Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Letter to the Editor

This is a letter to the editor concerning Jarrett Skov’s opinion piece (Page 9) on the Westboro Baptist Church that I just submitted. I wonder if it'll make the print.

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Letters to the editor are obviously not the place to have a theological discussion, but Jarrett Skov’s recent editorial concerning the Westboro Baptist Church suffers from the same flaw that causes the nation to be disgusted at the WBC. It is a flaw that permeates society in areas other than religion, on issues most divisive and in the political arena. That flaw is “cherry picking”, and it certainly doesn’t generate any fruits for your labor.

Cherry picking involves taking only facts, arguments, or any other points that support your argument and discarding the rest. To my understanding, you can’t quite do that with holy texts. It’s all or nothing; it’s inspired by the word of a deity or it’s not. The WBC may ignore Jesus’ forgiveness of the New Testament (cherry picking the bad), but Skov ignores the tyrannical hothead of a god in the Old (cherry picking the good).

He ignores the fact that his god created humans with the sin we should feel guilty for. Even beyond ridiculous edicts about wearing wools and linens (Deuteronomy 22:11) or eating shrimp (Leviticus 11:12), he ignores the drowning, killing, and slaying of millions by his god or his followers. Even Jesus only saves us from the sin created by God in the first place. And while homosexuality and adultery could be interpreted as the same degree of sin, the Bible is clear about the punishment: death. Skov argues that this is “hating the sin”, but it’s still people that are suffering the consequences (i.e. eternal hellfire for finite crimes).

Why not step away from the millennia-old mythology and embrace instead a secular moral system? This allows you to judge the Bible, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, or any holy book of your choice on its own merits. These books are an antiquated reflection of the time they were written (and perhaps edited, retranslated, copied, edited again). A balanced (non-cherry-picked) look at the Bible shows a lot of brutality mixed in with the love and kindness.

To be a Christian, you must accept it all, however. There are wonderful lessons amongst the madness; that’s absolutely true. But let’s drop the stuff about slavery, sexism, and original sin and keep the Golden Rule, brotherhood, and forgiveness. Some of those commandments are good building blocks, too. I firmly believe that mankind today is far better than the Bible collecting dust on their shelves.

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Update: it printed (Page 8).

Sunday, April 3, 2011

On Clapping With One Hand

I get a little bummed when I notice that none of my friends take time to read my work. Even "100 reads" doesn't mean what it says. It means 90 people clicked, saw an uninteresting wall of text, and left. The other 10 are me, refreshing the page, listening to the player, or originally posting it.

There's no fanbase. There's no one waiting to hear my take on a band's music in an extremely structured format. My words are not valued. ...But I work so hard to make each one something I'm proud of; I stay up late and wake up early on Fridays and Saturdays to make sure something good reaches the editor not quite late enough to make her mad. I wonder sometimes just how many people actually read, not even like, just read, the damn things.

I post it to Reddit, Digg, my Facebook wall, Twitter. It's tweeted and Facebooked a few more times. I post about my series on /r/RockBand and the Rock Band forums. I try to get my articles and the series out there more than anyone else.

I'm sure it's the subject matter. It's a narrow topic that's hard to get people interested in. I should write one of the more broad articles I have in my head. But M2G2 has become this beast in my mind, one that must be upheld until some unforeseen marker. It's a streak for the sake of being a streak.

Why do I do this? I guess I want a portfolio. It's something I can cling to say, "I do something extra." It's also not like I don't get something out of this. I've enjoyed writing about and experiencing both bands I love and bands that are new. Now I know about many new bands I didn't before and have a much richer vocabulary when it comes to genres and musical history. I like knowing a little bit about a lot of things, so this is something I enjoy.

But it comes at a cost every Friday night. It causes me stress sometimes when I really want to pick a band that works. Pick songs that work. Write about it in an interesting way. With the only benefit being for myself, my tolerance wanes.

I don't mind that Soap gets 100 times more viewership than all of my heartfelt work combined. I know the Internet is a fickle mistress, but I would hope my friends would ease the tide. I specifically take time to listen to my friends DJ on the radio or in recordings of live shows. I compliment a friend's photography and always subscribe and do my small part to give kudos to YouTube videos or Reddit posts. Whatever and where ever I have friends showing off their work, I try to make sure they know at least one person appreciates it.

And sometimes I wonder if I'm alone in that regard.