Deep Thoughts

I'd like to take a moment out of my busy day to state that, yes, I do in fact enjoy pizza a great deal.

Let's have a Hell of a time!

Warning: I'm going to talk about Hell in his blog post. I understand that's a touchy subject, so I probably run the risk of offending a lot of people who believe in God and also a lot of people who don't. But hey, if I'm going to offend people, why not be an equal-opportunity offender? Let's get down to business!

And by business, I mean that I'm going to blog about why I think that a loving God and Hell are not totally incompatible concepts. Now this is a concept that sounds odd, even to people who believe in God, which is probably why the last sermon you'd hear in any progressive church these days would be about hellfire and damnation. Funny thing about that is until around sixty years ago, that wasn't the case. We seem to, suddenly, feel like we have some divine right to being alive and, well, not burning for eternity.

Okay, since that's the mindset of society nowadays, let's go with that one. God exists, people die. People who accept and believe in him go to Heaven. But what about people who don't? They go to... Hell? If God exists, there's no way he'd let something as horrible as Hell exist, right? Well, let's take a moment and see what Google Image Search has to tell us about what the contemporary view of 'Hell' is. Apparently, it's like the end of 'The Black Hole,' but less confusing.

The narrative here is a lot clearer than the end of that movie.

Where did we come up with this image of Hell? Well, according to the gospels Jesus said there would be a 'furnace of fire' and 'weeping and gnashing of teeth.' So... that's kinda awful. Because he also says that anybody that rejects God goes there. Wow.

Good thing that's probably not what Hell actually is.

But wait, Jesus said it! It's in the Bible! Well, that's true. He also said faith was a mustard seed, and trees don't typically sprout from people's chests during Sunday worship.

See, Jesus loved himself some metaphors. They're everywhere in the sermons he delivered. Just like mustard trees haven't decimated church-goers, people who reject God won't start snapping their jaws repeatedly and sinking into lava. Jesus was trying to get across a point – Hell is a place of indescribable eternal torment, and this metaphor was a good way to get across to a bunch of desert nomads that they didn't want to be there.

So Hell sucks. It's probably not literal fire, but it still sucks. That still doesn't answer the original question though – why would God send anyone there? Well, I'm going to say that he doesn't.

90% of the people reading this blog just made this face.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that nobody goes there. It's just that God isn't forcing them. Which means... to go to Hell... a person would have to choose it. Well nobody's that stupid. Hell should be almost empty, right? Like mostly death metal fans with an IQ below fifty?

Let me switch gears here for a moment. I don't feel like writing a novel at the moment, so let's take it as a foregone conclusion that good things come from God. Trust me, it's in the Bible somewhere. Google it like I should have if you don't believe me. Now this world has some terribly sucky aspects to it, but there's a lot of good in it too. People's basic goodness, love, happiness, friendship, laughter, the feel of sun on your skin, the taste of a juicy burger with bacon, Mountain Dew, etc – if you take the above statement as truth, all that exists because of Godly influence.

Now someone can totally say, 'screw God' and completely disown him, letting him know that he/she has no need for him or belief in him. But that person still is going to run into good things, because they're unavoidable. The police will still help you nail your mugger even if you don't pay your taxes, and you'll be grateful for it.

You might also notice that in this example, the knife made you bleed whether or not you believed in it.

So good is unavoidable. Even if our words or actions say we don't need God, we're going to run into it. But then we die and God goes, 'Sucker! Now you're gonna pay ALL the back taxes for the good I didn't owe you! Burn!' Well, back up... like I said before, I don't think God sends anyone to Hell.

See, we say in life that we don't want anything to do with God. So we die, and he honors that decision. We had to put up with all of his 'good' crap for our entire lives, and now we finally get the chance to get along without it. So we end up somewhere where God is completely absent – and by extension, anything good.

That is Hell. The complete absence of good and something that we actively chose. It's frankly unimaginable. I was going to use a metaphor to try and describe it, but if 'lake of fire' is the best Jesus can do, I'd better not even try.

Actually, here's a screenshot of the unanimously agreed 'worst site on the web.' This at least ought to be close.

So that's it, huh? An eternity of that? That's torment beyond imagination. Even if a person inadvertently chose it, they would see the error of their ways almost immediately, right? Hell can't be eternal... right?

Well, while I believe God basically owns us and he can do whatever he wants with us, I do find it tough to swallow that he'd let us stay there for eternity. I'd like to think that there's some second chance... but I'm not writing about that just yet... in fact, I'd be very interested to hear other peoples' thoughts on that. Comments section below. Debate, flame and tear away!

Highway Driving: You're Doing It Wrong.

Quick post here, because I've got this on the brain and have no time. I might step on a few toes here, including mine (ever seen a retarded riverdance before?) and I apologize, but I'll save the real toe-stomping for next time.

Did you know that following somebody super close in traffic doesn't help anything?

This just happened to me. Something I've started doing recently (I don't always do it, hence my disclaimer in the first paragraph -- I'm not perfect) is leaving about six car-lengths in front of me when I'm driving down the highway, especially if it's stop and go. Reason being? More reaction time means that a) less chance of a rear-end collision, b) if I need to slow down, it's easier and I usually don't need to brake AT ALL, which c) saves gas, and d) if I don't need to brake it starts to break up that annoying freeway 'accordion effect,' which can help you get where you're going faster.

It's also not incredibly irritating to the person in front of you because you're not tailgating them. This apparently makes no sense to some people, such as the Prius that was tailgating me for about two miles and then suddenly swung out, passed me on the right, and settled in to tailgate the guy in front of me.

I can picture that guy swearing up a storm because I was leaving so much space, and I can also picture his sense of satisfaction on cutting off that jerk, me, who obviously has one too many little old lady genes and has no idea how to drive.

I can also picture me passing him two miles later and merging three cars ahead of him on the off-ramp, because that totally happened. See, tailgating does not help and can only cause tears. Tears of anger.

So next time you're stuck behind some moron in traffic and there seems to be room in front of him, consider that possibly he's just trying to save brakes or gas or might even be trying to get where he's going faster. Also consider that the fact he's driving slow probably has less to do with how much he hates you and more to do with the eleventy-billion cars in front of him.

Yes, eleventy-billion is a number. Look it up. Actually, don't. I saved you the trouble. Here.

So as with so many things in life, the golden rule applies. Don't be a dick, as you would have others not be a dick to you.

Why so serious, Doctor?

First, a warning. I'm going to geek out about Doctor Who for a while, which is enough reason for most people to probably take a jaunt somewhere else. For those who do care and like the new series, there's going to be enough spoilers in here to filibuster a session of congress. So there's your warning.

I love Doctor Who, but something about the current season just feels off to me. Like something's missing or something's there that shouldn't be. Something that's as essential to Doctor Who as dough to pizza, or blind devotion to an Apple fanboy.

No, that's not it.

You see, every series of Doctor Who has always had this key idea or phrase that basically encapsulated the story arc for the entire series. In Series 1, it was Bad Wolf, the result of Rose Tyler traveling through time and leaving clues for the Doctor. 2, we had Torchwood, the super secret organization that would almost bring the end of the world by summoning a metric ton of Daleks. 3 had Mr. Saxon, the resurrection of The Master. 4 even had one in the whole 'stars disappearing' arc, though that ended with what I jokingly call the 'kitchen sink' episode. 5 had the ever-present 'crack' that culminated in the single biggest 'WTF' moment of the reimagined Doctor Who when they actually restarted the universe.

Series 6 has... umm...

Well, they had this cool thing called the Silence, and those guys were CREEPY. Imagine this race of faceless guys in suits that pull the strings behind every major decision in history and can never be known because the moment a person looks away from them, the person forgets they ever saw them. Cool, right? Fearsome and a worthy adversary for the Doctor? Absolutely. Would their evil plans make a great story arc for the sixth series? You bet.

Did they get their asses handed to them in the second episode? Oh. Yeah, they did, didn't they. There goes that.

"WE ARE THE SIL-- well, crap."

So much for that plot line. But wait! What about the whole thing with the girl in the space suit? Well, we already know that's actually River, and she's actually Amy's daughter, so something must OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT, I don't care.

I don't care because that whole BS about River being Amy's daughter is some seriously contrived crap they threw in at the last second. Seriously, something that Doctor Who has always been good at is planting little hints here and there about the true nature of things from the very beginning. Little clues that make the big reveal totally satisfying because you finally put everything together and go, 'Aha! THAT'S what that meant!"

But this whole River is Amy's daughter thing? That was supposed to be a big deal, but they botched it because they didn't plan it. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute because they didn't have anything else. River pre-dates Amy in Doctor Who by what, two years? And even when Amy was added to the series, there were no hints, no clues that this might happen. That satisfying moment where you realize what all the clues led to didn't happen this time because there were no clues.

How did this happen? Why did they have to resort to making up a plotline that never existed before this series? I have a theory on that -- no new doctor, no new companion.

Every series before had one or the other, if not both. And that gave the writers freedom to create a totally new character and plan these cool plots from the beginning so that we wouldn't feel cheated by the reveal. But this time the writers had nothing but existing characters, already referenced baddies, etc. To keep things interesting, they had to just make something up.

At least that's my opinion, as of right now. Who knows, the series is only half over. Maybe the final episode will contain something that will do it all -- tie this series and the last together in one nice, neat, tidy package. Something that makes sense and really was hinted at from the beginning that I could have never foreseen.

But right now it feels more like the manatees responsible for Family Guy have taken over.

"River? Pond? IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!!!"

Horoscopes are useless crap.

So I wrote my own!

Aries: Remember that parasitic flatworms favor ichthyoid hosts the next time you go out for sushi.

Taurus: Doubt is the only obstacle to success. You're a born linebacker.

Gemini: Women love compliments. Especially backhanded ones. Remember this at the bar tomorrow night.

Cancer: You probably have it. Get yourself checked out.

Leo: You are the exception to every rule. Especially the ones about public nudity.

Virgo: The ideas you have in the middle of the night are always the best ones. Don't dilute them by looking at them again in the morning.

Libra: You're the funniest guy in the room. Those are looks of awe on their faces.

Scorpio: 'Tis the season of love, and you are going to love being single.

Sagittarius: No, you don't have a ruptured appendix. It's just gas. Persistent, specific gas.

Capricorn: Guns aren't always loaded. That's just stupid. Trust your instincts.

Aquarius: Trans-fats are the secret to immortality. Get crackin', tubbo.

Pisces: Psychotic serial killers are confused by unorganized chaos. Better split up.

That took me all of ten minutes and I'd argue these are just as useful as real horoscopes, and probably less harmful.

Maybe except for the gun one. I can see where that could go wrong.

Waxing Eloquent. Watermelon.

So to recap, remember that long, pseudo-philosophical post about choices or something like that? Yeah, so I decided to take the new job and I start tomorrow. Winning!

This post isn't about that. I'll still try to make it short though because my version of 'waxing eloquent' can easily be mistaken for rambling.

I was just thinking about the concept of happiness and achieving it and how our entire society is based around the concept that happiness is a 'right.' Which believe it or not is a fairly recent invention. Most of us come off today as entitled to happiness, which strikes me as a little arrogant.

And people get really depressed when they're not able to achieve 'happiness.' To me, it kinda seems like people go about it all the wrong way -- the reason they do things is to be happy. I mean, search for books on achieving happiness and self-improvement. It's a huge industry in its own right, and the reason it's so big is because people keep writing books, because people keep buying them, which means trying to be happy doesn't work. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but if your end goal is simply to be happy, you never will be.

You can't ever do anything with the end goal of happiness in mind. If you want to be happy, you'll have a genuine, continuing passion for something. Theater, people, art, hey, maybe your life ambition is to make awesome engine parts at a factory, knowing that people will use them and appreciate how well they work. And that effect you'll have on other people is probably your best shot at happiness.

But then, lo and behold, irony of ironies strikes. If you're only doing it to be happy, you still won't be because that's your goal.

Of course, throughout this whole thing, I keep saying you when I really mean 'me.' I can wax eloquent (crap, I rambled) about this stuff all the time, but it usually just means that this is stuff I need to work on and I realize it.

Some people call that maturity. I call it 'pencil' because I like to assign new definitions to existing words.

I'm so watermelon.

Speaking of risk...

I took one.

More later.