Will Prayer Save Your Bank?

God apparently said to the man:  “Chuck, if you pastor the bank, I’ll take care of the bottom line.”

Ripka and his staff would pray with customers in the bank’s Otsego branch and even at the drive-up window. In a 2004 New York Times story, Ripka said he occasionally slipped up and said, “Come on over to the church — I mean the bank.”

This is part of my problem:  I feel that if you have a business, your first duty should be to the business instead of some supernatural being…  But hey, that’s just me and the atheist business model.  Oh, and the bank had been in financial crisis for the last two years and is now being closed by regulators.  Guess they should have gotten to banking a bit more.

Star Tribune link.

Therez no monkays in peanut butters…

He seems seriously upset that there’s not a monkey in his jar when he opens it…  So here you go, Mr. Crazy.

The Friendly Pedophile/Rapist

You know, I could comment on this story. But wouldn’t that just be too easy?  I mean, what can I say about this man’s ‘heartwarming story’ that he can’ t tell you himself?  Between the pedophilia, the rapes, the keeping of slaves, and the possible murders, I mean, there have got to be some real warm fuzzies in there somewhere…  I hope none of the rape was anal, because that would be just twenty times cuter, wouldn’t it though?  It could be a freakin’ Hallmark movie!

How cute!

SPCA Exec Commits Dogicide

An SPCA exec’s dog recently died after being left trapped in a hot car…

Just in case anyone wonders if my thoughts on hypocrisy only apply to religion, no.  No, they do not…  I suppose in the grand scheme of things it’s not the worst thing that could have happened.  I mean, people somehow forget about their babies in hot cars more often than one would think.  (Being happily child-free, I find it hard to think you could forget you have a baby, but it seems you can anyway.  Maybe having children isn’t that bad!)

Even though ‘things’ get forgotten in cars, it has to really make you wonder…  Maybe Sparky peed on the rug too many times?  It did sound pretty old and like it needed a lot of care.

In all seriousness though, these are the kind of people that I really dislike.  The kind that are not present in their lives and don’t communicate well with those around them.  I mean, to me, when you can’t even communicate with your freakin’ LOVER, then how do you communicate with your friends, co-workers, etc.  Oh, I think we all know some of those kind of people, unfortunately…  It’s really sad that their lack of communication about what her husband did with their doggie forced the poor dog (who was already not in the best of states) to suffer needlessly.

Message brought to you by the SPCA. Do as I say, not as I do.

Obama Legs vs. Coulter Legs

There’s some controversy drumming up over the First Lady wearing shorts on a trip to the Grand Canyon.  The funny thing is, there aren’t any quotes anywhere of anyone actually complaining, so who is stirring up all this controversy?  Anyhow, I’m sorry, but if no one’s complained about Coulter’s legs, then everyone can just shut up.

Is Sunny TOO Cheerful??

One of my friends recently sent this to me…  I think he was trying to tell me something… 

Please tell me this is a joke…

Someone found my blog by searching for:  “Can you ask god to make your wife more desirable?”

Oh, my tummy hurts from the laugher…

Oh, So True!

The Rev. Gary Dreier on why church doesn’t do it for young people:  “One of the reasons is the way we do church seems to exclude anything that seems real and genuine.”

Hey man, you said it, not me.  Although I do have to say that I couldn’t have said it better.  I wonder why church doesn’t seem ‘real’ to people…  

Star Trib original source

Do the Right Thing

Aside from being a great movie from Mr. Spike Lee, ‘do the right thing’ is something I’ve been struggling with for the past couple of months…  Let’s see, without too many details…

Sunny knew that something very wrong was happening, and Sunny did exactly what needed to be done to make sure the wrong was stopped and that it would not happen again.  Now, because of issues beyond anyone’s control, Sunny can’t tell anyone what she did, or why, or even talk about the event or discuss it with anyone…  Some people don’t understand what was happening, and have been upset with Sunny.  Sunny doesn’t care that they’re upset with her, because she knows she did the right thing both morally and legally, but it still doesn’t take the hurt or sting away from others being harsh or not thinking before they speak or act.

At this very moment in time, this is what I’m thinking about the most:

So often, we atheists get accused of not having morals or ethical standards because of our lack of a god in our lives.  Now here I am wishing that I would be able to have a lapse in my conscience and just not care about things in this world as much as I do.  Just because something is ‘right’ legally or morally doesn’t mean it’s the easy thing to do.  Right now, it’s a very difficult thing.  So I keep thinking of all of those times that assholes have told me that I have no morals, or that my morality is false, a ‘veneer’, and how much I wish that were true, even slightly.

I would love to take my caring about other things or people and rachet it down a few notches.  I can’t remember a time when I didn’t care about a person, a job, an animal, a thing.  I would really like to be able to take some selfish moments and not give a shit about anything else in this world, even for 5 seconds, but I’ve never been able to…

I would say that it’s even more difficult on me having a job where I am obliged to care about others, but in reality I’ve always been this way, no matter what the job.

Let’s see, my first job at 13 years old (yes I know I shouldn’t have been working) I made computer circuit boards, assembled them piece by piece and then soldered them.  I cared about my end product and was much more diligent than I needed to be.  I rode my piece of crap huffy bike to work on my circuit boards as often as I could, especially considering I was too young to even be working.

Not much later on in my life, I worked at Burger King for a bit.  Some mornings the cook wouldn’t show up, so I would clean up the front and the back, get them both ready, take orders at the counter and the drive thru, go back and make the orders, bring them out front and deliver them to the customers, literally everything and every step by myself.  Even though I knew in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter at all, I really cared about it and did my very best at all times.  I would work all of the time, opening the store at 5am, then taking off to go to school.  After school I’d come back and help with dinner rush, or sometimes even close.

Now I’ve graduated from working with burgers and circuits to working with people…  How can I not care more about working with people than I did about the food or the hardware?  It would just be unreal, right?  The caring becomes quite difficult, though, and it’s very tiring and stressful.  I don’t know many people who put as much of themselves into their work as I do, except maybe my dad.  (Wonder where I get it?)

Well, I know that it’s time to just relax, and although I’ll never be able to forget about everything, I’ll take some time to take care of myself as well.  Heretic and I will be going up to the cities this weekend twice, once to see Daniel Johnston and a second time to take a dip in an (almost) sensory deprivation tank at Rejoove Me.  (Yes, we’ve both seen Altered States.  No worries, we’ve done this before and we don’t take any drugs so we’ll be fine)    After that, we’ll be heading to the Minnesota Atheists Freethought Picnic, which should be a pretty fun time.

So, in summary, to all of you religionuts who say that atheists have no morality, or that we’re false/faking it/putting on a veneer:  Screw you.  That’s as eloquent as I can get about it right there…

The Finger of God Strikes His Own

I love The Big Picture, what a great site, and such wonderful images.

This one in particular cracked me up, especially considering I’ve wondered so many times why God doesn’t just stike all of us heathens down.  The finger of God came down and hit this church with lightening.  Too bad they didn’t get a shot right in the moment, because it must’ve looked amazing!!!