I've got good news and bad news

The bad news: this writer's strike is not going to be over soon, and it may not end very well.

The good news: Guinness really is good for you! Excellent.

Iconoclasm as Art: Debunking the Myth, or Why Liberal Hypocrisy Makes Me Want To Find The Nearest Sharpened Number 2 Pencil So I Can Poke My Eye Out

I love it when we are told what to think by those who would tell us not to tell them what to think.

This weekend the movie The Golden Compass opens. All seven of you who read this know that The Golden Compass is setting itself up to be the blockbuster of the holiday season and a trilogy the scope of The Lord of the Rings. The fundamental difference in the stories are the themes: LOTR being full of Christian themes and imagery, as well as being allegorical to spiritual warfare; and The Golden Compass, the story of children on a quest to kill God. It has gotten the attention of many religious groups, notably The Catholic League, who didn't even pay much attention to last year's film version of The DaVinci Code, but are calling for boycotts of this one.

None of this interested me, until recently. I mean, please, how many times are we gonna see some new piece of art or media decrying God, Jesus Christ, or Christianity? We are a frequent target for reasons that are obvious and frankly, I've been a little busy with other things lately. But two days ago I read an impassioned plea to the masses to go see this movie - which is "art ... meant to illicit thought and emotion" - in order to "support free speech and the arts, and most importantly your right to think" or, of no less importance, simply to "piss of the Catholic League" and all the other Christian "zealots" who are just like - THAT'S RIGHT KIDS - all the Muslim groups we "hate so much."

Now the author of this piece is a dear friend, and I do not begrudge him his right to his beliefs or his right to say them. I choose, therefore, to take issue with the paradigm at large. This is the grain of salt, served on a silver platter.

That said ... WHAT A CROCK!!!

I am so sick and tired of ignorance being tauted as intelligence simply because it is ANTI-CHRISTIAN. It is outrageous, first of all, to uphold something as "art" that one has never observed or interacted with, simply because it is evocative. Is it because it is a motion picture, which is a medium for artistic expression? Freddy Got Fingered is an evocative motion picture; is that art? Should we rent it tonight in order to illicit thought and emotion? I know, we need to support the arts. Well, guess what, what we need to do is support CREATIVITY. We need to support the RIGHT to freely create and communicate. But it is immoral to support everything that is created, if the creation stands in violation or opposition of what is good and right and true.

It is also mind-numbingly frustrating that the left is allowed to display such glaring hypocrisy. For example, as stated above, everyone needs to go see this movie! Go see it! It doesn't matter what it is about, who is in it, or if it has been well reviewed. It's pissing off the Catholics! They are just as bad as the terrorists! Go Go Go!

Hmmm ... sounds very emotional and irrational to go do something that you are completely ignorant about in order to feel good that you are furthering an agenda.

Reason and faith are not mutually exclusive. I suppose we all check our reason at the door in order to believe in things - not just spiritually, but through out life, just to get through certain seasons or situations. I think you'd have to check your reason at the door to believe that someone who lies about everything would never lie about one certain thing. I think you'd have to forget all logic in order to buy the line that someone is crazy simply because they write about sad things in a diary or journal. It takes faith to believe what feels safe and good; it takes reason and faith together to believe what is true. And the truth always comes out, and truth always prevails.

Like with our new favorite movie, The Golden Compass. I looks as if it might not do so well after all.

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/bob-shayes-big-gamble-wont-pay-off-golden-compass-looks-leaden-this-wkd/

Kahlil Gibran On Reason and Passion

And he answered saying:

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing;

And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.

Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say in silence, 'God rests in reason.'

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe, 'God moves in passion.'

And since you are a breath In God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.