Monday, July 23, 2012

The Problem With Porn *EXPLICIT* Reader Discretion is Advised*

As I've said before I'm a recovering porn addict, it's a sin I struggle with and I'm currently struggling with it now and hopefully this article will help me deal with the struggle for now. So, I am a recovering porn addict and I say recovering because one doesn't STOP using porn cold turkey but rather one struggles against the urge to use it, as I am doing now. I am blessed that my addiction hasn't gotten me in ANY legal trouble nor was I put in a compromising position because of it. None of my family knows and the severity of my addiction isn't as sever as some of the other cases I've read. Thankfully this is due to my EXTREMELY limited scope of what I deemed acceptable porn. I was strictly into girl/girl porn, NO MEN INVOLVED WHATSOEVER! And because of that I didn't seek out more disturbing things as others have. But nonetheless I am a recovering porn addict.

Fred Phelps...

Seeing as how I'm on a roll, I figured I'd better go ahead and address the MASSIVE bane on Christianity that is FRED PHELPS of The Westboro Baptist Church...the unfortunate thing about this is that it's ALWAYS the lunatics that are the most vocal about everything. This even hurts me MORE because I myself am a Calvinist and unfortunately Mr. Phelps identifies himself as a Calvinist...would I were not in good company with the likes of Dr. James White of Alpha & Omega Ministries and Rev. Matthew Slick of Carm.org, I wouldn't be as vocal about my Calvinism. But unfortunately in EVERY ideology there is a nutcase and in this case it's Fred Phelps and I have to say that this is LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG over due.
Let's get started...

Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Darkest Night...

So I tried to make a video about this and failed mostly because I was trying to hold back every fiber of my being to keep from shouting, and while shouting is understandable in a situation such as this, I'd rather not damage my voice that way.  We all know about The shooting in Colorado, I won't even elaborate on what happen, and we're all familiar with the Trayvon Martin shooting that happened several months back. Well in one article I'm gonna attempt to deal with BOTH of these and offer a Christian perspective on it.

Lately I've been noticing a series of disgusting images posted on my Facebook that made me want to (at first) make a video and then write this article. The images are meme images, which I won't post here for the sole purpose of NOT spotlighting them, but they say such things as: "They wanted to see the full movie, I gave them clips" worst yet, these images feature the mugshot of Mr. Holmes.

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Marzgurl, a Channel Awesome review recently posted a blog about this and I wanted to share a portion of that with you just to illuminate a point I'm going to make later.

"He even seemed to want to do all of this looking like, and calling himself, “The Joker”.
It sounds like he likely did exactly what he wanted to accomplish.  He became a super villain.
Perhaps by me labeling him as such, I’ve given him exactly what he was looking for.  He’s gotten his name in history.  I can’t think of any other “logical” reason behind any of it, other than it’s just want he wanted to do for himself.  After all, he didn’t even kill himself or let himself get shot by the police after the event.  How many mass shootings have you heard of where the shooter doesn’t off himself afterwards?  He let himself be taken in peacefully.  He wanted to see it unfold just as much as any of us do."

And yet, with these James Holmes Memes and things related to it...we've given him EXACTLY what he wanted...FAME. And this is still not the worst part. The next worst part is unfortunately people's reaction. The people who make these memes, the people who post them and the people who laugh at them. We've unfortunately become a society where "If it doesn't effect me, I don't care about it." and we subscribe to that mentally to EVERYTHING, and when something DOES effect us, we IMMEDIATELY want the entire world to pissed off along with us only to receive a simple "Meh." as a reply. Unfortunately this tragedy has gotten the same reaction, and ANYONE who DARES point out that inappropriate nature of making fun of such a horrific situation, you are labled as a "Moralfag".


What has me enraged is the following exchange below, between 3 people on Knowyourmeme.com, a website I frequent due to my enjoyment of "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic", but that's neither here nor there. This exchange was taken from the James Holmes page, and unless Knowyourmeme, deletes that page it will be available for your review. The comments are as followed:
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"Moralfag". So apparently you're a "moralfag" if you're appalled at the OBVIOUS praise of a mass murderer. Yeah, because you really shouldn't be appalled by mass murder simply because...
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Despite the truth of this comment that DOES NOT GIVE US THE RIGHT TO PRAISE THE PEOPLE WHO MURDER INNOCENT PEOPLE!! There's a thin line between mockery and praise.

As an example, Hitler is a character of note and is often lampooned and parodied in various ways, most humorously by The 3 Stooges. But understand that Hitler wanted to be taken seriously as a leader and war hero, and by the many parodies Hitler's legacy is one we scoff and laugh at, because of his ridiculous mustache, his constant look of having flop-sweat ect. ect. BUT James Holmes WANTED to become The Joker and these memes and those commentators have given him EXACTLY what he wants, so these ARE NOT parodies, this is PRAISE. I can't get over the fact that these people fail to recognize that this could have happened to them just as easily as ANYONE ELSE.

Personal story, I was recently robbed at gunpoint last month. I'm in a place now where I'm over it and can talk about it, but that's only because I'm alive to do so. I can't imagine the pain and heartache my girlfriend, my mother, my brother, my uncles, my cousins, my friends and so on would go through if I didn't survive that ordeal. Unfortunately for 12 people that night in Colorado their families, friends, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, and so on have to deal with that pain...and then for someone sick vultures to poke fun at that by praising the murderer of their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunt, girlfriends, boyfriends, friends, cousins, and so on ALL for the sake of some stupid "Internet Rule" that states "Nothing is sacred"...it really reflects where our society has gone.

"Doesn't effect me, so it's not my business." only until it DOES effect you and it becomes your business and the second you wanna look for help you run into someone with the SAME attitude...it makes for a bitter world. I'd just like to say that I am sickened and appalled by the individuals in those comments and if you know them personally I'd suggest you find better friends as they are obviously only friends of themselves. I won't extend to them to credit of "Doing it for the lulz" or the dignity of merely "trolling", their comments are sick, sadistic and reflective of who they are as human beings and it truly makes me sad that such people exist.
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Which brings me to The Trayvon Martin Shooting, recently shooter George Zimmerman did an interview with Sean Hannity about the shooting, below is the video:

I'd like to address a few of his comments, specifically his comment about it (the shooting) being "god's plan"...this upsets me for MANY REASONS. The first of which, back when I was 13, I was a Dystheist, which means that I believed God exists, I just believed He was evil and more specifically He hated Black People...and given our history I would have quite a strong case to build. Also adding The Klu Klux Klan's utilization of Christian iconography and their use of The Bible to justify their violence, it's no small mystery why I would have such a horrid image of God. Thankfully, as I grew I studied the Bible more thoroughly and discovered that The KKK were wrong about EVERYTHING, and that in fact God loves us all. So when Zimmerman says that it was God's plan for him to murder a 16 year old boy walking home with ice tea and Skittles...I'm sorry but I fail to see how. I'm not going to deny that God hasn't done strange things in history, but I am VERY against the idea of merely throwing His name behind any horrible action to justify it.

And this is unfortunately what gives Christianity a bad name, people who CLAIM to be Christians and then do horrible things in the name of Christianity...namely Anders Behring Breivik, the shooter in Oslo, Norway last year. Everyone claimed him to be a Christian Terrorist and the face of Christian Terrorism (which is an oxymoron), however one look into Breivik's ideology and you can see that he is NO WHERE NEAR CHRISTIAN. 
And yet people will still go on saying "HE SAID HE WAS A CHRISTIAN AND HE KILLED THOSE PEOPLE BECAUSE OF CHRISTIANITY!" despite that fact that from his OWN WORDS he confessed to NOT being a Christian. So what does all of this have to do with Zimmerman ? Well, he's ONCE AGAIN re-enforcing that ideology that you can do horrible things to people, slap God's name on it and everything's fine. That's a little thing we call BLASPHEMY!!

Unfortunately people don't care, they hear the name "God" and immediately assume that the person saying it is representing their faith. The WORST thing about Christianity are Christians themselves, we are fallen, sinful creatures and because of that we will constantly fall short in the eyes of our fellow man. I, myself am a recovering porn addict and I make no qualms about my past, I swear like it's going out of style, and I have a temper, but EACH AND EVERYDAY I am trying to stay away from porn, not to swear so much and keep my temper in check to glorify my God. Because that's the object of Christianity, not to smile and clap your hands in church, but to be CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST!

Each and everyday a Christian should be striving to be more and more like Jesus. So once again, how does ALL of this tie in with Zimmerman? Because he used God as an excuse to murder someone...but what does Jesus have to say about that ? John 16:1-4

“ These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. 2 They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you."

RIGHT THERE Jesus is talking about HYPOCRITES! People who will use God to commit acts of violence, slavery, and over horrible things and what does Jesus say about that ? "THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN THE FATHER OR ME!". Basically He's saying THEY ARE NOT BELIEVERS!  What else does Jesus say on the matter ? Matthew 5:44

"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,"

There's more, Romans 12:16-21 YES! VERY CLEARLY we see that ANYONE who is a Christian is going to grab an AK-47 and start shooting people because God told them to...sadly, I know all of this will fall on deaf ears. George Zimmerman is WRONG, murder is NOT apart of God's plan. God allows sin to occur and murder IS a sin, but simply because God allows it does NOT make it apart of His plan and to say so is hubris, blasphemous and horrible.

The worst part of this is his unrepentant spirit. ASK ANY police officer and they will tell you that drawing their gun in the line of duty is a difficult thing to do. They may not regret shooting a murderer, but they most certainly regret it coming to a point where they have to kill someone. Any SANE people would want to go through life without the knowledge that they killed another person, BUT for Zimmerman to say that he does NOT regret shooting Trayvon and FOLLOWING Trayvon and CAUSING the incident that resulted in his death, for him to NOT regret it PROVES my previous point of him USING God.

A REAL Christian would regret killing ANYONE, even IF they deserved it, WHY?! Because it's truly an upsetting reality when the ONLY way to achieve peace is to take a life or lives (in terms of war). We Christians are called to MAKE PEACE and LIVE PEACEFULLY! Understand that I am NOT saying soldiers should return home from war and lament their actions and ask for God's forgiveness. Not at all! I am saying that soldiers DO however regret it having to come to war, having to leave their families, and face the unfortunate reality of having to kill people. Zimmerman however DOES NOT regret ANYTHING! He didn't return from fighting for our country, he did NOT return from shooting an armed criminal in the line of duty...he shot and killed a 17 year old boy who was unarmed...how could he have NO regrets? How could he even fix his lips to say that?

I remembered I was talking to a co-worker of mine and I felt like I was being a douche to her (she didn't think so) but I felt I was wrong and I IMMEDIATELY apologized to her. I DEEPLY regretted how I acted towards her, I didn't hurt her and she didn't even notice but I apologized NONETHELESS because I regretted how I treated her. But this man...who MURDERED a 17 year old boy doesn't regret it...not very Christian...so his conclusion where he "apologizes" to The Martin Family, how can you TRULY have an apology WITHOUT REGRET?! A soldier SHOULD NOT apologize for going to war but SHOULD regret that it had to come to war. But George Zimmerman REGRETS NOTHING and apologized...how is that possible?

I apologize for the length of this article but I'm going to bring this whole thing full circle, and thank you so sticking with me for as long as you have.

So what does George Zimmerman and this whole James Holmes thing have in common ? The shamefully blatant "I DON'T CARE!" attitude! In Zimmerman's case, he committed murder, killed a 17 year old boy WHEN HE DIDN'T HAVE TO, ON CAMERA said he DID NOT regret doing so, but then apologized, and in the commentors case, they PRAISED a man who MURDERED numerous people and DEFENDED their praise by using such clever words as "moralfag" to shout down anyone who would DARE accuse them of being inappropriate. Both Zimmerman and those individuals LACK human decency. 

In Zimmerman's case he USED GOD to justify his murder and as a Christian I am offended and I rebuke Zimmerman and pray for his repentance that God convicts him and shows him how sinful he truly is. In the case of The Commentors (who are clearly Atheists), ANY ATHEIST will tell you that the BEST rule to live by is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (which is ironically Luke 6:31, but we're not getting into that) UNFORTUNATELY these individuals FAIL to put themselves in such a situation where their loved ones are suddenly slaughtered in droves while innocently trying to watch a movie. Instead they'd rather PRAISE the man who killed those people and shun anyone who tells them they should not. Should those commentors find themselves in such a situation I DARE them to ask for sympathy. I DARE them to ask for respect. I DARE THEM!

Atheist or Christian, you can't deny that we have a LOT of work to do and it's NOT going to get done if we are constantly looking to ourselves for a solution. We as Christians have chosen to look outside ourselves and live by the rules laid out for us by the one we believe is our creator, and we believe that others should do the same, but if you disagree that is NOT a cause for violence or anger. Unfortunately we live in a world where disagreement is synonymous with hatred and violence solves everything. Maybe it's time we should learn to RESPECT each other without resorting to name calling. Maybe we SHOULD consider somethings sacred, if not for our sake but for the sake of OTHERS! Maybe we SHOULD think about respecting and helping other people before we so easily say "Doesn't effect me, not my problem.".

...but then again what do I know ? I'm just another "moralfag"....