OVO

A just-submitted letter to the editor of the Willammette Week [with corrections in brackets - d'oh].

Jason Thompson is quoted in the 7/28/2004 cover story Cured as saying “What the Bible says is that it is morally wrong to have sexual contact outside of the bounds of marriage.” So what does the Bible say about sex and about marriage?

Anyone who uses the Bible as a guide to marriage must be in favor of polygamy and incest. See Genesis 4:19, 12:13, 20:12, 26:7, 26:34, 28:9, 31:17, 36:2, 6; Exodus 6:20, 21:10; Deuteronomy 21:15; 1 Kings 11:1-3 1 Samuel 1:20, 25:41-44, 30:5; 2 Samuel 3:2-5, 5:13; 1 Chronicles 14:3; 2 Chronicles 11:21, 13:21. Over and over, Christians who follow the Bible claim that men having multiple wives and sleeping with [their] daughters, mothers and sisters is not only approved but a commandment.

And as long as you purchase them shortly before or after you rape them or kill their husbands, the Bible says it’s okay to have sex with slaves. See Genesis 16:1-4, 19:30-38, 30:1-4, 30:9; Number 31:1-54; Deuteronomy 21:11-14, 22:28-29; Judges 1:12-13, 21:7-23; Ruth 4:10 for what Christians believe about sex with slaves.

Then again, sometimes those favored by God (righteous people such as Noah, Abraham, David, Lot and others) have sex outside of marriage. See Genesis 19:8, 19:30-38, 25:6, 30:15-16, 35:22, 49:4, 38:13-18 for some examples. So since the Bible says it is both okay and not okay to have sex outside of marriage, it seems the Bible is not something we can rely on in this matter.

The Bible does have a consistant message about homosexuals, though: kill them! Yes, the Bible doesn’t say minister to them or wish them a happy gay life, it says to kill them. Need proof? See Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Deuteronomy 22:5, 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24, 15:11-12, 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7, Isaiah 3:9, Romans 1:26-32; 1 Corinthiens 6:9-10; Jude 1:7.

I’m against taking Bible verses out of context and only picking the ones that support your claims, as Thompson does. If you want to know what the Bible says about marriage and about homosexuals, you have to take the whole pill and not just the sugar coating. It is also no good claiming that Jesus allows Christians to ignore their Old Testament duty to murder homosexuals. Christ said “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:18,19) and “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17).

The bottom line is that the Bible is a poor source of morals, values, ethics, human relations, history, science or even entertainment. People who are unhappy about their sexuality (in any way) should seek professional help and avoid snake oil salespeople like Jason Thompson. Even if a person imagines that there is a life after this one, we all have better uses for our brief lives than imaginary cures (God) for imaginary problems (sin).

How many people are going to the Democratic National Convention, and how many people are going to the San Diego Comic Con? Find out.

I found It’s A Mystery relatively recently. It is a fine source for religious news, kooky and otherwise. In a few days it is going away. Take a peek while you can, or check it out via this archive.

2,000+ free fonts.

More David Lynch than you can shake a stick at. I SAID, MORE DAVID LYNCH THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT! You fuck.

J. G. Ballard interview on video.

Alexander Graham Bell was hard of hearing and had a Deaf wife, and as a side-project in his work on hearing aids he invented the telephone. Vincent Cerf, inventor of TCP/IP and much of what became the Internet, is Deaf. And the ipod has the capacity to be so loud because co-inventor of the Macintosh Steve Jobs is hard of hearing. So all the way from the telephone to the Internet to the Macintosh, it’s a Deaf thing. Portland has one of the most tech-friendly Deaf Web sites, DeafBase. There’s a Deaf Space Camp for kids, Deaf employees at NASA, Deaf people all the heck over the place. Except here.

People who know me know I likes me some DEVO. And many times I’ve heard that a person who likes DEVO would probably like POLYSICS as well. Goodness me, they were very right in saying that.

It is still a treat for me to see the success of pleasant, and I hope to be involved for some time to come. I am now honored to also be blogging at American Samizdat. See my first post here.

Telemarketing, factory work, a job in a restaurant, a job as a customs inspector. “If I wrote down everything on my résumé, people probably wouldn’t hire me,” said Erdne Ombadykow, “because I’ve kept changing.” If they only knew.

ZeD is open source television, where over 18,000 global members meet, collaborate and upload their creative work – currently, over 16,000 genre-expanding pieces.

More than a few pleasant links came from taking a chance on interesting-sounding blogs I’ve never heard of. Like to give it a try? Here are all the blogger blogs edited in the last ten bloggy minutes.

“When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.” – Ed Macauley

Enjoy this history of animation around the world (1880 – present).

Martha Stewart sold shares of ImClone stock when they fell below a certain value, as she had planned to do for some time. She gets investigated. While being investigated, she says she is innocent of any wrongdoing. She is never charged with selling stock illegally. But she is found guilty of saying she is innocent durring the investigation, which may have misled ImClone investors to think ImClone stock was more stable than it really was. So Martha Stewart is going to prison for having misled people by denying having committed a crime with which she was not charged.

I still haven’t found it. What I’m looking for, that is.

The Republicans of the US House of Representatives drop history down the memory hole by not only disavowing having stole the Presidential election in 2000, but removing from the record an accusation that they did. Just to keep things safe, they also have set up a ban from United Nations observers watching the election to make sure it is fair.

“Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!”

Last night I dreamed of a simple computer designed as a server for musicians. It had a knob on the front like an older television; each ‘channel’ was a function (record music, e-mail, configure, etc.). The side of the box was transparent. Instead of a cooling fan, this computer had some sort of black tar over the processing chip. When the chip heated up the tar bubbled and expanded (think Jiffy Pop) to cool it down. When the chip cooled, the tar resumed its lumpy, smaller shape.