Letters to the Editor
Allie_
Published Letters: 1252 Editor's Choice: 109
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funny article, and my personal most shocking find
[Read the article: The art of snooping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That was funny. I wouldn't let you housesit for me on a bet, but that was funny.
When I was in college, my boyfriend rented a furnished house from a cousin of his who was attending seminary in another state. We had a bunch of stuff which needed stored; he invited us to clean out the attic and hold a yard sale of anything we found there, keeping the money as payment for the work of cleaning out the attic.
Let me restate: he INVITED us to clean out his attic.
I'm guessing he forgot about the giant stack of gay child porn in the attic. Or maybe some strange guilt impulse caused him to set himself up. In any case, there it was... a giant stack of porn mags and paperback books, carefully tied with string, in plain sight, in the middle of the attic. It wasn't "real" child porn, but that "fake" kind with the disclaimer: We swear on our mothers' graves that whatever it may look like, all models are actually 19 or older, please don't arrest us. Still a very disturbing thing to find in the attic of a man attending seminary. I remember one magazine was entitled: "Young Boys in Bondage." This would have been... 1988? Back when porn meant printed material, and before child-molesting priests were all over the news.
My boyfriend discussed bringing it to the attention of his parish priest, but I have no idea if he did or not, since we broke up shortly thereafter.
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Here's my favorite conundrum
[Read the article: Inside the Creation Museum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From the King James, which as every fundie knows is the word-for-word, perfect and literal truth, self-evident without need for interpretation or use of words in senses other than the common sense meaning of them, the opening of the book of Genesis:
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Okay... here's the problem. What, exactly, is a day? More specifically, what is an evening, and a morning? Isn't a morning when the sun comes up, and an evening when the sun sets? Or, more specifically, when the sun appears to rise and set, based on the rotation of the earth?
But the sun wasn't created until the fourth day. So, what, exactly, does it mean when it says morning and evening were the first, second, and third days? What exactly is supposed to be happening? The sun can't be rising and setting, because God hasn't made the sun yet, so the common-sense interpretation of the words isn't possible.
Not to mention, isn't it obvious to those of us who have traveled in airplanes or seen photos of the earth from orbit that morning and evening are LOCAL phenomena, which have no meaning from any perspective other than the perspective of a single spot on the surface of the earth? It's dark here, now, as I'm typing; in Australia, it's not. Didn't God create the whole world, a world in which it's always morning and always evening, someplace?
(Note to any Fundies who might be revving up to answer these questions: they are rhetorical.)
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Hey Slackie Onassis
[Read the article: Inside the Creation Museum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Frankenfaithful... love it.
My husband and I were shooting the breeze the other day when one of us (don't remember who) suggested that if Fundamentalists believe life begins at conception, then it suddenly becomes much easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle. Before, you needed a very large needle. Now... you just need a petri dish and a couple of camels... it would make a great Onion headline, don't you think? "Camel passes through eye of needle, rich men celebrate!"