Being your own God

We all want to be our own god of course. Surely it is the most foolish desire we could ever harbor. Dan Phillips of Team Pyro nails it.

Finding a girl at church

A poster at Garfield Ridge gave Dave some advice on how to meet some nice women. Dave made it plain beforehand he doesn’t believe in a God.

“actually, Dave, your best bet, i.m.o., is to find a mainstream protestant liturgical church with a largish population of 24-35 year old single women. Don't worry, you'd be attending for the express purpose of getting laid and/or having a meaningful relationship - any religious benefit would simply be icing on the cake.
For a guy your age, church offers a couple of benefits from a purely secular standpoint.
1 - most liturgical protestant (Lutheran, Episcopalian) churches aren't that gung-ho. No mid-service speaking in tongues or getting pulled before the congregation to witness before the group or that stuff. So you're not going to get button-holed about your faith life or put on the spot or otherwise discomfitted during the service.
2 - 11:00 services give you a reason to not stay out all night Saturday and a place to be late in the morning Sunday in a dressed, fairly presentable fashion. Again, this has nothing to do with 'God' and that. It's just that you're going to be in proximity to single women in the late morning on the weekend.
3- You get to meet these women socially in a situation with good lighting at a time when you can have a non-threatening coffee/brunch date after the service.
Since you're 1) male and 2) attending a service all by yourself, you'll be noticed by every. single. single woman at the service. Some of them will come up and ask your name if this is your first time attending the service. If you've got any sort of conversational game you can determine if it's a pond you want to fish.
5 - Churches are composed of groups - most have social activities during the week, away from the church. One church I attended after I turned 30 had a young adult ministry group (under 40) and we played pinnochle at members houses or apartments on a rotating schedule, no prayers to start, no God stuff, we drank and socialized, played cards and such. It was a good bunch of people, one of whom I dated.
Other times you can just talk with the gals during coffee hour after services and figure out a time to get together on a date. It's a nice place to have a conversation. Especially if you drop a 'I hope I'll see you next week" into the mix.
6 - How to behave during the service:
A) Sit 2/3rds of the way back in the congregation. This gives you time to notice what's happening around you when it's time for communion (do they start from the back or the front? Do they hand out stuff or do you walk up? )
B) Have a cover story, not much of one, but come up with a reason why you're there other than to get laid. "It's been a while since I attended church and I thought I'd like to visit a couple of congregations" is about all you need to say.
c) Look confident. God's not going to strike you dead and your pastor from your childhood isn't going to burst in and administer you a Faith Quiz. You're there. Treat it like a social anthropology experiment if you need something to think about
d) For most services it's 'stand, sit, stand, sit, stand, kneel, stand, sit, kneel, walk-up, walk-back, kneel, stand, exit'
If you're halfway charming and have reasonable grooming habits you're going to have more female attention than you'll know what to do with. Attractive females, too - you'd be surprised.
In the event you decide 'no f’ing way' - that's okay, I'm not the one hardup to get laid.
any good luck - good hunting.”

[ Dave responds; he’s not that desperate to fool somebody when he’s a thorough non-believer]
The poster responds back:
“Once you're actually dating a female regularly there's no obligation to continue to go to church on a weekly basis. Saturday night go out, take her back to your place, shag the reason out of her, and don't set the alarm clock.
Sure, you run the risk that you'll actually like the people in the congregation, that you'll enjoy the social contacts you've made, like the company and you'll figure that the entertainment value of church ($1 per hour, plus free coffee and cookies) is worth it so you'll fold up a dollar, put it in a pew envelope, and toss it in the collection plate, but - hey - life's a risky proposition.
Also, odds are better than 50/50 that she'll go along with skipping awhile, possibly all together. After all, the reason she's going to church in the first place is just to meet nicer guys than the ones she sees at the bars.
I'll make this guarantee, if you attend services at a reasonably big liturgical protestant church you'll start getting laid within the month on a regular basis. (Btw - 'liturgical' means that you follow a liturgy, which is a script. There are no surprises, no sudden outbreaks of congregational singing, or handling of serpents.)
Here's a place to start looking for congregations in your neck of the woods:
http://www.redeemermclean.org/singlesministry/
You can use data mining techniques, if you like. I did.
Lutheran congregations within 15 miles of Alexandria:
You'd want a congregation that's got more than 500 people registered or one that features an active singles group in their newsletters (most of which are online so you can browse to see how 'religiousy' they are.
Avoid Wisconsin or Missouri Synod congregations unless the chick is *smoking hot*.
btw - I'm not proseltyzing or concerned in any way, shape, or form about your immortal soul.

Fat, Weak and Unaware

Found on Little Green Footballs. Be afraid; be very, very afraid.

" The other side considers it a privilege to fight and die for its beliefs. Those on the other side cannot wait to line up to blow themselves up for their vision of heaven. On our side, it’s: “Let the other poor sap do it. I’ve got to make money.” How can we fight this fight with the brightest and best educated rushing off and working night and day to do private equity deals and derivatives trading? How can we fight this fight with the ruling class absent by its own sweet leave?

I keep thinking, again, that if Israel, with its back to the sea, cannot muster the will to fight in a big way, then the fat, faraway U.S.A. will never be able to do it. I keep saying this and it terrifies me.

We’re in a war with people who want to kill us all and wreck our civilization. They’re taking it very seriously. We, on the other hand, are worrying about leveraged buyouts and special dividends and how much junk debt the newly formed private entity can support before we sell it to the ultimate sucker, the public shareholder.

We’re worrying whether Hollywood will forgive Mel Gibson and what the next move is for big homes in East Hampton. We’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The terrorists are the iceberg.

WHAT stands between us and the iceberg are the miraculously brave men and women of the armed forces. They’re heroes and saints as far as I’m concerned. But can they do it without the rest of us? Can they do it while we’re all working on our tans and trying to have our taxes lowered again? How can we leave them out there all alone to die for us when we treat the war to save civilization as something we can just wish away?" Ben Stein NYT

Battlin' Monks

It doesn’t get any more fun than this!

Monks brawl at peace protestThu Aug 17, 2006 2:10 PM ET
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Protesters calling for an end to recent violence in Sri Lanka found themselves brawling with hardline Buddhist monks Thursday, after a rally dubbed a "peace protest" turned unexpectedly violent.

Beauties comparing notes

  

The Kid at Work!

  

CRISIS

I've opened another blog.



I hope to begin to be available for crisis counseling via this blog.

Enron CEO dies at 64

By ERIN McCLAM, AP National Writer Wed Jul 5, 5:22 PM ET

"He was a man, after all — not just some abstract symbol of corporate thievery and vanished investor billions. Kenneth Lay, founder of Enron Corp., was also a grandfather to 12, a husband to the woman who sobbed at his side on the day of his conviction.
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And yet his sudden death early Wednesday in Colorado — his pastor said Lay's heart "simply gave out" — deprives the thousands of victims of the Enron debacle the satisfaction they said they would feel at his spending perhaps decades in prison, reflecting on his crimes.

The Enron founder's death, three months before he was to be sentenced, left many grappling with difficult questions of forgiveness, retribution and the meaning of justice itself."


One wonders what to say. But we are all reminded; DEATH for ALL of us will our way come!

God will not judge him on his ENRON leadership but on his hearts towards God. Justice always prevails after death.

Dick Cheney - amazing guy!

"In 2005 the Cheney's gross income was $8,819,006 and of that they gave $6,869,655 to charity. Wow."

Christians

A quote from the late wit/genius Ambrose Bierce

CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Apologies to my 9 readers for getting overwhelmed with life which slows down the old blogging.

Nice but misguided

I like this excerpt from Jonah Goldberg of NationalReview.com

Canada is arguably the most deluded industrialized nation in the world. Because elite Canadians think the U.S. is the font of the world’s problems, they think being different than the U.S. and sucking up to the United Nations will buy them grace on the cheap. They claim to be “a nation of peacekeepers,” but they rank 50th among U.N. peacekeeper nations in the number of troops sent. They’ve bravely contributed to the war in Afghanistan, where 2,300 troops still serve, but refused to join the effort in Iraq, believing that jihadists would honor such fine distinctions. That was awfully nice of them. Too bad nice has nothing to do with it.

"Nice people" keep on underestimating the Muslim Jihadists. Canada dodged a bullet. Maybe they'll learn but I actually doubt it.

LINK for Greg Gutfields' parody

LINK for Greg Gutfields' parody

GREG GUTFIELD HAS FIGURED IT OUT!

HUFFPO REPORTS BAD NEWS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who waged a heroic insurgent campaign of resistance against the bloody American occupation, was murdered by insensitive, homophobic and probably meat-eating U.S. warplanes, who dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safe house, which was also a battered woman's shelter, a milk factory and a petting zoo, officials said Thursday.
The bombs were probably made in Indonesia by underage slave labor and, according to Laurie David, extremely bad for the environment, especially old growth Redwoods and lemurs.

"Given the rampant bigotry of the Bush administration, I am not surprised that the identification of al-Zarqawi's face was entirely based on his skin color," says transient Russell Shaw. "They also killed his advisors, a chilling and unnecessary warning to any undergraduates who would like to pursue an advisory role for insurgent leaders."

Democrats need someone religious

An excerpt from Ann Coulter’s most recent book; how the Democrats look for religion.

Throughout the 2004 campaign, the Democrats were looking for a Democrat who believed in God—a pursuit similar to a woman searching for a boyfriend in a room full of choreographers. The religious outreach coordinator hired by the Democratic National Committee was Brenda Bartella Peterson, who had signed a brief to the Supreme Court advocating the removal of “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Apparently, Madalyn Murray O’Hair was unavailable.
The religion adviser to John Kerry’s presidential campaign was Mara Vanderslice. She had previously been the religious outreach coordinator for Howard Dean—an assignment that would have required the patience of Job, whoever the hell he was. Vanderslice had spoken at rallies cosponsored by the radical gay group ACT UP, famous for a protest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral at which its members spat the Eucharist on the floor. She had been an organizer of violent protests in Seattle and Washington, D.C., when liberals reacted as any normal person would by smashing Starbucks windows and torching police cars because some bankers had come to town for a meeting. Vanderslice majored in “peace studies” at Earlham College. There she was a member of the Marxist-Leninist group that supported convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. That’s devoutly religious for a Democrat. In fact, by Democratic standards Vanderslice was a veritable C. S. Lewis.
I tell ya!  Coulter takes no prisoners.  But it makes you  wonder just what the Democrats are smoking when they think they can reach the religious right with people like Brenda Bartella Peterson and Mara Vanderslice.  Strange.

Good One

“Oprah Winfrey: Agent of Moral Insanity”
Article of the day HERE

Ingredients of a SPANGLISH SANDWHICH! (See Adam Sandler's movie)

Ingredients:
3-4 slices of bacon
2 slices of Monterey Jack cheese
2 slices of toasted rustic country loaf (pain de campagne)
preferred substitution used here: sourdough boule)
1 tbsp of mayo
4 tomato slices
2 leaves of butterhead lettuce (Boston lettuce variety works here)
1 teaspoon butter
1 egg

It certainly makes my mouth water to look at it.

Hate Christian Conservatives

“The great bogeyman of the academic Left is the Christian conservative movement. Yet an academic never has to go to church or send his children to church. The polar opposite of the evangelical mega-church in American society is the great leftist tent revival in academia, but to participate fully as citizens in this country, we have to attend that revival, and we have to send our children and grand-children there as well. Oh, and (when it comes to public universities) we spend our tax dollars to pay for it, regardless of the school our kids attend.”  http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/ 

The REAL JESUS

But then Jesus turns to His own and says, "But who do you say that I am?" Though Jesus has been revealing Himself to His disciples through His words, His deeds, and His presence, He had never asked them this question until now. Yet Peter says, "I know. You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Promised One, the Consolation of Israel, the one whom God promised, the Prophet that Moses promised in Deuteronomy, the Suffering Servant promised in Isaiah's prophecy, the one who would come and save His people from their sins. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"

Al Mohler

The comfort of heresy

Al Mohler on the attractiveness of heresy.

“Why would persons prefer the false gospel to the true?
This is why: If the true storyline concerning Jesus Christ was that He was merely a mortal prophet who came to establish an earthly dynasty and to help us all celebrate the divine feminine and be a part of His circle of knowledge and enlightenment, then the fact is that we do not have to think about the fact that we are sinners. If that is what the life of Jesus is all about, then it is not about how we must be redeemed from our sin, but rather about how we can simply be enlightened and informed. The truth is, the human heart would much rather be told it is uninformed than that it is sinful.
If the truth about Jesus is that he was merely another human being, then God does not lay claim upon your life. He does not lay claim upon your marriage. He does not lay claim upon your sex life. If this is true, then God does not much care about any of that; he simply wants you to be informed. There is no "take up your cross and follow me." There is no discipleship. There is no dying to self and living to Christ. There is none of that, and there is no judgment. All of which sits well with the postmodern mind, for there are many people who think the best news they could hear is that they will never have to face judgment. As a matter of fact, the only way to understand the world around us is to acknowledge that the vast majority of our neighbors do not believe they will face judgment.
The reason false gospels are so attractive and so seductive is because it is convenient for us to be told that we are not the problem. We would much rather believe that the problem is a conspiracy--that humanity has been held in darkness because some have conspired to suppress the truth. “

The problem is:  we ARE the problem.