Nobody Fights Sea Monsters in Daisy Dukes

You know what I love about BioWare, other than Anders? I love that female characters are never saving the world in daisy dukes or chainmail bikinis*. Seriously.

That's the female version of chainmail from Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. That is my favorite game of all time. I still play it. It's six years old and still holds up, in my opinion. However, for some strange reason, while men are covered head to toe by chainmail, women can't even wear a bra with it (it would show through the slit). Why? C'mon, you know why.

See that? That's BioWare's Dragon Age II. Every other character is female, but you can't tell the difference just on armor, can you? The women's chests, stomachs, hips, thighs and butts are as covered as the men's. You know, so the armor will do what armor is intended to do.

Look at that. That's Bonnie Lass. She commands a ship and saves the day. She's also at risk for a labia popping out if she moves too fast. And if you've ever worn thigh high pantyhose (hey, I used to be interesting), you know you aren't kicking sea monster ass in them. You're too occupied pulling them up every time you move. And don't get me started on garter belts. (I used to very, very interesting.) And why, exactly, is she so opposed to 3" of her thighs being covered? Is that small strip of flesh constantly hot, so hot she cannot bear the touch of fabric? No, it's sexy. Because being a hero just isn't enough, you also have to titillate every teenage boy in a 500 mile radius.

Gah! Hey, look, it's not just teenage boys that play video games and read comics. Women do, too, increasing numbers. Please, please, please stop treating female characters as existing only to titillate teenage boys. Start treating them like people who select appropriate clothing for the task at hand, and chainmail bikinis and daisy dukes are not appropriate for saving the world.

*Yes, yes, Isabella. Isabella is charmingly slutty. (Actually, I despise Isabella, but not because she enjoys her sexuality. Because she ran off and left me and then I had to do a huge fight with 3 people instead of 4 and it took me 17 tries to get through it. I hate her!) It's just who she is, and she's not the player controlled character or the hero.

Oh, C'mon Now, Who Are You Trying to Fool?

You wanna mess up your kids? Tell them every stray thought will land them in hell and then show them the works of Heironymous Bosch.

Sin.

Once upon a time, sin was a big deal to me. I was convinced, utterly convinced, that every little sin was sending me to Hell. I absolutely, sincerely convinced that Satan watched everyone at all times and listened to our thoughts and that any stray thought or negative emotion of any kind- no matter how fleeting- could land me in Hell. Immediately.

I was nine.

Yes, my childhood was a happy one. Ever try not thinking about Satan? Good luck with that.

Ever try not feeling angry about anything ever? Better luck with that one.

Keep in mind, that's not unusual Christian theology. Plenty of Christians belief that even feeling slightly angry at someone else is the same as murder. (coughRayComfortcough) Even more feel that finding a woman vaguely attractive is exactly the same as a gangbang with five hermaphrodite hookers, a goat and a pineapple- and it's all the woman's fault, btw.

Now, I know this guy comes from the Ray Comfort school of "ever been angry? enjoy hell, sucka!" school of theology, which is why I find this post a little bit . . . disingenuous.

The following comes from page 1951 in the John MacMarthur Bible Commentary and addresses the fact that born again believers do not habitually sin.

Why Christians Won't Habitually Sin

This passage begins with the phrase "Whoever commits sin" (v. 4). Commits translates a Greek verb that conveys the idea of habitual practice. Although genuine Christians have a sin nature (1 John 1:8) and do behave sinfully, their confession of sin (1 John 1:9; 2:1) and acceptance of forgiveness prevent sin from becoming the unbroken pattern of their lives (John 8:31, 34-36;Romans 6:11; 2 John 1:9). God builds a certain growing awareness about sin that provides four effective reasons why true Christians cannot habitually practice sin:

1. Genuine Christians cannot practice sin because sin is incompatible with the law of God, which they love (1 John 3:4; Psalm 119:34, 77, 97; Romans 7:12, 22); whereas habitual sin betrays the ultimate sense of rebellion - living as if there were no law or ignoring what laws exist (James 4:17) - in short, lawlessness.

2. Genuine Christians cannot practice sin because sin is incompatible with the work of Christ (1 John 3:5). Christ died to sanctify (make holy) the believer (2 Corinthians 5:21;Ephesians 5:25-27). Habitual sin contradicts Christ's work of breaking the dominion of sin in the believer's life (Romans 6:1-15).

3. Genuine Christians cannot practice sin because Christ came to destroy the works of the arch-sinner, Satan (1 John 3:8). The devil is still operating, but he has been defeated, and in Christ we escape his tyranny. The day will come when all of Satan's activity will cease in the universe, and he will be sent to hell forever (Revelation 20:10).

4. Genuine Christians cannot practice sin because sin is incompatible with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who has imparted a new nature to the believer (1 John 3:9; John 3:5-8). This new nature shuns sin and exhibits the habitual character of righteousness produced by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-24).

So, who sins? Everyone. Who doesn't lie, who doesn't get angry, who doesn't feel lustful? Surely some of the people who claim to be Christians must actually be Christians, and I've never noticed a difference in behavior between Christians and nonChristians, have you? Christians have a higher divorce rate, there are more Christians in prison and the more religious a country is, the more crime it has. Christians sin, just like the rest of us.

What this is, really, is a No True Scotsman and a Guilt Complex. This allows you to say, "But they're not really Christians" any time I point to a clearly sinning Christian, "real Christians don't sin!" Sure. Unless conversion is actually being replaced with a pod person, yes, Christians sin like the rest of us.

[Note: before you go all apeshit in the comments section, follow the link, see why that is a logical fallacy and not acceptable in argumentation and DON'T USE IT.]

The Guilt Complex of this is a little more subtle. It explains the constant rerererererededicating their lives to Jesus that so many Christians engage in. You'd think once or twice or three times would be enough, but no, they're dedicating their lives to Jesus on a weekly basis. How many times does it take, really? 58,000 apparently. I can tell you what the internal struggle is, because I've lived it.

Christian: Oh, not again!

Atheist: What?

Christian: I keep sinning. I'm not really a Christian!

Atheist: You believe in Jesus, right? You accept him as your Lord and Savior, right? Sure you're Christian. Fairly obnoxious about it, actually.

Christian: No, no, no! I can't be a Christian, I keep sinning!

Atheist: Sinning how?

Christian: I keep finding women other than my wife attractive!

Atheist: Srsly?

Christian: How did you say that without vowels? Never mind, yes, it's sinning! It's adultery!

Atheist: Dude, finding an attractive woman attractive is no big deal. You're not fucking them, are you?

Christian: NO!

Atheist: Yeah, you'll be fine.

Christian: No, I won't be fine. I need to become a Christian, or I'll burn forever in hell when I die! I could die at any moment! Please, God, save me!

Atheist: Um, yeah, well, call me when you're done with that.

These poor people, they're absolutely tormented. Tormented by assholes who tell them, over and over again, that being human is proof of their worthiness for eternal torment. It's sick.

An Interesting Interpretation

I hated my senior year English teacher. She was a cruel person who thought nothing of mocking students for being overweight or having severe acne or being poor. So, I spent the entire year mocking her by interpreting everything we read as relating to death. The Great Gatsby? The death of a dream. Brave New World? The death of individuality and morality. Everything was death.

One day, she decided to stump me by assigning a poem about a cat. The entire poem was simply a description of the author's cat, nothing more. (I don't remember the name anymore.) "So, Faith, how is this related to death?" she taunted me.

"I'm sure that cat's dead by now, and all the author has left is her memories and this poem," I replied. Everyone laughed, I got sent to talk to a rather befuddled principal ("I have to talk to you because she didn't like your interpretation of a poem?") and both of us learned an important lesson. She learned not to challenge me and I learned that while it is possible to interpret everything through a very specific lens, it takes a lot of effort.

Abigail Ruth of Culture News is expending just such an effort every day for far less amusing reasons.

Enabling Men to Push The Pill on Girls

It's ironic that feminists want to make it easier for men wanting sex to force medications on young girls by making birth control pills and abortifacients* available without a prescription.

Wow, that's quite the scandal there, isn't it? Feminists want to make it easy for men to force medication on young girls. I'm shocked! and appalled! and dismayed! Feminists are actively trying to mandate that grown men shove dangerous drugs down the throats of 8 year olds!

Or, you know, not.

What's actually happening is that a D.C. council member tried to introduce legislation that would allow women to buy birth control pills from the pharmacist without a prescription. This would remove on barrier that women encounter when attempting to control their fertility, having to take time off from work to see a doctor, and having to pay for that visit.

That's odd. I don't see anything in there about men, young girls, or forcing. Nor does Abigail Ruth make the slightest attempt to prove her initial, peculiar assertion, other than to intimate that perhaps men could purchase birth control pills. There's also nothing about "young girls", which I would like an explanation of in that young girls don't menstruate and therefore do not need birth control to prevent pregnancy. I am left questioning Abigail's understanding of biology and wondering what definitions of "young" and "girls" we're using here.

Oh, wait, the producers of Plan B (the "morning after pill") are attempting to have age restrictions removed from their product. That didn't help me understand her initial assertion either.

Now, Abigail, if you're going to relate everything to child molestation, you should put at least as much effort into it as I did in pissing off my English teacher. It's like you're not even trying!

Liar Liar Pants on Fire*

Franklin Graham warns that the spirit of the anti-Christ is everywhere. Including his own mouth, it appears.

But preaching the Gospel may prove difficult, according to Graham, in a society where mentioning the name of Christ is prohibited.

That's not true at all. At all. Not even a little bit. You are more than welcome to talk about Jesus on your own time as much as you want. I checked to see if Graham was talking about China or Iran, but he's not. He's talking about the United States.

He goes on to say this:

Despite the opposition, Graham asked students to take advantage of the abundant opportunities forevangelism in today's era, especially through the Internet. He mentioned some options like purchasing key words like "God," "Jesus," or even "Muhammad."

Now wait a minute, Franky, are you completely prohibited from mentioning Jesus or are there "abundant" opportunities to do so? It's one or the other, but certainly not both, asshat.

Also, um, how does one purchase key words? If anyone knows, I would like "sloth", "pudding" and "gummy worms".

*I'm not sure if this rhyme is popular outside of the US, so for those who may not be familiar with it, the entire phrase is "Liar, liar, pants on fire, hang you by your nose from a telephone wire." No idea how that got started.

Back Away From the Keyboard, Ma'am

I don't often get outraged. It's just not something I do. It takes a lot of energy for one thing, and I like to save mine for fun stuff, and I have a bizarre sense of humor, so you're more likely to amuse me than outrage me. So, maybe I just don't understand this post because I have an abnormally low sense of outrage. (Like a low WBC count or something.) Or, maybe some people need to back away from the keyboard and take a few Xanax before their heads explode.

The backstory to this is, and honestly I don't even know if this is true, because I don't really care, is that on passports, parents will be listed as "Parent 1" and "Parent 2"* rather than "mother" and "father". Now see if you can reconcile this minor wording change with the vitriole it engenders:

I'm outraged by this. I am not either "parent one" or "parent two" to my beautiful daughters. I AM THEIR MOTHER. And I have the legal right to be recognized as such by every national, state, and local agency that ever has the authority to collect any such information from me.

I'm actually not sure you have a defined legal right to have agencies refer to you as "mother". I actually asked my boss. He laughed, shook his head and walked away. I did a quick check in the Constitution. Nothing there.

Anyway, wtf do you care? Does this person think that, due to a wording change on an official document, our entire society is going to stop using the word "mother"? Does she think motherhood itself will disappear and possibly also her children?

Look, here's reality. We're living in it, whether you like it or not. (Frequently, I do not.) There are people raising children who do not fall into the role of mother and father. Hey, I was one of them for years. My husband and I raised my niece for a number of years**. We were not "mother" and "father". We were parental figures, to be sure, just not mother and father. But that's not what our friend is so outraged about. Can you guess what it is she so outraged by?

If two gay men are raising one or the other's biological child or a child they've adopted, or a child they paid a reproductive prostitute to manufacture for them, they can call themselves the child's "fathers," plural, until the cows come home. The child still has one father. And if two lesbians are raising a child as stated above, they can also insist on being "Mommy One" and "Mommy Two" to the poor child they are raising. The child has one mother--either one of them, or a woman who gave the baby up for adoption, or a reproductive prostitute who was paid to manufacture a child for them. No human being on the planet has more than one actual father and one actual mother; no human being has ever been born as the result of the genetic combination of two sperm cells or two egg cells.

Ah, Teh Gai. Feel the Christian love, so indistinguishable from hate. Watch as it drips down your screen like maggots from a bloated corpse. Luffly, isn't it? Here's the thing: I could buy her argument that adoptive gay parents are not mothers and/or fathers, except that I guarantee you she would say no such things about heterosexual adoptive parents, who are also, technically, not mothers and/or fathers to their children. Adoptive heterosexuals are mothers and/or fathers, adoptive homosexuals are not.

And god(s) forbid anyone mistake her for a gay person, which, in her bizarre world, could possibly happen with the new Parent 1 and Parent 2 designations. I have a suggestion, oh hateful one: carry around pictures of your children emerging from your vagina, as well as a picture of you and your husband having sex. Show them to everyone who sees these passports so they do not mistake your for a homosexual person. Have "I am not a faggot" tattooed on your forehead so the rest of us, who have no reason to see your childrens' passports, will know as well. Quite frankly, I would appreciate knowing exactly who to stay the hell away from.

*Who did not immediately think of Thing 1 and Thing 2? I want to be Parent 1 or Parent 2 and I want my passport photo to clearly show the special sweater I will buy for just that occasion. See, I'm amused, not outraged.

**Proudest Parent 2 moment: my niece texted me during the Eagles game yesterday (yes, I am still weeping bitterly) to beg me to update her on the game because her mother had changed the channel. I love that kid.

I'm Going to Smear Lime Jello on My Elbows for You

I do so love a rambling semidefense of prayer as actually doing something . . . or something. You'll see what I mean.

The message came in a flurry of emails on a day that was no busier than usual. It was bad news. An old friend was letting me know that her long-time babysitter had just been diagnosed with colon cancer and was going into the hospital soon for surgery.

"Prayers!" I typed. "I'll keep her in our prayers." What else do you say? How else do you respond to really bad new? The thing is: do you really mean it, and are you really going to do it?

How about, "I'm sorry" or "I'll keep her in my thoughts"? Or, if you really actually want to do something, what about a fundraiser to pay for medical bills and missed wages, or cooking freezer-ready meals for her and her family or a gift certificate for a maid service or taking up a collection to pay for rides to and from treatment or, you know, actually fucking doing something? Oh, right, that takes effort. Got it.

So, anyway, the author managed to forget even doing the nothing that is praying.

I don't believe for a minute that God didn't get the message when I typed my email "Prayers!" and anyway, if God cared about this lovely faith-filled woman, he would be on top of it. (Leave alone for a minute the whys of her illness.)

Um, no. How about you're going to have to explain why god will answer a prayer to cure a disease he allowed a person to have in the first place. Otherwise, you've involved me in the old Steve Martin skit in which he explains that the way to be a millionaire is to get a million dollars.

But I needed to say that prayer for me as much as for her.

She has cancer, dude. Stop thinking about yourself. How selfish can you be? (Apparently, that selfish.)

Praying for others is at the heart of prayer. As has been often pointed out, the Lord's Prayer is in the first-person plural, not singular. Praying -- and I don't think I'm any better at it than anybody else -- is a joint effort. Faith is about compassion, and how compassionate can you be if you don't pray for others?

Oh, I see. I actually do things for the suffering people in my life, but because I don't talk to myself about it, I'm a sociopath.

Do I know how it works? Haven't a clue. Do I believe it works? Of course I do or I wouldn't prevail.

Ah, the unexamined life. Also, the word you are looking for is not "prevail". Prevail means to win. You mean "persevere".

There have been times when I've depended on it. Scared out of my wits in a hospital room before open-heart surgery, I took comfort in a print-out of emails from friends and family promising their prayers. And when I couldn't pray at all, I was grateful to a pair of old friends who called and prayed some sense into me on the other end of the line. What I couldn't do, they could do for me.

I'm not sure how one prays sense into someone, but fine. If prayer comforted you prior to major surgery, go for it. I would never take that comfort from you, surgery is terrifying. In fact, were you a friend of mine, I would lie and tell you I prayed for you. I would also smear lime jello on my elbows if that's what would make you feel better. However, don't tell me the heart of compassion is prayer.

There's a lot of goodness in this broken world, and prayer feels like a way of shaking it loose. I have no problems praying for dear friends who think it's a bunch of malarkey. They love me and have to accept that this is some endearing idiosyncrasy of mine like making dopey toasts or breaking into song. When you pray for someone, you learn to love them, and you think of them all day long.

So, without the prayer, I cannot "learn to love"? Get over yourself. Also, hatred also makes you think of people all day long. As does obsession.

That babysitter is getting out of the hospital soon and going into rehabilitation. I've been checking in and am attuned because she's on my badly maintained list. "You're so nice to ask," my friend says. But I'm not being nice. I'm doing what I think is essential and will keep trying. "You're in my prayers" is a powerful thing to say and even more powerful when you show how you mean it.

That babysitter could use an awful lot of things. She could use help cleaning her house. She could use a big platter of baked ziti. (I'm Italian. We believe in the healing power of pasta. For everything.) She could use a million things that don't involve you making yourself feel better about your inaction.

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