Ramune. I’m soda-starved! More than that I’m Ramune starved! And I’m now within 2 dollars of my self-imposed 25 dollars/week CC limit. I’ll be glad when this month is over and google pays out, for there will be bento’s and Ramune, lol.

That’s right, bitches, I didn’t say much today, lol. Feel privilaged, when I DO talk it’s all horrible religious predjudice, lol.]]>

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Posted by Faith on at 5:05 am

I got my Sahara Hotnights CD today! *does a booty shake dance* I’ve been waiting for this one for about a week, which in Faith-ville is about 6000 years, not accounting for leap year. Jennie Bomb is, so far, my favorite of the Hotnights work, and I’m gonna hug it and squeeze it and call it George.

In other random news, Josh is finally back on the web, his new home is So Shall It Be, go say hey or beat him with his own shoes or something. ]]>

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Posted by Faith on at 10:22 am

Today’s bitching is about the lack of emphasis on the Old Testament in most modern Christian teachings. Actually, lack of emphasis isn’t the right way of saying this. They flat-out teach you that the Old Testament doesn’t matter. DOESN’T MATTER!? Okay, granted, the OT is pre-Jesus AND made up of Jewish religious texts, but why keep it in the Bible if you don’t have to care about it?

If you’re not Christian you might be wondering what I’m talking about. Well, here’s an easy way to find out for yourself: Open the Old Testament to any page, any at all, and memorize a verse. Now go find a Christian and ask them what they think of the passage. The majority won’t know what you’re talking about. You respond this ignorance by saying, “Well, it’s in the Bible!” and you’ll most likely get, “It must be in the Old Testament, then!”. This is what I got from 6 people inside of a month!

Yes, I admit it was a little experiment I was observing, but I had a reason. The reason was that I was at a friend’s house, who happens to be Baptist, and she was explaining to me all about the never-ending love of her God in order to get me to go to church with her. I responded by saying that I believe in everyone having freedom of worship as long as it doesn’t derail MY freedom of worship, and that I couldn’t ever worship or devote myself to a God who condemns gay people, and I refuse to take that statement back. She told me that God doesn’t condemn gay people, and that God loves us all equally. I pointed out that in Leviticus 18:22 it says clearly that it’s an abomination and Leviticus 20:13 says that they should be put to death. What she said next would change my view of her forever, as well as strip me of any lingering respect I had for her religion. She said, “Oh, that’s just the Old Testament.”

So, having heard this from her, I asked her what that meant? She told me that the OT doesn’t count, because it was written before Jesus came. … … huh? Well, I had to find out if this was her opinion or if this was widely believed. I have to admit, this is a part of Christian beliefs I had no idea about.

I tried this a few more times, with different Christians only to find, to my shock and horror, that it wasn’t an isolated case.

The last time was yesterday, on the road home with the woman who I ride in to work with every morning. She’s got it in her head that she’s going to convert me, so every time I talk to her the subject somehow gets back to weither or not I believe in God, even though she knows I’d like to stab her God in the eye with a spork. Once again, an OT verse came up and I’ll be damned if she had no idea what I was talking about. And, of course, her reasoning was that it was from the Old Testament. This time I said something. “Why do you bother reading the bible if you don’t believe in half of it?” I asked. “I do believe in it, it just doesn’t really matter now that we have the New Testament.” she responded. “So, ” I retort, “if it doesn’t matter, why not just take it out of the bible?” “Well, ” she said, “That’s just what I’ve always been taught.”

Not that you can listen to this chick, anyway. She was Catholic half her life and now she’s just “christian”, and she THINKS she wasn’t christian when she was Catholic, lol. Yes, pagans and aethists, it’s funny to me, too.

I was talking to Laota at home afterwards, and we’ve come up with a few good questions about this rediculous belief:

• If God and Jesus are one and the same, and God ‘wrote’ the Old Testament, does that mean that God was full of shit back then but he’s OK now?
• Jesus, for those of you who know things and read stuff, was against the tainting of Judaism, he himself being an advid Jew. The Old Testament is part of what he was trying to keep whole and sacred. If the Old Testament is somehow wrong or out of date, does that mean Jesus was WRONG?
• If Jesus is God, and Jesus is wrong, does that mean God was WRONG?
• Why don’t you guys think your religion through and stop leaving these stupid loopholes that can be used to hang you with? Or just stop persecuting people so nobody’ll try and hang you with loopholes, lol.

Rant done for the moment.]]>

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Posted by Faith on at 10:52 pm

I wanna share with you a transcription of King’s infamous “I have a dream” speech, and I hope every person who reads it will be touched by it and will think a little harder about a problem we’re still struggling with in this nation.

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”"]]>

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Posted by Faith on at 3:55 am