want to go all Uberatheist; that's not the direction I want my blog to go in. If I see myself doing more and more atheist posts, I'll start a new blog to devote to that. That's a promise I make to you, my four or so readers!

You're not reading this...

...because the world has ended.

HAPPY 6/6/6 DAY EVERYONE!

The Da Vinci Code

Why is it that there is so much uproar about how The Da Vinci Code needs to be taken as a work of fiction? When I saw it, there was no "Based on Actual Events" in the opening credits or in any of the advertisements. It said, "Based on the novel by Dan Brown."

So why is it that this movie is contested? I have my theory. It's not a popular one, but I'll share it anyway. It's important to fundie Christians to have the movie categorized as fiction so the two fictions won't mix together: Dan Brown's fiction and the Bible's fiction. The best part about the whole thing is there is actually a lot of scholarly support for some of the things in The Da Vinci Code. I just wish the idea of the sacred feminine was explored more. I could have done a little more with Isis/Horus vs. Mary/Jesus.

All the movie does is explore some other view of Jesus. If fundy Christians get so upset about alternative views of the same Jesus, how would they react to a movie that presents the more likely option: that the historical Jesus never existed?

I could write a whole novel, not about how the Greatest Story Ever Told involved a cover-up, but about how it's a complete lie. How's that for a book-burner?