James Younger The Babylon Bee satire website has been on fire lately with any number of hilarious articles such as this or that poking fun at the transgender "issue." I'm guessing they've decided it's better to laugh than cry at what seems to be a growing collective insanity. Once upon a time, I tried to show compassion for the transgender crowd because a social media "friend" who was a biological male but also claimed to be a hermaphrodite had convinced me that he was born that way and had transitioned to become female because he felt more like a she. Because I tend to be a somewhat sympathetic person and didn't want to be labeled transphobic I gave that person the benefit of the doubt, only to eventually see my good will abused and personal religious beliefs attacked. I've always tried to get along with other people and try to show respect for their opinions. I'm also cognizant of the fact I'm not always right, and the possibility exists that I can learn from people with whom I currently disagree. Therefore, my approach to friendship on social media to this point has pretty much been "anything goes." Personally, I'm pretty conservative in my politics, and a Christian according to my faith. But I have "Facebook" friends who are atheists, devout Christians, liberal, conservative, gay, straight, you name it...basically if you want to be my friend, all you have to do is ask. We don't have to agree; we only have to be willing to listen to each other. The scientific facts in regard to the transgender phenomena are rather simple, straight-forward, and inarguable: … [Read more...]
When snowflakes melt
I have this serious love/hate relationship with social media. I love staying in contact with family and friends scattered all over the world. But social media can be a horrific waste of my time, and I don't think of myself as retired or ready to die. As the poet Robert Frost famously wrote, "But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep." I am self-employed as a writer. If I don't sell a book or a short story, I don't earn any income. If I waste hours upon hours each day engaged in asinine, juvenile arguments with presumably adult men and women about religion, politics, or Georgia Bulldog football, I'm wasting hours of precious time that should be dedicated to my work. Earlier this year I threatened to quit Facebook entirely, having purged my Twitter account, with the idea that I would focus all of my attention on professional work, instead of writing for fun or worse, arguing with somebody who has assumed they know more about a subject than I do. However, publishers in this digital era of mass communications expect writers to develop and maintain a social media presence. To my eternal surprise, my wife also opposed a permanent self-imposed ban from Facebook, even though I did manage to delete my membership from all the large forums where most of the arguments seemed to take place. This left me in a bit of a quandary. Could I remain on social media, without getting sucked into a black hole of absurd arguments? The challenge may not be insurmountable, but it has certainly proved to be formidable. Today has been a prime example of why I "hate" … [Read more...]
Why I hate the NCAA
It can't be personal, because I don't personally know anybody who works for the NCAA, but I hate the organization as a whole because it reminds me so much of our federal government: it is a bloated bureaucracy that seems to exist only for making bizarre, arbitrary, and confusing decisions with enormous power over student-athletes, and zero accountability for those decisions. Don't believe me? Go to the NCAA website and try to figure out how to ask a person responsible for athlete eligibility a question. There aren't even any email addresses or phone numbers listed for their media resource contacts! What chance do you think a serious "blogger" might have getting his questions answered through the same NCAA media inquiry form used by an ESPN reporter? I'm guessing zero, but I went through the motions. For that reason, it was written on Monday but will be saved for publication until Tuesday, to give the NCAA an opportunity to respond. Though I don't expect the NCAA to even tell me the time of day, I'm going to follow the same protocol as any serious journalist and give the source an opportunity to respond before I rip them to shreds. The deadline came and went without my question answered: "Why was Luke Ford's appeal denied?" Oh, how do I hate the NCAA? Let me count the ways, using a baseball analogy to talk about football: Strike 1: Kolton Houston is forced by the NCAA to undergo elective surgery to remedy a doctor's mistake in order to become eligible to play for the University of Georgia. Houston received an injection by a doctor of a banned substance to … [Read more...]
The reality of miracles
Landen Hoffman About a month or so ago, my life dramatically improved after I basically stopped arguing with people on social media. First I announced that I was leaving Facebook entirely, only to have my wife talk me out of it, by surprise. But I did hold true to my promise to remove myself from all the "debate" forums where I wasted WAY too much of my life in ultimately fruitless conversations with people uninterested in reason and evidence when it might have an adverse effect on their current thinking. In fact, one of the most ridiculous arguments that I have had to deal with during my time spent as a Christian pugilist (never been very apologetic about my own thoughts and opinions) on the internet has been the claim by a few of the more outspoken atheists that miracles do not ever occur because God does not exist. It is ridiculous to argue about miracles because (a.) the definition of one is nebulous and (b.) people who don't believe in miracles can easily reject them as failing to meet their nonexistent criteria for one. To an atheist, a miracle probably requires them to see a physical manifestation of divine intervention, and even then they might dismiss their witness of a miracle as a hallucination their mind imagined because most atheists don't want to believe in God. Why would I say that? It sounds kind of harsh and judgmental, I suppose, but I said it because it is true. Atheists have made up their mind, and just like everybody else, they don't want to be wrong. This explains why there are so many atheists wasting their lives on social media arguing with … [Read more...]
The Jamaican national anthem
Jamaican national flag After writing about how impressed I was by Usain Bolt's show of respect for the U.S. national anthem, it dawned on me that I probably wouldn't recognize the Jamaican national anthem when I heard it. So I asked my search engine for the lyrics and was blown away by what I discovered. The Jamaican national anthem isn't merely a song. It's a beautiful, heartfelt prayer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIIhvOBQB_M Eternal Father, Bless our Land,Guard us with thy mighty hand,Keep us free from evil powers,Be our light through countless hours,To our leaders, great defender,Grant true wisdom from above,Justice, truth be ours forever,Jamaica, land we love,Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica, land we loveTeach us true respect for all,Stir response to duty’s call,Strengthen us the weak to cherish,Give us vision lest we perish,Knowledge send us Heavenly Father,Grant true wisdom from above,Justice, truth be ours forever,Jamaica, land we love,Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica, land we love It should come as no surprise that the author of that anthem was inspired by our Creator. From the looks of this picture, Jamaica could be mistaken for heaven on earth. … [Read more...]
