Time For A Rant

Warning, what follows is an atheist rant. If you take issue with this, feel free to leave. You have been forewarned. Also, spoiler alert (for the TV show 'Zero Hour').

...

So, ABC has this great new show called 'Zero Hour'. I just got finished watching the premiere episode and it is rather intriguing and I plan on continuing to watch it. The basic premise is thus: After a short intro involving Nazis, a woman gets kidnapped. Her husband, naturally worried for her, goes on a hunt to find the man who took her, and in the process is now wrapped up in a major conspiracy. Great, fine, makes for some very interesting TV. It is well produced and shot and the story is catching. ...but there is more.

(Note, I'm not going to break down the whole episode, just hit some highlights.)

Hank Galliston ('Revenge of the Nerds' and 'ER' alum Anthony Edwards) and his wife, Laila, live in NYC. Laila repairs and sells old time pieces. Hank runs a magazine called "Modern Skeptic" with his two copy editors (not sure on that, maybe reporters? Wikipedia says copy editors in the episode one synopsis), Arron and Rachel. I mention this because the title of the magazine (and a later conversation between Hank and Arron & Rachel) seems to suggest Hank is possibly an atheist, or at the very least a skeptic and agnostic. Hank and Laila are out shopping and after Hank leaves, Laila finds an interesting clock. Later, Laila is kidnapped from her shop. Hank, at home and worried after the kidnapper calls him, finds the clock (that Laila must have dropped off at home and forgot to take with her to the shop?) and examines it for clues. There he finds a diamond with a map and some writing on it, so takes it to his priest friend. Here we learn (very little) about the Rosicrucians, a secret society in the Catholic Church.

Now, I knew pretty much from the beginning of the series/episode that it was going to be steeped in all kinds of Christian mysticism. The opening takes place in a church, after all. And I don't really have a problem with this, as pretty much EVERY SHOW is written by and/or for Christians and its mysticism is rampant in everything ever. Unless a show is overly-preachy, I don't give a fuck anymore. That aside, I groaned the first time I saw the name of the magazine Hank produced because I could see the inevitable result.

So, after a bit, Hank, Rachel, and Arron are sitting in a car having a discussion where Rachel flat out says to Hank he needs to have belief (and while they were talking about believing his wife was still ok, we all know what the subtext really was). And that is when it all clicked for me. So here is my atheist rant.

I am tired of shows that take this mysticism and make it the absolute focus of the show. 'Supernatural', a show I absolutely love still, comes to mind. And this show, 'Zero Hour', is going to piss me off. I can already see it. They have set it up so...almost bluntly, but not really...that it hurts just to think about it. Hank, publisher of "Modern Skeptic" and possible non-believer, is getting drawn into a Catholic/biblical apocalypse conspiracy and will, ultimately, become a believer in the Christian god (and maybe his agent, as the end of the episode foreshadows), and, with his new-found faith, save all of humanity in the name of the divine. Or some bullshit like that.

So, here we have an intrigue-laden mystery a la 'The Da Vinci Code' in a one-hour TV format that is actually a decent show...and it will be all about the triumph of religion and their keeping the world safe, etc. etc. But what really irks me is the fact they are taking this alleged skeptic and turning him into a lightning rod for revelation.

Now why does this bug me? Well, aside from being bugged in general by religion, what really upsets me is this path they have set Hank on. The converting of the skeptic (even if he isn't a non-believer, we all know skeptic is code word for atheist) is just a not-so-well hidden message about how all people should be one with the church. And it sets a precedent that teaches young people (though, if you are discerning parent, you probably shouldn't let any child younger than 13 or so watch this, as there is violence, etc.) that Christianity is right and the non-believer should be brought back into the fold.

Anything more left to say would just be reiteration of those points presented above, so I will close with...really? Do we have to keep seeing this on our TVs? Do we have to keep being showed and told all about this religious shit? I guess so, but I would hope it changes some before my head explodes.

~~As Always An Atheist, Samm

I Saw A Video, That Is Why

I do not believe in marriage. And here is why.

In our advanced, modern society, the only point for marriage is the legal ramifications. Tax breaks, health/life insurance benefits, etc.. First, I will go through some of the common arguments for marriage, tell you why I think about them, then afterward follow up with some more thoughts.

"I am getting married because I am in love and want to spend my life with my partner.""I am getting married so that I am in a COMMITTED relationship."

I am grouping these two together since they are so closely related. Now, marriage for love is admirable, but that doesn't explain WHY you need to be married. People, at least mature peoples, are able to have committed relationships without the need of a 'marriage'. And marriage does not preclude infidelity. If a person is going to sleep around, a signature on a piece of paper isn't going to prevent that. You can dedicate your life to a person and a single relationship and be happy in it and about it without needing to be 'legally married'. It is like saying you can't eat a salad without ranch. It is just dressing.

"I am getting married so that I have a proper family/to raise a family correctly."
This is just bullshit. You don't have to be married to raise kids properly, or to have a proper family. And what is a proper family, anyways? One defined by antiquated notions of stereotypical relationship units? Just because you are married to someone does not automatically make your household better to raise children in. It is how the people you are raised around are taught and treated, how affection is expressed, how supportive the unit is. If you grow up in an abusive household with parents that hate each other, does that mean you are going to be a better person than if raised by a single parent alone? Of course not.

"I am getting married because I want to sex up my partner."
"I am getting married because my religion says I should."
*sigh* If you know me, or have read any post prior to this, you should know my stance on religion, but in case you don't.... Religion is the biggest fucking joke ever. It is government with a supernatural backing. It is a way to control people. And this is a good example. How is getting married to have sex any better than just having sex? Wonder why the divorce rate is 50% in the USA right now? Because PEOPLE WANT TO BONE, and then once they are married and have lived with a person for awhile, oops, it turns out they are wrong for each other! Now, I'm not saying the ONLY reason for divorce is this, but there is a decent percentage I am sure, because we live in a society that teaches abstinence and how it is "wrong" to sleep with someone before putting a ring on their finger. And as for what religion says? Have you ever read your holy book? In this case I am going to talk mostly about Xtianity, as I am most familiar with it and it is a big factor in the USA currently. The Xtian scripture is a convoluted work of fiction. It can't even decide on what marriage is! Is it between a man and a woman? It says that in there, yes. But it also says things about polygyny and concubines and all sorts of stupid things. Yes, concubines. The Xtian bible doesn't even promote monogamy! Except when it does. And I don't want to go into it, but the whole argument about picking and choosing what you follow in it, blah blah blah. And Islam isn't much better. There is a practice, probably not very wide-spread as it once was, but it is called nikah al-mut'ah. What is nikah al-mut'ah, you ask? Temporary marriage. Yes, you heard me, temporary marriage. Since it is bad and wrong to have sex while not married, they have a procedure where you get married with a timed contract, as short as half-an-hour, at which point the contract is up and you are no longer married. Oh, and you still pay a dowry. How convenient! You pay a woman to be temporarily married to her so you can have sex with her, then when you are finished, you can just pull up your drawers and go about your merry business. It is legalised Islamic prostitution, if you didn't get my point.

"I am getting married because it is tradition!"
Tradition, shmradition. Do you know the reason behind this tradition? Think about to when marriage came about. Dark, ancient, IGNORANT times. Times when men ruled the world. Note, I said 'men', not 'man'. Not mankind, but the male of the species. So think about it for a moment. Men said who they married and it often happened whether the female said yes or not. If she was allowed to say anything, that is. Marriage in the tradition is nothing more than slavery. A man claiming a woman as property. By marrying her, he is saying, "This one is mine, no one else can touch her." Think back to many of the marriage traditions that we have given up in modern times, like a dowry and bride price. Bride price, a common tradition in the past, was, hold onto your hats, what the man paid the family of the bride to marry her. A dowry is what the bride's family paid him to marry here. "Here is three goats and an acre of land for your daughter. Thanks." "Here, take the wench off our hands, and have a pig and a couple head of cattle while you are at it." The tradition of marriage is a patriarchal tradition of female slavery.

"I am getting married so that I can share governmental/legal benefits with my partner."
Now you are doing it right.

I do not believe in marriage. I do believe in loving people, and being committed to people, and treating those people with care and respect. And I believe that can be achieved without a piece of paper that says we are together. Will I ever get married? If I find someone that I love and want to take care of and give benefits like tax breaks and sharing in health care and life insurance, then sure. But I won't get married because of antiquated ideals and societally forced "morals".

I Thought I Had Posted This, But It Just Saved As A Draft, So Now I Am Actually Posting It

2000-2200 million: ascribed Christians (This number can actually be broken down further, as Catholicism and Protestantism could be considered separate religious views, not to mention the breaking down of the innumerable denominations of each.)
1300-1650 million: ascribed Muslims
1100 million: estimated irreligious or atheist peoples
828-1000 million: ascribed Hindus
400-500 million: ascribed Buddhists

These numbers are all speculative, assuming the average number of adults in a given region prescribe to the major religion in that region. Naturally, these numbers are skewed, as bias in questioning, etc., affect the results. As not every person can be asked and recorded by impartial judges, an accurate count is nigh impossible.

Three of the longest and most violent periods of wars are/were religious in nature. (Naturally, there were other causes as well, but they were waged in the name of religion.) The Crusades, the Reconquista, and the Jewish/Islamic Holy Land Wars. Untold numbers have been lost, not only combatants but innocents as well. The side effects of war, collateral damage, plague, pestilence, famine, kill more than any actual combatants (religious or otherwise in nature).

Every day people are born and have no choice but to be raised in the religion of their parents and peers. In the modern, technological world, it is easier for information to be spread and for people to make their own decisions on such matters as religion, but being inundated by fervor all of one's life makes such changing of decisions difficult or just not worth it.

Religion is responsible for the spread of ignorance and stupidity by upholding antiquated ideals and dissuading the embracing of new ideas. Outdated forms of thought on the rights of individuals, personal freedoms, and equality lead to a biased view of the world, and these views are impressed on those around us, making for a continuing cycle of antediluvian world and life views.

On Music and Something About Sweaters?

Ok, so, for those of you that didn't know, I love music. LOVE music. And one of my favourite genres/eras is the post-punk stuff that bridged the gap between classic punk and New Wave. Something about this music is just...it has essence, I guess. It's hard to explain.

For those that are music ignorant, post-punk bands that may have heard of include The Cure, Joy Division/New Order, The B-52's, and Devo. Some evolved out of the first wave of punk and many more were definitely influenced by it. Post-punk itself evolved into many different genres, two of the biggest being the gothic rock (or just "goth") movement (such as The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees) and New Wave (such as New Order and A Flock of Seagulls). Most of these post-punk bands are mainstays on alternative rock stations, especially those focusing on the '80's.

Anyways, I love this type of music. The gothic rock stuff in particular. And by goth I don't mean kids that dress in black and act all depressed all the time. (Though, to be fair, there was a lot of that, and to be even more fair to the (former) goth kids (who are now all adults), you got replaced by something worse...emo kids.) Goth was so much more than that, IS so much more than that. But then again, all sub-cultures have their stereotype faces and their hidden depths. Some of my all time favourite bands can be considered, at one time or another in their careers, gothic rock bands. The Cure, Bauhaus, The Cult, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Sisters of Mercy...and those are just post-punk bands.

Again, to move away from being sidetracked, I'm only talking about this because one of my new favourite bands that I kind of knew about before but didn't really start listening to until recently is a post-punk band by the name of The Psychedelic Furs. Their biggest hit is probably Pretty in Pink. Yes, the main theme song for the Molly Ringwald movie of the same name. That's pretty much all I have to say, is that I'm really into The Psychedelic Furs right now. In fact, that's the whole point of this post, was to say I like them.

...In other news, I'm totally gay for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I spend probably half my gaming time on it. I know I'll burn out on it, I always do on MMO's, but this one is fun as heck so far. I'm a Sith Pureblood Marauder, and I kill stuff with hate and my mind and two lightsabers. Right now I have an orange one and a yellow one. If I stick with it, I'm going to get my PvP up and get some purple 'sabers. Yeah, just like the biggest BAMF out there...Samuel L. Jackson, aka Mace Windu in those prequel movies. Actually I want a purple one and a green black-core one, but I probably won't order the Razer stuff anytime soon, so I will probably just be dual-wielding purples. Or maybe purple and red-black. Who knows, I'll probably never get there.

So, time for bed. To recap, love The Psychedelic Furs and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

~~Samm is Jhageko, Jhageko is Samm

Obvious Title About Assembling!

Finally, I have seen The Avengers! In the theatre! So much epic win and awesomeness, my head hurts! That's about it, really. Oh! I lied. We have my brother's computer complete, and it is a beaut. And so we installed Star Wars: The Old Republic. As it turns out, he still has an active account. So now I have a level 13 Sith Pureblood Sith Warrior/Marauder. I'd forgotten how fun good Star Wars games can be. I'm a dual-lightsaber-wielding BADASS. I would love to see another KoTOR now. Yeah. I should really get to bed, as I have to be up early to head to Sallisaw. I'll be hanging out with Steve-O some. Yay.

~~Night, Fuckers. Love, Samm.

Tired and Bored

By Darwin, it was a long night! The internets was out! So, I occupied myself by watching stuff I had previously downloaded and not watched yet. Including an awesome movie called "Another Earth". Then, when 0630 rolled around, I got the bill paid, and now, here I am! Back on the interweb! And just as bored...

So, I think I may go with my brother today to Springfield, MO, to drop my niece off with her mom. I'll miss her these next couple of weeks.

Other than that, I don't think I really have much to say. I'm tired. I hope he leaves early so I can sleep in the car on the way up. If not, I may be staying home to sleep.

~~Tired is the new black, and I'm like an emo goth Samm

Nerd Humour for the Selective Crowd

So, I just made a lot of new webcomics on StripCreator. The link is in a previous post, so I'm not going to repost it. Because I can. Lazy bastards. Also, I've decided to try and keep this up. I promise it all the time, so I wouldn't get my hopes up.

So what have I been doing lately? Well, I'm working on my CCG. For now it's just called Gladiators, but that is likely to change. I have 90% of the rules written down in a Word document. I am currently working on some basic card layouts to put in the document so people can see what I am talking about. This will take awhile, because I'm lazy and I'm not very efficient as a graphic designer. But then! I will come up with a couple of decks for my friends and start the Alpha Test. See if my rules, and my game in general, even works. Then redesign, retest, repeat as necessary. Maybe by this time next year I will be ready to start finding someone to donate some art for the cards and release the whole thing online. Then, maybe, one day, I will be able to make it into something I can sell. Who knows? Dreams and fantasies, fantasies and dreams.

Well, I'm off to each some lunch and see if there is any TV recorded that I can watch, or grumble that I have nothing, come back here, download something, and not watch it for another couple of days. I know myself well.

~~Captain, there is a strange lifeform here. He says he is Samm, and he has come for our women.