This episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors begins (much to Jason’s distaste) with a tale of vomit, poo, and Christian’s supposedly comforting bedside manner. We then take a call from a listener whose holiday cheer rivals that of the Grinch, but which leads to a discussion about which is more indicative of Christianity: Frosty the Snowman or the Easter Bunny. We then turn our attention to a video by the Jewish conservative radio personality, Dennis Prager, on the supposed differences between Right- and Left-wingers. We can barely make it through more than a few seconds at a time without having to hit Pause and politely (or not-so-politely) demur, but at least we learn from it that rape on college campuses is a myth, so I guess there’s that. Our “Feeding Friendsy” segment details all the parallels between Obama and Hitler (during which Jason suggests a massive bet with the audience potentially involving thousands of dollars), after which we take another call accusing us of hate-speech and unfair ridicule (Us? Ridicule? Come on!). Jason’s bieber betrays his disgust towards man’s best friend, while Christian is biebered by the British.
Also, what am I going to do with a gun rack?
Links from this Episode:
Podcast #443: Submersibles and Woke Oscars
Podcast #417: Politicians, Theocracy, and Parenthood
Podcast #235: Debriefing about the Brain & Consciousness
Podcast #325: Intersex People and Erectile Dysfunction
Random thoughts:
• Christian, it sounds like you and my wife audited the same class on bedside manners.
• The short answer of why Christmas is a big deal is: capitalism. Christmas is a time when we buy shit. Lots of shit. And companies spend a lot of money convincing people that they need to buy the right expensive kind of shit to show how much they love and value their families, unless you work for one of the stores that sells shit in which case, fuck your family, you don’t need to spend time with them during the holidays when there’s shit to sell to other people. Throw in traditions, some godawful songs about snow and shit, and a feast where you can gorge and drink to excess, and a giant lie about a man and a red suit that will eventually convince your kids that all adults are not to be trusted and make them question all of the other magical stuff you’ve told them about that other Guy who knows when they’ve been naughty and nice, and you’ve got an enduring holiday.
And I like Christmas.
Anyway, Christmas is a big deal because of capitalism, tradition, and we all like having basically two weeks at the end of the year to have parties and go on vacation from work, unless you work retail in which case, don’t worry, online retailers will soon make your brick and mortar store a thing of the past and you’ll have plenty of time to spend with your family…
Merry Christmas!
• You’ve got to obey the pope. He’s wearing the funny hat.
• Ever notice that the same people who would call statues in a church or praying to saints idolatry are the same people who put up a nativity set every year and have their kids beseech St. Nicholas for some cool shit? That’s odd.
• Ugh… Dennis Prager…
• Right off the bat, he makes an unwarranted assumption that social ills are always the fault of a person’s moral character, which, no… just no… Human suffering has many causes, only one of which is human moral weakness.
• Come on, guys, we elected a black president, therefore racism no longer exists.
• Politics is concerned with the arena of the common good. So yes, politics is a viable method for improving society. Can it solve every problem? No, but I don’t know of anyone who claims otherwise. Are the solutions always going to be perfect? No, that is why we have a system where laws can be changed.
• Ah, but you see, Roe v. Wade was an instance of us evil liberals imposing society change on America by fiat, so repealing it is just correcting the mistake. We will, of course, ignore that the majority of Evangelical leaders at the time supported Roe V. Wade as an imperfect solution, but one that should be left to a woman’s conscience and her God.
• “But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime — the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” – MLK, Jr.
• “Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action.” – MLK, Jr.
• I’d like to point out, aside from the rampant injustice present in the 50’s, that the top tier tax rate was 90-95%, unions had strong protections, and corporations felt a measure of responsibility for the communities in which they were based.
• Conservatives aren’t really longing for the past, they’re longing for an idyllic age of Ozzie and Harriett that never existed except in the imagination.
• Also funny when people who espouse original sin and the corruptibility of man say that we can trust people to do the right thing and we don’t need laws or government action.
• And I’d like again to say that we are the government. The government is us. If there is one thing that conservatives have been extremely successful at, it’s casting the government as an Other separate from us that cannot be trusted and that we cannot demand change from. Divorcing and disempowering the people from the tools of government that are theirs by birthright.
• You missed the coded language. Character development in schools is code for teaching religion and nationalism in schools, having teacher-led prayer in schools, and abstinence only sex education to make sure the little sluts keep their legs closed for Jesus. (Because, as we know, there was never any premarital sex between teens prior to the sexual revolution.)
• Susie: “Teacher, why is Florida under water?”
Teacher: “God.”
Johnny: “My daddy says it because we burn too much fossil fuels and caused the Earth to warm.”
Teacher: “Nope, God. Now shut up before He hears you and decides to flood our state for your liberal blasphemy.”
• Look, if you just dealt with rape the way the bible says: by forcing unmarried rape victims to marry their rapists after they pay her father a fine and by killing rape victims who didn’t get rescued because they must have secretly wanted it, then we’d have no rape culture.
• Yes, but the left aren’t threatening people with eternal torture, so they’re character development attempts that appeal to reason and human decency will inevitably fail.
• There is no law against going to church, synagogue or mosque, right? I mean, if religion is absent from the lives of millions of children, it’s hardly the school’s fault.
• I’d like to note that none of the countries Hitler took over were unarmed. Hitler’s troops just crushed any resistance they found until they went up against Russia who had overwhelming numbers of men backed up US arms and equipment to throw at the German war machine until attrition took its toll. France was armed. Belgium was armed. Greece was armed and fought off Italy before succumbing to Hitler, Austria, Poland, everywhere.
• Muskets could kill you outright, if they hit you in the right area or at all. They were highly inaccurate weapons, but were still dangerous. Because if they did hit you, anywhere, you were in danger of dying from infection.
• I don’t want to take the guns of the law-abiding. Though the hardcore gun activists who refuse to consider common sense gun protections make me want to become more extreme.
• If a tiny dog sleeps at the foot of the bed, okay. If it sleeps on the pillow, not okay. If the dog is as big as a small person, not okay.
• I think we still owe Great Britain for Kevin Costner inflicting his British accent on the world in Robin Hood.
Just an FYI Christian,
Ray can’t be Obi-Wan’s daughter and here is why: ‘The Force Awakens’ is set 30 years after ‘Return of the Jedi’, and Obi-Wan dies in ‘Empire Strikes Back’, so for Ray to be Obi-Wan’s daughter, she would have to be at least 30, which is clearly not the case.
Greetings.
So glad to see your random thoughts again!
I meant grand daughter if that’s not what I said. Then it would be Anakin’s grandson facing off against Kenobi’s grand daughter.
My theory is that she’s Luke’s daughter that was missing and presumed dead. She was at the Jedi training camp when Ren was there, the two of them bonded, she looked up to him as a big brother. When he destroyed the camp and killed the others, he wasn’t so dark that he could kill a little girl who adored him, so he messed with her memories and dumped her and the ship off with a scoundrel at the end of the galaxy for safe keeping.
Wouldn’t he recognize her though? Vader could tell when Kenobi was near. I have a hard time believing that Kylo Ren wouldn’t be able to know it was the same little girl he was unable to kill, his cousin, especially since they were basically probing around each other’s heads.
I think he did. When they told him that Finn and BB-8 escaped Jakku with a girl, he became fixated on her. And he took on a much more familiar, friendly (for a would-be Sith) aspect with her than he did with Dameron in their interrogation. And Han, Leia, and Luke all seemed to know her, even if Han and Leia had some doubts.
Granted in her vision, she did hear Kenobi’s voice, so that argues for your theory.
So here’s another possibility: what if she’s both? What if Luke ended up dating Kenobi’s daughter?
Ha! So Rey is Kylo’s cousin and his grandfather’s Master’s granddaughter? I like it. 🙂
The memory of her being dropped off was in Luke’s light saber. Kylo was visibly upset when he heard a “girl” was helping the rogue star trooper. Could be lukes daughter or else Han Solos. She will be in the Skywalker bloodline some which way
You mean the light saber that Luke lost way before he would have had any kids? The light saber that was in the possession of Obi Wan longer than anyone else?
Yeah but for the memory to be there wouldn’t the light saber have to be present? Or maybe no. Who knows how the force works lol
I think she going to be a Super Jedi, Kenobi granddaughter Skywalker daughter. But what the hell I though Jedis were suppose to be celibate! Another one to think about; does Finn come from a Jedi line as well? Why was he the only Stormtrooper to be deprogrammed when the Force was awakening? Is he a Windu?
I’m not one to defend Prager but when he was talking about character development, the first thought that popped in my head was the picture of the old school report cards were “citizenship” held equal weight with academics http://www.teachers.net/gazette/MAR09/nelson/Nelson1.jpg Also, I don’t like the term “rape culture” being used to describe the feeling of regret after a night of drunken bad sex, and makes the hook-up on par with a night with Bill Cosby. This seems to be happening more than not on college campuses. Lena Dunham wrote about her “rape” in her book. She admits she didn’t want to have sex with the guy but she never actually verbalized that. When she was walking with the guy back to her dorm, another male friend walked by and pulled her aside and actually told her not to do it (the guy she was with was know jack-ass on campus), but she drunkenly told off her chivalrous friend and continued with the jack-ass. She lead him in to her apartment they started kissing (she admits in her head she didn’t want to do it) but she actually encouraged the erection by talking dirty to him! In the middle of sex she noticed the condom he was suppose to be wearing was hanging from a plant, she told him to stop and to get out. He did. The next day she told her roommate about the drunken bad sex she had the night before (she didn’t think she was raped) but her roommate was the one who told her she was. I don’t know if that is “rape culture” or “alcohol culture”
Jedi celibacy is a lot like the Federation’s prime directive. Everyone says it’s a good idea, but it seems to be ignored quite a bit.
And once he was alone on Tatooine, it’s not like he had the Jedi Council to worry about anymore.
Here are all of the theories I’ve heard so far:
1. Rey is Luke’s daughter
2. Rey is Obi Wan’s granddaughter
3. Rey is a Solo kid
4. Rey is the daughter of Kanan or Ezra from Star Wars Rebels
5. Rey is of unknown and unimportant lineage, she’s just strong in the Force.
6. Rey is a clone.
7. Rey is a clone of Anakin
8. Rey is a Chosen One, like Anakin
9. Rey is Anakin reincarnated.
10. Rey is Padme reincarnated.
11. Rey is Boba Fett’s daughter.
12. Rey is a hairless wookie.
I might have made that last one up.
I’ve also heard some speculative back story on supreme leader snook. He was the old master of sidious who could bring people to life with the force… There is some speculation that Annikin being “conceived by the force” was the result of his handywork. Which would explain his interest in the Skywalker bloodline. AND if Rey is in said bloodline that would explain is ineffable amusement at her besting kylo repeatedly.
Yeah, there’s speculation that he might be Darth Plageius.
From what I’ve seen, Anakin wasn’t created directly by him, but rather spontaneously in response to his meddling around with the… sigh… midichlorians. The Force decided it needed someone to smack the Sith down.
If there were ever a Star Wars TV series, I’d be really curious to have a group of bad guys who wanted to kill the Jedi, the Sith, and any force user they could find because that seems like a logical outcome for a galaxy in which two sides of a religion have been dragging the galaxy into war for thousands of years.
I read the Anakin reincarnated theory, but is reincarnation part of Jedi lore?
I don’t know, to be honest. I think Jedi believe that upon death, they merge back into the Force and lose their individuality. Qui-Gon Jinn, then Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin skirted that part by finding a way to become Force Ghosts instead.
I suppose it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to throw in reincarnation.
Christian!
Your bieber this podcast was AWESOME!!!! This phenomena has puzzled me for some time and has biebered the heck out me. Everything you said on the subject, I have said, and asked as well. You would be amazed as to how many American roles are outsourced to Brits, Canadians, Australians and Irish. Sometimes you can barely find a single American in the entire cast. Take for example the cast of “Unbroken” or “Endless Love.” I’m originally from L.A/OC., and have always been conscious of the aspiring talent that consistently flowed into town from all across the country trying to get the slightest little spot on TV or film. So I wondered, what’s with all the outsourcing? Are they better actors and actresses? This article would seem to suggest that is the case,
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/05/us-rallies-to-stop-uk-taking-hollywood-by-storm
However, when I initially researched it, the matter of cheap labor seemed to be the culprit.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8643941.stm
Personally, I think it’s more than likely a combination of the two that keeps the would-be
American actors and actresses waiting tables in Tinsel Town.
Dick Bush out!