Thursday, March 31, 2011

A Rant About the Catholic Religion and Their God.

I don’t quite get it, why do you believe in god again? Was it because your parents told you about him and made you go to church? Did you open up a bible and just conclude that it all must be true? Maybe it’s because of where you live.  You know religion can be mapped out right? Maybe something happened to you and you give credit to the invisible man in the sky. I used to believe in god once, I don’t anymore. I even used to be a confirmed catholic. That all changed when I began to question.  All you really need to do is properly question and god just seems to poof away in a puff of logic. That’s what I did! I’m godless, happy and fine, and I don’t need help from the divine.
I’m an atheist. It’s pretty nice. I get to sleep in on Sundays. If you’re a regular catholic, you probably sleep in on Sundays too, unless it’s Easter or Christmas. I find it funny how most people are. You will see some people wearing crosses but when you ask them about their favorite passage in the bible they have nothing to say! Speaking of wearing crosses did you know that the cross was a torture device? Yeah, people wear them around their neck! Sometimes the crosses have Jesus on them. I don’t know about you, but if I was Jesus, I wouldn’t want to be constantly reminded of, well you know.  Lenny Bruce once said, “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.” I find that funny. Maybe you don’t if you believe In that sort of thing.
It’s interesting how people will say they are religious, yet they don’t always follow the rules. It’s like people create their own religion now a days. They say, “Yeah, I like that whole part where Jesus died for our sins, but not the part where they say that we can’t have sex before marriage or eat meat on Fridays.” I find it funny how they are so quick to put sex and bacon above their god, yet they complain when someone speaks ill of their god. It’s alright as long as you get your boobs and bacon, but don’t commit blasphemy!
When someone tells me that they believe in God, I always like to say, “Oh really, which one?” There are two thousand eight hundred and seventy recorded deities. They don’t believe in the other two thousand eight hundred and six nine gods and I don’t believe in any of them. I always wonder, what makes their god any less fake than the other two thousand and sixty nine. Or you could rephrase that and say, why is their god the only true god? I can’t find any legitimate reason why.
Bible thumpers are always a riot. Some actually believe that the story of Noah’s Ark actually happened! As well the whole story of Adam and Eve! They just don’t get evolution either. They say things like, “Evolution is just a theory.” Which is hilarious because it shows that they don’t know what a scientific theory is. I always like to remind them that gravity is just a theory as well! Then there is the Jesus story. Boy do they love the Jesus story. I like it because it’s not very original. It’s been done before! Horus, the sun god of Egypt was born on December 25th, had a virgin mother, performed “miracles,” he had twelve disciples one of them betrayed him. Horus was crucified, then in three days he was resurrected. Sound familiar? If that story wasn’t enough for you look up the stories of Attis, Krishna, Dionysus, and Mithra. Good thing plagiarism wasn’t illegal back when they were writing the bible. Someone could have been crucified!
I just don’t get prayer either. Do people think it actually does something? I’ll let you in on a little personal story of mine. When I was four years old I was diagnosed with Leukemia, cancer of the blood. Apparently my whole family prayed for me. I appreciate their thoughts, but I don’t think it actually did anything. The chemo was what actually helped. All prayer can really do is give you false hope. It really has no power at all. What if my family said, “Forget the chemo, let’s sit around him and pray for the cancer to go away.” If they did that I’d be worm chow by now. To prove my point further a medical study was done in 2006. The New York Times had an article on it called, “Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer.” Journalist, Benedict Carey reported that, “Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found. And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.” So you can pray for people all you want, but all that might do is give them high blood pressure.
As you can see, I’ve clearly rejected my old religion. I enjoy not being religious. I enjoy joking about religion. When people ask me, “Have you found God?” I always love to respond with, “I’ve looked everywhere! Even under my bed, but that rascal just doesn’t want to be found!” If you find some sort of comfort in believing in this stuff then that’s fine. Just don’t kill anyone because of it, or get mad when you see that evolution is in your child’s biology text book, or go around preaching it like it’s the absolute truth. The truth is, we just don’t know the answers to everything. I’m willing to admit that. But I’m not willing to fill in the blanks with God.
If you are part of the catholic faith, then I implore you read your Bible if you have one. Read it from start to finish. It’s always good to know what you are supposed to believe. Maybe then you can know what you truly signed up for.  I also implore you to question. Always question everything, even if it opposes your faith or what your family believes. It’s easy to go along with the flock, but sometimes you have to break free to avoid following them off a cliff. 

Saturday, March 12, 2011

"I'm offended by that!"

As a person who likes to consider himself an amateur stand up comedian. Or a struggling amateur stand up comedian. (to be more accurate!) I run into people who get sour after I say my jokes. Now it could be because they are corny, not very good, or usually because they are filled with puns. But sometimes I run into someone who is legitimately offended. Usually it's right after the part where they find out I like to write jokes and ask me to tell one. I guess they didn't get the cute joke they were expecting. Instead, they probably got a suicide joke that had a pun for a punchline. However, this isn't all about my stand up comedy.

I'm convinced that some people are always just looking to get offended. You know how I deal with that? By not giving a shit. People get all offended when you say words like gay, faggot, or retard. Those are usually the big ones. Now I'm not out to hurt anyone's feelings. But why the fuck should I stop saying words I like saying because it hurts your feelings? I don't think anyone is entitled to tell people what they should and should not say. I don't want to be the person who pulls the, "I have my first amendment rights" card, but I have my first amendment rights!

Don't think I'm some heartless dick though, I'm not. Just because I say the words "gay" and "faggot" doesn't mean I hate gay people. I have many gay friends, all who are great people. I'm in support of gay marriage, and I won't hold my tongue when it comes to their rights that they are entitled to. I've also worked in with the mentally challenged, but I won't go in to that.

 Some often say the old and tired out excuse of "You have a poor vocabulary if you use words like that!" Really? I remember when I was little and my mom told me that when she caught me swearing. I told her that I was just testing out my new vocabulary words. She didn't like that very much. I do however, have a decent variety of words to use. I just end up saying those other words because they are fun to say. "Faggot" is just to fun of a word to say. Just like "Fuck," 

I love words. All sorts of words. I like saying all sorts of words. But why should I stop saying a word because it might hurt someones feelings? Here is my philosophy. You are always at risk of offending someone, no matter what you say. So why give a shit? I'm certainly not going to start.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

So Yesterday In My Theatre Class..

The other day I was in my Theatre Class. It was basically an introduction to theatre. You would learn about the history of theatre, and also plays would be read. But yesterday we decided to actually go to my school's theatre. There was a play set all ready for the performers. The lights were set perfectly. There was another teacher giving us information about the theatre. I was zoning out. I couldn't tell you the name of the play that they were going to perform even if I wanted to. But then the other teacher left and it was just our regular class again. Our teacher decided to talk about all the different types of actors.

She talked about lead roles and what not. She picked people in our class to stand up as examples. I was picked later on as a "character" actor. She said she kept looking at me when thinking about the character actor. So she went on to describe what a character actor was. I looked up "character actor" on Wikipedia. It read, "A character actor is one who predominantly plays a particular type of role rather than leading ones. Character actor roles can range from bit parts to secondary leads. However, character actors often play supporting roles, characters not subject to a major change or revelation in the course of the plot, and whose role is less prominent." Our teacher went in to a bit more detail on the subject. "Usually a character actor would be the kind of actor who is kind of like a sidekick. Sometimes he's the funny one. Usually doesn't get the girl." And I stopped her there and said jokingly, "Just like in real life!" And practically my whole theatre class, which was made up of mostly girls all simultaneously responded by going "Awwwwwwwwwwww."

Now I'm thinking, was this good for me or bad? I was making a joke. I like to make jokes. It's kind of what I do considering I want to become a stand up comedian someday. Thinking about it now, I really would fit the role of a "character actor." I like being the guy who makes others laugh. I like being known as "that funny guy in class." Who knows, maybe I'll give acting a try in the near future. I like doing act outs in my comedy routines, so maybe I would enjoy doing this.

Though I like theatre, I don't think I can ever categorize myself as a theatre person. I look at many theatre people as pretentious people. Most of the time they think they are better than they really are. Many of them lack the ability to be humble. Heck, I don't even think that word is in their vocabulary unless it was in a script or something. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about everyone who considers themselves a theatre person. I'm talking about the people that I've met, usually these people are actually very good at performing, and usually they land leads.  But holy hell, are they hard to work with. Which is why maybe a character actor roll would suit my personality better.