I find Christ and His cross not unpleasant or troublesome guests, as men would call them. No, I think patience makes the water Christ gives us good wine, and His dross silver and gold. We have a good reason for continuing to wait: before long our Master will be back for us and shine His light into the whole world, making visible the blacks and whites. Happy are those who will be found ready. Our hour-glass doesn’t have long enough to run for us to become weary. In fact, time itself will dissolve our cares and sorrow. Our heaven is in the bud and growing up until the harvest.  Why shouldn’t we persevere, seeing that our whole life time is a few grains of sand? Therefore I commend Christ to you, as your last-living and longest-living Husband, the staff of your old age.  Let Him now have the rest of your days. Don’t worry about the storm when you’re sailing in Christ’s ship: no passenger will ever fall overboard. Even the most sea-sick passenger is sure to come to land safely.  (Letter 131)

And another one from the same letter:

I myself am in as sweet communion with Christ as a poor sinner can be. I am only pained that He has much beauty and loveliness, and I little love. He has great power and mercy, and I little faith. He has much light, and I poor eyesight. O that I would see Him in the sweetness of His love, and in His marriage-clothes, and were over head and ears in love with that princely one, Christ Jesus my Lord! Alas, my broken dish, my leaky bottle, can hold so little of Christ Jesus! (Letter 131)

For those unfamiliar with Texas de Brazil, it is a churrascarria (steakhouse) in which individuals armed with large skewers loaded with various meats visit your table as you require and give you whatever meat that one is carrying.  The amount of meat you can eat is limited only by your appetite, so arrive hungry.  As an experience, it is fun and engaging to see your selection being carved table-side.  For me, however, that is where most of the pleasantries ended.

Starting with the salad bar; this part of the meal was one of the highlights of the night.  The selection of items was fantastic, including some things that you might not expect to see there (such as sushi, Serrano ham, and goat cheese to name a few).  Even with these strange additions to the salad bar, the overall effect was excellent in that you could choose many of your favorite ingredients for your consumption along with the salad (sun-dried tomatoes, the Serrano ham, and Italian meats being my favorite).  The options and presentation were all highly pleasing, and it makes a great start to the meal.

Sadly, the honeymoon is soon over.  Once the “gauchos” begin loading your plate with meat, you’ll start noticing that much of the meat is rather plain.  Granted, the technical skill is evident as the meat is all cooked perfectly medium-rare (with some heavy exterior charring, however), but there seemed to have been a rather large oversight in the flavor department.  While the umami richness and full-body of the meat was proudly displayed, that was marred by a frequently bitter charring covering the exterior of the beef selections.  The Parmesan crusted chicken and pork tenderloin were both well-made, but they still tasted only marginally better than a similarly well-made rotisserie chicken from a restaurant which costs a quarter less.  The best piece of meat offered was the lamb, followed closely by Brazilian chorizo.   The other seven varieties I partook of gave me flavors that I have surpassed at home with even the cheapest steaks/chicken and basic seasonings.  Ironically, the side items offered with the meat were even better than the items they were supposed to accompany.  The best of these sides was a palette-cleansing fried banana (not plantains…actual bananas).  These had such a rich and decadent flavor that they surpassed even the half-baked creme brulee we had for dessert.

Speaking of the dessert, it was a train-wreck.  The main part of the creme brulee (the caramelized sugar on the top) was soggy and rubbery, lacking the definitive crispiness required.  It seemed as though these were individually frozen and then had the tops quickly torched before being served.  Considering that a meal for two at this location can easily reach $200, such sloppy execution is unacceptable.  Even though we paid the full price for the dessert, we ate less than half of it.

Here’s my take on Texas de Brazil: it’s not designed for people who are used to bold flavors or trying new and creative ways of making a delicious plate of food (my wife and I are in this group, having eaten very strange and bold food from all over the world; from cow’s tongues and giant ants to blood sausage and beef heart, we love the intense and exotic flavors).  Texas de Brazil is designed for those individuals who have only had mediocre steaks from the typical franchise steakhouses (such as Outback Steakhouse) and aren’t accustomed to have exciting or intense dining experiences.  Of course, since food preference is highly subjective, there will be all sorts of people who will still enjoy Texas de Brazil even if they have had better in the past.

For me, I enjoy authentic, traditional foods made the way they have been made for hundreds of years.  Those foods that are hard to find done correctly, but are worth every moment of waiting when they are found.  I love the traditional food from Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Cuba.  And perhaps that’s why I found Texas de Brazil (with it’s standard American steak fare) to be slightly lacking.

Finally, I should emphasize that writing as a critic is easy, and often what one man despises another cannot live without.  If you are an individual who loves various steaks and place a heavy emphasis on customer service and technical skill, then Texas de Brazil might be for you.  I just want to encourage those reading this to go and try it out for yourself and then make a choice.

P.S. The part that irritated me the most was that the gratuity was already added (for a party of two?  When did that become standard procedure?) and it was for and additional 30% of the cost of the meal.  That seems a little unreasonable, and I will be emailing their corporate offices to express my concern.

What irritates me with these kinds of situations is how many black individuals don’t seem to see a problem with this kind of gang violence (even if we only consider the numbers of people in the gangs themselves).  Of course many might come out and say “well if it weren’t for the white man keeping the black man down, there wouldn’t be these kinds of things happening”.  Hopefully having a black president will finally destroy that argument forever.

Here’s my request to the black community: do something! I know that one person or a small group of people might not have any effect, and I know that some people will always make poor choices no matter what.  But you need to step up and refuse to keep falling into these issues with gangs, violent crime, or drug offenses (whether those drug laws are good laws or bogus laws is another argument…).  Notice how nobody in the video seemed to concerned that a guy was being beat to death.  Why was the guy doing the camera work just repeatedly saying “Damn…damn…”  Why didn’t you shut your mouth and do what’s right?! As long as black individuals refuse to insist that this kind of behavior cease (the gang wars and so on), you cannot blame the “white man” or the “Asian man” or the “European man” for “keeping you down”; that responsibility lies with you.

“A prosecutor manufactures evidence in order to win a conviction. After the convicted serves 25 years in prison, exculpatory evidence pointing to another perpetrator surfaces. The convicted is released. Should he be able to sue the prosecutor who concocted the false evidence used to convict him?

Believe it or not, it’s still an open question. In November, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on Pottawattamie v. McGhee in order to resolve it.”

So…even if an over-zealous prosecutor fabricates evidence and sends a man to jail for x number of years, that man has no legal recourse against said prosecutor?

Tell me this: if a person was never punished for, let’s say, theft, regardless of how many times he/she steals.  What incentive is there to stop stealing?  What, are they just going to stop stealing out of the goodness of their little thief hearts?  Doubtful.

Check out the full story here.

Perhaps the most pressing issue we see right now concerns the health care debacle.  There are some serious problems with the health care debate in general, and I’ll explain some of my main concerns shortly.  First, I believe it would be beneficial to explain libertarianism again, since many people seem to just ignore the libertarian views completely while lamenting the damage being caused by the two behemoth parties.

So what does it mean to be a libertarian?  It’s simple…

We believe in maximizing freedom.  Our policy is basically “live and let live”, where you can do as you please as long as you don’t infringe upon the rights of others.

• You have the right to life, liberty, and property.
• Others (including the government) cannot legally take your life, liberty, or property if you are innocent of wrongdoing and you do not willfully consent.  If they attempt to take your life, liberty, or property illegally, you are allowed to defend yourself.
• Others cannot legally enlist the help of others to take your life, liberty, or property.
• You can enlist others to help defend your life, liberty, or property
• You can freely interact with others in any way, as long as both parties consent to the interaction.
• The government’s only function is to defend America from enemies and protect individuals’ rights from being infringed.  It is not responsible for protecting us from ourselves or preventing us from doing as we please (as long as the rights of others are not infringed)

That’s basically what the libertarian position is.  Now, many people seem to think that, given freedom to do as we please, everybody will turn into drug-using hedonistic zombies who will do nothing but engage in reckless behaviors all day.  Of course, some people will turn into said zombies regardless of the law.  Others, however, will never do certain things even if they are legal.  We understand the risks of things like driving without a seatbelt, smoking, or drinking, but it is our individual right to choose to engage in such behaviors.  It is not the government’s job to decide those things for us, since we begin to rely upon the government more and more to decide everything for us.  After years of steady government growth and continual election of self-righteous congressmen, we now have laws proposed to banning swearing in bars or other innocuous activities.  That’s where we are now with the health care debate.  While Obama pushes this with all his presidential might, congress is deciding how much we should be penalized for not agreeing with them or the president.

Until just recently, the penalty for refusing to get health insurance was a fine over $3,000, and if you refused to pay the fine, off to jail you go.  Why is it that nobody seems to see the insanity at play here?  If we choose not to pay for insurance, the government is going to fine us and lock us up?  The government has no business interfering in our lives that way (again, they cannot legislate to protect us from ourselves).

Here come the cries:  ”it’s an injustice that some people die due to lack of health insurance!”  That view is very narrow, of course.  The assumed problem here is that the lack of health insurance causes the deaths.  There are a few problems with that view:

1. There are many locations which will either perform certain medical procedures for free (my wife has volunteered at such free clinics) and others will allow for arrangement of payment plans.
2. Medical attention does not guarantee that the patient will survive.  People die.  We try to prevent it from occurring earlier than expected, but nothing is guaranteed.
3. What if it is not the lack of possessing insurance that is the problem, but the insurance companies themselves that are the problem?  Let me explain…

Imagine this: you own a business which provides a highly-needed service.  A customer comes in one day to patronize your business and introduces you to a rather rich-looking individual, whom he states will be covering the bill.  As the customer partakes of your service (let’s say, science tutoring), the rich-looking person approaches you and states that he will pay the cost of the tutoring, regardless of how high the charge is.  You realize that this guy is being serious, and start thinking: your prices aren’t displayed on a menu or list, so this guy doesn’t know what your set prices usually are.  You could charge this guy way above the usual rate and he wouldn’t know.  And besides, he said he would pay the cost, no matter how high.  Being a business owner trying to make a profit, you decide to charge as much above the going rate as possible.  The patron finishes his lesson and leaves the other guy to pay the bill.  At first he complains that the cost is rather high and insists on paying less, but upon further pushing he finally pays a higher price than your normal, but lower than what you had insisted upon originally.

This is similar to the way insurance companies work with hospitals, and logically so.  If your customer has plenty of money to pay for your service and is willing to basically pay whatever the cost, you are naturally going to charge as much as you can get away with.  Now, I know that there is going to be a certain cost associated with excellent health care, but insurance companies only insure that the hospitals will charge as much as they can get them.  Once there are enough individuals walking in with insurance, the uninsured becomes a minority which doesn’t have any bargaining power with the hospitals (and once the hospital realize that you can only pay $300 dollars for an operation but the insured individual will bring them $30,000 for the same operation, they will naturally see you as a waste of time and money).

This is also why college tuition will keep rising as long as thousands of dollars in loans and government assistance are so easy to get (for example: I needed a college loan for only one semester just to cover $500 of class fees that I couldn’t pay immediately.  I applied and was approved for over $10,000 for a single semester. Needless to say, I declined the extra $9,500).

If nobody had insurance, there wouldn’t be huge sums of money available to pay for the operations, and hospitals would be forced to either lower prices or go out of business (after all, how many of us can afford to pay $300 for an ambulance ride to the hospital, not to mention the cost of the care itself?)

This issue is obviously a very sensitive subject since it concerns the wellbeing of us and our neighbors.  Very few people want to see others suffering, and so we want to have something done about it. The thing to remember is that there are other sides to this argument.  While the first solution to the problem of “some people don’t get medical treatment due to lack of insurance” is to “force everybody to get insurance”, there are other options available (many of which don’t involve throwing people in jail for failing to have health insurance).

Finally, we should always remember that the government is not our savior.  While we may like the idea that an entity of massive power will force everybody to do what we want, keep in mind how you would feel (and have felt under previous presidents) if/when you are forced to conform to the whims of angry parents/offended citizens/sensitive politicians.  It is vital to understand that just because something bothers you personally, it does not give you the right to force it upon others.  So how do you want it?  Is America run by stomping upon those who just want to live free?  Is it run with a hands-off approach, allowing us to run our lives as we see fit?  Whatever your choice, all I can say is that I will always continue to fight for my liberty, so Don’t tread on me.

“aids virus, it MUTATES. And its mutation is so radical that the immune system is unable to identify it and thats why it has been so hard to put an end to it. You wanted a proof of mutation (origin of evolution) in short span of time, there you have it. And don’t even bother trying to understand dna similarities between to different species man, that might blow your cowboy hat off. The mutations in short span (15000 years) of time produced variety in dog race to the point that some dogs cannot reproduce anymore with other race. Have you seen a succesfull doggy hump between a chihuaua and a golden retriever? There you have it, those dogs wont create another dog, cause they are unable to do it due to their mutations. And to see a more radical mutation in a developed animal you must analize long spans of time, but according to the bible or say the old testament (very similar to the jewish book in the beggining, aint it?) we only have 5000 years to analize. What a shame, fundamentalism, in any religion, is dangerous. And by the way, Evolution is not a religion.”   -Posted by user “Eimor“

“A theory is a collection of FACTS you moron.

Meanwhile, there are zero facts to support Noah’s fucking Ark or Jesus Christ and the nails in his hands/feet, or the existence of a God.

Hey! Leprechauns haven’t been disproven to start life on Earth. Let’s teach that too!!!”  - “KaitouKID“

“A scientific theory NEVER becomes a fact. It may be disproven or it remains a theory.” -”radarskiy“

“I have a theory that Creationists are idiots. That’s a fact.” -”architectman“

“You are the only one on a high horse here, pal. Evolution is real, and if you knew what you were talking about, you would know that you can literally see it happen in some areas of the world.” -”Drew420“

“Wow another imbecile that doesn’t know what a scientific theory is.

God isn’t real.

Science is real.

See the difference? Fucker. -”KaitouKID“

“Their inbreeding is deevolution, which they prefer to ignore. I said it once, ill say it again, CREATIONISTS should have be removed from the gene-pool, i wouldn’t even waste bullets on em, just use a machete like the africans (unless you dont have the time, then bullets will work too)… i hate ignorant groups of people and believe they are defective (removal would be quality control). It just so happens that creationists top my list of candidates for neutralisation.” -”citizen024“

“ If those backwards fuckers want to reject science, I say deny those fuckers medical treatment, modern pharmaceuticals, electricity, and everything else science has produced for this world.They can rely on their bullshit prayers to heal and feel warm ahahaha. Religion has kept back society’s progress for too long. -”KaitouKID”

“ you sound like another brain-washed Christian who simply doesn’t want to learn anything other than what the Bible tells him.” -”Arvedui”

You get the idea.  What I don’t understand is the tolerance that is shown to people who start saying that all “ignorant people who ignore science” should be hacked to death with machetes.  I don’t think we should be listening to somebody who is proposing the slaugher of millions of people just because they are “ignorant” in his/her eyes.  Something that really makes me sad is that saying “we should kill all the ignorant people!” seems perfectly acceptable while saying “I believe in God” is somehow a mark of being inbred, ignorant, and brainwashed.  All I have to say to these types of people is this: I believe in God, and I believe the earth was created by Him.  I have a B.S. Degree in molecular biology and I’m currently working on my PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Central Florida, and I do not believe in speciation or macroevolution (of course, I still believe in natural selection and microevolution).  There are many of us actual scientists out here who do not believe in the evolutionary theory.  We do research, we publish papers in the relevant journals (Science, Nature, Biochem, Journal of Molec Bio, etc.), we know all the arguments that evolutionists put forth, we are learning things that you won’t hear about for months of maybe even years, and we have successful science careers.  To call me (or those like me) ignorant and brainwashed and simply discard all the research I do and conclusions I make and call for my death is far beyond close-minded and un-scientific: it borders on insanity.

Let me make something perfectly clear (as a member of the scientist community); there is not this huge overwhelming majority of scientists speaking with a strong unified voice in support of evolution.  Behind the scenes and when the TV cameras are off, many scientists are expressing their concern with the brute mentality with which the evolutionary theory is forced.  It is frequently compared to a sort of fanatical fervor, where they simply begin screaming and foaming at the mouth (figuratively) that evolution is FACT!  IT’S FACT FACT FACT!  Sometimes (as seen above), it elevates to “IT’S A FACT AND I’LL KILL YOU IF YOU DISAGREE!”.  Ah…I see.  The rational scientists with their mountain of evidence resort to name-calling because they had their beliefs questioned.

Just a couple of other little facts: that gizmodo post which got everybody attacking Creationists?  It was referring to an amendment passed in Texas regarding the teaching of evolution.  It did not mention Creationism, it did not talk about Intelligent Design.  It did not allow teachers to teach Creationism or Intelligent Design.  It doesn’t say anything about religion, the origins of the earth,  churches, preachers, or Christianity.  All it does is state that biology teachers should teach the evidence for and against the evolutionary theory, encourage students to critically evaluate this evidence, and textbook must also state the evidence for and against.  Even the evidence against is not from a Creationist or Intelligent Design origin, but from other scientists who point out some of the gaps or missing step/logic (again, never mentioning religion, Creationism, God, or Intelligent Design).  The amendment does not allow for the teaching of ID as an alternative, and it does not allow for religion to be taught as science.  Isn’t it strange, then, that the evolutionary scientists cry “creationism!” even though the bill itself never allows Creationism anywhere near the biology classroom.  Anybody who says that this amendment allows teachers to teach religion, Creationism, or ID is lying.  The take-home message here is that evolution fanatics never want anything critical said of the evolutionary theory.  Doesn’t that seem odd, that scientists would want to suppress any investigation into the potential inadequacies of the evolutionary theory?  How can they say they are scientists while saying “nobody is allowed to even propose that the evolutionary theory has any holes in it.”  It seems to me that these “scientists” are beginning to abandon the practice of the scientific endeavor.

Finally, so many people seem to think that the scientific method consists of two parts: hypothesis and theory.  The scientific method has three parts: hypothesis, theory, and law.  Supporters say “evolutionary theory is a fact supported by a mountain of evidence” (always with the proverbial ‘mountain’ of evidence), but if you were to ask them “so it is a scientific law, then?” they will invariably say something along the lines of “there are no scientific laws” or “a theory is a fact and it doesn’t need to be examined further.”  In all honesty, the evolutionary “theory” doesn’t have enough supporting data (and lack of contradictory data, conversely) to move beyond the designation of “hypothesis”.

Carl Sagan once said that Scientists will “follow the truth, wherever it leads.”  I suppose he should have added “as long as that truth isn’t critical of or contrary to our pre-concieved notions.”

Another very large group of gay activists (not the radical group “Bash Back” this time) assaulted a group of Christians who were doing some street evangelism in the Castro district in San Fancisco.  Now I’ve seen the local gay community organize many protests and parades here in Florida, and they seem to think that nobody has any right to prevent their gathering and protesting/advocating.  And then something like this happens…watch the video footage (NOTE: there is strong language in the video):

So this is the action from those advocating “tolerance”?  The Christians here were definitely doing something risky, but they should not have been attacked for exercising the same right that the gays have been exercising excessively for quite a while now.  I know there are people out there saying “well this isn’t how all the gays feel”, but I have a feeling that we’re going to be seeing this more and more frequently until something truly horrific happens (and considering the generally passive nature of many Christians, I’m fearing that a group of gay activists are going to either severely beat or kill a group of Christians).  What kind of society is this, where people who stand for “tolerance” are rioting and attacking those who differ in opinion?  It is clear that by “tolerance”, they really mean “agree with us or shut up”.

Here is the testimony of one of the Christians in the group (this can be found in the description of the video on YouTube):

“I went to the Castro (the homosexual district of San Francisco) like we usually do on Friday nights.
Normally, we sit on 18th and Castro, and someone plays the guitar, and we all worship God.
Sometimes a person will yell at us, or maybe a few. Sometimes people will ignore us. Sometimes people will let us pray with them.
This time was not a normal night. It was the first time we’d been back in the Castro to do our normal outreach since California Proposition 8, which defined marriage as “one man with one woman” was passed. We played the guitar and sang together and worshiped the Lord. After just singing and worshiping God for a while, Roger decided that we should all hold hands in a circle and continue singing. So we did.
Someone (Actually a person who came up and hugged and kissed some of us who he knew from the past) convinced some people that we were there to protest against the no on 8 campaign.
Then some guy who was dressed up like one of the sisters (The sisters of perpetual indulgence is a group of men who dress up like nuns and call themselves the spiritual authority of the Castro.) took a curtain-type thing (Which I think they use to curse people) and wrapped it around us.
Then a crowd started gathering. We began to sing “Amazing Grace”, and basically sang that song the whole night. (At some points we also sang “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” and “Oh the Blood of Jesus”.) At first, they just shouted at us, using crude, rude, and foul language and calling us names like “haters” and “bigots”. Since it was a long night, I can’t even begin to remember all of the things that were shouted and/or chanted at us. Then, they started throwing hot coffee, soda and alcohol on us and spitting (and maybe even peeing) on us. Then, a group of guys surrounded us with whistles, and blasted them inches away from our ears continually. Then, they started getting violent and started shoving us. At one point a man tried to steal one of our Bibles. Chrisdene noticed, so she walked up to him and said “Hey, that’s not yours, can you please give it back?”. He responded by hitting her on the head with the Bible, shoving her to the ground, and kicking her. I called the cops, and when they got there, they pulled her out of the circle and asked her if she wanted to press charges. She said “No, tell him I forgive him.” Afterwards, she didn’t rejoin us in the circle, but she made friends with one of the people in the crowd, and really connected heart to heart. Roger got death threats. As the leader of our group, people looked him in the eyes and said “I am going to kill you.”, and they were serious. A cop heard one of them, and confronted him. (This part is kinda graphic, so you should skip the paragraph if you don’t want to be offended.) It wasn’t long before the violence turned to perversion. They were touching and grabbing me, and trying to shove things in my butt, and even trying to take off my pants – basically trying to molest me. I used one hand to hold my pants up, while I used the other arm to hold one of the girls. The guys huddled around all the girls, and protected them. Soon after, the cops came and stood between us and the mob. When it was getting more heated, the cops were like “You guys should leave.” and Roger said “We want to stay.” Someone tried to steal my backpack, but I tapped a cop on the shoulder, and said “Hey, that’s my bag.” and he got it from him and gave it to me. Others weren’t so lucky. Probably half our team got their jackets stolen. Eventually, as the crowd was getting more and more uncontrollable, the cops were afraid for our lives, so they escorted us to our van. (The cops were very nice to us from start to finish.) Our van was parked pretty far because it was hard to find parking that day. As the cops escorted us, the mob followed us, until the cops formed a line, and held off the people so we could drive away. We took the long way home, just in case anyone tried to follow us. When we got home, we prayed and sang more, and then prayed over each-other. Please know my heart. All of what we do is for the Love of Jesus Christ, and the love for those in the Castro. The Bible says to love God, and then love people. We can only love because He loved us first. We can’t hate the people because they are just broken and blinded by the spirit of this age. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities and Powers. It’s not a political thing, we just love the people. This is the raw footage of the walk from 18th and Castro Street to our car. It was only the very tail end of the night and says that we were all about prop8… when in reality we had nothing to do with prop 8 this night.:”

And here is a comment that I think sums up the hatred of Christians fairly well:

“im not gay but man i ****ing hate christians…ive been to christian school and you ****ers are the reason the world is collapsing on itself.**** you christians…way to have an open mind…do society a favor and ****ing DIEEEEE.” (censoring mine)

Isn’t it amazing that the Christians are hated so ferociously?  The scary thing is, the comment above sounds what a nazi probably sounded like when refering to the Jews…and that is why I fear that the gay activists will get more militant and continue these attacks until Christians start getting killed.  I’m hoping that things chill out before it gets to that point, but things are happening very quickly.  Furthermore, Christians are steadfast in their conviction (in general) and faith, and the gay community is also firmly rooted in their beliefs…and since Christians typically avoid attacking other people physically, it is only obvious to assume that the gay activists (who clearly have no hesitancy in using force against law-abiding citizens) will eventually attack any Christians who would have the audacity to question their lifestyle.

I pray that I never have to deal with a situation like this.

Would you believe…homosexual activists?  I hope you understand that I’m not joking, because that’s exactly what it was.

So…it appears that part of the gay community has decided that the best way to persuade people that their views are correct is to storm into a church in the middle of a service, shout profanities, perform lude acts in front of the congregation, throw fliers all over the congregation, and attempt to start fights.

The congregation reacted admirably…nobody fought the gay activists, nobody shouted at them or attempted to silence them.  In fact, the church hasn’t even pressed any charges or sought legal action against this group.

This group has some serious problems…they scream about being called names by people, and then they turn around and call Christians “christofacists” and other, more unsavory names.  Please note, I will not use the vulgar vocabulary typically used when refering to gays, and yet they feel the need to call me names.  Not that I’m really surprised that they would resort to this kind of thing, but I think everybody should really look closely and think about who’s really distributing hate.  Is it the church that sat in silence and refuses to strike back at these attackers, or is it the people who showed just how mean-spirited they can be with a church attack?

By the way, this group (called “Bash Back”) has also bragged about vandalizing a mormon church:

“Bash Back! Olympia Trashes Mormon Church

Last night, under the veil of fog, we visited the Church of Latter Day Saints. We left their locks glued with anarchist messages scrawled in spray paint over their boring veneer.

 

We did this to show our solidarity with all who are resisting heterosexism everywhere, hopefully to spur them into action; and also because we are angry at the amount of money and propaganda that the Mormon church pumped into the homophobic Proposition 8 campaign. From their disgusting commercials to their despicable sermons to those gross lawn signs, we are sick of this parade of bigotry. The Church has to pay.

[...]

The Mormon church (just like most churches) is a cesspool of filth. It is a breeding ground for oppression of all sorts and needs to be confronted, attacked, subverted and destroyed. The church reinforces sexism, transphobia, homophobia, racism, capitalism, and leaves it’s members emotionally wounded and unable to engage in critical thinking. The Mormon church teaches us to hate our bodies, not to trust ourselves or our desires. This ends up deforming us as healthy sexual and communal beings. This is unacceptable.

This is a few reasons why an affinity group of the Olympia, Washington Chapter of Bash Back! decided to attack their church with glue and paint. Let this be a warning to the Mormon church, dissolve completely or be destroyed. The choice is yours.” (emphasis mine)

And I found this confusing:

“Liberating our sexual fantasies and desires is dangerous to this rigid system, because free people enjoying themselves in a plethora of ways sexually will eventually want to enjoy themselves in other areas of life too, capitalism doesn’t want sexually liberated people because they ask too many questions and may not show up to work on time (or at all).” (emphasis mine)

I really fail to see how capitalism works into all of this…anyway, here you can see that this isn’t some tiny group of people having weekly meetings in a graveyard or something.  This is a serious group of people with the strong desire to attack and destroy Christians and Christian churches.  Funny, they want to destroy us Christians just because we disagree with their lifestyle?  And these people say that we’re the crazy ones.

Now, the ads are being paid for by the American Humanist Association, which is an organization that is not very friendly to the religious crowd.  Being a libertarian, I have no problem with people buying ads for whatever position they want, but I do find these ads to be in poor taste at best and malicious deceptions at worst.  The problem here is that Christmas originated from the Christian religion (celebrating the birth of Jesus), and these individuals feel the need to attack what amounts to the entire meaning of Christmas for most Americans.  What this appears to be is nothing more than a group of people who are angry that the most popular holiday in America has a Christian origin, and they want to keep the festivities and spirit alive while removing any vestiges of religion.  Fred Edwords, the spokesman for the association, had this to say concerning their motivation:

“Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion.”

Indeed they do…and why shouldn’t they?  I know it is never pleasant to feel isolated during the Christmas season, but to feel isolated because you disagree with the very foundation of the holiday is to be expected.  Atheists (a small minority in this country at 1.6 %) cannot expect the majority of Americans (Christians: 78.4%) to simply give up a major aspect of Christmas (once again, the sole reason for Christmas) just because the presence of God in this holiday offends their very easily offended senses.  If they do not like the fact that Christmas is a religious holiday, then they are free to find some other holiday which they can celebrate unencumbered by the presence of God…perhaps Cinco de Mayo or the Day of the Dead.

Again, I find this whole matter to be in poor taste, as it sends a negative message to people during one of the most joyous holidays in this country.  Why can’t they just let everybody celebrate Christmas the way we’ve always celebrated it?  Why do they feel the need to spend all of this money just to promote atheism during the Christmas season?  And, most importantly, why do they feel such a strong need to attack something that they do not believe exists?  If they truly think that God does not exist, then what are they arguing against?  If they truly think that God does not exist, why not spend that money on something worthwhile?  Maybe, just maybe, the truth is that they know that God exists deep  within their souls, but they hate Him with all of the passion they can muster.  Maybe that is why they attack Christianity with such fervor.