OK, a few random points. . . . This evening your humble Drunk Ex-Pastors will record our fourth podcast. We have gotten suggestions from a handful of you about topics you’d like to hear us address, but there’s always room for more (and if we don’t get to your question or issue this week, we will eventually, I promise). Just go over to the podcast page and click the link beneath the main image and submit an audio recording telling us what’s on your mind). Have you ever noticed that when girls hang out together in a group, they always choose friends with a similar body-type? Seriously, you never see a super athletic-looking girl cruising around with an overweight or a skin-and-bones girl. It’s like some unwritten code, where if one of … [Read more...]
More Air Travel Biebers
I’ve already mentioned two aspects of air travel that bieber* me. (Anyone know how to get Microsoft Word to stop capitalizing the verb “bieber?”). One is people clogging up the baggage claim, seemingly concerned that if they don’t claim their space of the luggage carousel, then someone else might get their own bag before they get theirs. The other is overly talkative passengers who don’t seem to understand that having your ear plugs in is the international sign for “I don’t want to hear about how you’re an oil drill operator and you married your brother’s wife’s sister and are flying up to move in with her and her three kids…and that you’re an oil drill operator…and that there is some side-boob across the aisle.” Ok, the side boob was … [Read more...]
Where the Hell are All the Real Christians?
We’ve had almost 300 listens to our third episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors in just a few days (whoa!), but for those of you who haven’t heard it yet, co-host Christian and I debate a religious point that I would be curious to get some feedback on. He contends that 99.99% of fundamentalist Christians don’t actually believe their own rhetoric about hell, for if they really thought that hell was a place of eternal and conscious torment that an unbeliever, who could die at any moment, is constantly only a heartbeat away from facing, they would spend their time doing nothing but pleading with pagans to repent and avoid the Lake of Fire at all costs. I have a couple thoughts by way of response. First, while it is true that every person could … [Read more...]
Stop! Colaborate and Listen….
As I indicate in our latest edition of Drunk Ex-Pastors, I have always been something of a skeptic about the issue of “raising awareness” of a disease. In most cases, it is some form of cancer of which awareness is attempting to be raised, and yet I can’t remember the last time I heard about a form of cancer I was not already aware of (with the possible exception of Al Pacino’s portrayal of Lefty in Donnie Brasco, who insists he has “cancer of the prick”). I will admit, though, that a huge amount of awareness has been raised this summer about Lou Gehrig’s Disease, due in no small part to the Ice Bucket Challenge that has been sweeping social media of late. And along with this awareness has come millions of dollars for research of the … [Read more...]
Slave Prices Reach New Lows
Often, stores I shop in offer me “credit,” or more accurately, “debt.” If I’m simply willing to go into a little bit of debt, I can get 10% off my order! Sometimes, just a, “No, thank you,” will end the conversation, but often the decline is followed up with, “No? You don’t want to save 10%?” Of course, this is asked in front of a line of people, so now you look like an idiot because, hey, this lady is offering you 10% off your order and you’re saying no. What’s wrong with you? Who wouldn’t want 10% off their order? Must be nice to have that kind of money to not care about 10% off your order! Store credit used to be reserved for stores that sold big ticket items, such as furniture stores or kitchen appliance stores. Recently, everyone has … [Read more...]
Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity!
OK, here’s a question to determine just how vain you are: Would you rather be 25 but look 50, or be 50 but look 25? For my part, I would totally choose the latter which, I guess, makes me super vain. Also, if my outward physical appearance weren’t affected at all by the food I choose to eat, I would just eat pizza and burritos every day, regardless of what it did to my health. And you know those people who claim to be “spiritual but not religious”? I’m pretty much the opposite. Geez, I think I need to seek professional help. . . . … [Read more...]
The Late Great Hal Lindsey
In the 1970s, Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth was the “no. 1 non-fiction best-seller of the decade” according to the New York Times. To summarize, the book interpreted current events through the lens of biblical “prophecy” and convinced a lot of people that they were living in the last generation and that the next big event would be “The Rapture” of the church, or in layman’s terms, all the Christians would magically disappear off the earth. There were elaborate gymnastics done with scripture to try to prove whether or not this would happen before, during, or after “The Great Tribulation,” or in layman’s terms, a seven year shit-storm of god’s wrath upon the earth. Yeah, that’s right, it was categorized as … [Read more...]
Extremism, Flowers, and the Powers that Be
If you take a strong position on some issue, or on cultural/political matters in general, it is easy to label those on the other side as “extremists” or “reactionaries” (while failing to see that they might be passing the exact same judgment on you). For example, I remember when the O.J. Simpson verdict was about to be read, the police in Los Angeles were out in full force, decked out in riot gear, ready for the worst. But when the jury decided to acquit, the cops breathed a sigh of relief, packed up their tear gas and rubber bullets, and went home. Being very evangelical and somewhat racist at the time, I said, “Hey, wait! Why aren’t the police going to stay out and deal with the inevitable white-people riots and looting and … [Read more...]
Police and Wannabe Soldiers
Piggybacking on our latest podcast, I thought I’d post this clip from John Oliver’s HBO show, Last Week Tonight. In it he addresses the shooting of Michael Brown and chides the Ferguson Police Department and mayor’s office both for their deplorable handling of the situation, but also for ridiculous weapon-envy: “The police are troublingly dressed like they’re about to launch an assault on Fallujah. . . . The police are NOT soldiers, so why, in. . . Ferguson, are they wearing f***ing camo? They are northwest of St. Louis, not northwest of the Amazon! If they want to blend in with their surroundings, they should be dressed as a Dollar Store.” You can stream the podcast below. … [Read more...]
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