It’s a Farked Life!

I’ve not hit anyone with a stick before in my life. I am trained to seriously hurt someone with a stick - but, who would have thought a simple run up a hill would turn into one of the top 5 annoying situations in my entire life and that I’d hit someone in the kidney with a heavy stick? Not I.

I’m sweating like i’m on fire. My mind is. I just returned from running up a long hill at a park in Thailand - one that you would think fairly safe except for the eight or nine dogs that call it home. I always carry a stick I find early in the run to swing at the dogs who always go running off after that or some thrown rocks.

Today was amazing. It was 4:10pm when I started out. I had a great walk/run to the top of the hill. I even forgot to drink the water I had, it was just so nice.

On the way down I saw a couple on a motorbike go up… then a guy on a motorbike who stared at me as I found a new stick of better wood than the first one. Glad I did.

I swung at weeds sometimes and other times practiced my Kali stick patterns. I learned Kali stick-fighting and a blend of some other martial arts in a program called, “Realistic Fighting Systems” for a couple years in Tampa. It’s great exercise and keeps one limber and strong in the shoulders, forearms and wrists mostly. The guy who taught it was a killer. He was lightening fast and really had exceptional skills. I had a good time practicing it and we swung plastic sticks at each other for practice (wiffle-ball bats) and they hurt like hell, but never hit anyone with a real Kali stick. I bought two pieces of 28″ rattan from a furniture place here and I practice the patterns at home. Guess it will always be with me.

It’s fun just to swing them in the patterns really - so I found a stick on the run that was about 28″ long and swung it on the way down the hill as I walked and jogged occasionally. This stick was very strong and heavy for how thin it was. It has a knot on the end that added just the right amount of weight to it. I’ll get a picture of it here if I get ambitious as I brought it home, half anticipating needing to use it again.

The guy I saw go up the hill on motorbike came up behind me. He said - ‘get on’ - to ride down the hill. I said, Mai ow - “Awk gam lang gai - I’m doing exercise outside - I want to walk down the hill.

He said something I didn’t understand and reached his left hand for my dick (and partially got it). I was surprised as hell, but still had the presence of mind to pull back and then immediately stepped forward and let loose a blow with the stick to his back just under the right kidney. He arched up like he was going to lose control of the bike down the hill. I half wish he would of. The full impact didn’t get him because after he grabbed he hit the gas and started to speed away. I heard and felt the impact but not sure how good it was since I’d never hit anything with any force with that stick except some weeds and small trees, and then him. He stayed far away for a minute then returned, coasting the motorbike next to me while he pestered me with questions.

He kept asking me if I wanted him to blow me. Repeatedly - about 150 times - no less, that’s for sure. He spent the next 20 minutes as I ran down the hill cussing this fucker and telling him how lucky he was that some people saw me jogging beside his motorbike because now I couldn’t cave his head in with my stick and throw him over the side of the mountain along with his red motorbike, license (removed after 3rd edit) - there are three Thai letters with it that to westerners would correspond to: (removed after 4th edit), just in case you run into this fucking menace.

So, I’m running fast at this point thinking he could call friends who could all blow me as they held me down - and much worse. I was a bit tired from the run and swinging the sticks and I wasn’t fully ready for 1 on 3 or 1 on 5. I’d have given all I got, don’t get me wrong! I was talking to myself loudly… telling myself the reality of the situation was that I couldn’t whack him in the head and send him skating down the hill on his face with his motorbike following him because too many people had seen him beside me. (Another truck went up the hill too). While the place is usually deserted, the weekends do bring a few more people.

It was good he stayed with me and harrassed me as long as he did so he didn’t get smart and call friends who could have met us on the hill before I ran down to the motorbike. I ran fast from 3.5km up the hill to .5 down the hill where my m.bike was parked. He parked next to it I saw as I came close. Did he know it was mine or did he think someone was in the woods and he went to look for him to see if he could blow him instead? Or maybe he was running a batch of something in the woods to put in my helmet… who knows. He didn’t come out of the woods though, I recommitted his license plate to memory and took off down the hill waiting for him to follow. He didn’t.

There was another man walking down the hill at that same time and maybe he wanted to keep his anonymity.

If you see someone on a red Honda Wave motorbike in Southern Thailand and the kid has a fat face, huge nose for a Thai and is a thick kid - really thick for a Thai kid, he looked like a soccer player, built strong as hell - but not muscle strong - no definition - just thick. That might be him - stay the hell away from him and don’t look at him for any reason - he might be deranged a bit… or, like my girlfriend suggested - a yaba (crystal methamphetamine) freak.

I can’t think of any reason, after I cracked his back that he stayed around like he did except maybe revenge. I thought he was going to go for the stick - so I kept switching hands depending which side he was on. I pushed him out of my way 3 different times as I ran down the hill and he got too close to me on the motorbike. Honestly, if I didn’t talk to myself and talk myself through it I may have unleashed and knocked that silly fucker senseless. I can’t imagine how someone, a Thai much less, could be this fuckheaded. I’ve not seen such an asshole EVER in Thailand.

Anyway - that was that. Guess that ruins my deserted walk up the park road for exercise. Crazy Thai homos.

Not sure what will happen when I see him next… I know what I want to happen - but there’s little chance of finding him on a deserted road when nobody has seen me… though I don’t pray to any god, it might be a good reason to start. Otherwise, to see him in public wouldn’t be good as he and his friends could tag team me and beat the holy hell out of me in front of hundreds of onlookers - with nobody calling dum roout (police) in the typical “farang gets his ass beat senseless in Thailand by 4+ very weak Thai guys” scenario.

So - this is living in Thailand at it’s worst. I’d never suspect the area I livein as being a place for wacky fuckers such as this - but you know what? This is my second experience with menacing homos… the first at the Tesco store restroom with that 15 year old queer peeping my pisser. I took his photo when he came out of the stall and I accused him of it - and that was the end of that.

Oh well - maybe time to really get out of Thailand now?

Christianity. That is, believing in Christ and joining a church - whichever one, is pure silliness.

Silly why? It goes so contrary to common sense that I find searching through my Lucky Charms for a blue diamond more compelling than reading bible scripture.

Why is it pure lunacy? Millions of people across the world follow it’s nutty ideas. It causes people to not only dislike others that are non-believers but to alienate and annihilate them as well. It causes wars between nations, groups, individuals. Christ was right on the ball when he said you must leave your things, your family… brother will fight against brother when Christ was chosen… that’s reality. Religious beliefs for a lot of people are so charged with emotions that plenty of families disintigrate over it.

I think I have a reasonable grip on reality here on this planet. I’m going to guess too that millions share that grip, perhaps a billion if I dare say it. Lets just say a hell of a lot of people would agree with me on a lot of basic points about this world that we live in and the state of things. The state of reality here.

Lets say, just for arguments sake and to eliminate the numbers game that there are a billion Christians too. They share a reality quite different from my own. Their beliefs - their most fundamental beliefs about life, why we’re here and what we should spend our time doing here are very different from those of ‘my group’ which I’ll call the “Straight Shooters“, not because it means anything - there is no such group, but for lack of anything better and to inject some humor.

In this hypothetical example which vaguely parallels reality we have 1 billion that share my reality and one billion that share a Christian viewpoint. Forget about the other four billion people that exist on the planet - they matter. A LOT, but just keep in mind that they too have viewpoints different from each of these two main groups. They have endless variety in their religious beliefs, some of them believing in aliens as creator… some die-hard believers in religions created by men having really bizarre dreams… for some of them, their god is their rectum… and that’s not a joke, I heard it on the Phil Hendrie Show.

Others call themselves agnostic… not able to admit definitely that they believe that some god created this mess or if there is no god at all. They are the consummate free thinkers - not tied to any dogma, but probably arrived at it more or less on their own through questioning and taking an objective (as much as possible) look at the reality of this world, our lives, and what appears to be going on here. As you might guess by the favorable description, I consider myself one of these. ;P

Of course there are the atheists - those that don’t believe in a deity. How those with an atheistic bent are any different from believers I don’t understand as there is no proof for or against a creator and yet the people in this group seem like hurt ex-believers that finally had an epiphany about the falseness of religion of any sort. They’ve somehow come to believe that it’s impossible that a creator created the world and all we can experience. A silly thought in it’s own right and the subject of a future article, “Most Atheists are Close-Minded Reactionist Idiots, Same As Their Christian Brethern.”

One of the primary beliefs Christians hold is that of god, christ and the holy spirit existing. Existing as a fact, as an undoubted, unquestionable fact. Christians believe that god is there, and available to anyone that speaks to him. They believe he listens to everyone’s prayers - all 6 billion if we all chose to pray. He listens to them all.

Prayers to god, if you don’t know what they comprise of, typically consist of 2 parts or types:

1. Thanking god, praising god for his goodness, righteousness, infallibility and the general wonderfulness of his amazing plan for the world. Repeating over and over that the person praying is a helpless sinner (liver of life, by default Christians believe every human being is a sinner and farked from the beginning through no fault of their own - that’s just the default state of a baby when it’s born, boy or girl) and not worthy of god’s ear. It’s a ritualistic humbling session designed to bring good favor from god. Some Christians think if they don’t pray, they won’t enter heaven at death.

2. Asking for something. The something could be money needed; return of a lost love; healing someone of pain or a negative life situation… a disease, a traumatic event or something as trivial as a good grade on an exam.

Christians ask for a whole host of things when they pray, they aren’t shy about asking their god of all creation for the most mundane or selfish things. They might ramble on for 10-20 minutes of prayer a day about things they wish would go better or go more according to their own idea about how things should go. Never mind that asking god to change things as they are is in direct opposition to his Perfect Plan.

Why not let it be? It’s all his perfect plan if you really believe that. What you beg for when asking god for favors is your own plan to be put into effect, not his. Surely he knows better than you what is the best plan. At least you’d tell others you did.

Christians believe not only does god listen to all prayers, but, for those that he deems faithful enough by whatever criteria - they’ll actually have things happen in line with their wishes stated in their prayers.

God has said… (when I say this it means that somewhere in the bible I have read that god, jesus, or a disciple or other person inspired by god (as Christians believe the entire bible is, )).

Again, God has said that for those that “pray with faith as small as a mustard seed, mountains would move.” The quote isn’t exact, but the meaning is. So, here we see a contradiction. The bible is full of them… rife with them, if you will. There are more contradictions in the bible than there appear to be truths - at least in my mind. There are major, major points that are contradictions. To me, that means the entire bible is silly. It’s like the most ridiculous stories all piled together in one volume. Many stories, and large and small points within the stories contradict each other.

This contradiction… That god’s plan is perfect and yet if someone has a lot of genuine faith (whatever that is), he or she can change that plan is rudimentary silliness at it’s most profound. Maybe not the most profound, there’s more coming.

If we look closer at the contradiction we see that god doesn’t describe a faithful person’s prayers as changing the underlying mysterious processes that are going on… he says, “move mountains”. Christians will say this is symbollic for changing grand pieces of the plan for their lives - not necessarily moving a physical mountain.

This is important because some Christians say the bible is really just a book full of parables that are not to be taken at it’s word… but, for what the words imply. In this case, the words imply that great changes (mountains can move) can occur to reality if one has faith as small as a mustard seed (a little faith I would guess). Other Christians believe that only the most strict, logical interpretation of the bible can be the truth. Mountains CAN move.

Ah, another contradiction? Sure, why not? Here one group of Christians believes one thing and another group believes another thing. You will find Christianity swimming in this sea of different beliefs about what the one bible says. Oh - yes, there are numerous bibles too - so, not only does one Christian group believe differently about the same bible they use, but there are different bibles with extra chapters that some believe as the inspired word of god, and others don’t. The Jewish people believe only in the old testament - the original group of chapters or books of the bible. They don’t even believe in Christ at all except to believe that he was an imposter - a wackjob so to speak.

Doesn’t the bible mention the Jews as god’s “chosen people”. I guess he can choose them, but they don’t necessarily have to choose him. What if all the Jewish people are wrong? That’s a lot of Jews going to hell for not believing the right way about Jesus - yes?

Even more scary to Christians that do believe in Jesus, what if YOU’RE all wrong? Must be millions and millions of you more than the traditional Jews. Somehow, someday a LOT of these people are going to hell. Whose to say what’s right? Both sides are fervent believers. None of it based on anything resembling fact. Faith is not fact. Faith might be called the antithesis of fact. Faith might be called the opposite state of reality - in my own view, and maybe to quite a few millions of Straight Shooters.

So, is god, Jesus, the holy spirit a fact or fiction? If I had to choose one argument against the possibility of a god that created the earth and inspired the words in the bible the following would be it…

Christians state that god is a fact. God is responsible for creating the earth and all that is in it. Every bit of matter. All parts of the game, god created. God exists. God is reachable. God even does things if you have faith and pray in earnest.

By this idea, if god made us he knows well enough that a portion of us are rational, logical, ruled by fact alone type individuals. He made us, he knows this without a doubt in hell or heaven. There is no way any Christian can deny this, nor would they likely try. It’s a losing position to take. God made this world. God made me. God made Christians. God made Hindus. God made Hare Krishnas. God made gravity. God made some of us with a mind that believes only in the scientific method to reach a state of belief called, fact.

So, just speaking about myself to simplify things. Christians believe god made me. God made my mind. God made part of the human race to be believers in logical, rational, reality based facts that we can: 1. Observe. 2. Record. 3. Repeat. That’s it. That’s the Scientific Method at it’s most simple. If I can’t run something through these few steps - I can’t believe in it as truth. I can’t believe it has any resemblance to the reality that I believe I should live my life according to. It’s beyond my capacity to live in complete disregard to these 3 qualifiers of fact and the way reality works. What I know is derived from applying this method. What the scientific world knows and accepts as truth, as reality - is guided by this simple method.

Now, not all of us are in that same group. Some don’t believe in the truth of the Sci method in all areas of their lives. There are Christians that will tell you they believe in the Sci method. Then, they’ll tell you they believe in god, jesus, and the entire book of stories from the bible. Some can accept faith and belief… emotions as proof enough for them that their reality is equally as valid in contrast to those of us - me, that can only belief in rational fact based on the Sci method.

These two camps exist. They are completely at odds with each other, their views don’t mesh. Christians will tell me that because I can’t believe on faith that I will never see what they believe is a reward at the end of life here on the earth, heaven.

The bible says that - objectively states that many times in different ways. If one doesn’t say the words, “I accept jesus christ as my personal savior.” One is left out of the group. Other Christians say that baptism, getting dunked in the water as a Christian pastor prays is the only prerequisite to gaining heaven after death… again, there are many contradictions about just what is necessary, but the bible makes it unclear as to what exactly is needed.

Jesus said that if you want to gain the kingdom of heaven you should put down your tools and follow him. Give up all you have… money, family, job, possessions of every sort. You cannot bring anything into the kingdom of heaven with you - leave it now… So, there’s another idea. He gives Christians an idea to think about - a great fear tactic… “it is harder for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than it is for a man to enter the kingdom of god.”

Ha! That’s pretty tough! Of course, as with anything important in the entire bible there are different interpretations of that by Christians, leaders and followers alike… some say he meant the eye of a needle. Others thought he meant the “Eye of the Needle” - a natural rock formation that may or may not have existed which was like a hole in the rock and difficult for a camel to get through, but maybe possible.

How much sense would that make if he was talking about a real camel going through a hole in the rock that really, wasn’t all that difficult to get through? To me, not much sense. So - anybody basically, with a bit of trying, could get into the kingdom of heaven? Or, is it literally impossible because a camel cannot fit through the eye of a sewing needle. In one piece it can’t, anyway.

So was jesus saying, what’s the point in trying, it’s literally impossible? Neither way makes sense to me… but then it doesn’t anyway, because Christianity in it’s entirety doesn’t make any logical sense at all to me. It’s beyond my understanding, not because of anything I’ve chosen… I’ve not chosen to live my life by common sense, by rational thought, by logical mind, by questioning everything… these are things I was born with. I grew up with… I am the result of, what I was born with and the society and environment I was born into - also not of my choosing. I am a product of these things.

That said, I can’t believe in nearly anything at all relating to Christianity.

Why?

Let’s go back to logical thinking based on the Sci Method.

1. Observe.

I observe something first. I turn this toward god. I observe what? Already I’m at a full stop because I cannot observe god, jesus, or the holy spirit. I just can’t. I’ve tried. I’ve prayed, asked, begged, asked other Christians to show me. I don’t see anything tangible that I can say is god, jesus, or the holy spirit.

Really, it’s game over… but I’ll continue to go through the other criteria.

2. Record.

I record what? I didn’t see god write the bible, nor does anyone say he did. God supposedly inspired the writers to write as they did - in errorless fashion. I didn’t see that happen, nor could I. Can I believe the bible as a record of anything related to god? No, impossible. It’d be totally ridiculous for me to say that could… god, jesus and the hs go against everything I know about fact and fiction.

3. Repeat.

There’s nothing to repeat. If I was able to see god, touch him in the flesh and then see him again and again… then I’d have something to talk about. I can’t. Nor can you I’m guessing.

I could go way into each one of these steps, but there’s really no point beyond this:

There is no god according to the Sci Method. There is no god of the Christian or Jewish bible, according to me and what I can believe based on who I am… what I am.

Now, I was talking about me in the first person - but, I’m really talking about millions that believe as I do. There would be no way for anyone to change my view and get me to trash the scientific method as verifier of truth and reality. Likewise it would be difficult and damn near impossible for you to change the minds of most that see life as I do. Reality based. Reality based on the Sci Method as a proof filter.

Now, some may say that not everything that I believe is based entirely on the Sci Method. This is true. Let me explain.

In Vern’s mind there are 3 kinds of truth:

1. That which I hear from others. It might be true, might not. I give little credence to this coming from people I don’t know, books, magazines, media, television, etc. In a pinch I’ll use the data I get from these sources, but this is the worst source of data to base beliefs on.

2. That which I hear from very close friends and family members. This has more weight, but not much more.

3. That which I experience directly for myself. Ideally, repeatedly.

As you can guess it’s literally beyond possibility for me to be able to believe anything written in a book hundreds of years ago… over a thousand years after Christ. It’s impossible for me to believe random Christian strangers throughout the years that have spewed their nonsense in my ears while I’ve sat and and listened, usually politely while they regurgitated volumes of beliefs, taunts, threats about their god and where my life was going if I didn’t find him for myself, right there on the boat, bus, or sidewalk.

It’s even quite impossible to believe my best friend, my mother, and my first wife when they explained their god to me. My wife, after almost a year of marriage even spoke in tongues in front of me as I held her in our NYC walk up apartment. She told me she was talking another language and god was speaking through her. It was a hell of a thing, and yeah, for a few minutes she spoke an entirely different language - a middle eastern language if I had to guess. She said she had some idea what she was saying, and she told me. Memory fails me, that was 1988.

She was a self-professed ‘born-again Christian’ and we read the bible and prayed together throughout the first year of our marriage. But, guess what? Even though she was my wife and really couldn’t have any secret motive to persuade me that she was speaking tongues, I didn’t believe god was speaking through her. Why not?

I was shocked. My mind stopped for the first time in my life as she started speaking. I remember my eyes opened wide, we were standing up, hugging and I felt her stand more independently for a second and start speaking in a way I’d never heard her or anyone else ever speak in my life. To say I was shocked is a real understatement - I was speechless and thoughtless. I just listened. I was no stranger to the idea, and I’d heard strangers in the charismatic Christian church my mom attended speak in tongues while others translated what they said he or she was saying. Some call it the ‘gift of tongues’. When they persecuted witches in America so many years ago they would have had a field day in a church like my moms.

My wife was a model and went away to Italy, Tokyo and some other places for a while for some work and when she came back I learned a lot about her that I hadn’t known. Apparently when she was a teen she’d often be found in the middle of the night sitting on the floor and banging her head against the door repeatedly… senselessly. She’d heard evil voices in her head for a long time both she and her mom told me later. She came back from Europe with a new habit, smoking. She was no longer a Christian. She had sex with a French photographer, Patrick Demarchelier - so goes the rumor at her modeling agency. She was a girl with some problems apparently - and this discredited the voice I heard that day. Don’t get me wrong, even if she was a lifelong devout Christian and spoke in tongues every other day, it wouldn’t mean to me that the god that created all of the world according to the bible was speaking through her.

Fact is fact, and you can’t attribute things that you’d like to be fact as true fact without proof. What is the proof that people speak in tongues to worship god in languages they’ve never used or heard before? Not sure, might be interesting to research that. Seems to me God would make whatever it was understandable and profound if he wanted it to be a sign of his existence. What is gained by people listening to a person go on in a language nobody understands?

Moving on…

Someone might confront me with, “You believe men went to the moon, right?”

I’d respond, “As much as I have to.” Meaning, this isn’t something that I give a thought to everyday or even every few months. The belief about whether someone went to the moon, whether Africa exists, whether nuclear fusion or fission is possible are things that don’t matter a whole lot in the reality of my daily life. Overall, they matter a little bit. Whether I believe in them or not doesn’t alter how I go about my day.

It is the same with EVERYTHING that I have not directly experienced for myself and run through the scientific method or otherwise accepted. If someone returns from Cancun, Mexico and tells me what a wonderful place it is but has no photos I may or may not believe that the person went. It doesn’t matter. I don’t treat that person any differently.

What I’m saying is that nothing I believe that makes a big difference in my life is accepted on blind faith. Things that affect my life I have experiences with that have proven reality about it.

This is where Christians and I differ greatly. A person’s entire life changes when they become a self-professed Christian. Their lifestyle, friends, foes, who they associate with, the music they listen to, the TV shows and movies they attend, the car they drive, where their free money goes, even what job they have might all change as a result of faith in something they cannot prove is correct. Faith goes by feeling. Faith is ruled by emotion and feeling of hope for the outcome of a certain future. Many things done in the present are affected by that future. This is what is so astoundingly ridiculous to me. A person could throw away all rational fact about a topic - god, jesus, holy spirit and act in way, change their lives in a way that shows they believe it to exist in reality.

How does that happen?

For me it never happens. I could fall face first on the floor when I think about it, it’s so preposterous. Yet, it happens a lot.

What could possibly be the cause of such a thing?

As human beings, some of us are capable of this blind faith in stories and their own feelings.

The Myers-Briggs Personality Typer is a psychological assessment used to put people in one of 16 categories according to major personality traits. It is a forced dichotomous choice between two of 4 pairs of opposites that yields a 4 character type. This instrument shows that there are people capable of using feelings to decide things about their lives. Feelings can dictate truth for them. Reality.

So, it’s a function of the range of possibilities as human beings - we can be either way.

However, Christianity says there is only way. Believe blindly or perish in hell.

Does it make any rational sense that god could create people with the impossibility to believe blind faith in anything, and then require it for salvation after death? Better yet, would a Christian god, a good god as they frequently call him, be good if he condemned to “eternal hell” all those that did not accept his reality based on blind faith?

Not in my mind folks… Not today, according to THIS reality - no way.