Baseball

The essence of existence can be found in a baseball pitch. Every pitch, from the first to the last, is the most important moment in every baseball game, and the outcome of every pitch influences the planning and execution of the next one. Talent, strategy and luck all play equal parts in determining the outcome.

The old adage “it’s only a game” does not refer to professional baseball. That’s what parents tell their kids as a way of hinting to them that childhood failures, shortcomings, difficulties and fears are unreliable indicators of what is in store in their adult life. Children who are told that do not grow up to become professional baseball players.

In baseball, every pitch begins with a pitcher with one foot touching a rubber strip 60’6” from the front of home plate. Except for strategic and psychological help from the manager and baserunners, the batter is essentially alone with his bat in a box beside home plate. The pitcher has eight guys backing him up, but the ball is in his hands. There are a multitude factors for the batter and pitcher to consider on each pitch: the abilities of both players, past encounters between the two, the recent performance of both players, where the fielders are set-up, whether there are baserunners, who they are and where, the batting order, the pitch count, the inning, the score, the mechanics of the pitch and swing, the strike zone according to tonight’s umpire, etc.

The regular baseball season lasts 6 months and, since the early '60's, 162 games. During that time, the best major league batters will fail to get a hit nearly 70% of the time. The measure of a hitter’s percentage of hits relative to at-bats is known as his batting average. Ted Williams, arguably the greatest hitter of all time, managed to succeed in getting a hit just over 40.6% (recorded as .406) of the time in the 143 games he played in 1941, a feat nobody has matched since. That same year, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio set a record for hitting in an unprecedented 56 games in a row. After going one game without a hit, he hit in 16 more consecutive games. Although far below Williams, he finished the season with a very respectable .357 batting average. Baseball’s greatest hitters are notoriously stubborn and arrogant; there are probably no other personality traits that would allow them to retain such focused consistency despite the odds.

On the flip side, out of every nine innings a pitcher pitches, the greatest pitchers give up, on average, 2 earned runs. Baseball statisticians refer to this as a pitcher’s earned run average (ERA). (If a run is accomplished only as the result of a fielding error or a passed ball (a pitch getting by the catcher) it is considered an unearned run.) The average pitcher gives up between 4 and 5 runs per nine innings pitched. In 1973, the American League implemented a new rule, allowing a designated hitter, a player not playing defense, to pinch-hit for the pitcher every time it’s the pitcher’s turn to bat. Since their focus is on pitching and because they do not play consistently enough to get into a batting rhythm, pitchers generally make lousy hitters. The designated hitter rule gives batters more of an advantage in the American League than the National League, so you would expect American League ERA’s to be higher.

The most enjoyable part of a baseball game for me is trying to predict which type of pitch a pitcher will throw next and to which part of the strike zone (an imaginary rectangle bordered by the width of the plate and the batter’s knees and chest) they will try to throw it. Even with all the variables to consider, this can be done with relative success by any observer with an understanding of baseball strategy, awareness of the overall strengths and weaknesses of the batter and pitcher and alertness to the pitcher’s control of his pitches up until the current moment in the game. The latter is accomplished by paying attention to where the catcher sets up in order to know where each pitch is supposed to go and then watching where each pitch actually goes. You can usually discern the type of pitch thrown by its curvature and velocity. As an example of baseball strategy, the pitch counts of 0-0 (meaning 0 balls, 0 strikes), 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 and sometimes 3-0 are known as fastball counts, meaning the pitcher is more likely to throw a fastball and less likely to “nibble” at the plate (cautiously throw at the edges of the strike zone) on these counts. Knowing this, many pitchers, especially those few possessing exceptional control of an off-speed or breaking pitch, will effectively pitch “backwards” by throwing other pitches on fastball counts.


On April 16, 2004, the San Francisco Giants hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers for Major League Baseball’s second greatest rivalry’s first meeting of the season. The game turned out to be a pitcher’s duel. Giant’s ace Jason Schmidt threw well but gave up two runs, both on groundball outs hit by shortstop Milton Bradley that drove in speedster Dave Roberts, who had been moved over by Cesar Izturis. Unbelievably, those same three Dodgers would do the same thing for the third time off relief pitcher Jim Brower (unearned because of a Brower error) in the top of the ninth inning. The Dodger’s starting pitcher Odalis Perez was amazing. He allowed no runs and gave up only two hits, both to Giant’s third baseman Edgardo Alfonzo, and one strategically savvy two-out walk to Barry Bonds in his eight innings of work.

With the score 3-0 in his favor, manager Jim Tracy opted to take out Perez and put in closer Eric Gagne for the ninth and potentially decisive inning. Considering Perez had a low pitch count and was pitching for a shutout, this was a questionable move. However, Gagne, despite being a stocky little guy with goofy goggles, was the best closer in baseball. He was coming off a spectacular season for which he had won the Cy Young Award, baseball’s most prestigious award for pitchers. The classic “power pitcher,” Gagne’s fastball commonly approached 100 mph, making his 78 mph change-up devastating. He had gone 22 1/3 innings without giving up a run and 65 games without losing a save. Also, Tracy knew Barry Bonds was waiting in the hole, and although he was hitless for the day, he had good career numbers against Perez but not against Gagne.

Barry Bonds was coming off a typically incredible MVP year, but during the off-season his trainer dating back to 2000 had been indicted in a national steroids investigation. Now, only ten games into the season, the baseball world was still curious to see if the aging and presumably steroids-free Barry Bonds was going to be a threat. Two games prior, he had reached a personal milestone by hitting his 661st homerun to surpass the career homerun total of his godfather Willie Mays.

Gagne uncharacteristically walked the first batter, Jeffrey Hammonds, but Marquis Grissom flew out to center and did not advance the runner. Barry Bonds strolled up to the plate. The electricity at Giant’s home games was absolutely stimulating whenever Bonds came to bat. You could feel the heart rates of that night’s 42,662 fans increase and imagine the panties of more than a few females getting wet. When Bonds watched the first fastball from Gagne fly past him for a strike at 102 mph, everybody knew that this was going to be an entertaining power-against-power matchup.

With the count in his favor 2-2, Gagne decided to go for the strikeout. He perfectly placed a 101 mph fastball at the lower inside part of the strike zone. Bonds’ only hope was to catch up with the pitch and make enough contact to hit the ball foul down the right field side. But, as only one player in baseball could have done, Bonds not only turned on it in time, he made direct contact, knocking the ball about 500 feet before landing foul. (If Gagne had been a lefty, probably even Bonds wouldn’t have been able to catch up with it, but the only left-hander in baseball at the time that could have even potentially thrown that pitch was Randy “The Big Unit” Johnson.) The long foul ball was exciting to watch, but now Bonds was in trouble. If it were another batter, Gagne could have thrown the same pitch but further inside, hoping the batter would strike out trying to chase it. But Bonds didn’t chase, and Gagne didn’t want the count to go full and risk walking Bonds; bringing the potential tying run to the plate. However, having just forced Bonds’ sightline and mechanics to the inside, Gagne had set up the outside of the plate. He wouldn’t be able to throw a fastball there though, because it was now obvious that Bonds had his fastball timed, and throwing to the outside would effectively straighten out Bonds bat, causing the ball to go fair. However, if Gagne threw his change-up to the outside of the plate, he would throw off Bonds’ balance, and even if Bonds made solid contact, the most likely outcome would be a game ending double-play. This is what Gagne should have done, but he was irritated, because Bonds had just made a mockery of his best pitch. To prove to himself, Bonds and everybody else that that had been a fluke, Gagne decided to ignore sensible strategy and throw the same pitch again. This time, however, the ball was a little more out over the plate, and with his lightning fast but effortless swing, Bonds sent the ball into the centerfield bleachers. Although Bonds had broken up the shutout, Gagne swiftly retired the next two batters and the Dodgers won 3-2.

With that homerun, Bonds sent a clear message to everyone in baseball: “You still can’t fuck with Barry Bonds.” This game was part of an incredible week in which Bonds would bat .733 and homer in six straight games. He would go on to have perhaps the best year of his amazing career. He was walked 232 times, breaking the record he had already set twice. He still managed to hit .362, which was best in the league, giving him a Major League record on-base percentage of .609. He hit 45 homeruns, but had only had 41 strikeouts. He was chosen league MVP for a record setting fourth year in a row.

Eric Gagne would also have a remarkable year, establishing a Major League record of 84 consecutive saves. He finished the season with a 2.19 ERA, allowing only three home runs, including Bonds’. Unfortunately, both Bonds and Gagne would have invasive surgeries in 2005 from which neither fully recovered. Gagne was part of the 2007 World Series champion Boston Red Sox team, but he was now the reliever that made Red Sox fans cringe whenever he stepped on the field. Both Bonds and Gagne were listed as steroid users in the recent Mitchell Report.

Charles Bukowski

persisted
in spite

and rouses
still

Derek Bailey

I accidentally discovered Derek Bailey twice. The first time was in the late 90’s, when a fellow musician told me I should drum more like Paul Wertico. Today I know better than to listen to stupid, even potentially devastating advice such as this, but at the time, as I had never heard of Paul Wertico before, I sheepishly went out and bought some of his albums. By “some,” I mean ten or so. Possibly because of the circumstances under which I was coerced into listening to him, I found Paul’s drumming to be excruciatingly uninspiring. He played on a lot of tedious albums with the soulless guitarist Pat Metheny. Of all the albums I bought, the only one I didn’t almost immediately sell back was a creepy and seemingly anarchic album that I bought not only because Paul Wertico was on it, but also because it was an incredibly cheap 3 disc set that had a Sherlock Holmes theme. The Sign of 4 could be considered a double duet, with Pat Metheny and percussionist Gregg Bendian in one channel and guitarist Derek Bailey and Paul Wertico in the other. Paul occasionally uses egg beaters on it, and that inspiration (egg beaters sound cool!) made the brief study of him worth it, even if it was the only thing I stole/learned from him. The Sign of 4 recordings are bizarre and obnoxious, and I’ll often play them on Halloween to freak out the trick-or-treaters (in honor of one of my earliest memories of refusing to ask for candy at a house because creepy music was emanating from it).

Approximately two years later, shortly after I had moved to the San Francisco bay area, I was rifling through the “experimental” section at Amoeba Music and discovered an album with an intriguingly sparse cover of a naked man leaning on a wall with the title Music and Dance. The name of the artist mentioned on the spine, Derek Bailey, sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

I immediately put Music and Dance in my car’s CD player (actually a discman hooked into the cassette deck) and listened to it as I drove home. Suddenly, I was having an experience that I’ve had while driving a couple times before, such as when returning from the movie theatre after watching The Matrix and Fight Club, whereby everything becomes blurry, surreal and confused. My entire psyche was being disoriented by this acoustic guitar solo. But it wasn’t a solo, it was a duet with the butoh influenced dancer Min Tanaka, and his presence is very much felt on the audio recording. The disc consists of two live performances inside an abandoned blacksmith forge with a glass roof, and a brief downpour occurs in the middle of the first one. Derek’s interaction with the downpour is probably the most sublime thing I have ever heard.

My life’s trajectory has been altered a few times by chance encounters such as these; accidental discoveries which can never be predicted. There is no way to describe Derek Bailey; one can only listen to his music. He was an absolute master at finding the perfect balance between listening to his environment and ignoring it while playing. Many of his recordings (he was a co-founder, along with Tony Oxley, Evan Parker and Michael Walters, of the Incus record label, which has put out arguably the greatest European music of the twentieth century) are in a duo format, and he preferred spontaneous meetings with truly improvised playing to rehearsed groups. He was an uncompromising explorer of microtones, harmonics, extended technique and discontinuity. He occasionally used sparse electronic effects, such as running a guitar through two speakers and using a volume pedal for swells, and occasionally experimented with “prepared” guitars, affecting the sound of the guitar with tools such as chains and paper clips, but I am partial to him simply playing a hollow-body electric or acoustic guitar with his bare hands or a pick. Derek also started the highly influential improvisational collective Company and wrote an enlightening book entitled Improvisation.

Today, when asked about my influences, I always mention Derek Bailey first, and sometimes exclusively. For a time, my principal goal in playing music was the hope that one day I would be able to play with Derek Bailey. I was crushed when he died on Christmas Day of 2005.

Offensive humor

A lot of children, usually beginning around fourth grade but coming to fruition in junior high, realize that it is very funny to say something which adults would find offensive. It is not that you necessarily know why it’s offensive (often not knowing the meaning of the offensive terms), and it would definitely not be funny to get caught saying these things for which you would certainly be punished, but there is an undeniable mischievous glee in getting away with vulgar or inappropriate talk.

Eventually we get to an age where, at least in this country, we can pretty much get away with saying offensive things without fear of punishment. Without the threat of guaranteed retaliation, some of us find enjoyment in testing the boundaries of how offensive our talk can get and the strategies by which we can offend while intending to be funny. At the height of offensive humor, the helpless desperation and pointless anger with which people respond when they are temporarily offended becomes hilarious to those in on the joke. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to tell when we have gone too far until we really hurt someone’s feelings or get our asses kicked. As a freakish side-affect, we can often get away with saying bona fide offensive things because others choose to assume we are joking.

In a Sarah Silverman interview (for Rolling Stone?) in which she was asked how one could tell the difference between an offensive joke and an offensive comment, she relevantly replied, “By not being retarded?”

There are two basic criteria by which offensive humor works. First, it must be grounded in exaggerated absurdity. Otherwise, nobody will accept the statement as a joke. Second, there has to be an element of reality. Without that, nobody would give the statement enough consideration to be potentially offended by it. The statement can’t be too real or everybody will be offended, and that’s not very funny. The humor in offensive humor depends on the fact that it divides society into two groups: those who think it’s offensive and those who think it’s funny that others find it offensive. Those offended consider offensive humor insulting or immature. Those who find it funny do so because they realize those who would be offended are being overly-sensitive.

There are also two basic criteria by which offensive humor is judged. First, its cleverness is all-important. For instance, Groucho Marx was a genius at saying things to people who would normally find it offensive but in such a way that the comment would go right over their head. On the other hand, Andrew Dice Clay is funny to those who need the offensiveness to be very obvious, such as junior high kids. Second, its daringness must be taken into consideration. Comedy is always a game of getting as close to the edge as you can without falling over. Context and audience are extremely important in the successful execution of an offensive joke. For example, you can say very offense things when there’s no threat of retaliation, such as when you’re with a group of friends who understand your sense of humor, and have it be funny, or you can say mildly offensive or obviously highly exaggerated things when in the presence of those who would be potentially offended and have it be funny, since the offense taken won’t be enough to turn ugly.

You don’t want to offend someone and have it turn into an argument. Often, it’s prudent to leave yourself an “out” when saying something potentially offensive, so any offense taken can be quickly diffused. The “out” should be a way to demonstrate that you are joking with minimal explanation. The degree of obviousness depends on how uptight your audience is and how much you care whether or not they get it. For instance, you can generally make fun of your own ethnicity much more severely than you can another’s, since any audience understands contextually that you certainly wouldn’t be seriously deriding yourself. The hostility and denseness of some people is very revealing, and sometimes to demonstrate how ridiculous these people are it’s cathartically preferable to let them stay mad. If you don’t have an “out,” it’s a good idea to have a safe distance from those offended.

Probably the most unique and intriguing comedian who used offensiveness as a source of humor was Andy Kaufman. Andy’s bread-and-butter were impressions and “put-ons,” in which he would pretend to be serious when, in actuality, he was joking. Often, his put-ons involved pretending to be an idiot, bully or crybaby, or a cleverly interwoven succession of all of the above. Andy would do the most outrageously absurd things and people would still believe it and be offended, simply because his style was so unfamiliar and people tend, by default, to believe things they’ve never encountered before. A frequent gag in his tragically short but brilliant life was telling bad jokes and pretending to be oblivious to being a bad comic. This specific tactic effectively highlights the separation between those who are offended by having paid to see a hack and those who realize that it’s very funny that people are upset because they think they’ve paid to see a hack. Andy was a genius at simultaneously making those offended realize they’ve been had and finding new ways to offend or at least confuse them. Andy figured out, among other things, that he could further provoke those offended by him but at the same time cleverly diffuse their hostility by staging fake arguments (often with Bob Zmuda and famously with Jerry Lawler). His influence on modern comedy is immeasurable; his mark can be clearly seen on everyone from Robin Williams (Andy originated speaking in foreign sounding languages and Mrs. Doubtfire, who was conceived by Andy to be Andy’s pretend grandmother for a performance at Carnegie Hall) to Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Ali G and Borat). Andy was also the original Elvis impersonator.

Another successful and clever source of offensive humor is “gangsta” rap. Although its roots can be found in “hardcore” rappers such as Too Short and Ice T, the group NWA, formed in Compton, CA in 1986, set gangsta rap apart as a unique and legitimate style of music. Gangsta rap combines social commentary on real issues such as oppression and injustice with absurdly exaggerated retaliatory accounts of how these issues should be dealt with and the decadence they create. (It is not a coincidence that NWA and the overtly political Public Enemy began around the same time.) Ice Cube was the primary lyricist for the group, and his acute ability to combine a vivid picture of black male urban street life with hilarity is perhaps unsurpassed. The group was formed after drug dealer turned record label owner Easy-E rapped some lyrics written by Ice Cube about a summary of life in Compton, which involves cars, basketball, theft, guns, murder, spouse abuse, drugs, police violence, court, a shooting spree and prison (called “Boyz N the Hood”), and it was realized Easy’s high pitched delivery could make anything seem hilarious. NWA also included MC Ren, Dr. Dre and DJ Yella (the latter two created the music, which relied heavily on looped samples instead of drum machines or turntables, and essentially invented the “west coast rap” sound). The DOC, a talented rapper whose voice was relegated to a whisper by a car accident, did some ghostwriting for NWA, and went on to ghostwrite much of Dr. Dre’s breakthrough album The Chronic and some of Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle. Snoop Dogg, whose laid back style can best be compared with cool Miles Davis, is famous for satirizing “ebonics” by creating dozens of ludicrous words. Unfortunately, gangsta rap was irretrievably damaged when it got too real as a result of the senseless murders of rappers Tupac Shakur in September of 1996 and Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, six months later.


Lyrics to NWA’s “Fuck Tha Police”

[Dr.Dre]
Right about now, NWA Court is in full effect. Judge Dre presiding in the case of “NWA versus the Police Department.” Prosecuting attorneys are MC Ren, Ice Cube and Eazy motherfucking E.

Order, order, order! Ice Cube, take the mother fucking stand! Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help your black ass?

[Ice Cube]
You're goddamn right!

[Dr.Dre]
Why don't you tell everybody what the fuck you gotta say?

[Ice Cube]
Fuck the police, comin’ straight from the underground. A young nigga, got it bad ‘cause I'm brown and not the other color, so police think they have the authority to kill a minority. Fuck that shit, ‘cause I ain't the one for a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun to be beatin’ on and thrown in jail- we can go toe to toe in the middle of a cell.

Fuckin’ with me ‘cause I'm a teenager with a little bit of gold and a pager. Searching my car, looking for the product, thinking every nigga is selling narcotics. You'd rather see me in the pen, than me and Lorenzo rolling in a Benz-o. Beat a police outta shape, and when I'm finished, bring the yellow tape to tape off the scene of the slaughter. (He) still can’t swallow bread and water.

I don't know if they fags or what; search a nigga down and grabbing his nuts. And on the other hand, without a gun they can't get none…. But don't let it be a black and a white one, ‘cause they’ll slam ya down to the street top: black police showing off for the white cop. Ice Cube will swarm on any motherfucker in a blue uniform. Just ‘cause I'm from the CPT, punk police are afraid of me. Hah! A young nigga on the war path; and when I'm finished, it's gonna be a bloodbath of cops dying in LA. Yo Dre, I got something to say:

[Eazy-E]
Fuck the police (4X)

[Dr.Dre]
Example of scene one:

Pull your goddamn ass over right now!

[MC Ren]
Ah shit. Hey, what the fuck you pulling me over for?

[Dr.Dre]
‘Cause I feel like it. Just sit your ass on the curb and shut the fuck up!

[MC Ren]
Man, fuck this shit!

[Dr.Dre]
Alright smartass, I'm taking your black ass to jail!

MC Ren, will you please give your testimony to the jury about this fucked up incident?

[MC Ren]
Fuck the police, and Ren said it with authority, because the niggaz on the street is a majority. A gang is with whoever I'm stepping, and the motherfucking weapon is kept in the stash box for the so-called law, wishing Ren was a nigga that they never saw. Lights start flashing behind me, but they're scared of a nigga so they mace me to blind me- but that shit don't work, I just laugh, because it gives ‘em a hint not to step in my path. To the police I'm saying, “fuck you punk!” Reading my rights and shit; it's all junk. Pulling out a silly club, so you stand with a fake-ass badge and a gun in your hand. But take off the gun so you can see what's up, and we'll go at it punk, and I'm (gonn)a fuck you up, make ya think I'm (gonn)a kick your ass, but drop your gat, and Ren's gonna blast! I'm sneaky as fuck when it comes to crime, but I'm (gonn)a smoke ‘em now, and not next time; smoke any motherfucker that sweats me and any asshole that threatens me. I'm a sniper with a hell of a scope, takin’ out a cop or two, they can't cope with me, the motherfucking villain that's mad with potential to get bad as fuck. So I'm (gonn)a turn it around, put in my clip, yo, and this is the sound: [Bang, Bang] yah, something like that, but it all depends on the size of the gat. Taking out a police would make my day, but a nigga like Ren don't give a fuck to say:

[Eazy-E]
Fuck the police (4X)

[Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock]

[Eazy-E]
Hey man, what you need?

[Dr.Dre]
Police, open now!

[Eazy-E]
Oh, shit.

[Dr.Dre]
We have a warrant for Eazy-E's arrest. Get down and put your hands up where I can see ‘em!

[Eazy-E]
Calm down, man, what the fuck did I do? Man, what did I do?

[Dr.Dre]
Just shut the fuck up and get your motherfuckin’ ass on the floor.

[Eazy-E]
But I didn’t do shit.

[Dr.Dre]
Man, just shut the fuck up!

Eazy-E, why don't you step up to the stand and tell the jury how you feel about this bullshit?

[Eazy-E]
I'm tired of them motherfucking jackin’, sweating my gang while I'm chilling in the shack. Him shining the light in my face, and for what? Maybe it's because I kick so much butt. I kick ass! Or maybe ‘cause I blast on a stupid ass nigga when I'm playing with the trigger of any Uzi or an AK, ‘cause the police always got something stupid to say. They put up my picture with silence, ‘cause my identity by itself causes violence- the E, with the criminal behavior. Yeah, I'm a gangsta, but still I got flavor. Without a gun and a badge, what do ya got? A sucker in a uniform waiting to get shot by me or another nigga, and with a gat it don't matter if he's smarter or bigger.

[MC Ren]
Size don't mean shit, he's from the old school, fool!

[Easy-E]
And as you all know, E's here to rule. Whenever I'm rolling, keep looking in the mirror, and there's no cue, yo, so I can hear a dumb motherfucker with a gun. And if I'm rolling off the 8, he'll be the one that I take out, and then get away, and while I'm driving off laughing, this is what I'll say:

[Eazy-E]
Fuck the police (4X)

[Dr.Dre]
The verdict:
The jury has found you guilty of being a redneck, white bread, chickenshit motherfucker!

Wait, that's a lie! That's a goddamn lie!

Get him outta here!

I want justice!

Get him the fuck outta my face!

I want justice!

Out, right now.

Fuck you, you black motherfucker!

[Eazy-E]
Fuck the police (3X)

Burritos

I don’t know how to cook. When relegated to feeding myself, I usually prepare cold cereal, eat a diced avocado with balsamic vinegar and asiago cheese, fry an over-easy egg inside a piece of bread (by removing the middle of the bread with a cookie cutter) or make burritos. Consequently, I have become somewhat of an expert burrito maker. I figured I should share how I make them:

First, warm up a can of vegetarian refried beans (traditional refried beans are fried in lard) in a small saucepan. Next, heat some oil in a frying pan. Put a large flour tortilla (I usually use Guerrero brand) flat in the frying pan for a few seconds to warm that side, and then flip it. Cover the entire tortilla with grated sharp cheddar and/or Monterey jack cheese, then with a layer of nacho-sliced jalapenos. Sparsely add some diced habanero. Spoon a generous stripe of refried beans down the middle of the tortilla. The cheese should now be thoroughly melted. Roll the sides of the tortilla up. Now it’s ready to eat. One can of beans yields three burritos.

Enjoy!

Brad

When I returned to college for the second semester of my sophomore year in January 1996, I found myself all alone. My girlfriend of the semester prior promptly dumped me, my girlfriend from the years before that had dropped out after trying to kill herself, my roommate had deserted me for a girl, my inability to play the drumset had become glaringly obvious (as a result of a tryout with a jazz trio to be in a Christmas concert in which we were essentially the only group not selected and my drum brush playing was solely and unanimously blamed) and I was beginning to realize my God didn’t exist.

During the month of January, I spent my days listening to mostly Led Zeppelin (a needed distraction from my jazz obsession), reading philosophy and receiving crank calls from someone who literally never said anything. (Although it was probably my suicidal ex, I preferred to hope it was my more recent ex, as I was still in love with her but knew I couldn’t call her.) I spent my nights reading poetry anthologies. I couldn’t sleep.

Eventually I had had enough of eating in the cafeteria alone. I had met and occasionally hung out with two guys, Phil and Cullen, who lived two floors above me the semester before. I went up to their room to ask if I could eat dinner with them, but they weren’t home. A passerby told me they were in room 921.

Timidly, I knocked on the door. There was a whole group of people crammed into this cigarette-filled room, watching “The Young and the Restless.” When the soap ended, we played some hockey on the Sega and then all went and ate together in the cafeteria. This became our daily routine for the rest of the semester, except I quickly learned to go up to room 921 after the god-awful soap opera had ended.

The undisputed leader of this group was Brad. He was smart, cocky and judgmental. He let me borrow his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl. I don’t think he’d ever read it. I think I read it twice. Me and another guy Eric, who later would become an extremely important person in my life, would stay up nights and pick Brad’s brain as they picked mine.

By the end of that semester I was a whole new person. This was verified to myself on the Saturday before finals week, when I finally ran into the ex from the semester before. I looked at her through my blue-tinted John Lennon-style sunglasses, hiding my new contacts, with my hair to my shoulders, wearing Skechers and holding my not-quite-broken-in hacky sack, and realized I had no feelings for her anymore.

We all left for the summer. I missed the whole crew, but especially Brad. I looked forward to more late night philosophical talks when the new semester began in the fall. But they had all changed. Brad became singularly interested in drugs, and most of the rest of the crew followed suit. I was much too curious about the nature of existence and motivated to explore the possibilities of existence to lie around doing nothing all day. I continued to hang out with them, especially at night, but as a self-aware observer. I spent my days reading the Existentialists….

Kris

Kris, possibly more than anybody else I’ve encountered, single-handedly forced me to accept not only the reality, importance and influence of my own basest desires, but also the predominately illusory nature of the object of those desires.

Kris was a waitress at my first job. She was pretty; but more importantly she was fun. I spent my shifts scheming ways for us to goof off without getting fired. We undeniably had crushes on each other, but that was irrelevant. We were both in relationships and she was a mature 14 year old, two years younger than me.

In the fall I went off to college, but we promised to keep in touch, and we actually did. We wrote each other long, soul-baring letters, filled with unfulfillment and discontent.

Several years passed. On Valentine’s Day in 1998, we both found ourselves single. I had never been to her house before. I drove for two hours down to Des Moines with a dozen roses, getting a speeding ticket on the way.

I arrived at a run-down little house down a dirt road on the north side of town. In it was Kris, her ex-boyfriend and her future boyfriend. Kris and her ex were screaming and throwing things at each other. He finally left, and we went out for Chinese and rented movies. In an effort to choose a movie reflecting my mood, I suggested we rent Deliverance, which I had never seen before. Hamlet would have been proud.

This was to be my introduction to a lifestyle hitherto fore unfamiliar to me that I can only call “white trash.” Sure, I was white and poor and lived in a little two-bedroom apartment with three roommates who had dropped out of college, worked dead-end jobs, drank Busch Light and smoked lots of weed. But we never communicated violently, talked about football, worked on cars, subscribed to Playboy or used the “n” word. This was very far from my beat-style comfort zones at the time of listening to jazz, playing chess and philosophizing.

I sat uncomfortably on a couch and watched Deliverance. Kris and her future boyfriend left, and I eventually fell asleep on the couch.

We never kept in touch in the same way after that. Now she has a husband, a career, a house in the suburbs, a kid and two little dogs. She still lives in the Des Moines area, a place I never could have stayed in and she never could have left. I imagine she has an SUV, a white picket fence and a king-sized Sleep Comfort Sleep Number bed.

I spent the subsequent years pursuing other dreams and usually finding them just as wanting. Thankfully, I am very content with my personal life and priorities today. If I wrote her a letter now, I wouldn’t know what to put in it. I suspect if she wrote me now it would have the same content as it had back then.

Christian deceptions

Liars fear knowledge. It should be that only liars fear knowledge. Unfortunately, acquiring and accepting knowledge often requires change, and so knowledge is also feared by those who fear change. Propaganda is persuasive rhetoric that poses as knowledge, and it is often difficult to differentiate the two. Propaganda is largely successful because either it exploits fear or the fact that people prefer to believe what they want to believe. Our society is saturated with successful propaganda, and that propaganda prevents acceptance of proper knowledge. Religion plays on our fear of the unknown in order to effectively persuade us to believe its answers.

To demonstrate how religious propaganda works, I am going to point out several common logical fallacies and blatant lies heard all the time from Christians and the Christian Church. My intention is not to offend (please forgive when my tone gets snide), but to view Christian assumptions critically. I would love to instigate an intelligent conversation exploiting knowledge and not propaganda to further understanding on any of these topics. Unfortunately, most Christians follow Jesus’ example and, instead of giving thoughtful, intelligent responses to legitimate questions, spout off some meaningless parable, resort to name-calling or find ways to justify their ignorance.


(1) “Since man did not make everything, there must be someone who did.”

This is an illogical conclusion, but because it is drawn from an undeniably true premise, it gives the impression that the conclusion is also undeniable true. It is often easy to recognize the fallacy in a statement about “everything” by breaking it down to something less theoretical and grandiose. For instance, consider this statement: “Since I didn’t turn the milk in my fridge to cottage cheese, there must be someone who did.” The flaw is the assumption that intentional intervention is required for creation or change, a typically arrogant human sentiment.
There are many other similar assertions (such as “Since I can’t control everything, there must be someone who can.”) that claim an anthropomorphized will or intent is a necessity for an object or idea, which we know experientially to be untrue.

In pursuing the question of how things exist, I think it is worthwhile to apply Occam’s Razor. If an explanation can be made for a phenomenon without making the unobservable assumption “an omnipotent being did it,” we should rely on the alternate explanation until it is proven unreliable. I have not yet encountered anything to which “an omnipotent being did it” was necessary for an explanation.


(2) “It cannot be a coincidence that everything is set up in such a precise way that makes our existence possible.”

This is a favorite of the Jehovah Witnesses. Actually this statement is true. What is false is the conclusion drawn from it- that the universe was designed for us. If the universe were not set up so precisely, we simply wouldn’t exist to be having this conversation. The statement only suffices to demonstrate how we can exist, not why we do exist. The fact that we (seem to) exist gives us no reason to assume that we or anything else were intended to exist.


(3) “The existence of god cannot be disproved.”

This is Christianity’s biggest Red Herring. First, it also cannot be disproved that there is a six foot tall invisible rabbit standing next to you right now. That doesn’t mean one is. Proof is only possible with mathematics and other self-defining tautologies. It can’t be proven whether I exist.

Second, whenever Christians refer to the existence of god, they are actually referring to the existence of the Christian God, which is a very different thing. It’s theoretically possible that the god of any religion exists. The implication that the God of Christianity is the only possible god is just subtle enough a deception that even non-Christians make that conceit all the time. Many arguments, including Pascal’s Wager, rely on the unsubstantiated assumption that if there is a god, it is the God of Christianity.


(4) Pascal’s Wager

Okay, here’s how it goes: (a) Either the God of Christianity exists or he doesn’t. (b) If he exists and I believe in him, I will go to heaven. (c) If he exists and I don’t believe in him, I will go to hell. (d) Just to be on the safe side, I’ll believe in him.

This is a cleverly disguised meaningless reductionism. Its meaningless becomes obvious when you apply the same logic to anything else: (a) Either Vahiguru, the god of Sikhism, exists or he doesn’t. (b) If Vahiguru exists and I devote myself to him, I will be united with him. (c) If he exists and I don’t devote myself to him, I will be reincarnated and kept separate from him. (d) Just to be on the safe side, I’ll devote myself to Vahiguru.

As you can see, there is now a problem of following both gods. As you keep applying the reasoning, it will soon become apparent that to truly ensure a pleasant afterlife, you must follow all gods. But this is impossible, as some gods are notoriously jealous and don’t want you following other ones. I will grant that the God of the Abrahamic religions, including Islam, Judaism, Christianity and the Baha’i faith, is more of an extremist than the gods of most other religions (you can’t get much more extreme than “eternal torment”), and so the risks involved in rejecting them are higher. But that still gives you four incompatible religions from which you must randomly choose. In the end, Pascal’s Wager is completely useless as a method for determining whether or not to follow a religion.

Whereas polytheistic religions can easily accept the possibility of the existence of gods in other religions, monotheism demands a complete rejection of all other religions. This entails an incredible amount of condescension and superciliousness not only towards other religions but the members of other religions. Christians seem to think members of other religions follow them only out of fear and ignorance, and delude themselves into thinking only Christianity presents an active, loving, miraculous and personal savior. In reality, the followers of every religion “experience” the god or gods of their religion.


(5) “The God of Christianity is the only God that can perform miracles.”

This is a part of a whole genre of arrogantly blind claims probably made in every monotheistic religion. Their bold naïveté is simply laughable. I would love for anyone to show me a religion in which a claim of a miraculous event has never been made. The illusion of miracles is part of the human experience. The most common is the miracle of healing, which can almost always be explained by the very real phenomena of the Placebo effect. All unexplainable natural phenomena, like life itself, seems miraculous, and much of the function of all religions is to explain these events and provide a sense of control over them, which in reality is provided by such things as Laws of Probability, coincidence, self-fulfilling prophecy and our amazing capacity to notice when a miracle seemingly occurred and forget when a miracle didn’t occur.

I grew up in a very devoted Christian Church, and never witnessed one miracle. Most Sundays, they had a time where the congregation would testify ways in which God had blessed them, and I never remember hearing one out-of-the-ordinary event. I’ve known non-believers who have, for example, been cured from cancer without chemo or gotten a job right before their bills were due.


(6) “The God of Christianity is omnipotent.”

The God of Christianity is supposed to be all-powerful. He even promises, “If two of you on earth agree about anything and ask for it, it will be done for you….” (Matthew 18:19) I once witnessed an entire Church congregation earnestly pray for a car to be started. It didn’t start. God broke his promise, which means he can break all his promises, including that one about eternity in Paradise. If God can’t even start a car, something a mechanic can accomplish, what can he do? (If the car had started, that wouldn’t have proven anything- I’ve had dead cars randomly start without praying for them.)

There’s a convenient verse Christians use to excuse God from performing miracles on cue- “Do not put the Lord thy God to the test.” But when people like Gideon, Elijah (I find it interesting that Elijah jeered the worshippers of Baal, suggesting their god was asleep, when his all-powerful and therefore tireless God is famous for resting) and Jesus’ disciples tested God’s legitimacy by having him perform a miracle he was able to come through, so just because we’re not supposed to test him, that shouldn’t render him incompetent if tested, should it?

When Christians respond with “Aren’t those Biblical miracles enough?” the answer is obvious- “NO.” The story of some impossible event that supposedly happened thousands of years ago and was retold uncountable times before even being written is hardly convincing. There were some equally believable miracles performed around the same time by the gods of the Aztecs.

Many Christians erroneously assume their God is omni-present. Not only does the Bible never make this claim, it refutes it entirely. The Bible repeatedly claims that God physically looks like man (but not women- that’s why they are supposed to keep their head covered in Church (1 Corinthians 11:7-16)). He sits, stands, turns his head, moves about, etc.; none of these things would make sense if referring to a being that was everywhere at once. The Bible refers to entering God’s presence; if he were omni-present his presence would be inescapable.

God’s omni-present characteristic was introduced by early philosophers attempting to ponder what traits God must have in order for him to be omniscient and omnipotent. Those early philosophers realized it’s pretty hard to imagine an all-powerful being with human physical limitations. God apparently even rests and sleeps; things no omnipotent being would ever have to do. His physical limitations come into play throughout the Old Testament. For example, in order to make his judgment as to whether or not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, God, along with two angels, has to go visit them on foot (and runs into Abraham along the way) in order to find out for himself if they’re as bad as rumored (so much for omniscience) (Gen. 18:20-21). Most will claim the statement “God created man in his own image,” found through the Bible, refers to our thoughts or sense of logic but “My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” God’s emotions definitely resemble ours, which is not comforting.


(7) “I know God exists because he saved my life.”

This is an example of noticing a supposed miracle and not the lack thereof. If your prolonged existence demonstrates God’s existence, than all premature deaths demonstrate his non-existence. Death happens eventually, and the unpredictability of the time of it is a fact, not a proof of God.


(8) “I know God exists because I have a personal relationship with him.”

Does he come over for dinner? Does he send you a Christmas card? Is he a prominent part of your photo album? When I was a kid, I had imaginary friends. I talked to them. I literally heard them and even saw them on occasion. They influenced my behavior and emotions. They comforted me. I cared for them. Give me one shred of evidence which differentiates your personal God from an imaginary friend.


(9) "If you have faith, then you will understand."

Although faith is essentially the noun form of the adjective “gullible,” I do not deny its power. As demonstrated by the placebo effect, faith does work. The placebo effect is a clinically demonstrable phenomenon in which a sick person will be healed, on average, about 33% of the time if they simply believe they will be healed. Studies suggest up to 90% of all diseases cam be cured from this phenomenon, but some diseases, such as depression, are more susceptible to being healed by faith alone than others. If you give a person a breath mint and tell them it will cure them and they believe it, there’s a good chance that the mint actually will cure them. That is why so many healers can make so much money doing things like pretending to pull maladies through the skin of gullible people. The self-fulfilling prophecy is another case of faith in action. Faith increases as it proves itself effective, adding fuel to its powers.

Faith can be viewed as an evolutionary survival adaptation. Humans have been wired to believe every optimistic story they hear and convince themselves that life is worthwhile. Without faith, we would likely delve into hopelessness and despair and our species wouldn’t last very long. Having faith in God and seeing the results of that faith demonstrates the powers of faith, not the powers of God.


(10) “If you believe that Jesus was the son of God, you will live forever.”

God is supposedly eternal, and therefore gives us hope that we won’t die. This is an assumption based on nothing more than wishful thinking. Metaphysical ideas (like God) will exist as long as there is thought, but that doesn’t mean anything is eternal, and it certainly doesn’t logically follow that human individuals are.

This whole idea of belief is vague. Jesus promises a lot to those who believe, but what degree of belief is acceptable to reap the rewards? I’ve never met a so-called believer who actually believes they can walk on water. Yet Jesus said if you believe and trust in him you literally can (Matthew 14:27-31 although the other versions leave this part out). Does that mean everyone who does not believe they can walk on water is going to hell? Again, Jesus said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” I’ve never met anybody who can move a mountain, so apparently nobody has the faith of the smallest seed. Suddenly heaven seems a pretty vacant place. (Read Kierkegaard for more on faith.) One hope is that nobody actually does believe Christianity and everybody’s just too afraid to admit it. But I wouldn’t want anyone to actually be living in fear….

I’m reminded of a modern parable that I heard a lot in high school: A teacher and a student are arguing the existence of God. The exasperated teacher takes an apple (tip-off that this story is untrue) off his desk and states, “If God can do anything, he can make this apple not hit the ground when I drop it.” The student retorts, “Yes, God can do that- but let me pray first.” The teacher happily agrees and the student prays, “Dear God, don’t let the apple hit the ground when he touches it- but more important than that, when the teacher releases the apple, strike him dead as punishment for his unbelief.” Shaken, the teacher carefully puts the apple back on his desk….

The point the teller of this parable always wants to make is the fact that he doesn’t drop the apple demonstrates the teacher’s belief was actually stronger than his unbelief. Well, then, is that as much belief as it takes for the teacher to get into heaven? Besides, this parable actually demonstrates the persuasive effectiveness of scare tactics and Christianity’s reliance upon it. I wish someone would try that with me- there would one smashed apple.


(11) “Jesus died for our sins.”

Let me attempt to make sense of this: The original humans sinned. (Sinning is doing something God doesn’t want you to do.) As punishment for sin, the original humans and their offspring have to eat food to sustain life and eventually die, and women, as an extra bonus punishment for sinning first, have to bear the pains of childbirth and be submissive to man. As the children of sinners, we bear the burden of their sins and have to attempt to not sin ourselves. As restitution for our sins and the sins of our ancestors and to prove our resolve to be obedient (not sin), God commanded us to sacrifice many animals in various ways, and promised to forgive and reward us with prosperity if we did so. But then, when the time was right, God impregnated Mary and she birthed a hybrid God/man child. (Wouldn’t you have loved to see what his DNA looked like? Luckily for Joseph they didn’t have DNA tests back then. But I’m sure he and Mary would have NEVER have had sex out of wedlock and tried to have covered it up by claiming an immaculate conception….) Being God’s son, Jesus was responsible for 50% less sin (Mary’s) than the rest of us (nobody’s ever explained that part). And he managed to do what no one had done before- he lived his entire life without sinning. Therefore he didn’t have to die! But (probably realizing the burden of having to spend eternity on Earth without sinning) he chose to give himself instead as a perfect human sacrifice, absolving future generations from having to perform the animal sacrifice stuff. Now all anyone has to do is accept Jesus’ gift in order to receive God’s forgiveness. Jesus also revealed that everyone will life forever in another existence after death, either in the happiness of heaven if we believe that Jesus is God’s son or the torture of hell if we don’t. (Too bad God didn’t have a God/daughter child who didn’t have to die but instead chose to do so under the excruciating pain of childbirth in order to save future generations of women from having to go through it.)

I will grant that the basic metaphysical premise of Christianity is plausible, except for the Christian claim that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God since that is an absurd statement in opposition to the laws of mathematics. But it is no more plausible than any other religion and much less plausible than there being no supernatural being intervening to, among other things, grant us eternal life after we die. Conjecture on the metaphysical (things that happen in an existence other than ours) must forever remain conjecture. In this regard, religion is much like a movie. In order to find enjoyment and make judgments about a movie, first you must accept the basic premise of the movie, even if that premise does not exist in our reality. It is only fair to grant the metaphysical assumptions of the movie’s reality.

Christianity, like anything, can only be demonstrably plausible in relation to its physical claims, logical consistency and hypocrisy. In other words, the ways in which any religion fails to follow Laws of physics and nature, logically contradicts itself or promotes behavior in opposition to it teachings generate skepticism regarding its validity. Since the supernatural, by definition, is not subject to the constraints of the Laws of physics and nature, supernatural claims made in religions are excused from having to follow these Laws. However, religion has no grounds for excusing itself from being logically consistent or sincere.


(12) “The Bible must be true because all of its prophecies were fulfilled or will be fulfilled.”

What other options have you left? “Will be fulfilled” is an optimistic way of saying “haven’t been fulfilled.” Said another way, the fact that the phrase is a tautology is made clear: “Either all of the Bible’s prophecies have been fulfilled or they haven’t.”

Using the Bible to prove its own stories, such as the stories of prophecies being fulfilled, is circular. It’s akin to using A. Conan Doyle’s books to prove that all of Sherlock Holmes’ deductions were correct. Of course Holmes always solved the mystery- the author wrote it that way!


(13) “The Bible must be true because its stories are verified by the historical record.”

Christians will claim “proofs” in archeological digs, such as finding collapsed walls surrounding the city of Jericho. One function of all religions is to explain our environment. It should not be surprising that there was a city with collapsed walls when the book was written; the story was most likely created as a means to explain how the walls had fallen. They wouldn’t have written about Jericho having collapsed walls if it didn’t have collapsed walls because that wouldn’t have made any sense. In the same way, there would not be a Biblical explanation for the existence of rainbows if rainbows did not existence. The existence of rainbows does not verify the story of the Great Flood any more than the existence of the sun verifies the story of the Phoenix.

Hypocritically, Christians deny the legitimacy of all archeological evidence which contradicts it. Of course, according to the Bible, the universe is approximately six-thousand years old, so they have to ignore a lot of archeological evidence. Most Biblical claims are not verified by the historical record.


(14) “The God of Christianity is Just.”

Consider the Christian claim that God will reward those who believe in him and punish those who don’t. Punishment is too light a word, for God will supposedly torture for eternity all with the audacity to do something as minor as refuse to believe Jesus was his son. In order to be just, the punishment for breaking any law must be fair, or appropriately balanced with the infraction.

There is a typical Christian defense that the punishment is so high simply because the command is so easy to follow. First, the claim of simplicity is not true. As evidence of our belief the God of Christianity demands that we give our entire existence, aka everything we have, over to him. Second, the logic is absurd as far as any application of justice is concerned. If anyone were to demand that we do something simple, for example sign a blank piece of paper, and we refused, would it be just for him to torture us, and claim that the torture is justified because what he has asked of us was so simple?

Suppose there were a ruler who hid in a castle and never allowed himself to be seen by anyone. He surreptitiously gave his orders to messengers who had full power to enforce those commands. Now, if one of those orders was to torture all who didn’t believe the ruler had a son, would anyone call that just? Why should anybody be expected to believe in something for which there was, at best, circumstantial evidence, let alone be punished for not doing so? For example, would it be just for anybody, no matter how omniscient they were, to torture all who do not believe in evolution? What benefit is it for the ruler to remain in hiding, when he is perfectly capable of physically revealing himself?

On top of that, can any dictatorship, for that is what God’s supposed method of command is, ever be just? To control everybody’s fate without ever giving any subjects any voice in that fate other than whether we live to serve him and be rewarded or not and be tortured is surely unjust.


(15) “Natural disasters occur because if there were no bad things, we wouldn’t appreciate good things.”

This is problematic on my levels. First, it is a great example of an illusory answer which is in fact a claim unrelated to the problem. Second, the claim itself is contrary to Biblical teachings. Personally, I do not concede that good and bad even exist, but I will refrain from positing this point of view, as it is irrelevant for my rebuttal, and resist the temptation of putting the words in quotation marks.

This claim that bad things exist so that good things can be appreciated does in no way necessitate natural disasters. There are an infinite number of other ways in which humans can realize the concepts of better and worse. Many people have never been in a natural disaster, and I am sure they frequently encounter relatively good and bad experiences. The claim would only be applicable as an explanation for natural disasters if natural disasters were the only bad things that happened.

Second, the Bible makes it very clear that natural disasters occur as punishments or tests for us from God. Although disaster usually befalls the wicked, God sometimes sees the necessity for his punishments to be inflicted upon innocent bystanders. As an example (not natural disaster related), when Achan kept some loot from the battle of Jericho (in which they killed every living thing except Rahab and her family (Judges 6:21, 25)) instead of putting it in God’s treasury, God allowed thirty-six Israelites to be killed in a failed attack on the city of Ai as punishment. (They then stoned Achan, ambushed Ai, burned it to the ground, killed all twelve thousand men and women, took the livestock and plundered the goods.) (Judges 6:24, 7-8:29) According to the Bible, evil comes from man (I grant that natural disasters caused by human pollution could Biblically be considered evil), and God is only good. All of God’s punishments and tests are good for us because it rids the world of wickedness and we learn from them (although it’s too late for the victims of course).

Third, since there is no bad in the eternal paradise set aside for the righteous, by the criteria of the claim, they won’t be able to appreciate its goodness. Heaven will be mediocre, I guess. Perhaps that’s unfair, as the splendor of heaven will be obvious in relation to their lives on earth, but it seems after a few hundred-thousand years the 90 or so years on this earth and its tribulations will be forgotten.


(16) “The God of Christianity is a God of Love.”

Christians have a great way of defining terms so that they can create a tautology- a self-defining redundancy. One of the most used is as follows: “God is love; therefore everything God does is out of love.” Case closed. What of our concept of love? According to Christians, that is irrelevant, because only God, being love, truly understands what love is.

If we cannot trust our own idea of love, we are left to follow God’s example, since everything he does must be out of love since he is love. Let’s view his actions, shall we? He destroyed every living thing except what could fit on an Ark once. He advocates genocide of all but the Jews on many occasions and completely wipes out several races because they follow opposing religions or occupy land that he arbitrarily and unjustifiably gives to the Israelites. He’s perfectly willing to rain sulfer on cities for being immoral. He’s happy to let Satan (since Satan has no power except what God gives him, Satan is really God’s hit-man) completely ruin one man’s life (including killing his wife and children) just to show off that the idiot will continue to follow him in spite of it. His policy is to reward only those “children” who obey him and punish the descendants up to seven generations of those who don’t. Did I already mention the whole torture for eternity thing?

It follows then, if we are to love as God has loved us, we should act according to his examples. Suddenly mass murderers who claim to be acting on behalf of God seem pretty sane. It seems the greatest conquerors in human history are the most loving. Our ideas of love granting unconditional acceptance and being fair, forgiving and understanding are apparently completely wrong.

Perhaps the most deceitful of Christianity’s teachings is that we are incapable of understanding love! Even a cursory understanding of the word should reveal God knows little of it. Although the Bible rarely explicates the attributes of love, certainly passages that do, such as 1 Corinthians 13, condemn God’s actions as unloving. Instead of eternally torturing those who disobey him, a loving God should simply forgive us unconditionally (1 Cor. 13:5). Any reading of the scriptures, no matter how liberal an interpretation, exhibits God as an all-insecure psychopath who on the first day should have created himself a therapist.

Many Christians claim to follow Christianity because their God is so kind and loving. That is really bizarre to me. I would never promote any religion nor grant that any god can be truly loving in light of god’s lack of intervention in times of crisis, but if you want to follow a loving monotheistic god you should probably look into Sikhism.


(17) “Forget all that Old Testament stuff; follow the teachings of Jesus instead.”

Christians claim their belief in Jesus frees them from having to follow the Old Testament laws and instead follow a whole new set of rules and regulations that the early Apostles came up with and recorded in the New Testament. This does not seem consistent, and there is no acceptable explanation for God changing his laws. Doesn’t it make more sense to follow the commands and mimic the behavior of God himself than some human claiming to be his son or his followers? Did Jesus come to reveal that God had decided to turn over a new leaf and start behaving more justly and lovingly? No, because “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Jesus himself said he came to fulfill the Scriptures, not rewrite them.

Jesus’ teachings are generally a bunch of empty promises giving the oppressed false hope that everything’s going to work out in their favor in the end. For him, the greatest command is to love God and the second is to love everybody else. That seems to justify God’s tendency to love himself first and humans (or Jews in the Old Testament) second. Jesus was fond of tedious parables, which allow him to express his sense of justice without committing to or guaranteeing anything.

Jesus is violent toward hypocrisy and his version of hell is a ferocious addition that doesn’t really appear in the Old Testament. His assumption that humans are often being controlled by demons is certainly not in the Old Testament. I will never get why Jesus insists that sex, except heterosexual monogamous sex, is a bad thing. (Polygamy was okay according to the Old Testament.) What could possibly be intrinsically bad about consensual sex? Although this is a personal opinion and in no way a solid argument since objectivity is impossible for humans, it’s hard to trust the omniscience of a being whose sense of morality seems arbitrary and not objective. (Old Testament law forbids such things as eating pigs, wearing clothes made of mixed fibers and men being around women during their period.)

The teachings of the apostles are also a bunch of hogwash. Paul was the foremost instigator of Christianity. I honestly don’t get how people can read his stuff and not be offended. His letters usually spew false hope, demand faith (aka gullibility) and perseverance (aka stubborn ignorance), promote love (Christianity talks about love all the time- but that doesn’t make the religion a loving one), extol the virtues of celibacy (e.g. 1 Thessalonians) and celebrate submissiveness, especially in regard to women and slaves (e.g. Titus).

Paul’s first of two highly boastful and propaganda-filled letters to Timothy gives a brief but typical overview of his teachings. In it, he personally claims to have handed others to Satan for punishment (1 Tim. 1), reminds to submit to authority (1 Tim. 2), explicates how women, being inferior, should behave, saying their only virtue is childbearing, and explains why (1 Tim. 2), gives savvy political advice regarding Church leaders (1 Timothy 3), exhibits dubious generosity (1 Tim. 5), advocates heterosexual monogamy if only because it deters from “sensual desires (1 Tim 5), advocates slavery (1 Tim. 6) (but not the salve trade (1 Tim. 1)), encourages the rich to be generous (presumably to the Church)(1 Tim. 6) and dismisses all who disagree with anything Paul says as being a conceited idiot (1 Tim. 6).

Paul’s short letter to Philemon is shocking. It discusses the future of Onesimus, who is Philemon’s slave that apparently ran away from Philemon and then joined Paul. Onesimus has apparently been a large help to Paul, and Paul himself would prefer to keep Onesimus, but it is time for him to face his wrongdoing and return to Philemon. Paul asks Philemon, as a favor, to be nice to Onesimus and accept him as his slave again. (Paul euphemistically prefers not to think of Onesimus as a slave but a “brother,” and hopes Philemon will do the same, as if that matters.) Paul is generously willing to make recompense for any and all wrongs Onesimus’ has done Philemon, but then Paul reminds Philemon that actually Philemon owes him money, and pressures him to pay it back, even going so far as threatening Philemon with a personal visit. (Old Testament law forbids loans.) I prefer to believe that, as in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, upon Onesimus’ return to Philemon, Philemon beat him to death.


(18) “That verse is no longer applicable.”

The Bible itself says “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training….” Of course this verse lacks credibility, because the often used tactic of using what the Bible says to prove that the Bible is true is circular logic, aka illogical. But Christians generally find it acceptable to throw out verses they no longer feel are relevant, such as the New Testament insistence that women are inferior and meant to serve men (1 Cor. 11:7-16, 1 Tim. 2:9-15, Eph 5:22-33, Col. 3:18, Titus 2:3-5, 1 Peter 3:1-7, etc.), and I dare say many Christians have thrown most of them out. If the Bible is unreliable, what does Christianity have to rely on?


(19) “You’re misinterpreting that verse because this verse says….”

That one verse is in opposition with another does not cancel out whichever is inconvenient, but demonstrates inconsistencies still present in verses which went through hundreds of years of editing (the Dead Sea Scrolls are irrefutable proof of this). All Christians claim the Bible doesn’t contradict itself, which makes me wonder whether any of them have actually read any of it. For instance, the first four books of the New Testament all deal will the same topic- the life of Jesus. I challenge anybody to try and create one consistent chronology for Jesus which precisely follows the events of all four books. I’ve tried it- it can’t be done because there are far too many contradictions between the books. I could compile a more thorough list of contradictions in the Bible, including topics such as freedom, knowledge, criteria for salvation and forgiveness, but that seems unnecessarily tedious. After all, doesn’t there only need to be one in order for the Bible to lose credibility? Besides, in an earlier blog I listed inconsistencies between the Old and New Testaments. And need I again mention the endless hypocrisy in the Bible, in which what it teaches vastly differs from the behavior it applauds?

In my opinion the whole point of breaking the Bible up into chapters and verses is to make it easier to highlight certain verses and ignore others. It provides a convenient method of being able to edit according to contemporary opinion. It also allows verses to be taken conveniently out of context. Also, it is common practice, for instance when trying to convert a non-believer, to mention verses from many different books which all relate and seemingly refer to each other, giving the false impression that the Bible is consistent while highlighting the positive and neglecting to mention verses which might prove “problematic.”

The Bible contains a lot of poorly written and worse organized books. The only detailed accounts of God’s laws are Leviticus and Deuteronomy in the Old Testament (and the most extensive accounts of New Testament teachings are Romans and 1 Corinthians), which should make them the most important books in the Bible. The rest is chronology, history, stories of God’s people, hastily scribbled letters from believers and rants from Kings and prophets. Most of these act to contextualize and legitimize why God’s laws should be followed, praise God and demonstrate God’s powers. Others will laud the Bible’s consistency despite the fact that it was written by many authors in three languages over thousands of years. Don’t buy their excuses! Why couldn’t a supposedly omniscient God figure out how to efficiently deliver an accurate account of history and consistent set of rules to “his people” in an easy-to-read and understand fashion? The many Christian denominations would not exist if the Bible were clear, consistent and succinct.


(20) “I don’t have all the answers- but God does.”

I have never met a Jehovah’s Witness who did not use this one. They will also mention that “The Elders” would be better fit to answer my questions. Of course, the so-called elders are never available for house calls. (I would love for all who find my questions legitimate, compelling or infuriating to forward them to any religious leaders.) Believe me, I’ve never asked for all the answers. In fact, the statement always comes after I have just provided them with a plausible answer that they are simply unwilling to accept. I empathize with their options of admitting everything they believe is a lie or excusing their own ignorance; I’ve been there myself.

If you’re willing to admit you don’t know what you’re talking about, then why are you going around to houses trying to convince others of things you don’t know about? Millions of people expend a lot of energy trying to convince or force others that Christianity is the one true religion without having any knowledge of it outside of a few catch phrases. The religion continues to spread like wildfire. Why is critical thought so difficult for human beings and conformity so easy?


(21) “The God of Christianity is the only God that came to earth as a human being.”

First, in most religions, the god or gods come visit earth in human or animal form. At the moment, I can’t think of a religion where this hasn’t occurred, so the claim is completely ignorant.

Second, Jesus can hardly be considered human. He certainly didn’t have a typical human experience. I would be a pretty happy-go-lucky guy if, whenever I needed money, I could pull it out of the mouth of a fish, turn water into wine or feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. This guy is more of a super-hero out of a comic book than a human, yet we’re supposed to be eternally indebted to him just because he has to undergo a couple hours of torture. There are thousands of people who have undergone years of torture and have gotten no respect. Upon realizing even he can’t save himself from death, Jesus realizes everything he has believed has been a lie and openly admits his so-called father has betrayed him. I would love for anyone who thinks any believer can perform any of Jesus’ miracles to go into the deep ocean to demonstrate his walking-on-water trick for me.


(22) “Jesus is the only person/God that rose from the dead.”

Resurrection has been a recurrent religious theme for millennia, and accounts of people/deities rising from the dead can be found in ancient Egyptian (for example Osiris), Babylonian and Canaanite religions, all of which influenced Judaism. As humans, we encounter many examples of death and rebirth on daily and yearly cycles in nature, so to say that the idea of a person rising from the dead is not original or clever is an understatement.

In college, I encounterd this guy who insisted Jesus’ resurrection must be true because too many people witnessed it for to it have been a lie. He could not conceive an incentive for so many to have lied about it. All four accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, including the names and numbers of witnesses, vary drastically, which is reason enough not to believe it. In all accounts, Mary Magdalene is the first or among the first to discover the empty tomb (in Matthew she’s with another Mary, in Mark there are three women, in Luke it’s the two Marys “and others” and in John Mary Magdalene is alone). The women had an incentive to persuade the men that Jesus had risen from the dead- they were all moping around. In Matthew (but not the other versions), a guard or guards (it can’t even be consistent for 5 verses) prevent anyone from stealing the body. Even if Mary Magdalene was alone she had a very obvious method of persuading some guys to help move the rock away from the entrance and then not talk about it; she was a prostitute after all. The versions differ vastly in how the disciples see Jesus, but in all versions he is unrecognizable at least to some. It seems confusing that they can’t recognize someone they’ve been hanging out with for years- he wouldn’t have decomposed that much in three days and it’s counter-productive (but not inconsistent for God) to appear in an unrecognizable form to demonstrate his existence. Certainly Mary Magdalene could have “hired” a look-alike to hang around for a few days and pretend to be Jesus. Obviously these guys are gullible, since they’ve been following Jesus around doing his bidding. Perhaps his unrecognizability is why Jesus passes on a great opportunity to march back to Pontius Pilate or whoever and say “ta da!” Two of the four books have no explanation for what happened to Jesus after he rose from the dead.


(23) “You will not be happy unless you are a Christian.”

All humans, Christians and non-Christians, struggle with finding the idea that we call “happiness.” Many humans, Christians and non-Christians, find happiness. Others don’t. That’s life. I will grant that the delusions provided by Christianity, including a sense of assurance and the teaching that suffering is a good thing, contribute toward human happiness. After all, happiness is unattainable without delusion. Christianity also offers a sense of community which is very lacking elsewhere in American society.

I will admit to being suckered by the Prodigal son bit as a teenager- that if you desert your “father” you’ll be miserable and eventually return, begging for forgiveness. This is simply another Christian scare tactic. I cannot testify (as they say) enough how much happier my life has been since those days, although obviously I’m far from the only American who was a miserable teenager (and therefore don’t solely blame Christianity for any unhappiness).


By the way, no bolt of lightning is going to strike anybody down for blasphemy either. (Zap!)

Parallel Parking

As much as I enjoy making fun of those who can’t Parallel Park, it’s time to teach you how it’s done. If you don’t understand how to operate a motorized vehicle, you shouldn’t be in one. Failure to Parallel Park demonstrates a lack of spatial awareness, an inability to understand turning radius and ignorance of mirrors, among other things. I have successfully parked into spots no more than two feet longer than my station wagon (which is missing its passenger side-view mirror, the most useful mirror when parallel parking) using the following method:




First, line your back bumper up with the back bumper of the car in front of the space you want to get into (Figure A).









Put your car in reverse. Turn your steering wheel to the right, but not too sharply, and back up, looking behind you (Figure B). As you reverse, you will gradually increase the sharpness of the wheel turning radius.




The most common parallel parking mistake is to turn the wheel too sharply so that you end up parking perpendicular instead of parallel (Figure B.1).







While backing up, keep your car as close as possible to the rear left corner of the car in front of the parking spot. Next comes the most crucial step. At the appropriate time, turn the wheel to the left slightly more than what it was turned to the right (Figure C). The time will vary in relation to car length, but on my station wagon it is approximately when the unhinged end of the passenger door is in line with the rear bumper of the car in front of the spot. If you do this too early, your car will end up too far from the curb. If you do this too late, you will again end up too perpendicular.





As you continue to keep the rear left corner of the front car close, increase the sharpness of the wheel until the right side of your front bumper just barely clears the front car with your wheel turned as sharp as it goes (Figure D). Continue backing with the front wheel turned to the left as sharp as it goes until you are close to and parallel with the curb. Then normally all you need to do is straighten the wheel and pull forward until you are centered between the two parked cars (because you should be closer to the car behind you). Your rear right tire should never hit the curb, although in my obsession with getting as close to the curb as possible, the side of my tire will often graze it. If your rear end starts to swing away from the curb before your front end is close enough to it, you'll have to straighten the wheel some and make a mental note that you either didn't turn the wheel to the right sharp enough (Fig. B) or turned the wheel to the left too soon (Fig. C). In a tight spot, you will have to stop short of parallel to the curb to prevent the left side of your rear bumper from hitting the car behind you (although I will always argue that’s what bumpers are for). In that case, turn the wheel sharply to the right and pull forward. This will straighten you out and center you. If it doesn't, you probably didn't turn the wheel sharp enough at some point or the spot is too small for you to fit into. Finally, curb the wheel appropriately if you’re on a hill.

I do not subscribe to the “sawing” method, in which you keep going forward and back in an attempt to inch yourself closer to the curb (although you might have to do this to get out of the spot), unless it's to make a very minor adjustment. If you didn’t do it right the first time, it's much easier to just return to the position in Figure A and start over.

Under normal circumstances, all of this should take less than ten seconds in a car. Obviously a van will take longer.

Objectivity

I will grant the Kantian principle of a priori phenomena, or things that are self-evident outside of experience and therefore objectifiable. I also grant that it is prudent to treat things and a "moral imperative" to treat others that subjectively seem to exist as if they objectively exist. But because every thought must come from a unique and therefore subjective perspective, nothing objective, or existing in reality regardless of any subjective perspective, can ever be known to exist. While Kant made substantial ground in attempting to refute this claim (in part by concluding that space and time are knoweable because they are synthetic a priori, or essential for knowledge), philosophers such as Hegel and political ideas like democracy, which rely on the outright assumption that objective thought is attainable, elude me. There are no such things as absolute knowledge or unbiased opinions.

Everything alive has an experience, and that experience is subjective. It need not be aware that it is experiencing, but all actions and reactions are individual (subjective) experiences. If a thing is not having any experience, it is not alive. Experience is limited to sensation. Awareness, or thought, is the ability to abstract from sensation. Thought influences further sensation in varying degrees. Every subject, or individual, because it has a unique perspective (placement in space and time), has unique sensations and therefore unique thoughts. It is impossible to extrapolate anything truly objective from experience, and it is impossible to extrapolate another’s subjectivity from your subjectivity. Language is organized thought, which can be communicated to others through symbolism. A codified system of symbolic representation can be taught/learned, but all symbols are always translated by each individual subjectively. There can be no shared or collective thought.

Anything perceived as being objective is done so only by conjecture. An individual cannot even know if it objectively exists. (In the old days this was exemplified with “The problem of the brain in the vat” but now it’s epitomized by The Matrix.)

In the same way, existence, or life, gives no objective meaning for itself. Subjectively, an individual’s priorities, preferences and prejudices simultaneously influence and reveal whatever meaning that individual has projected onto life. The diversity of individual interests, pursuits and import demonstrates meaning can be found in anything. It seems the only necessity for finding meaning in something is genuine participation in that thing. (Savvy readers will recognize this as a major tenet of Existentialism.) If we are to apply Kant’s moral imperative, then that imperative must include that we allow everybody to genuinely participate in existence.

Sounds

Three drummers, Bill Stewart, Matt Wilson and Tony Oxley, opened my eyes to my interest in using the drums for making sounds as opposed to playing conventional rhythms.

In 1995, I bought every John Scofield album on which Bill Stewart played (I think there are six) and Bill Stewart’s three solo albums. Bill is a very modern sounding drummer who fuses funk and jazz very successfully (in other words, he can play funk and jazz with equal conviction). At the time, I was hanging out with two drummers, Roy and Phil, and both of them were very funk-groove oriented players with what we drummers call “deep pockets.” Roy applied his playing toward a jazz context, and Phil drummed in a rock (and later blues and country) style. I realized the advantages of being able to lay down a simple 4/4 funk groove, but, alas, I could cop an Elvin-esque swing, but never a convincing deep funk groove. When I found out Bill Stewart grew up in Des Moines and that we both studied with the same drum teacher (Woody Smith) in high school, I became optimistic that I could find my inner groove. So I listened and listened, but what inspired me most about Bill Stewart were his excellent sounding ride cymbal and this sound he made every so often that sounded like a metallic “boi-oinNNG!”

For some years, I went around to drummers and music stores and asked, “Do you know how to make a boing sound that raises in pitch on a cymbal?” Nobody knew what I was talking about. (The best guess was by hitting a cymbal and dunking it in water- a technique employed by Stravinsky.) Eventually I saw Bill play and discovered he had a small metal object that he’d put on the floor tom and get it to make that sound. This inspired me to experiment to see what sounds I could cull out of various objects (with the hope of stumbling across the boing sound). Because of this, my entire perspective on drumming changed- instead of developing the technical methods of hitting drums with drumsticks, I began intensely listening to the various sounds things made, both when struck in different ways and through discovering infinite methods besides striking that evoked sounds from objects.

In those days, I went to every single jazz show that came to my university. Most of them did not cost anything. That is how, in 1997, I saw Matt Wilson play. He had a looser, swingier, more laid-back approach than Bill. But when he pulled out a string of metal beads (which are normally used as pull cords on overhead light switches) and played his drumset with them, he blew me away. The random way in which the beads hit all the drumset, including the stands and shells, sounded fantastic. Interestingly, he played on the same night as my university’s jazz band try-outs, and I had to leave the gig early to get to the competition. It would be impossible to relay how humiliating of an experience the try-out was. The times in which I have drummed poorly are not few, but this must have been some of the worst drumming by any human in all of history. I worked nights back then, and suffice it to say I went straight from the try-out to work and cried through most of my ten hour shift.

Before the ill-fated jazz try-outs, I had been practicing various musical styles, because I knew that the try-outs consisted of “Play a swing pattern,” “Play a samba pattern,” etc. After that, I more or less gave up on trying to play in any style. Initially, I stuck to mostly hitting the drums with sticks and keeping things rhythmic, or at least polyrhythmic. In fact, I delved pretty deep into polyrhythm before I could truly embrace arthythm.

Upon moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000 with the goal of becoming an audio engineer and producer, I predictably visited all the music shops around and soon discovered Clarion Music in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It is jam-packed with every imaginable gong, and, acting on what was still an educated hunch, I asked the owner if he had any small gongs that went “boi-oinNNG!” He immediately showed me the two Chinese Opera gongs. He played the smaller one, and to my astonishment, it made the sound I had been seeking for all those years without any trick at all- you simply hit it in the middle with a mallet. Traditionally, it is paired with its larger brother, which goes “BOOw-ooo-oo!” (I have since gotten really into Chinese Opera, which is truly sublime.) Clarion Music has at least one-hundred of each of these gongs, and with permission and after putting on some gloves, I literally played every single of the smaller ones they had, sorting them into “Yes” “No” and “Maybe” piles but eventually buying the one I dared not put in any pile lest I forget where it was.

Perhaps finally solving Bill Stewart’s mystery sound allowed me to become intrigued by another mystery sound. This time it came from Tony Oxley, whom I initially discovered through John McLaughlin’s “Extrapolation” album, in which I was impressed by his phenomenal polyrhythmic playing and use of his left foot. (It’s hard to relay the attraction of a good left foot to a non-drummer, but Papa Jo Jones, Jack DeJohnette and Paul Motion’s left feet are all also very influential to me.) But in seeking out more Oxley (through whom I thankfully discovered Cecil Taylor), I fell in love with a squeaky, nails-on-a-blackboard type sound he often incorporates seamlessly into his playing. I thought it was made by rubbing a bow across a cymbal, so I went to a very helpful violin store with a couple cymbals and bought a bass bow. Today I never play a gig without that bow, because there always seems to be a moment in a song where I am at a loss as to what to play if I am without it, but it soon became apparent that that was not actually the way Tony makes his sound. He simply rubs the tip of stick across a cymbal, a technique my friend Scott Looney was very gracious in helping me work out.

I think my realization that I was actually more interested in making noises I find interesting than in playing the drums conventionally can be traced to a gig at the De Anza Hotel in San Jose in late 2003 or early 2004. I played a monthly gig in the bar area there with Eddie Gale for a couple years, and once my parents came to see me and paid for a room for me so I didn’t have to drive home after the gig. (I had started playing with Eddie at a weekly free jazz workshop in 2000, and he had played with such greats as Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra. We played a sort of free form post-bop.) I don’t remember anything about that particular gig, but I do remember spending the next hour turning the lights in the bathroom in the hotel room on and off, fascinated by the tinkling sound they made and convinced it was the single greatest sound I had ever heard. It occurred to me then that none of my favorite sounds had anything to do with hitting things with drumsticks. When I thought of sounds I loved, I thought of playing Hungry-Hungry Hippos, Ker-plunk, jacks and Yahtzee as a kid. I thought of the light sabers in Star Wars. I thought of those plastic lassos that hum when you whirl them over your head (which John Zorn made a wonderful song with on his “Music for Children Vol. 1”). I thought of smacking those plastic covered wires that run to the ground from telephone poles. The hum of the drinking fountain next to Mr. Leach’s room….

It’s interesting to me now that most of my introduction to noise and found object playing was indirect, as percussionists have been doing it for millennia; in fact the invention of the “traps” (drumset) was a direct result of making many noisemakers, sound effects and contraptions easily accessible in theatre pits. I spent the next several years discovering lots of drummers, including Paul Lytton, Vladimir Tarasov, Han Bennink, John Stevens, Malachi Favors and Milford Graves, who incorporate tons of interesting sounds and “effects” into their drumming, and others, such as Gino Robair, Karen Stackpole and Toshi Makihara, whose drumming usually relies exclusively on making interesting sounds.

In August of 2004, I performed my weekly routine of driving to San Jose for two to three hours in rush hour traffic, hauling my drums a half block into a practice room at San Jose State, playing for two hours with Eddie and whoever else showed up, packing my drums back up and hauling them home. On that particular evening, I spent the majority of the time playing a disco beat while three electric guitar players noodled endlessly in what must have sounded like an outtake from The Grateful Dead’s “Terrapin Station.” Afterwards I mentioned that I didn’t particularly like what we had played, and Eddie irritatedly pointed out that that was the kind of stuff you had to play if you wanted to make any money in this business. I retorted that I’d rather work at McDonald’s than make money playing music I didn’t like. That statement got me fired from Eddie’s paying gigs, which mercifully ended my attempt at a drumming career. Eddie was right- and so was I.