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Irreverend Mike

Irreverend Mike


Last Updated: 4/22/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Married
Age: 44
Country: US
Signup Date: 8/13/2005

Blog Archive
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007 

Current mood:  indescribable
Category: News and Politics
(I was glad to see that I'd kept my Jerry Falwell in drag image up.)

I know I'm supposed to be temperate in my feelings about Falwell's death.  And, sure, I feel horrible for his family, friends, and close ones.  The humanist in me hopes he didn't suffer. 

But there's another part of me that wishes I believed in Hell so that I could imagine Jerry's face as St. Peter steers him Southward.  (Now there's a great reveal shot, filmmakers!)

Maybe that's how they plan to convert atheists.  Make us wish for a Hell so we can see the worst of the Bible Thumpers get pitched into it.  Perhaps they're just making the ultimate sacrifice -- saving heathens' souls at their own expense. 

What Would Jesus Do, indeed....
Currently listening:
Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell
By Iggy Pop
Release date: 01 March, 2005
11:20 PM 
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Sunday, September 24, 2006 

Current mood:  crazy
Category: Pets and Animals
I was never convinced by the Virgin Mary showing up in window patterns or Mother Teresa as a sticky bun.
 
But now I'm convinced...  Look out below!
 
 
 
 
Currently listening:
I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
By Yo La Tengo
Release date: 12 September, 2006
12:59 PM 
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006 

Category: Dreams and the Supernatural
Ok, so call me juvenile, but I had to share this grocery store find:

From I Made a Funny
Can't really say if it tastes like the real thing... 
Currently listening:
I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
By Yo La Tengo
Release date: 12 September, 2006
2:05 AM 
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006 

Current mood:  peaceful
George Carlin nails it in this spoof of "Touched by an Angel." 
 
Choice quote: "If God loves you, how come he gave you tumors in the first place?"
 
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Currently listening:
Morningwood
By Morningwood
Release date: 10 January, 2006
12:01 PM 
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Friday, June 09, 2006 

Current mood:  dirty
Category: Food and Restaurants
Seen in a men's room at lunch today:
 
 
Which leads to the question.  What body part were the, uh, "EMPLOYES" washing before they posted this sign? 
 
Manager:  "I cannot impress on you more, wash your HANDS before returning to work.  HANDS, people!" 
Currently listening:
Catch That Train!
By Dan Zanes & Friends
Release date: 16 May, 2006
1:38 AM 
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Friday, June 02, 2006 

Current mood:  indescribable
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
 

Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama.

But while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.

She said 'Amen' and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The 65-year-old Brown said she is blessed to be alive.

How many times do I have to tell you, Clara Browns of the world?  God's a cold, cold dude.  If God-Man can help you avoid lightning AND a fireball, that rat-bastard can create the same.

My godluvvin' parents like to tell the story of a friend who narrowly averted death on the highway, while people in another car were killed.  Their friend crowed about how God was looking out for her.  My wife proved why I love her so much: she asked my parents why God wasn't looking out for the people in the other car.  Confused silence. 

Of course, maybe the car was filled with atheist Myspace bloggers.

Currently listening:
Straight to Hell
By Hank Williams III
Release date: 28 February, 2006
2:54 PM 
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Friday, April 28, 2006 

Current mood:  quixotic
Category: Religion and Philosophy
At this moment, jurors in Alexandria, VA are mulling over a question: 
 
Is Zacarias Moussaoui so batshit crazy that he doesn't deserve to die?
 
This case shows that our crime and punishment system is based on a view of the mind as outdated as alchemy or the notion that our health is guided by humors.  It believes that people are puppets made of meat, controlled by a soul or a little dude pulling our neural marionette strings.  As Steven Pinker described it, this is the belief that the body is "the Pocket PC of the soul." 
 
This view is simple, compelling, and stupid.  As Alzheimer's disease dissolved my Grandfather's psyche, I confess that found it difficult to avoid this assumption.  I wanted to believe that there was still a beloved "Papa" buried within his drooling, babbling shell.  But was this such a comforting thought, that the little puppeteer, the Papa Within, was trapped inside a now-crippled body?
 
So when you really think about it, not only is this philosophy not comforting, it also leads us to make silly decisions.  Case in point: the hubbub over Terry Schiavo.  Meat Puppet people felt there was a Terry Within who wanted to live, where she was really just a reptilian brain (if that) residing atop a slab of bed sores. 
 
So Moussaoui's jurors have to decide whether or not there was a tiny, fully sane Zacarias buried within the murderous, darkly inept nutjob that stands trial.  Or they decide whether the Zacarias Within knew what it was up to and thus deserves to die.  Are those the only options? 
 
This may sound like I'm arguing that Moussaoui is crazy AND deserves to die.  It's more complicated than that.  After all, giving the power of life or death to a government that can't prepare for a looming hurricane or admit that it sparked a civil war in Iraq is like giving a knife to a baby.  However, I doubt I'd cry a tear for Moussaoui if he was executed.  After all, the faulty brain on trial in Virginia is the same faulty brain that wanted to crash a plane full of less-faulty brains like mine.  All to please a god that doesn't exist. 
Currently listening:
Up on the Sun
By Meat Puppets
Release date: 16 March, 1999
2:23 PM 
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Wednesday, April 26, 2006 

Category: News and Politics
 
I guess it's good to know they promote within the organization....
11:12 AM 
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006 
Okay, I was surprised by the study showing that prayer provided no benefit to a group of coronary bypass patients.  (In fact, the prayed-for group had more post-op complications.)  But I was surprised for reasons you may not expect. 
 
Previous studies showed that there was some benefit to prayer, results breathlessly trumpeted in the news media and the blogosphere.  Skeptics with doubts about shady methodologies used in the studies (such as cherry-picking favorable data) were pooh-poohed as cranky naysayers and cold reductionists in Albert Einstein frightwigs. 
 
But now that there's a study suggesting that prayer doesn't work, the anti-naysayers have shapeshifted into naysayers.  The best argument they've advanced is that God's smart enough not to be teased into action just because people were told by scientists to pray. 
 
That's what surprised me.  This supports what I've argued for many years:  if God really existed He'd be the meanest bastard on the block.  Think about it: God hears the prayers and says, "Fuck'em.  I'm busy."  And, just for shits and giggles, he gives the prayed-for bum ticker group more complications. 
 
And then He gets up from his armchair, turns off "American Idol," and walks down the hall to chair an Avian Flu planning committee meeting.  Dude sounds like a good candidate for regime change to me.
6:29 PM 
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Tuesday, April 04, 2006 

Current mood:  contemplative
At daycare, my four-year-old daughter was asked to come up with a caption from a picture in a newspaper.  Looks like she knows a lot more about Mariah Carey than I'd thought.  And here I thought she was a mere oversinging diva:


Thank you, Mariah.  I didn't realize how much you cared.
2:51 PM 
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