Reason # 356 I'm not in a relationship

I don't put up with shit from men. Which is my personal primary source of relationship material - the male population (though I often wonder why).

Actual quote from a 'fiancee' (there's no ring, no promise, they're 'engaged to be engaged' since *forever*) to coworker: "I won't get you pregnant until you make $30 an hour."

My response: "I'd stab him in the face." (No, I'm not violent, no, why do you say that?)

(No, seriously, the entire first conversation I had with my best friends' now husband when I found out they were engaged ran like Liam Neeson's speech in Taken. "I will find you. I will end you.")

Here's where I sound like an old, old, old woman.

In the first place, why in the hell are they trying to get pregnant? Her job is only part-time, he 'works' as a pool player. Not professionally, not yet. He just makes money by...being a pool shark.

They're not married. I know, I know, old woman. BUT. I am perfectly, perfectly aware that marriage does not make people better or even decent parents. However I do think that people who want to be parents need to demonstrate some kind of commitment to one another and some maturity. These people do not. And it lies, greatly in my mind, in the way they treat the marriage thing. She runs around claiming that they're engaged and he doesn't. They're talking at two completely different levels and *that* is why in their case I harp on the marriage aspect.

She wants a baby, he does not. And he's clearly (trust me) using this desire to manipulate her. Babies are not solutions or BLEEEEEEEEEP-ing accessories. Having a child does not make your life 'perfect' or fix your relationship.

She cries all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. He is the cause of a great deal of it.

I've been party to an emotionally abusive relationship before. By which I mean I watched my mother and step-father go through this entire cycle. And I look at her and her 'fiancee' and that's all I see.

I want to print out one of those abusive relationship check sheets and leave it anonymously on her desk. :(

Day 20: Am I the Only One Who Did the Reading? Again?

Okay, the first time I hear this I wrote it off as my grandmother being old.

However I just had it happen again, in one of the class presentations.

*gets out lecture stool/soapbox*

Muslim is to Islam as Christian is to Christianity. Is that really that hard to understand?

The people doing this presentation were touching on the religious aspects of Physician Assisted Suicide. Basically, what major religions said about it.

And they listed, as separate religions:

Christianity
Islam
Muslim
Judaism

And there I am in my seat, facepalming.

Muslim and Islam are not separate religions. A Muslim is someone who follows the religion of Islam. Just as a Christian is someone who follows the religion of Christianity. How can you not know that? How?

You'll be happy to hear that Islam and 'Muslim' both say the same thing about P.A.D. though. It's good when a religion can agree with itself.

Day 6: 'Liar, Lunatic or Lord'...or...

This is nothing new. I think I've even talked about it before, but when I was channel surfing on the radio on my way into work this morning it came up on the Catholic radio station during an interview.

People will most often quote it by saying Christ was either a liar, a lunatic or Lord. What they're doing is boiling down a quote from C.S. Lewis:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God." - Mere Christianity

I should think that the problem with this set up, the 'trilemma' (new word!) as I've seen it called, is pretty obvious. There are other options that Lewis ignores or has discounted in his own opinion and so left off of the table. But that doesn't mean that those options don't exist.

This maxim became, after Lewis made it popular, an important part of Christian apologetics for a long time. I know that some popular Christian apologists even today call it 'the most important argument in Christian apologetics'. And I have to wonder how they can say that, given how weak an argument it actually is. Even other Christian apologists point out the flaws in Lewis' argument.

It annoys me that so many people continue to use this line because it makes a quick sound bite.

Look, It's Halloween, people...

I get that some Christian groups think that Halloween is evil. I think they're nutters, but whatever. No skin off my nose. I don't go to 'faith based' Halloween activities.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and that's ignoring the religious aspects of the day.

I think the...what do they even call them. Hell houses? The Christian version of a haunted house that shows you all the people in hell. Whatever. They're designed to basically scare people into believing in Christianity. Which is the wrong way of doing it but what the hell. As long as the kids aren't out there wearing scary costumes and worshiping ze Debil. *rolls eyes* For the record, the kids aren't out there worshiping anything except sugar. Which has it's own problems, no question.

Now they're coming out with this thing where they're going to wear white 'to show righteousness' (let's not talk about how irritating and wrong *that* is. *cough*self-righteous much?*cough*) and hand out Bibles (or 'other Christian gifts', though what those might be I have no idea) to kids who come trick or treating.

Apart from making your house about as popular as the people who hand out those little toothbrush kits instead of candy (way to get egged and tp'd by the way!), this is stupid.

First, who's paying for all those Bibles? Even assuming that a household could find a small Bible for, what? Five bucks let's say? How many Bibles do they need to buy to make sure they have enough? 10? 20? More? Who's going to do that?

Second, if I were a parent and someone handed out religious material to my kid I'd be pissed. *I* get to choose the religious information that comes to my kid. Not you, random person I may or may not know to say hello to. How would they feel if their kid stopped by a Muslim household (not for trick or treating, since that's Evil *makes airquotes in sarcastic manner*, but for some other reason) and they were handed a Qur'an? I believe the words shit and fit would apply to most of their reactions.

Third, do you really need to stake out another holiday? You've got plenty. Go away. *makes shooing motions* If you don't like it, don't participate. Don't let your kids participate. Don't try and ruin it for everyone else though, okay?

The *majority* of people you encounter on the street on Halloween are not viewing it as a religious holy day. And for the ones that are? That's their religion and it's their right. Back the hell off.

Here endeth my complaining.

For now.

*makes DUM DUM DUMMMMMMMMMM sounds*