Thursday, January 28, 2010

Mormon Girls

It is very sad to see how predictable the average Utah Mormon girl works. They date and make out in high school, then send a missionary off and promise to wait and to write, then immediately after find a returned missionary and marry him, because they love how strong his testimony is—plus they have wanted sex for a long time. (Not a diss, so do guys)

After that, have a midlife crisis after having 4 kids in 2 years and end up going on anti-depressants. Finally they have to turn inside themselves and figure out what they truly believe independent of their parents or their very spiritual husband. Mormon girls need better. They should have to go on missions at 19 just like all of us guys. It would eliminate all the stupid choices made at a time in life when you’re making choices stupidly anyway.

If Mormon girls require their husband to be an RM then they better be prepared to be an RM themselves. See how they handle it. Going on a mission for some girls would be an emotional disaster. These are the same girls who demand their husbands serve, and the same girls who shove off guys who haven’t. Real congruent there. I believe the bible has a word for that. Hypocrite.

Now don’t get me wrong here. Mormon girls are very....attractive and.....nice to look at. But so are bears. And I don’t think that’s an unfair comparison because girls can be more vicious and cleverer than the average grizzly. I find that most Mormon girls—dealing in generals—are an enigma; and like bears, can rip you to pieces at any given moment. They may look cute and cuddly, but just wait until you piss them off. This perspective might seem like an embittered expression of some bad experience that I have suppressed and has festered inside of me like a cancer eating away at my self confidence that will eat away at the foundation of my life until I can get over it, but I’d like to think it’s just true.

Let’s not confuse this argument with the fact that I think women are much better than men. In fact, if all 19 year old girls were asked to serve missions I think this church would double in size, and grow exponentially in strength of membership. I think women are awesome, but the system they fall into turns them into less than they could really become. I mean they are just as capable as men if not more so, just as smart if not more so, and although they don’t hold the priesthood—yet—they might as well based on their general nature (it's their insecurity that makes them so convinceable). Women used to give blessings back in the early church. They do temple work that is just as crucial as men’s work. They are freaking awesome and seeing them fall into the pitfalls of Mormon culture is sad. And so is a bear ripping of your head. And that is what is happening to oh so many of us guys in the church, getting our figurative heads ripped off by a ferocious beast—the Mormon girl.

The Most Accepted Monopoly In America: The BCS

Teams in the BCS are chosen by conference, and those that are the ‘elite’ conferences are preferred to those that aren’t. This is not merit, but power based. The selection process has less to do with football than it has to do with money. The teams that are chosen may be very good, but they are also very rich because of the system, which is a big contributing factor to why they are very good. The BCS eliminates the possibility of a very good football team who is not in the ‘elite’ from competing because even if they have had unbeaten seasons, the system values a more ‘elite’ school with a worse record—and withholds the kinds of funds that a BCS conference team would get to maintain the high level of performance. It is in the nature of these BCS conferences to put their self-interest above the integrity of the game, with results that hurt others and help them—which sadly is all they really care about.

The amount of money non-BCS bowls games give to the schools and athletic departments of a non-BCS conference is dwarfed when compared to those in the BCS—even teams who never see a BCS game but are in the same conference as teas that do. The numbers are staggering. The idea that this only affects things on the field is one of the BCS’s biggest lies and its biggest violation of basic American values. Money from the games helps fund the institutions of learning that the football team represents. This directly influences the resources that schools have to better prepare their students for the real world. If you take the blindfold of sports away, a organization that strikes a deal with other organizations to limit the competition in order to suppress the chance of smaller—and often better institutions in merit—is criminal and un-American in its ideals. It truly takes away from the idea let the best man win and replaces it with: let those in power keep the best man at bay. The nature of the system is elitist and suppressive.

The BCS may work on a superficial level—good teams end up in the best games. There hasn’t been a year where all the BCS games had terrible teams in them—that is for sure. But maybe that’s not an indicator of how the system works to put the best teams together, but rather a indicator of how the system determines gets the chance to be seen as good and who can be seen as not so good. People believe Alabama to be better than Boise State because the system tells them to believe it, not necessarily because it is true. The ‘best teams’ are those teams rich enough to belong to the club, and good enough to do well in their conference. The ‘mid-majors’ are those teams good enough to compete with the elite, but refused to be given a chance to. Favoritism and Tyranny at its finest.

If the BCS can be dethroned, then let it happen. But what really should change are the qualifications for BCS births. You don’t necessarily have to have a playoff to keep things fair and equal. You just have to give all teams and equal opportunity to compete on the highest level and let their results speak for themselves. If that involves a playoff, great. If that involves giving more mid-major teams a shot based on merit and not on conference, great. But something must be done to keep American Collegiate football in the roots of the American ideal of equality and fairness, and the rejection of elitism and monopolies. The fact that the BCS system has lasted as long as it has, shows us that it’s in human nature to protect your interests at the expense of others and at the expense of fairness and equality; the fact that it might be changing soon shows us it’s in our human nature to push against the ‘man’ for more justice, fairness and equality.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Bob

So let’s just for fun say there is this guy named Bob. Bob wants to be happy. Bob grows up and learns stuff. He learns principles of truth, or in other words: that things are true consistently in different situations. Bob learns these things through trial and error; and lets emphasis the word trials. He has struggle, be through it he grows—or in other words evolves. He grows and evolves from a infant to a whiny kid to a annoying pre-teen to a punk teenager to a young adult who is looking for more truth and purpose. So again. Trials, growth, evolution, truth, and now purpose.

Here he comes to a problem. What is the purpose of Bob? He looks into different things. All kinds of things. He can’t really find complete purpose for Bob in anything material. He also has a hard time finding purpose in things that he is unable to see or believe. So Bob has to search. He finds stuff he likes and forms beliefs. He believes things through his experience—trials and error; and trial and success. He begins acting on these beliefs he has. Bob builds faith—or actions based on his beliefs (which by the way are formed through his trials and errors)—and then begins exercising that faith by acting on principles of truth; which is cool because when good thing comes from his actions he is more likely to trust in that principle of truth.

So Bob—using faith—does some things that seem ridiculous: he wakes up early on Sundays and goes to 3 hours of people telling him how to believe. He finds truth there so he likes it. He starts caring for others more than himself. He eventually decides to trust in some of the principles that others have taught him and let’s a guy put him under some water then lift him back up. But funny thing, afterwards Bob’s life improves and he finds more purpose. He starts to understand that these rather ridiculous things called rituals, can teach Bob more principles of truth and end up making Bob more happy.  Bob understands that the ritual is not what important but what it teaches and how it effects his life. So he does some of these rituals and he learns more and more about himself and those things he can’t see.

Bob is very smart. So he wants to learn a lot about the things he can see and understand. He studies a lot and learns amore about the world around him. He begins to see a connection between what he learns about the world and the rituals that he agreed to take part in. So he studies more. This leads him to want to make a difference and change things in the world around him. So bob begins to create—at fist essays, then fun dates to go on, then stories, then a good job situation, then art, then movies, then friendships, then money, then romantic relationships, then ideas, and then Bob realizes that creating stuff makes him and others happy. He uses the skills he has learned and the knowledge he has obtained to create. But eventually Bob wants to create something more meaningful, more lasting and important than just art, or money, or even new ideas.

So Bob marries a girl and he creates a family with her—kinda like his parents had done before. Bob continues to learn and grow. But now Bob has a family, wife kids the whole shebang. And again life gets hard and he has new trials. His wife and kids are going through the same stuff Bob is and went through. So he is worried about them. He realizes that he can help his family by teaching and learning truth from them. He teaches each of his kids about purpose differently and sometimes his advice applies and sometimes it doesn’t. But his kids begin to figure things out for themselves, with help from Bob and his wife. Bob begins finding more purpose in his family. but then his family starts growing up and having their own families.

Bob now is smart enough to understand a problem. Everybody dies, including Bob. Bob doesn’t really know what happens after you die, but he has his beliefs based on what he has learned and how he feels about it. He begins to embrace the fact he will die. His purpose in life has changed again and again, and now Bob realizes that the purpose of existence is happiness; not just for himself but for others. It’s hard for Bob to make himself and others happy all the time, because Bob knows that part of life is trial and error, and sometimes the trials that make Bob and his family the unhappiest at the time, turn out to give a lot of happiness later.

So Bob tries to pass on some of what he has learned and continues to find joy in creating and in his family and in finding principles of truth. He thinks long and hard about where he came from before he has born, and how we all got here and just the whole question of existence. He then relies on that faith thing he has been using sometimes. He starts to trust in some of the things that Bob learned in those rituals he did, and remembers that they taught him about life after death. He is still scared and sad to die; because death is still scary to Bob and he doesn’t want to leave his family.

But Bob dies. But he continues to exist, which makes Bob very happy. He realizes that after you die you still exist. You just don’t have that body. Bob is happy and at peace because he remembers the rituals and what they taught him. Bob is a spirit or in other words an intelligence without a body. He is happy but can’t grow as much because he died and his mortal experience was what let him grow the most. So pretty soon Bob wants his family again, and what’s cool is that they start dying too (yeah I said cool), and Bob is able to be with them again.

But now they all have a problem. They don’t have those bodies that they had before. They want their bodies back because it let them do things like eat, and create, and feel pleasure that they can’t have without that body. But it turns out that the creator of their spirits—or the creator of their intelligence—knew about this problem and through rituals allowed for all of them to get their bodes back. Bob realizes this guy who created his spirit is pretty cool and Bobs realizes he wants to become like hime. He calls him Dad because he created him. This dad is not unlike Bob’s Dad back in life. This new Dad has learned a lot and wants to share it with his children, and he is worries about them. He realizes that he can help his family by teaching truth to them. He teaches each of his kids about purpose differently and sometimes his advice applies and sometimes it doesn’t. But his kids began to figure things out for themselves, with help from this new dad and his wife, who Bob calls Mom, because he is her son. These new parents have found purpose and happiness and want to give it to others—most of all to their family. And it actually turns out that these new parents have bodies, which allows them to create and feel pleasure, and grow again. Bob is excited because now that he and his family have their bodies back, they can become like these new parents.

So Bob and his wife, bodies back and all, begin to learn about everything from their new parents. They learn how to create and control matter, how to teach principles of truth, how to find happiness and how to help others find happiness, and pretty much everything about the laws and nature of existence. They teach them how to deal with problems big and small. And soon, Bob and his wife decide they want to create some new children.

So they create spirits. And for a while they really enjoy this new family, because it gives Bob and his wife purpose. But soon they want more for their spirit children. So they decide as a family that they will let the children go and get a body through a mortal experience. So Bob, with his knowledge of matter and existence creates a world. He does so through the natural laws of science that govern pretty much everything. He then decides to put life on the world. Finally the world is ready to put his children on it. But again, there is another problem, these kids who would go down would have their agency and from that would come trials and mistakes and will eventually die. But Bob doesn’t see it as a problem, because he went through it all before and realizes that through rituals he can teach his children about principles of truth, even if they can see or understand everything that Bob does.

So Bob teaches his children very simply at first and as they continue to grow and learn, he gives them new ideas and rules. They learn and grow through trial and error. A lot of his children die and more of them continue to be born. Eventually Bob gives them all he can—knowledge and power—that they can have as normal mortal people. Then, through the laws of nature and through the power of the rituals—which aren’t that different from the laws of nature Bob realizes—he gives all his children their bodies back and begins to teach them everything he knows. He sees them progress and move on to create new children of their own. And bob is happy. Which in the end is the purpose that Bob was looking for anyway. Happiness.