in Todd we Gust

And now, a favorite subject of mine: religion.
Ah, religion… the ultimate means of control. Why waste time policing people when you can give them a set of rules and they will police themselves. What’s more, they will be perfectly happy with their meager existence while you merrily prance all the way to Tahiti off their dime, with the blood, sweat and tears of your faithful minions safely stored in your vault.

I submit to you a story:
There was a family whose cistern had a hole in it. Not just any hole; mind you. It was a really big hole!
Wait a minute… what in the name of Todd is a cistern? For our purposes, we shall take Webster’s definition of a cistern as “an artificial reservoir (as an underground tank) for storing liquids and especially water (as rainwater).” That being said, I am actually referring to a reservoir from which a family can draw water after the city has shut off the water supply for the rest of the night. Yes, this kind of thing still happens in parts of the world. Not everyone is as privileged as you.

On with the story…
There was no water in the house. A quick peek into the cistern reveals that it is empty. This, in turn, leads the afflicted family to realize the cistern must have a hole in it. Upon closer inspection into the actual cistern, their fears are confirmed as a huge, gaping hole is discovered near the bottom.

Problem: there is a big hole in the cistern.
Solution: the family calls their friend and spiritual mentor in Christ, brother “Jessup.”
(* names have been changed to protect the stupid*)

Brother “Jessup” promptly gathers the entire family around the cistern. They hold hands and pray. After the prayer, “Jessup” utters, “I saw something come out of there. A demon came out of the cistern. Praise the Lord!” The whole family gives thanks to God and pats each other on the back.
“Jessup” tells them they can now fill the cistern without any problems.

I watch in shock as the cistern is filled, the family confident that it will hold. You’re talking about a cistern the size of a one-car garage. In order for that to completely empty within a day or two, it has to be a gigantic hole.
The next morning, as the family happily goes to check on their cistern, I can only think if that damn hole is fixed I will have no choice but to bow down to God and brother “Jessup.” If that hole is fixed, all that I thought I knew is wrong.

Sure enough, the cistern is almost completely empty, as logic would dictate.
Here is where it gets really funny… as everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out why all the water poured out through the hole they all knew was there, the matriarch of the family walks over. She looks at the empty cistern and asks her husband, “Do you want to know why the cistern isn’t fixed?” The husband looks at her blankly; eyes occasionally shifting towards the empty cistern. At last, she tells him in a peevish voice, “God came to me in a dream last night. He said the reason he did not fix the cistern is because you used to be a mason and you can fix that hole yourself.”

I was shocked to the point of insanity!
Why would that not have been your first course of action?
If you cut yourself, do you stare at it and pray to God for help? Or do you clean the wound and but a fucking bandage on it?
And the best part of it... God never has to explain himself. If you get what you prayed for, the Lord is grand!!! Thank you, Jesus!! If not, then "the Lord works in mysterious ways."
Are you for real? Politicians would kill every first born son in the nation for that kind of impunity.

That is how religion controls people. It creates the myth of an all-knowing, all-powerful being that cannot be questioned as to His methods, for He knows what He is doing and as long as you believe that, yours will be the just reward in the end.
Who cares if you are poor and wretched in the meantime? You'll be in Heaven when you die.
Sure, that rich dude over there thinks he's having a grand ol' time now, with his money and his power and his huge house, luxury cars, fine clothes and throngs of women. But in the end, the rich will all be in Hell and all their wealth and material possessions will count for nothing!
Meanwhile, you live a crappy, wretched life while others - mainly the ones who control/organize the religion - live in the lap of luxury.

If anyone has an argument other than "the bible says ___," I welcome it. I will not entertain any quotes from the bible, however, because you cannot defend god with God's own words. If I don't believe in God, it would stand to reason that I do not believe in "His word" either... right...?

So, go ahead... convince me with something other than blind faith. I dare you. I double, triple, infinity dare you.
Hit me with your best shot.

~ ~ ~ Recommended Reading ~ ~ ~

1. Competitive Spirits: Latin America's New Religious Economy
by: Dr. R. Andrew Chestnut


2. http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank
by: Reverend James Huber
(this is an awesome story that I did not include in my initial writings due to time and space constrictions)

an Army of Goths

In a time when the war in the middle east has become an accepted fact of current world affairs and all the controversy surrounding it seems to be fading away, i thought it would be appropriate to start my blog by reopening the gash that was torn across the nation by a highly controversial plunge into a death match with an unseen enemy.
This post, however, is not really about the war. It is about the propaganda and rhetoric spewed from the mouth of men and women who are tirelessly at work to get your kids, you brothers and sisters, your friends and loved ones to fight a war they are merely watching on the television and reading about in memos and on the internet.
Who are these heartless people? Why, military recruiters, of course.
Don't be mad at them, they're just doing their job, after all. Aren't they?


It seems i am talking about this more and more often these days. I think military recruiters are targeting goth kids (among other demographics, to be sure) because they know they are down and out, disenfranchised, and many of them just want to fit in somewhere. They give them their rehearsed speech about how they can still do whatever they like in their off time and gain valuable training and a steady paycheck in the process.

I see it happening, and I don't like it.

Obviously, the choice is yours to go or not.
I merely state opinion. Opinion based on fact, but opinion just the same.

These guys (recruiters) use hard sale tactics to get you to believe it is the only choice you have. If it were really the only choice, wouldn't you have thought about it well before that asshole talked to you in the first place?

"I'm just going for the training," you say? I assume you mean working out and stuff? It's only as effective as the individual allows it to be. Translation: you can get equal training on your own out in the free world.
If, by training you mean technical, on-the-job type stuff... that stuff hardly ever translates to civilian life. In the rare instances that civilian employers actually take your military training into account, they still make you do their own training program. You could do that without being a slave/drone/piece of property for a number of years.

Stable income. It's not as much income or as stable as it sounds. If you happen to get kicked out for any reason employers hate the sound of "dishonorable discharge." They don't even know what it means, they just know it sucks.
Trust me, everyone who gets kicked out was not planning on doing anything to get kicked out.
Goodbye government benefits, including welfare and social security. Let's hope you never end up in court for any reason (divorce, child custody, dwi...) because lawyers love to bring up things like dishonorable discharge to show your "bad character."

Let's say you get injured. Medical discharge. The compensation is not nearly enough to get by on, if you can manage to get any compensation at all. Employers know you didn't do anything wrong, but they still don't like to hire injured people.

And what about the children? So many people end up in the military because it was the best way they could think of to take care of their kids, what with free medical care and all.
It will be a long time before you can bring your kid with you. In the mean time, you have to figure out your own child care plan. When you finally do get to have your kid, you still have to work all that stuff out on your own. Most bases have quite the waiting list for the free day care on board. In the meantime, guess who's paying for it? But that's okay. You can afford it. You have that steady paycheck, remember? Let's just hope the foreign country you end up in has an adequate day care to meet your needs and give you peace of mind when you drop off your little crumb-snatcher(s).

Not to mention kids hate military life. All the moving around and what not.
How many stories have you heard, both in real life and in movies, of people who hated their parents because they were in the military? Where do you think movies get that shit from?

Quality of life sucks there. Unless you're some gung-ho, "i don't need nothing but my rifle" sort of freak, it sucks. Even on your off time, you are expected to "carry yourself in a manner so as to best reflect the character and integrity of the military." What does that mean? It means that it is up to their discretion whether or not you did something to make the military look bad. So every time you go out to get a beer and drown out the day's aches and pains, you could be setting yourself up for trouble.

For all you goth kids: goth clubs are high on the list of places they don't want their people going. Way too much craziness for their taste; what with boys wearing make-up and all that sex, drugs and gender ambiguity running rampant.

The suicide rate is at an all time high within the military.

The drinking culture alone is cause for concern. Even if you are not drinking, you can end up in an "alcohol-related incident" if someone with you was drinking. If a drunken asshole attacks you, you are still involved in an "alcohol-related incident!" Remember how you were not planning on doing anything to get yourself kicked out? Someone should have told that to the drunk Marine that started a fight with you at the bar because you got mildly annoyed when he bumped your chair and spilled some of his drink on you.

Rapes. Both date rapes and violent rapes are at an alarmingly high rate.
There are documented cases where the military has turned a blind eye and allowed people with sex offenses to enlist. Two separate cases some to mind where sex offenders were allowed into the Marines.

Females, you get the working end of the stick. Did you know that having sex on deployment is not allowed. It is illegal. Sex is illegal. So what happens if you get pregnant? or get an STD?
You go to the base clinic to get checked out, and the doctor is under obligation to report you to your commanding officer. You then face the consequences of disobeying a lawful order - the order not to have sex. You could get anything from a demotion to time in the brig or even a dishonorable discharge. Bet you never thought having sex could get you kicked out of the service, did you? Guess again.
Of course, there are other options. One woman chose to keep her pregnancy secret so as not to jeopardize her career. She nearly died from her miscarriage.

Where does all this sex and alcohol abuse come from? Because people are pissed off that their enlistment was extended (stop-loss) because the military couldn't afford to let them go home just yet.

Reservists are losing the farm back home because they have been gone so long and are not making enough money to cover their bills. Being in a "combat zone" can take a serious toll on a person's psyche.

The bottle seems more and more like a way out. And we all know people act differently in a drunken state than they normally would.

"But I'm just going into the national guard." One of the branches of the military that are hurting the most for people right now is the national guard. Know why? Because people are realizing that Iraq and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are not within the nation. Yes, they WILL send you overseas.
Everyone who is in the service is there to meet the needs of the military. The needs of the nation. and if they need reservists to become active and go to Bosnia, guess what? Reservists are going active and going to Bosnia... or Cuba... or Iceland... or Iran. Wherever the needs of the military may dictate.

I have met many, many people from the national guard who were stuck overseas for an "indeterminate tour of duty."

Once again, this is just my opinion. An opinion that was forged after 5 long years of service; but an opinion, just the same.