It's amazing to come so far, to learn and grow so much, and see a tiny shard of myself, from years ago, and be absolutley amazed and also cut by my own words. Genius or Madness, you decide.
From November, 2003:
Show Me
You showed me everything
of life and beauty,
but in the end
"just doing your duty."
You could only show
what you could see,
done only to do
and not for me.
You told the truth,
you could not have lied.
Still the truth was but half;
you missed the inside.
Into your depths
I stood and stared.
You never noticed
you never cared.
One sided fool,
Vanity's spawn.
Only in darkness
could I see dawn.
You gathered friends
to shock and amuse
but I now see through
your magic trick ruse.
I see you at last
cold, reflecting core.
You see me as well
Only outside, nothing more.
Into my great fears
did you delve
for inside of you
I saw myself.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
On Evolution. OR, Kirk Cameron, your heart's in the right place, but your head's up your ass. OR Jesus in six Yuenglings or less.
There's a currently a video circulating the internet which stars Kirk Cameron, telling people that a few days before the anniversary of Darwin's “The Origin of the Species,” that he and his colleagues are going to be circulating a copy of the book that contains a new introduction. The video goes on to state that a large number of college professors teaching certain classes are atheists, and that Cameron and company are going to circulate this new version of the book to show our college students the opposing arguments to evolution alongside Darwin's work. The majority of the information Cameron outlines about the new introduction is just a series of ad hominem attacks against Darwin, such as he was a racist, or has ties to Hitler. By Cameron's description, it also appears that the new introduction will outline intelligent design, so that our youth will be able to figure out the correct truth, which Cameron claims is intelligent design, for themselves.
The prospect that I continually fail to understand, is why creationists can't seem to accept evolution. Creationists appear to have some deep rooted fear that any science that would question God is some kind of witchery meant to destroy religion by disproving it. This leads to a cataclysmic rift between faith and science, which spawns far too many loud arguments and far too little thoughtful debate. Religion as a whole needs to stop hindering the pursuit of scientific knowledge, because such knowledge should not be able deny or disprove faith.
As science as a whole disproving faith would be a long and complicated affair, let us simply deal with the current bane of creationists: evolution. It would appear the root of the creationists' desire to discredit evolution stems from the conclusion that if evolution were somehow confirmed, it would contradict the Bible's claims that the world is less than 10,000 years old. This can easily be refuted. If one is willing to accept that God is all powerful, and that he did indeed create the world in seven days, than one should just as easily be able to accept the fact that God would be able to create such a world with the evidence of and potential for evolution.
One could even go so far as to proclaim that God created such evidence to encourage doubt. If a world existed in which everything simply appeared overnight, there would be less reason, if any, to doubt God's existence. If faith were concrete, then it would not be faith, it would be fact. In the Bible itself, it becomes apparent that God does not want us to have indefatigable proof of God's existence. One of the most prominent instances of this resides in the fact that whenever Jesus is asked for a miracle as proof of his divinity, said miracle is not given.
A simple explanation for God's refusal to give us absolute proof of existence is perhaps stemmed from a desire for the free will of humanity. From a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim standpoint, this is evidenced by the fact that God put the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. If it were the desire of God to have us all as mindless robots of love and worship, God could have easily not put the tree in the garden, or, in his omniscience, stopped us from consuming its fruit. The reason God did not do as such can be attributed to the fact that love freely given, and not earned, has little, if any, value. It stands to reason that ten people loving you for who you are is worth more than a hundred loving you because they are told to do so.
Throughout the Bible there are many instances where God is revealed to people, thus evoking a love of fact and not faith. It is important to acknowledge that while this is done from time to time, it is never done to humanity as a whole. While God does appear to some, it is only, at best, to give information and teachings to humanity; to encourage faith. Such is only done in a very centered area of the Earth, leading one to wonder why God's existence would be revealed to so few, if God's word were truly so grand. One could speculate that the reason this is done is to encourage more doubt. If European explorers had come to Asia, Africa, or America, and found the population already echoing their own religious beliefs, it would leave less reason to doubt God.
In the end, the reasoning to doubt or not doubt God is all speculation. The root of the matter lies within one's faith. If the very growing expansion of human knowledge is a threat to one's faith, then perhaps it is time to accept that faith is not a static book of be all end all rules and truths, but instead is a living, breathing organism. If faith were meant to be proven, proof would have been given to us.
The prospect that I continually fail to understand, is why creationists can't seem to accept evolution. Creationists appear to have some deep rooted fear that any science that would question God is some kind of witchery meant to destroy religion by disproving it. This leads to a cataclysmic rift between faith and science, which spawns far too many loud arguments and far too little thoughtful debate. Religion as a whole needs to stop hindering the pursuit of scientific knowledge, because such knowledge should not be able deny or disprove faith.
As science as a whole disproving faith would be a long and complicated affair, let us simply deal with the current bane of creationists: evolution. It would appear the root of the creationists' desire to discredit evolution stems from the conclusion that if evolution were somehow confirmed, it would contradict the Bible's claims that the world is less than 10,000 years old. This can easily be refuted. If one is willing to accept that God is all powerful, and that he did indeed create the world in seven days, than one should just as easily be able to accept the fact that God would be able to create such a world with the evidence of and potential for evolution.
One could even go so far as to proclaim that God created such evidence to encourage doubt. If a world existed in which everything simply appeared overnight, there would be less reason, if any, to doubt God's existence. If faith were concrete, then it would not be faith, it would be fact. In the Bible itself, it becomes apparent that God does not want us to have indefatigable proof of God's existence. One of the most prominent instances of this resides in the fact that whenever Jesus is asked for a miracle as proof of his divinity, said miracle is not given.
A simple explanation for God's refusal to give us absolute proof of existence is perhaps stemmed from a desire for the free will of humanity. From a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim standpoint, this is evidenced by the fact that God put the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. If it were the desire of God to have us all as mindless robots of love and worship, God could have easily not put the tree in the garden, or, in his omniscience, stopped us from consuming its fruit. The reason God did not do as such can be attributed to the fact that love freely given, and not earned, has little, if any, value. It stands to reason that ten people loving you for who you are is worth more than a hundred loving you because they are told to do so.
Throughout the Bible there are many instances where God is revealed to people, thus evoking a love of fact and not faith. It is important to acknowledge that while this is done from time to time, it is never done to humanity as a whole. While God does appear to some, it is only, at best, to give information and teachings to humanity; to encourage faith. Such is only done in a very centered area of the Earth, leading one to wonder why God's existence would be revealed to so few, if God's word were truly so grand. One could speculate that the reason this is done is to encourage more doubt. If European explorers had come to Asia, Africa, or America, and found the population already echoing their own religious beliefs, it would leave less reason to doubt God.
In the end, the reasoning to doubt or not doubt God is all speculation. The root of the matter lies within one's faith. If the very growing expansion of human knowledge is a threat to one's faith, then perhaps it is time to accept that faith is not a static book of be all end all rules and truths, but instead is a living, breathing organism. If faith were meant to be proven, proof would have been given to us.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
A letter of Suggestion to Subway Restaurants:
Dear Subway Restaurants,
My name is Raymond Adkins, and I have been eating at Subway restaurants for many years. I love your sandwiches, and the pleasantness of employees is worlds above that of other fast food chains. Overall, I am very pleased with your business. I am writing this letter because even though I love your business, there are a few small things I think that you might be able to improve on. I do apologize in advance, as I do not mean to tell you how to run your business, I am just making friendly suggestions.
My biggest concern is the amount of cheese that you put on your sandwiches. Pardon me for a hair of blasphemy here, but Jesus H. fucking God damned almighty in mother fucking heaven H. mother fucking Christ. The few tiny triangles of cheese you put on should not be advertised as “with cheese,” it should be advertised as “with implications of cheese.” Lactose intolerant people put more cheese on their sandwiches than you do. Have you never made a fucking sandwich for yourself? How much cheese do you put on there? If cheese were to outlawed tomorrow, your sandwiches would still be legal.
I know it is not an issue of cost, seeing as how you always manage to put about 12 fucking dollars worth of lettuce on every damned sandwich. I am serious here. I do not want to go though Subway soul crushing sandwich assembly line school, but I would love to learn that voodoo black magic shit that lets you cram a cubic foot of lettuce onto a six inch sub. The only drawback is once you have put that much lettuce on there, there is only enough space for about three tiny pieces of onion. Not that you will be pressed for space, as you will only put two, most likely to leave room for the pieces of broken soul that flake off of the person making the sandwich.
Also, if there any way you could speed up your employees? They all seem to move as slow as narcoleptic molasses. I realize that since cattle prodding employees became illegal, it is a tad hard to motivate employees who are making $SHIT.50 an hour. Not to be pushy, but if you cannot get the clueless bitch making my sandwich to move faster, could you at least have her wait until when they are not in the middle of fucking up my order to stop and load bread into the God damned oven? They all move so slow, it takes more time than my half hour lunch break to get a fucking cheeseless lettuce sandwich. That is why people lose weight by going to subway, there is no time to eat it.
Speaking of which, I think it's time to put the Jared advertising scheme to rest. I don't think eating your pasteurized, processed, soulless, cheeseless lettuce subs is any kind of healthy diet. As big as his fat ass was, I'm sure it was less of an “I ate subway” diet and more of a “I stopped eating at the ham hock buffet 17 times a week” diet that helped him lose the weight. Though I do admit that it can certainly help one's diet by going to subway, because every time I see a picture of that ugly bastard Jared, I lose my appetite.
In closing, thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I realize that you probably receive enough mail that it can be hard to keep up with it all, so I appreciate your hearing out my concerns. I hope you found my insight to be thought provoking or otherwise beneficial. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Raymond Adkins
My name is Raymond Adkins, and I have been eating at Subway restaurants for many years. I love your sandwiches, and the pleasantness of employees is worlds above that of other fast food chains. Overall, I am very pleased with your business. I am writing this letter because even though I love your business, there are a few small things I think that you might be able to improve on. I do apologize in advance, as I do not mean to tell you how to run your business, I am just making friendly suggestions.
My biggest concern is the amount of cheese that you put on your sandwiches. Pardon me for a hair of blasphemy here, but Jesus H. fucking God damned almighty in mother fucking heaven H. mother fucking Christ. The few tiny triangles of cheese you put on should not be advertised as “with cheese,” it should be advertised as “with implications of cheese.” Lactose intolerant people put more cheese on their sandwiches than you do. Have you never made a fucking sandwich for yourself? How much cheese do you put on there? If cheese were to outlawed tomorrow, your sandwiches would still be legal.
I know it is not an issue of cost, seeing as how you always manage to put about 12 fucking dollars worth of lettuce on every damned sandwich. I am serious here. I do not want to go though Subway soul crushing sandwich assembly line school, but I would love to learn that voodoo black magic shit that lets you cram a cubic foot of lettuce onto a six inch sub. The only drawback is once you have put that much lettuce on there, there is only enough space for about three tiny pieces of onion. Not that you will be pressed for space, as you will only put two, most likely to leave room for the pieces of broken soul that flake off of the person making the sandwich.
Also, if there any way you could speed up your employees? They all seem to move as slow as narcoleptic molasses. I realize that since cattle prodding employees became illegal, it is a tad hard to motivate employees who are making $SHIT.50 an hour. Not to be pushy, but if you cannot get the clueless bitch making my sandwich to move faster, could you at least have her wait until when they are not in the middle of fucking up my order to stop and load bread into the God damned oven? They all move so slow, it takes more time than my half hour lunch break to get a fucking cheeseless lettuce sandwich. That is why people lose weight by going to subway, there is no time to eat it.
Speaking of which, I think it's time to put the Jared advertising scheme to rest. I don't think eating your pasteurized, processed, soulless, cheeseless lettuce subs is any kind of healthy diet. As big as his fat ass was, I'm sure it was less of an “I ate subway” diet and more of a “I stopped eating at the ham hock buffet 17 times a week” diet that helped him lose the weight. Though I do admit that it can certainly help one's diet by going to subway, because every time I see a picture of that ugly bastard Jared, I lose my appetite.
In closing, thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I realize that you probably receive enough mail that it can be hard to keep up with it all, so I appreciate your hearing out my concerns. I hope you found my insight to be thought provoking or otherwise beneficial. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Raymond Adkins
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