My best friend from college and her husband who was also one of my best friends from college sent me an xmas card. It came with a newsletter and a tract.
The weird thing about every (christian) tract I've ever seen is that they assume you already believe in God.
Every tract ever:
-Hey, you know that God guy? And that Heaven place?
-Well, did you know that if you want to go to Heaven and be with God, you have to accept Jesus? The bible says so!
-So, say this prayer.
So, here's the tract they sent me. I haven't actually read it yet.
-The cover says, "God's Simple Plan of Salvation"
The problem with this is that I don't believe in God and I don't believe I need any salvation. A good tract should convince me of both of these, and convince me that the "plan" will work.
-My Friend: I am asking you the most important question of life. Your joy or your sorrow for all eternity depends upon your answer.
Maybe "sorrow" is just a really big understatement. Or maybe the people who wrote this tract don't believe that hell is literally full of fire.
-The question is: Are you saved? It is not a question of how good you are, nor if you are a church member, but are you saved? Are you sure you will go to Heaven when you die?
I think, "Are you saved?" and, "Are you sure you will go to Heaven when you die?" can be different questions, depending on who you ask. I'm sure there are religious groups that don't believe in this "being saved" thing but do believe in Heaven, and their adherents probably believe they will go to heaven when they die. Aren't catholics like that? I mean, they have that stuff about confession, but they don't have anything about being saved.
-God says in order to go to Heaven, you must be born again. In John 3:7, Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again."
-In the Bible God gives us the plan of how to be born again which means to be saved. His plan is simple! You can be saved today. How?
I kind of wonder how they know that "to be born again" means "to be saved". But since they're quoting the bible and they haven't even tried to convince me that the bible is a trust-worthy source of information, it's a moot point.
-First, my friend, you must realize you are a sinner. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
Proof? What is "sin"? How do you know I've done it? I'm not going to take the bible's word for it.
-Because you are a sinner, you are condemned to death. "For the wages [payment] of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). This includes eternal separation from God in Hell. "... it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
I think that at this point they think they have convinced me that I am in dire need of this "saving". But they haven't. Not only are they basing this on an unreliable source, but it also all sounds ridiculous. They haven't really explained what a sinner is. I suppose they're assuming I already know. It means I've broken any commandment in the bible, and, according to some xtians, even if I haven't, I'm still a sinner because of Adam. But then, if they are assuming I am already familiar with the bible, then why are they telling me ...
OK, I just figured it out. They are assuming that I'm one of those wishy-washy I-believe-in-God I-went-to-bible-school once xtians who hasn't really seriously thought about any of this, and they are seriously concerned that I don't believe in Jesus hard enough.
OK, I'm perusing the tract now, and it basically says this:
1. You're a sinner.
2. You're going to go to hell.
3. God wants to save you from hell.
4. He sent Jesus to serve your sentence for you.
5. You have to say you're sorry and accept the gift.
This thing about having to accept it has always bothered me. It's so weirdly illogical. God was all like, "I am so mad at you!! I will kill you!!! No, instead I will kill this other guy. But now you have to say you're sorry and say you accept this guy's punishment, or else I'll just go ahead and kill you too." I don't know, I mean, if someone owed me $100 and their friend gave me $100, I would be all satisfied; I wouldn't go after the original person for any reason.
The christian answer I've gotten to this before is that God is perfectly just, so he can't just let it go that So-and-So was the one who really owed the $100. God can't let that person just get away with it.
But then he does let that person get away with, with just saying, "Yeah, I'm sorry, and I accept my friend's gift."
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Irregular hours
When I worked at Wendy's, I worked the same hours every week. I had the same two days off every week. I worked 11-5 five days a week.
When I worked at Subway, the hours were pretty consistent, too. I worked 5-10 mostly, and occasionally 9-2 or 11-2. The days off varied.
I briefly tried working at Burger King, where the hours were all crazy and 90% of the time when I came in, they told me, "Just kidding! Go home."
So now I have a job at Tom Thumb and I've been told that the hours will be different every week, and I could be working any time from 6 am to 1 am, but it's only part time, so, while I'll supposedly probably get about 35 hours a week, it's not guarranteed that I'll get that much and I can't even go look for another part-time job because I never know when I'll be available.
I can't think of any reasonable explanation for this behaviour. Why wouldn't they just let people work regular schedules? It'd be better for everyone! I'd rather get a regularly-scheduled 20 hours a week so that I could find another regularly scheduled job somewhere else.
My mom has suggested a few rationales for this. Maybe it's because they don't want to stick the same people with the weekends every week. Well, if so, sign me up for the weekends. I don't do anything ever. Maybe it's because they don't want you to be able to get another job to supplement your pathetic pay. If that's it, they're still irrationally evil. Why wouldn't they want you to make more money? Or maybe it's because they want you to feel totally powerless over your own life so that you'll do whatever they want all the time for microscopic amounts of money. I think it's that one.
I used to always hear about poor people on welfare having 3 part-time jobs. What happened to that? I'd love to be one of those people.
I'm available for math and spanish tutoring :D
When I worked at Subway, the hours were pretty consistent, too. I worked 5-10 mostly, and occasionally 9-2 or 11-2. The days off varied.
I briefly tried working at Burger King, where the hours were all crazy and 90% of the time when I came in, they told me, "Just kidding! Go home."
So now I have a job at Tom Thumb and I've been told that the hours will be different every week, and I could be working any time from 6 am to 1 am, but it's only part time, so, while I'll supposedly probably get about 35 hours a week, it's not guarranteed that I'll get that much and I can't even go look for another part-time job because I never know when I'll be available.
I can't think of any reasonable explanation for this behaviour. Why wouldn't they just let people work regular schedules? It'd be better for everyone! I'd rather get a regularly-scheduled 20 hours a week so that I could find another regularly scheduled job somewhere else.
My mom has suggested a few rationales for this. Maybe it's because they don't want to stick the same people with the weekends every week. Well, if so, sign me up for the weekends. I don't do anything ever. Maybe it's because they don't want you to be able to get another job to supplement your pathetic pay. If that's it, they're still irrationally evil. Why wouldn't they want you to make more money? Or maybe it's because they want you to feel totally powerless over your own life so that you'll do whatever they want all the time for microscopic amounts of money. I think it's that one.
I used to always hear about poor people on welfare having 3 part-time jobs. What happened to that? I'd love to be one of those people.
I'm available for math and spanish tutoring :D
Taking husband's name
I feel sick like I'm going to die or something whenever I think about this. A lot of people think that feminism is totally unnecessary now because it's over and women have equality, the end. But if that's true then why do so many women keep changing their last names when they get married!? Checkmate!
I remember when I was in 7th grade, a classful of girls insisted that they would not change their last names when they got married. Hm, I should try to look those people up on facebook or something. That could be problematic though, because I was unable to obtain a yearbook due to stupidity (someone else's, not my own) and I might not be able to remember people's names. But I don't have any reason to think that that class wouldn't have been representative of, say, texan girls in general. It was a relatively conservative town, so if even those girls didn't want to change their names.... But every (hyperbole) woman my age (who I am currently in some kind of contact with) is now getting married, changing her name, and crapping out babies. What's up with this!?
OK, I have to admit that my 7th grade class could have just been unusual. But even so. That so many young women, women in their early twenties, are still taking their hubands' last names is, I think, sympomatic of widespread sexism.
My best friend from college change her last name when she got married. I knew her by one name for 5 years. Names are like a capsule for someone's identity. So who is she now? It confuses me on some subconscious emotional level, and then my brain informs me that I should feel a combination of >:( and whatever the emoticon for barfing up bile is.
My sister also changed her last name when she got married. She's my half-sister, and we have the same dad, so we didn't really live together that much, because she mostly lived with her mom. So I had a big attachment to the fact that we shared a last name. It was like, "YES, world, she really is my sister. We have the same last name; that proves it." But now her name is completely different from mine, and she lives in a different town, and we look nothing alike and it makes me feel like this :.( and also like throwing up.
I remember when I was in 7th grade, a classful of girls insisted that they would not change their last names when they got married. Hm, I should try to look those people up on facebook or something. That could be problematic though, because I was unable to obtain a yearbook due to stupidity (someone else's, not my own) and I might not be able to remember people's names. But I don't have any reason to think that that class wouldn't have been representative of, say, texan girls in general. It was a relatively conservative town, so if even those girls didn't want to change their names.... But every (hyperbole) woman my age (who I am currently in some kind of contact with) is now getting married, changing her name, and crapping out babies. What's up with this!?
OK, I have to admit that my 7th grade class could have just been unusual. But even so. That so many young women, women in their early twenties, are still taking their hubands' last names is, I think, sympomatic of widespread sexism.
My best friend from college change her last name when she got married. I knew her by one name for 5 years. Names are like a capsule for someone's identity. So who is she now? It confuses me on some subconscious emotional level, and then my brain informs me that I should feel a combination of >:( and whatever the emoticon for barfing up bile is.
My sister also changed her last name when she got married. She's my half-sister, and we have the same dad, so we didn't really live together that much, because she mostly lived with her mom. So I had a big attachment to the fact that we shared a last name. It was like, "YES, world, she really is my sister. We have the same last name; that proves it." But now her name is completely different from mine, and she lives in a different town, and we look nothing alike and it makes me feel like this :.( and also like throwing up.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
This is a post.
I'm making a post. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this very important buhlog. I'll try to make it something important.
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