Moronic Musings From Massachusetts

Blogging, The Ultimate Act of Masturbation

Out of boredom I've read through many of the "recently updated" blogs that typepad highlights.  I've read a few exceptional ones but the majority are "my dog peed on the carpet" sites.  The one thing that all sites seem to have in common - loneliness.  None of them get any responses and I wonder if they, ever, even get any views.

Yet! Everyone (seemingly) has one.  The internet should be about the sharing of information but it appears that none of us are really all that interested in the other persons perspective, we've all become utterly self-absorbed and I suspect it will get much worse.  When all we do is listen to our own voice we're just committing verbal masturbation.

This is the point where I should announce that I'm closing this blog forever!  And I would if my opinion wasn't so damned fascinating.

What really scares me

There was a time when I was afraid of anything "different".  People from different places, a new party in office, even a new idea but now I'm old and with old age I've learned that it's rarely the unknown that hurts you, it's the evil you know.  These days the only thing that really makes my blood run cold are fundamentalists.

There is something disturbing about people that obsess over a book, they may or may not have read, to the point where it consumes and poisons every aspect of their life.  It creates such a tenuous grasp on reality.  People let a centuries old book tell them how to dress, whom they can befriend, how they shall raise their children and what they should eat.  They do it all based on one of "the" books, written by men hundreds or occasionally thousands of years ago. 

Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe this applies to all believers, most people I know that are Christian, Jewish or Muslim pick and choose from their book.  They may hold it dear but accept that it has flaws.  They look at it as more of a handbook or guidelines.  It's those "others" that keep me up at night. 

Stop and take a look at the world and its history.  How many wars and cleansings have been "holy" wars?  How much individual persecution and subjugation of one's fellow man has been done in the name of (insert name of handiest deity).  Half of the human race, females, have been treated as second class citizens because of the ancient words of misogynist men for millennia and it's still occurring in many countries to this day. Anytime we obsess on anything it's unhealthy but when we obsess on the ancient words of power hungry megalomaniacs, the results can be deadly. 

What is the solution?  Well I certainly don't have one.  While I'm not a true believer, I'm a huge advocate of personal freedom, even the freedom to live your life and raise your children drowning in paranoid delusions. 

There is, however, one thing I've always wondered.  Does religion make an obvious few weak-minded, paranoid, intolerant and violent or do the weak-minded, paranoid, intolerant and violent just gravitate towards it?

Food for thought.

Gay Marriage

I might as well be honest, many gay people make me uncomfortable.  I don't like their gender bending clothes, hairstyles or mannerisms.  I don't have any gay friends, although there are many that I'm friendly with.  I like people that are - well - like me.  Having said that I would like to state emphatically that I am pro gay marriage.

See there are many people and types of people that make me uncomfortable.  People with face piercings, excessive tattoos, neighbors that don't speak English, the devoutly religious... These people are not like me, that takes me out of my comfort zone and I don't like it but I'm an American and not a complete dumbass.  I know that it's our differences that made us strong and it's our tolerance for those differences that have kept us that way.

That brings me back to the beginning - gay people and their right to marry.  Many states and even at the Federal level the nation is struggling with this issue.  The usual reason most citizens claim they are against it is because God has declared it a sin.  Oh Hogwash!  While there may be a reference in the Bible that man should not lay with man as he does with woman, I don't see it being described as a crime right up there with murder.  Hell, if you read Leviticus you know it's a greater crime to plow your field on Sabbath than it is to partake of the love that shall not be mentioned.  No, the biggest reason, if people were honest which they rarely are, people are against gay marriage is that it makes them uncomfortable.  They don't like the way it looks or how gay people act.  They just use religion as a bigot crutch. 

There is absolutely no good reason to not give gay people equal rights but when dealing with humanity, reason isn't always a factor.