Proving the existence of Spider-Man through Christian logic

I’m going to do it. I’m going to come out and be proud of who I really am, no matter the hate I may get for it!

I am a nerd!

Yes, I am a nerd. I like nerdy things like RPGs, video games, and much more. What really makes me a nerd though is that I love superheroes and comic books (fuck DC though, Marvel all the way).

By far my favourite superhero is Spider-Man.

The reason I love Spider-Man is because when I was growing up, I could really relate to him. Peter Parker was this nerdy, awkward kid that did not have many friends, but he led this secret life where he could do these truly amazing things and help people that were in need.

Spider-Man was also always the youngest of the Avengers (excluding maybe some really young X-Men), and I was always the youngest of my friends. I still am to this day.

However, I know that Spider-Man is not real. He is just a fictional character that was made up years ago by Marvel to sell comic books (and eventually toys, movies, and television shows, all of which I absolutely loved).

But I know that I can prove that Spider-Man is real through Christian logic.

Many Christians will use the Bible to prove the existence of God. This is like me using Spider-Man comics to prove that Spider-Man is real.

When that fallacious reasoning is exposed, Christians will then point to certain stories and events in the Bible as proof that the Bible is the Word of God, because these events really did happen and are backed up by independent historical evidence. These places, which are real, are talked about in the stories of the Bible.

Yes, certain events detailed in the Bible did happen (most did not or are depicted inaccurately, but let’s ignore that fact). Yes, the Bible does talk about real places and people in history. That does not mean the Bible is historically accurate though, let alone the supposed message and commandments of some deity.

Put it this way: Spider-Man is set in New York City. That’s a real place, and real people live there. Real people are talked about in Spider-Man comics, including President Barack Obama.

Not only that, but Spider-Man has real events talked about in the comics too. The September 11th terrorist attacks are depicted in one.

Real places. Real people. Real events.

By the same logic used by Christians, Spider-Man should be just as real as the god of the Bible.

The only difference between the god of the Bible and Spider-Man though is that Spider-Man is actually a moral character that children should model themselves after.

Spider-Man didn’t order people to kill babies (1st Samuel 15:3). Spider-Man isn’t a fearful, hateful bigot that wants people to kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13), witches (Exodus 22:17), adulterers (Leviticus 20:10), people who like other superheroes more (Exodus 22:19), etc.

In a couple hundred years comic books might start being taken a little too seriously, and Spider-Man comics will be seen as divine revelation and turned into the next great religion that tramples the globe and causes people to kill each other over nothing.

More Green Than Red

There has been this quiz going around the internet called the “I Side With Quiz.” I have been seeing it go around social media sites for, as for as I have seen, a few weeks now, especially Facebook where I spend most of my time now on the interwebs. Friends of mine have been posting their results with who they sided with the most and how surprised, or not, they were with it. I decided to finally take the quiz for myself to see where I stood.

Basically, answer a bunch of questions, and the websites calculates which presidential candidate from the 2012 election you side with the most. It was actually quite enjoyable to take. The questions are set up with yes, no, and “choose your own stance.” Under that last one are different perspectives and stances from what might be alternatives to the dichotomy.

I liked this option, because some things are not so cut and dry. Some things I said yes or no to only on certain conditions or even went further than the yes or no, such as the question which asks if the federal government should regulate and monitor the internet more. There was the obvious no, but I wanted to see if there were more, and there was. I chose “No, and enact legislation preventing any level of government policing the internet.” Always check if you agree more with the other options.

Some of the “choose your own” were stances from the presidential candidates themselves. While taking the quiz I did not know this, but I suspected it when I noticed some of the answers seemed to be some of Ron Paul’s usual rhetoric. As well, you can rate how important the questions and issues are to you on a five point scale ranging from least important to most important.

The only thing I did not like was that they give you the option to answer more questions for certain sections (e.g. domestic policy, science, environment) if you click for a drop down; the button to do this is kind of inconspicuous, and I almost missed it.

Once I finished with all the questions, including the ones I almost missed, I found out that I sided most at 85% with the Green Party’s candidate Jill Stein. I have been a big fan of the Greens since I first discovered them, but I know that they, and pretty much any third party in America, don’t have much of a chance of winning in such a political climate that is dominated by Democrats and Republicans. Even if they did have a chance, that would actually be a bad thing, as liberals and progressives would obviously be divided between Democrats and Greens, letting Republicans win more elections.

Some of the candidates I had never even heard of before. Who the hell is Virgil Goode, who by the way I only sided with at a whopping 5%?

All in all, these are most of my results:

So apparently Ron Paul has it right on only about 33% of things.

There were some I didn’t include, such as Gary Johnson, the one running under the libertarian banner. I agreed with him 51% of the time. Mostly on immigration and domestic policy. Looking at some of what Johnson has said recently though, he seems to have some economically liberal stances as well.

However, as we can clearly see, Jill Stein and I agree on the vast majority of things with President Barack Obama trailing not far behind at 80%. Stewart Alexander is the socialist candidate, and I actually was expecting to side with him the most, as I am a socialist. At least, I think I am. Maybe I really am more green than red. That may be because some of the questions I did forget to check what the other options were and just answered yes or no. Always check!

Nonetheless, it was fun, and I recommend everyone take it. Even if you know who you are voting for (I do), just see how much you really agree with them. There might even be a lively discussion between friends about who really is the best candidate once you share your results.

President Obama Supports Gay Marriage, or Does He?

As most people are aware, President Barack Obama recently said this during an interview with ABC on Wednesday:

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

Gay rights activists and other supporters of gay marriage have been going completely insane over this. When the news first broke of this, I could not find anything in my feed on Facebook or Twitter for about two hours that was not about the president’s endorsement (or so it seemed) of gay marriage. The news was particularly shocking in light of North Carolina’s move on Tuesday to make a constitutional ban against same-sex marriage and Vice President Joe Biden’s recent interview on Meet the Press where he said that he is “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex couples receiving the same rights as straight couples.

The problem with this is that he has not actually said or promised to do really anything. Okay, he thinks that gays should be allowed to get married. Great. He has not said anything about trying to actively repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), although his administration says that they will not defend it in the courts, and he has not said anything about any new federal policy that would allow for gay marriage at the federal level. An aide to the president said that while President Obama feels that gays should have the right to be married, he also believes that the states should be the ones who ultimately decide if they want gay marriage or not.

The interview seemed to be carefully worded so that if he never does anything to repeal DOMA or try to bring a federal law recognising same-sex couples, he can say that he never promised such a thing. It all appears to be empty election politics so as to stir gay voters who may have been thinking of not voting for him come November (not that they would vote for Mitt Romney, who has stayed consistent, for once, on the issue of gay marriage and how he is against it).

Now despite this, President Obama’s words are encouraging. He has said that his position on the issue has been “evolving,” and maybe he will try to repeal DOMA someday. President Obama does not seem to realise this, but the position of the presidency does have a lot of influence with how the public feels and talks about certain issues, especially since he is a black man and black people and other minorities, while supportive of the Democratic Party, are not as supportive of gay rights as we would hope. Him coming out in favour of gay marriage by fully repealing DOMA and recognising same-sex couples would possibly put this issue in its dying days.

President Obama has done amazing things for gay rights, such as ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), and although this does seem like nothing more than election rhetoric to get liberals to the voting booths, the idealist in me hopes that someday (soon hopefully) we can all look back on this like we look back today at the people who opposed women’s rights and black rights and think to ourselves, “Those people were fucking stupid.”

The Third Red Scare

I am sure that most people are aware of the recent comments made by fading rock star Ted Nugent concerning President Barack Obama and other members of the Democratic Party. For those who are not, let me fill you in very quickly.

At the National Rifle Association convention, Ted Nugent said on stage, “…if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” This prompted the Secret Service to contact Ted and have a nice, friendly talk with him of why he may or may not have threatened the president.

More fun comments from him at the convention were, “We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November,” and describing the Obama Administration as, “vile, evil, America-hating.” The funny, or more so scary, thing is that after he made these comments, the audience erupted into thunderous applause. It’s not that he simply thinks President Obama is a terrible president, it’s that he hates America. He might as well have said that a terrible football coach hates the football team he’s coaching.

In Florida around the same time, Rep. Allen West of Florida, who tried to defend Ted Nugent for the things he said, spoke at a town hall meeting, and when asked about how many Marxists are in Congress, he said, “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party who are members of the Communist Party.” Is it just me or does this sound an awful lot like Joseph McCarthy’s infamous talk in Congress about how he had a list of 202 Communists, which turned out to be a blank sheet of paper he was holding up, that had infiltrated the State Department, which helped kick off the Second Red Scare?

Now, the numbers West gave were not randomly pulled out of thin air like McCarthy did. He is referring to, and he admits to this, the 80 or so members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which he says is an American branch of an international communist organisation known as Comintern. The reason he believes they are communists is because he simply does not understand ideologies that are not his own and thinks that anything to the left of him is all one giant communist party, saying, “There is a very thin line between communism, progressivism, Marxism, socialism.”

These are just small samples of the bigoted garbage that is spewed out by the far right on a regular basis.

We are entering an age that makes it okay to say tremendously hateful and threatening things towards people who do not hold to the same outlook on politics, including the President of the United States. We are entering an age that makes it okay to divide Americans by fear-mongering. We are entering an age, if we have not already, of the Third Red Scare, when if someone says that they are not a gun-toting, homophobic, theocratic ignoramus (and proud of it), then they are a godless communist that hates America.