This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.

Dear Conservatives

I know some of you are worried sick. I understand that you feel that God is being driven from our culture and strange customs are being tolerated and embraced: People are learning that sexual orientation is a varied spectrum of preferences rooted in genetics and not a binary conscious decision. Many people, even the President supports equal rights for all to marry and have families regardless of these preferences. Behaviors that used to be taboo are all over your televisions and are being generally accepted in mainstream society.

Women are in the workplace, they are moving into positions of power and they are seizing control of their reproductive systems and expressing their sexuality if/as they see fit. Even different races and ethnicities are mixing and demanding equal access to all areas of society. People are finding that the bedrock of family values is not sexual or ethinic composition but love, support and understanding.

Science education is dominated by the theories of the big bang and evolution by natural selection. Children are learning that the universe is 14 billion years old, the earth over 4 billion and that we evolved ultimately from single celled organisms and more recently from lower primate ancestors along with the other modern “great apes”. We’ve also learned that the balance of our world’s ecosystems is not static, but very much susceptible to the actions of humans. The Bible’s account of creation and balance has been completely usurped.

I can tell that some of you think this is some secular liberal plot to overthrow Christianity and force everyone to be gay atheist evolutionists. But I’m here to tell you, what you are witnessing is not some conspiracy to destroy America. It is simply that the earth is turning and time is rolling forward. The world is progressing and society is evolving. Populations are growing, science is uncovering the mysteries of the universe and humans are rethinking some of our more archaic beliefs and customs. The spread of technology is giving more people access to information that is naturally expanding their minds. It is a process that has been underway for all of human history and has indeed been met by opposition all along from those who were happy with the way things were and who saw change as decline and destruction.

I can understand why this is unsettling to an ideology that is dedicated to conserving tradition, one rooted in one book that was written before humans knew what a star was. But your efforts are futile, no matter how angry or violent your response, you can not stop the steady march of time and the tide of discovery. No matter how much shelter you find in your faith, the world around you is changing; It always has and always will. To stop this would amount to stopping the earth from spinning, or to resisting the invention of the wheel, resisting desegregation or rejecting heliocentrism. It turns out that the values that you see as objective and eternal are actually as subjective as “spicy” and “bland” and the knowledge that you seem to see as complete and everlasting is a constantly evolving body of human work. There is no war being waged on your values, no enemy in these developments but discovery itself, and if your beliefs are threatened by progress and discovery, perhaps they should be.

A failure to embrace these progressions will no doubt lead to further anger, fear and confusion amongst you as the changing world becomes a stranger and stranger place. Instead, smile and find joy and pride in human progress and discovery. Join us in welcoming tomorrow and whatever new knowledge it brings. You are invited.

Open-Minded Man Grimly Realizes How Much Life He’s Wasted Listening To Bullshit

teachthemhowtothink:

THIS IS FROM THE ONION - IT IS SATIRE.  Hilariously accurate, but satire.  :-)  ~JJ

CLEVELAND—During an unexpected moment of clarity Tuesday, open-minded man Blake Richman was suddenly struck by the grim realization that he’s squandered a significant portion of his life listening to everyone’s bullshit, the 38-year-old told reporters.

A visibly stunned and solemn Richman, who until this point regarded his willingness to hear out the opinions of others as a worthwhile quality, estimated that he’s wasted nearly three and a half years of his existence being open to people’s half-formed thoughts, asinine suggestions, and pointless, dumbfuck stories.

“Jesus Christ,” said Richman, taking in the overwhelming volume of useless crap he’s actively listened to over the years. “My whole life I’ve made a concerted effort to give people a fair shake and understand different points of view because I felt that everyone had something valuable to offer, but it turns out most of what they had to offer was complete bullshit.”

“Seriously,” Richman added, “what have I gained from treating everyone’s opinion with respect? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

According to Richman, it was just now hitting him how many hours of his life he’s pissed away listening intently to nonsense about celebrity couples, how good or bad certain pens are, and why a particular sports team might have a chance this year. The husband and father of two said that every time he’s felt at all put out or bored by a bullshit conversation—especially a speculative one about how bad allergy season was going to be—he should have just turned around, walked away, and gone rafting or rappelling or done any of the millions of other things he’s always wanted to do but never thought he had time for.

At various points throughout the day, Richman could be heard muttering to himself that he couldn’t believe he was almost 40 years old.

“Twenty minutes here, 10 minutes there. It all starts to add up,” said Richman, who sat down and figured out that between stupid discussions about favorite baby names and reviews of restaurants in cities he’ll never visit, he’d wasted 390 hours of his life. “And you know what the worst part is? It’s my fault. Here I thought being considerate to others by always listening patiently to what they had to say was the right thing to do. Well, fuck me, right?”

According to Richman, he started thinking about how much time he’s flushed down the toilet being an approachable person after a work meeting in which he let a coworker, David Martin, ramble on and on with an idea everyone knew was “total shit” the moment the man opened his mouth. Richman said that a single glance at the clock made him realize he had just spent 14 minutes of his finite time on earth not playing with his kids or being with his wife, but listening to garbage.

“It was like I stepped out of my body and saw myself actually listening to this man’s worthless drivel—but it wasn’t him who looked like a moron, it was me,” Richman said. “I was nodding my head like an asshole and saying ridiculous things like, ‘Right,’ and, ‘I see your point, Dave,’ when I should have just said, ‘Dave, your idea isn’t good and you are wasting our time and you need to shut up right now.’”

By his estimates, Richman’s receptiveness has resulted in 160 irreplaceable hours of listening to grossly uninformed political opinions, 300 hours of carefully hearing out both sides of pointless arguments, and at least a month of listening to his parents’ bullshit about how important it is to be open-minded.

Eighty days have been wasted on the inane blather of his college friend Brian alone.

“All those hours I could have been relaxing, or reading all these great books, or getting into shape, or working on side projects that I’m really excited about,” Richman said. “But instead I’ve been listening to overrated albums recommended to me by my asshole friends.”

“Did you know that in my life I’ve listened to five days’ worth of people talking about their furniture?” he added. “It’s true. That’s a trip to Europe right there.”

While Richman has vowed to cease being open-minded to absolute horseshit, acquaintances reflected on his approachability.

“I love Blake,” coworker David Martin said. “He’s such a good listener. A lot of people are closed-minded and self-absorbed, but Blake always makes an effort to hear where I’m coming from. The world could use more people like him.”

(Source: The Onion, via teachthemhowtothink)