Posts Tagged ‘religion’

dear God, 01101101*

Friday, March 27th, 2009
Simon Delivers!

holisticgeek via Flickr

These days you can practically do anything on the interweb. Be it grocery shopping, being an annoying friend or finding time between rounds of WOW to find someone to do your dishes, it’s all easier online.

Which brings me to this… (::shudder::)

Information Age Prayer

IAP (no matter your beliefs or lack of) is hilariously horrifying. (Here’s a little more from LiveScience.) For those anti-linkers out there, these goons, for as low as $3.95/mo, feed your prayer into their system and it’s read aloud using “text-to-speech synthesizers.” By computers.

Let me simplify. You pay, they pray… barely. Bonus, no refunds! Facking brilliant! For a few reasons. Your target users:

  • believe an Omnipresent cares in the slightest about his/her particular plight
  • aren’t internet-savvy enough to be turned away by your horrendous site design
  • are too lazy to fall onto his/her own knees, much less ask for a refund
  • are guaranteed to have dim, like-minded friends (word of mouth growth)
  • have at least $3.95 to pay for computer-read prayers instead of insurance/heating
  • are probably teaching their kids in their kitchen (repeat customers)
  • likely have a sphere of influence smaller than your dachshund (no angry tweets)

This is probably the best idea since the ambiguous, emotional branding that flooded us in the late 90s (Nikes won’t make you faster… they’ll make you happier!). How will people complain?

Complaining idiot customer: Sir! I gave your company $12 over the last two months. You claimed to pray for my chihuahua’s health. She only became worse, completely distraught and passed away three days ago! I demand my money back!

CSR: I can’t do that ma’am; the no-refund policy is clearly stated.

CC: But it didn’t WORK!

CSR: God works in mysterious ways, ma’am.

CC: G’damnit! ::click::

*Truncated. Full text: Dear God, 01101101 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110010 01100100 (or, “make me a bird”) (#nerd)

Cross-posted at SexDrugs&IntellectualFreedom

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partnership of convenience

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Sen. Huckabee was on The Daily Show the other night. When the Stewart and Co. were here for the RNC, I attended and he was the guest then, too. Huckabee and I are close like this, like brothers or fire and ice.

Sure, religion is virtue because without we’d be animals. Phrases taken literally (without context) from a book of metaphors is the path to pomposity. But, the marriage thing confuses me.

Here’s how I understand it and you can (but won’t) call me out where I’m wrong.

It was born of necessity. We birthed the weakest offspring (ex: giraffes pop out walking) and needed familial structure to survive until we could fend for ourselves (currently, about twenty-four years). Symbolism manifested, conventions were established.

Marriage was arranged, without love and until death (like diamonds). Romans had man-man, woman-woman and pool-boy-anyone relations. Catholic priests could wed until they passed their wealth to children or wives instead of the church. (They’re still marriage counselors, which makes sense if your neurons misfire.)

Polygamy was legal, interracial marriage wasn’t. Divorce is as popular as American Idol. Merriam-Webster already has a secondary definition for “marriage” as same-sex unions without legal sanction.

Marriage has been changed many times. Social environments demand such alteration. Where’d the inflated, righteous concept come from?

The arguments are stale. Procreation ignores the millions of children in shitty homes or awaiting adoption. Our eroding family ignores the lemming-like divorce rate. Religion dismisses much of our history, most of The Book and common sense. (You’d need to do the same if you argued verbiage.)

It seems Huck just thinks homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. To him, it’s akin to wearing pre-faded jeans or misogyny. But we have a black president-elect, so do the progressives just have to wait it out?

These anti-gay folk are getting pretty old. Maybe that accounts for their fervidity. They need to push laws so generations can enjoy the same oppression they remember fondly from their youths.

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