Hair

Alright, so we know that religions commonly dispute each other with statements like, "My god is more real than your god!" or "My god is stronger than your god!" or "You suck! Eat my steel!", and it can be hard to tell which one is the true religion - which one everyone should follow.

In our haste to attack other religions for being wrong about their tenets, beliefs, or what they call their god, its easy to lose sight of the important stuff. Religions have many of the same themes.

First, kindness to others. I've never seen a religion whose (original) texts preach hate as a central ideal. (Intolerance off to the side, on the other hand...) Religions in general seem to have been made to make people better, and to bring out the good side of the world.

Second, a better world, usually one after death. There's always a better world out there, though it's not always attainable. Attaining a place in said world is a goal of many religions, though some, such as Ancient Greek or Ancient Chinese mythos, reserve it only for the gods.

Third, an enlightened being who serves as a "perfect human", or is supposedly perfect. This is obvious, I guess, as without a non-human at the top of the food chain (Or the Great Chain of Being, if you'd like to call it that) a religion isn't a religion, but a philosophy. I suppose there's more separating religion from philosophy (several degrees of fanaticism, perhaps?) but that's one of the major parts.

Fourth, fundies. No religion would be complete without your super-strict fundies who besmirch the good name of the religion for the world, and make it look crazy and warlike.

I'm sure all of this is obvious stuff. But today, I had a bit of a revelation.

Hair.

I can't think of a single religion that DOESN'T want you to do something with your hair. That is, obscure it, chop it off, grow it out, whatever.

Okay, I'm bored of finding images now. But it's proof that if there is a god out there, binding all religions to the same central things, that god wants us to DO SOMETHING TO OUR HAIR!

So go out and, err, do something to your hair?

Also, no rapture, show's over, sorry guys. False alarm.

Good Religion

This morning I woke to my radio playing religious hymns. They weren't telling me that the devil would have my soul, and they didn't sound horrible, either. I was also a bit sleepy still, so I continued to lay there and listen.

A few minutes later, the hymn ended, and some guy with a sonorous voice began to talk. He talked for about a minute about being kind to people, and respecting their opinions. He talked about doing good, and then cued another hymn. This went on for a half hour. Just hymns and preaching being kind to others, etc.

Yes, it was religious. No, I'm not even thinking of converting to any religion or believing in any higher power. But it was nice to listen to early in the morning, and, save for the whole higher-power bit, was totally approved of by me.

Why can't all manifestations of religion be like this?

(Rhetorical question. People willing to take advantage of this for their own benefit prevent this from happening. But still, it'd make the world a far better place.)

End of the World (Again!)

Apparently I've posted before with the same title, sans the "Again".

Anyways, I'm here to tell all of you that Harold Camping, the proposer of this whole Rapture-day-is-May-21-give-me-your-money thing, is wrong. He went in the right direction, but he's quite wrong.

You see, here's his rationale:

1. The number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".
2. Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.
3. If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar, as distinct from lunar, year), the result is 722,449.
4. The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.
5. 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
6. (5 × 10 × 17)² or (atonement × completeness × heaven)² also equals 722,500.

But in a Eurocentric, ignorant, close-minded mistake typical to such conservachristian radio show hosts, he forgets to include the other prominent religions and cultures in the world, which would of course factor into this.

What did he forget?

Judaism, represented by 26, the name of their god. Because he's the one doing the rapturing.

Buddhism, represented by 8, it appears a lot in its Wikipedia article.

Islam, represented by 5, the number of the "Pillars of Islam"

Fanboyism, represented by 29000, or the number of death threats you will get if you make a scathing remark about the thing that is being fanboyed.

Chinese traditionalism, represented by 4, and water, both words which sound like death if mangled enough, because that's what'll happen to those not taken by god. (Death, that is. Not water.)

Atheism, represented by 1, or the boolean representation of whether or not a follower of this is going to hell.

And of course, it's not fair to give Christianity three whole numbers in this, so we'll give it just one - 10.

So, we multiply the number of years from 0 AD to 2011 AD - from Christ's birth to the modern day - by 365.2422, and add 141 for the number of days since 0 AD. That's 763,643.0642 days. Of course, we're being precise here, so we'll calculate it in milliseconds. Multiply that large number above by 24 for hours, (add 18 for 6:00 PM),  60 for minutes, 60 for seconds, by 1000 for milliseconds, and finally 1000000 for nanoseconds. That gets you 65978825547880000 nanoseconds.

Now, on the other side of things, multiply 26 (Judaism) by 8 (Buddhism) by 5 (Islam) by 29 (Fanboyism) by 4 (Chinese) by water (Chinese again, be sure to convert from base 36 to base 10) by 1 (Atheism) by 10 (Christianity). You get 65450079676800000 milliseconds.

By subtracting the smaller from the larger, and converting back to days by dividing by 86400000000000, you get 6, meaning you have 7 days (God rested on the 7th day, so he throws that one on for free) meaning the rapture is really occurring on the 28th of May, at 6:00 PM. You've got another week to repent your sins, people! Only one week to repent your sins and donate all your money to a charity of your choosing that isn't the Salvation Army or other non-secular charity!

So I heard you like Obama...

So, Osama Bin Laden is dead.

I'm sure you've all heard by now. Killed May 2nd, 2011.

This means that Obama haters have got to figure out why they hate him much more now, apparently. Can't have people thinking well of a president of opposing ideology, oh no we can't.

I might also remark that none of those were from the same IP, though two were from Hawaii. The May 1st result is counted due to how late at night it was, and that May 2nd internationally can be considered May 1st (I heard of it Sunday night).

Also, "can you hire a prostitute if youre in the military"....

lol.

Actual posts to come soon.