When you need to rant...

That I have seen, it used to be posted on the web years ago, but I believe the site it was posted on has since then disappeared, but yes, that was more amusing that the show itself.

I don't mind humor on controversial subjects. Humor can be a very powerful weapon against the evils in society, as Mel Brooks has often said about his take on the Nazis. Ultimately it's the execution that makes the difference. South Park does this very well, making a seemingly bad taste joke with a clear message underneath. Family Guy, on the other hand, just seems to make these jokes for shock value and little else.

That's been one of my main complaints about adult cartoons for a long time, it's like they put more of their time and effort into trying to, "Let's see how far we can push the envelope in what we can get away with this week" more than anything else...

And South Park's gotten its share of backlash as well, like when they made fun of Steve Irwin's death by having him show up at Satan's Halloween party, with a stingray sticking out of his bloody chest.

I'm a South Park fan, I'll defend them to the end, I think they're brilliant and I'm glad they have guts. A lot more guts than Family Guy ever had.

I humbly and sincerely apologize to anyone if I took things too far in my previous post. No, the guy (to the best of my knowledge) did not commit suicide, and I hoped one could appreciate the absurdity of trying to jump out a basement window because... YOU CAN'T! (If you did, it would not be a long trip).George Carlin could handle suicide material better than I ever could.
I too know suicide is a dark world. I lost a co-worker that way, and once upon a time even contemplated it myself. But just thoughts. I could never bring myself to do it, and certainly not to make light about it happening to others.
So again, please accept my apologies. I don't wish death on this guy. Only some brains.

My only thought about suicide is that the religious unrest that goes along with it... supposedly those who commit suicide are forsaken by God, but there's apparently nothing in the Bible that either confirms or contradicts it.

Okay, I know I'm coming to this particular dead-catting a little late...but:

I have four tattoos. All are in places which can either be covered up or displayed without violating nudity laws. ALL are my own art, transferred professionally to my skin by a good artist who used autoclave sterilization and had a policy of not allowing anyone under the influence to get ink in his shop. All are personally symbolic to me. Unfortunately, my skin has allergies to certain of the old pigments and I need to get all of them redone...but it has been twenty years since the first ink went on, so that's not a bad shelf life. I don't have the cash to spend on re-inking right now, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind about having them redone. None.

I have an issue with idiots who walk into a tat shop and pick some silly thing off the wall o'flash and say "huh, that looks cool, put it on my hiney." Personal art of this nature ought to be...well...personally significant! After all, you're wearing it the rest of your life, folks. Make it count. I wish I had old pics of me so you could see the art on my skin when it was new and colorful, but until I get them all re-inked, the designs are on my DA pages, except for the segment of Berlioz' Requiem wound around my upper left arm (from the first brass-band section of the Tuba mirum leading up to the wonderful, violent clash of the Rex tremendae, for anyone familiar with the piece)...and the multicolored anole lizard curled on my right shoulderblade, which I adapted from an advertisement photo.

Have I seen ugly body art? Ill-considered, regrettable, soon-to-be-covered-or-lasered-off body art? Sure.

But that ain't me, kids.

http://newsiefan.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d3gixvi

http://newsiefan.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d3gixof
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It's a very old fashioned opinion from when people didn't understand the human psyche (or God's capacity for compassion).

You know what really bothers me? People like this guy:

(WARNING: CONTAINS SOME EXPLICIT LANGUAGE)


Yes, I know that there are members here that are gay and do support Dan Savage. But just from watching this, I absolutely will NEVER support someone as hypocritical and bigoted as Dan Savage. He's using his "anti-bully" pulpit just to bash the Bible and bash Christians. He is the bully! Did I mention this is at a high school? If I was a student there, I'd be walking out just as the many others who did. Good for them for taking the decision to not listen to the hate speech spewing out of this man's mouth.

You can't have it both ways, Mr. Savage. If you truly are against bullying, then that would mean being against bullying for all people: Gay or Straight, Christian or Atheist. But, instead, you'll use your false message of "tolerance" to spread hate speech. It's just plain bigotry and it's just wrong. What bullying Christians is okay? Is calling those Christian students "pansy-a**es" not bullying in your book?

Seriously, this jerk just bugs me. And anyone else who claims to be tolerant yet will bash Christians. This is hypocrisy at it's worst.

Okay, rant over.

Here's the thing about bullying--it does not necessarily encourage empathy. Some (not all) victims of bullying become very bitter (understandably) and turn around and attack the bullies (making them no better than the bullies). We're almost all guilty of this, regardless of religion or orientation, it's just an aspect of our imperfect human nature.

America has turned into a country where if the Atheists are happy, everybody is happy.

And public schools are supposed to irreligious to avoid "offending" anybody: you're not allowed to play Christian Rock, you can't pray, etc.

Atheists try to silence the Religious. The Religious try to silence Atheists. All the while thinking they have nothing in common, lol.

Well it seems to me that it's always the Atheists who have to have it their way, like I mentioned in a post a while back; just like here recently, there's a county that neighbors mine that a bunch of Atheists are bashing their county's police department because they have the word "religion" on the shoulder patches on their uniforms, which they claim is "offensive" because apparently, just the word "religion" is very very evil and tries to force something onto someone they don't want forced on them... yeah, it's an evil EVIL word... a WORD forces bad stuff on you... wooooo!

Sometimes it's that way. But in other cases it's the Atheists who are kept on the sidelines. Like I said earlier they can't be Boy Scouts or hold public office in many cases.

One thing I don't understand is why they bother messing with the religious in the first place... if they think God doesn't exist, then why waste their energy pestering people for believing in someone they think doesn't exist?

But then again, I guess that's kind of like an older kid razzing a little kid for believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Why do some Christian denominations proselytize?

Actually yes I have known some atheists who fit this description, hehe.

I understand that. But don't you think that if you're doing an anti-bullying speech, you should probably not be the bully during it. Really, this guy is just openly bullying and it's the most hypocritical thing I've seen in a while.

That really saddens me. A group of my friends and I decided to do a Bible Study at my school, but the principle refuses to either allow us or deny us. It just saddens me how Christians are being silenced. But people like Dan Savage are allowed to come into schools and spread hate to the Christian students. It's wrong.

Personally, I don't care if atheists are vocal. They can have their billboards and meetings and whatnot. But, really, they will flip out if *gasp* a nativity scene is on government property! Recently, I heard that a military base chapel was forced to remove a cross because it was deemed "offensive" yet the gay flag flew over the base and they had their "Gay Day" thing after DODT was repealed. I'm just saying tolerance doesn't work only one way.

Humans and hypocrisy are old friends from way back, lol. Yes, I agree he didn't have to approach it that way. At the same time I can understand his frustration. Bullying is a cycle that keeps on going until we make the decision to end it.

I agree that liberal types don't have the monopoly on tolerance that they often think they do. The same way conservative types don't have the monopoly on values.

I've tried to look at that from that perspective for years... but here's the thing.

That's basically what far right Christian groups want regular Christians to believe. If Atheists had any real pull in this country, we wouldn't see legislation that redefines conception as ovulating. The best Athiests can do is maybe pressure someone to call something a Holiday Tree and get Ten Commandment statues (Which were basically just commercials for the 1955 movie anyway)

Here's the red truth...

It's BOTH sides' fault.

You ever see 2 kids get into a fight? One pushes, the other pushes back harder, then the first pushes back even harder, and it keeps going on until a teacher breaks it up? That's basically what atheists and religious types do with no intervention from anyone.

Here's how it starts...

Religious types want legislation that blocks something they don't like, rationalized by religion. Atheists get offended, go on uh.... indie news paper or Rachel Maddow or something no one watches unless there's a good sound bite to get offended at... well, Atheists get angry, lose their rationality of an argument and start name calling. Then religious type gets offended, goes on Hannity or every single AM radio station in the country to say how stupid the atheists are... and that's basically how it goes.

Both are victims of each other, but WANT to be victims so they both look like martyrs for their side. And they don't even need to be.

First off, we are governed by separation of Church and State. No matter how you take it, it is the law of the land. And the law of the land trumping God's word isn't such a bad thing because all organized religions pick and chose what they want to believe, so there's less consistency than there should be. And while we have Christianity, Judaism, and Islam... there's also the fringe religions that are our every right to belong to. The only common ground found in each of every religion and government is don't kill someone, don't steal from them. That's the way it should be.

So the solution?

Religious types need to STOP rationalizing everything they don't like as something written in an obscure passage in the bible. There's a lot of stuff that just doesn't make sense, and a lot of stuff that does. It's the stuff that does that everyone can find common ground in, or at least respect.

Secondly, more Christians have to speak out against their false prophets that ONLY want government control and money. There are so many left wing Christian organizations that meekly and quietly speak out against them, you just don't hear about it because noise makes news.

As for Atheists...

Calling every Christian stupid is like calling every Muslim a terrorist. There's only a small fringe of dangerous followers of a religion. They make themselves heard because they ARE crazy. It's not the average Christian's fault that we have insipid wedge issues about gay marriage and contraception. It's our corrupted, failed 2 party system that's to blame. We all have common ground.

Also, stop with the trying to call every Christmas Tree a Holiday tree? Who is that for? Seriously... who is that for? Kwanzaa and Hanukkah don't have trees. That's like making a vegetarian comfortable by serving some wilted lettuce at the back of the refrigerator, and nothing else for those who aren't. They don't feel included, just singled out.

And above all... STOP with the freaking news media. It's their job to make everything sound a billion times worse than it really is. Like 5 suburban kids played the choking game... TOTAL. The War on Christmas/Christianity is no more valid than when one kid in one high school found a way to get high off of the liquid in blue ice. it's sensationalism that creates ratings and sells books and nothing more. I'd also complain about the passive aggressive crap they call left wing news media, but NO ONE listens to that. Not even liberals... not even the parents of those who are on those cable access stations.

How true that is on all accounts. Both groups feed into each other and they need each other to stay relevant. The problem is "relevant" means complaining about how much it stinks to be them.