On Facebook

My relationship with my parents has been slow. I missed a lot of the stereotypical milestones: I didn't rebel in my teenage years, and wasn't embarrassed or estranged from them in my twenties. I've always respected them, and while some of the things they believe are strange, they put a high value on being honest with me and instilling in me a love of the pursuit of truth.

So things have been kinda chill... until Facebook. More specifically, about the time they (and one of my grandpas?) started using it to "like" things that were tritely religious, vaguely racist, and/or misinformed/misleading. Particularly bad were the bits that were religious on the surface, but smacked of a weird blend of triumphalism, conservative talking points, and urban legends.

Now, I know, posts like that are very common on Facebook. But it's been really disheartening to witness my own parents'... descent(?) into the illness that is "viral theology". 

on Getting By

My dirty little secret is that I make enough money. We keep our bills paid and go out occasionally. We break even, usually, but have not really been able to save, and the idea of retiring is kinda laughable. We have no kids, but I'm not sure we could, and I have no idea how parents who make less get by. I'm well aware that many kinda don't. It's also very unsurprising to me that many in my generation or a little younger still live at home, despite having near-full-time jobs and being measurably more productive than workers 30 years ago.

All this to say, referring to a figure less than half of what I make as a "living wage" seems wrong. Globalization has lifted many out of poverty, which is great, and that flattening has meant the affluent US stagnates a bit. I do not resent that at all. But of course that's not where most of the wealth has been going.

So what's my point? Don't stigmatize things Millennials do to be thrifty - they are generally more responsible with money than GenX. Raise wages, not dividends - shareholders get theirs AFTER the company covers its responsibilities. Raise taxes on people making as much as I do or more - trickle-down has been proven to not be a thing that happens. Be personally generous, but recognize that people who work should not have to also be relying on charity or EBT - being under-employed is a real thing, and if you don't think being underpaid is a real thing, well, you may be part of the problem.

On Getting Things Backwards

I used to be bad at sex. Not that I didn't have the anatomy down in theory, or that I couldn't perform, but I had very backwards ideas about it that kinda ruined it. Basically, what I'm saying is that I was probably a typical raised-Christian teenager. I was wracked with guilt over the desires I had and the ways I acted out when feeling sexually frustrated. And while of course none of my romantic relationships explicitly allowed for physical intimacy, boy did we ever. I always felt bad afterwards--kinda.

So I admit I regret the times I had premarital sex... but not for the reasons one might think.


1) I regret that we never talked about it beforehand. Encounters were consensual, but if you'd asked us on our better days about our relationship boundaries, you'd probably have gotten an answer like "we kiss, but not with tongue" or somesuch. We never discussed with each other where our boundaries really were, or what felt good, or what we were curious about. We let our hormones lead, fumbled around a bit, and took advantage of what chances we got to explore. The illicitness was exciting, of course, but very unsatisfying, and we both dreaded that time afterward when we'd inevitably have to apologize and walk back everything we'd just done.

2) We never got to enjoy each other. We took a long time to work up to sex, but only because we were inching up to the pre-established line and then just a tiny bit over... and then each waiting to see if the other person would call us on it and end things for the day. Sometimes that did happen, if you'd believe that of a couple twenty-year-olds. But this slow boundary-creep meant no relaxation during intimacy, no easygoing "hey, why don't we just hang out naked?" No rose petals, no showering together, nothing that might be an obvious sign that, rather than just unstoppable hormones, our intimacy was premeditated.

3) As such, we were never responsible about sex. Even when condoms were free down the hall outside the dorm RA's room, we never picked one up. We were Christians, and supposed to be a good example - what if someone saw us take a condom? The completely backwards logic in that line of thinking had not occurred to us. The same applied to other birth control, too - we weren't supposed to be having sex, it's immoral, so why would she go and get on the Pill? So... we took our chances, very stupidly. We were lucky, but stupid. I'm wanting to say "stupid" several more times here.

4) I regret what it did to the relationship. It's not that I think the sex was wrong, though it was a very bad idea considering my immaturity about it at the time, as the above illustrate. And setting boundaries is good, but a relationship built on crossing them is not going to be healthy. So we ended up with zero trust (of each other or ourselves), lots of guilt, and, since we were both mainly just in it to see how much we could get away with, no long-term plans or security.

5) And I regret how we saw the intimacy relating to our spiritual lives. We were constantly in a state of thinking God was mad at us, and it kept us spiritually stunted to always be lying to ourselves and others. I am still Christian, but I'm much more aware now of concepts like "consent" and "having responsible sex," and I no longer think "sex before marriage" is even all that sinful. We are not to be slaves to our passion... but when I think about it now, my early fumbling was a time when I was not free. We had no control, or thought we didn't, or at least told ourselves that we didn't in order to assuage our consciences whenever we crossed the lines. Whereas if we'd been able to talk and explore and enjoy things in a more measured fashion, we would have been showing some control over our passion.

It's likely that many Christian college kids find themselves in the same situation as I was, where the cycle of repression/transgression repeats every couple days or weeks. I sometimes wonder whether my past will turn out to be useful to others, if only in a cautionary way, and this is one area that always comes to mind, even though it is very difficult for me to talk about and taboo in most Christian circles. I wonder what someone could have said to me, back then, to help change my state of mind. I'm not sure.

As it was, it took a ridiculously bad breakup, depression, then years of learning to accept myself. And I learned, too, that not all Christians see God as a sin-tallying rules-lawyer when it comes to sex. Sex is important, but it's not the be-all and end-all of holiness. And shame over our bodies is disrespecting the image of God.

I should definitely add that years of being happily married have helped, also. Not that I am a fan of marriage for its own sake, but finding someone I could be myself with, be human and fallible with, has made marriage amazing. I'm well aware it's not the same for everybody.


Today, I am sex-positive, an ally of people who don't share my orientation, and generally very liberal and permissive. The regrets I've listed derive from this liberal perspective, somewhat ironically - I was irresponsible, did not get enthusiastic consent, lied to myself and others, and managed to do it all while ostensibly condemning as immoral the behavior of my peers. Eesh. Thankfully, God has been far more chill than I had imagined possible, and hopefully what I have gained from all this is a modicum of wisdom. That hope, and the hope of maybe using it to save some other poor soul some inner trauma, easily overcome these regrets.

On Sacrifice

It's been a couple days since photojournalist James Foley was killed. I usually don't have much to add except my simple sympathies when this sort of thing happens; he seemed like a great guy, but I didn't know him personally or anything like that, and I always worry about "politicizing" it more than perhaps respect would warrant.

But comments I saw out on the internet a few times got me thinking: the comment was, "That could have been any one of us." And this is just so wrong and disrespectful that I feel I need to vent a little.

It's an okay sentiment at best, one of solidarity with the family, but it entirely discounts that James Foley was badass. And not like katana-wielding-badass: he shot things only with his camera, and his curiosity and bravery going into war-zones armed only in that manner amaze me. I have not done anything like that in my life, to be sure, and I admire him for his conviction and caring. He cared for the peoples' stories, and made friends even among his captors. Truly badass.

But the people commenting "it could have been us" aren't even other journalists, mostly (and I'm not referring to the ones who use the phrase in that manner). The people I saw commenting were... white American Christians. And that was the "us" they meant. James fit this broad category (as do I, it's that broad), as he was a Catholic whose faith motivated him deeply... but that's not all that's required to find oneself killed by ISIL. No, for that, American Christians might have to get off their butts and care about what was going on halfway around the world. They might have to be able to interact respectfully with other cultures and religions and take an approach other than advocating carpet-bombing cities ISIL currently controls. It would require a sense of daring beyond what I possess, for sure.

The goal with the comment, then, was basically trying to take ownership of what is not theirs. It is in the context of making jingoist, hawk-ish statements about what our military response should be. It is in the context of trying to paint all Muslims as ISIL minions, and obscuring the (many, many) other people of non-Christian faiths that ISIL has also killed, not to mention all the civilians in those cities who've found themselves suddenly behind enemy lines. This is why I said it disrespects Mr. Foley, and why I believe it is an unChristian sentiment, somewhat ironically - it is tribalist, it is stuck on violence, and it tries to take from his sacrifice and pretend like the speaker would be as brave or noble in death as he was. The difference is that Foley was brave and noble in life, as well, and lived out his faith by going and doing and caring. Let us aspire to that, for ourselves, and take risks to learn other people's stories. Otherwise we're further from being James and closer to being ISIL, just with different hats, killing indiscriminately due to ethnicity or nationality or assumed religious affiliation, and perpetuating a bloodthirsty religious feud.

On fandoms and Christianity

So it may be surprising to hear but I'm not really a fan of anything. Not to say that I don't like things - shows, sports, bands, etc. - because I do. But I don't really go out of my way to get or wear merch of any sort; I've never gone to a Con, and even for shows I do like that have pretty strong fans (Firefly, Star Trek) I've never gotten involved with fan sites or those communities.

Why is that? I guess part of me is just very even-keeled - my highest levels of enthusiasm manifest themselves in a pretty tame fashion. It isn't repression; I'm just not that excitable or high-strung.

But a big part of it, also, has to be that fandoms have scared me off a bit. Not to say that all fans are bad, but rather just that I've never felt that liking the same band or show necessarily gives me all that much in common with other fans.

As a case in point: I am sort of a Brony, in that I am a grown man who likes the latest version of My Little Pony. It's a funny show. And at first, I could like it without that feeling that much weirder than just the normal "isn't it silly that that dude likes a girls' show." But the word "Brony" has come to have some crazily bad connotations, thanks to some guys who were into the show for all the wrong and creepy reasons. So now it's hard to say I like the show without, in the back of my mind, thinking, "gosh, I hope my friend doesn't think I mean it like that."

So yeah. Some few fans can ruin things for everybody, which stinks. This isn't a reason not to like those same things, but rather a reason I've had a hard time being gung-ho about joining fandoms. SDCC is going on right now, and it seems like an awesome time - but between my natural inertia and the above sort of disconnect from fan communities, I've just never felt a strong desire to go. Which might be sad in some way, but I don't think of it as a failure to be true to myself or anything like that. It'd be a chance to meet Adam Savage, Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, or Phil Plait - who are all awesome individuals - but I guess it's still in that area of "it'd be cool to hang out with them but I don't feel a particular need to own a signed photo of them."

In the same way that I'm not afraid to admit I enjoy My Little Pony or OITNB or Star Trek or Boston or Janelle Monáe or Nostalgia Chick or F1 or Gone Home or Firefly or Tomb Raider, I also still will tell people I think Jesus is cool. The term "Christian" has, rather like "Brony", come to be associated with creepy men and co-opted by people who really do not do a good job embodying the foundational principles involved. It's sad when the original messages of love and kindness, humility and honesty, generosity and... fun(?) don't seem to be passed onto the fans... I'm still talking about Christians, I think? Anyhow.

I try to still use those terms and redeem them a bit, but I'm also careful to do so usually in a context with people who already know me and have some context. Maybe that guardedness is why it's hard for me to be a fired-up "fanboy" but I guess I can only hope people don't mistake my lack of tribal identifiers for a lack of appreciation or love for the source material.

On fantasy worldbuilding and the end times

Made-up worlds say a lot about their author. When thinking about the setting for a fantasy (or sci-fi) story, be it a novel or game or movie, it's easy to get bogged down by the scope of what one is trying to do: namely, nail down a new universe's-worth of rules, from laws of physics to supernatural entities. 

Is there magic in this new world? A "Force"? Some cosmic battle between good and evil in the backdrop? It's tough to decide. Sometimes a setting leads the course of the story, even. The new Dragon Age games, for instance, have the player fighting demons - and this poses many philosophical and moral questions. (Like how do "Sloth Demons" or "Rage Demons" relate to laziness and anger management in general?) More importantly, it's meant that the stories the series is telling have tended towards the black-and-white. Things are either demon-tainted or not, to the point that the most recent sequel is subtitled "Inquisition". This seems to be a common slippery-slope in this sort of fiction - you may set out to tell a story about palace intrigue or coming-of-age, but if in the backdrop you have demons that can possess people, it's a pretty safe bet that you'll end up with an Inquisition or the like.

As a second example, in a Legend game I've been in recently, we came across a witch. Blood magic, that sort of thing. Needless to say, the group of good-guys ended up killing the witch - but we've been very hesitant to tell the local authorities that there looked like there might be more than one, for fear of starting a witch hunt.

Some stories run with this on purpose: in the Warhammer 40k universe, there is a galaxy-wide Inquisition going on and it is a massive dystopia of constant war against aliens and demons. This is why my personal feeling is that no good stories can be told in 40k: it makes for great table-top miniature gaming but the setting is fixed, unchangeable and hopeless. Perhaps the one realistic part is that there are no "good guys" per se - every faction, including the original Space Marines, have crazy fanaticism and have committed countless atrocities during the fighting.

For contrast, part of what makes Tolkien's original stories great was their side-stepping of these cosmic struggles. Sauron is evil, no doubt, but opposing him is done mainly via virtues and inner strength, and not mere conflict and victory through greater military might, say. Tolkien's villains choose evil, and power, and darkness; they are not inherently demons or even all past the point of redemption. Most importantly, Tolkien's stories start and end in normalcy, which I think is key, but we'll get back to that in a second.

Thus there are two ways to go on this issue when building a world. Black-and-white cosmic struggle, which can, in the end, really only end with a purge. Or, a world with a lot of gray (or a small enough scope), so that villains are still human, and life can go on peacefully on the whole. Some stories are easy to classify, others walk the line a little (though mostly these are merely delaying the inevitable demon-slaying). Some look like one, but are really the other: Star Wars is a gray universe, despite the Light and Dark Sides to the Force. Game of Thrones, conversely, looks gray, and certainly has enough factions, but in the end somebody's going to have to deal with those zombies White Walkers. There's no live-and-let-live there.

So which are you and I living in? You had to know I'd get to that question eventually. And it's a little cheesy to say "both", I know, but I think that's going to have to be my answer. I think there are two factors here which make both sorts of stories resonate with us:

• We are surrounded only by fellow humans to interact with (other than the general environment and forces of nature). This makes it seem like a very gray and small setting - none of us will ever slay a demon, and the "inquisitions" we have had in the past have been atrocities rather than victories for Good.
• We also know about Good and Evil, though, and the Christian mythos at least has supernatural entities, and a hope that eventually evil will be banished from our world and only peace and good and love remain forever. This does seem to necessitate an apocalypse of sorts.

The key is in what we humans can actually do to influence and participate in these areas. In a video game or most fantasy settings, swords (and guns, sometimes) can kill demons and dragons and all kinds of evil or mindlessly destructive things. This means that people can participate in the aforementioned apocalypse. But here in the real world, we've only been given power to affect other people. Sure, Christianity has the concept of "spiritual warfare", by which is meant merely prayer and being virtuous - but resisting those sorts of demons is not done with violence. Quite the opposite.

So we're caught in the middle. It'd be easier in some ways if we could interact with the world as in some of these games, where Evil is always incarnate and defeated with a level-appropriate weapon. But no, we're stuck with living honest lives with integrity, loving our neighbors, and even loving our enemies. The apocalypse may yet come, and 2/3 of heaven will vanquish the other third - but a suit of armor or a gun will do you no good at that point. Those stories are fun to read about or play through in a game, but too much real-life violence is motivated by people living in a fantasy world where somehow injuring each other achieves a higher good. This isn't video-games making people violent - this is an age-old tale of people wanting to be the hero in their own story, and dehumanizing others to make it possible.

On News

Journalism is a good thing. I'm just gonna come out and say it up front, since I think "the media" gets a bad rap, and sometimes it's true that they're not doing their jobs as well as they should. But I think that correct criticism of journalists is always pointing in the direction of:

• You should have researched this more.
• You shouldn't only choose stories that confirm existing biases of your readers.
• You should have high standards for your writing.
• You shouldn't parrot official positions as news, whether of governments or of your owners.

So I'm sure you've noticed the trend, namely that these are all urging journalists to hold more closely to the ideals of journalism, which is why I can call it a "good thing." It is the one case where poking your nose where it's not wanted is actually worthwhile. To want to get to the heart of a matter, and seek truth, is noble. And to speak out when you see cases of corruption, hypocrisy, or just plain callousness on the part of governments or corporations is important for a healthy society.

Thus of course I'm saddened when it doesn't work out that way. I'm old enough to remember when Murdoch bought the WSJ, and guaranteed its standards would not change, and his biases wouldn't affect it - so much for that - and so if he buys the L.A. Times that'll be a tragedy. And now Bezos has picked up the Post, so we'll see where that goes. I'm not old enough to remember Hearst, but I gather he started this particular trend, and I'm against it wholeheartedly. I like my news without an agenda or cult of personality behind it, and would rather not be caught in-between huge Jaeger and Kaiju news organizations duking it out, each just trying to elect their set of candidates. That's "balanced" in the same way a society in which everyone had guns would be "safe," or in the way MAD kept the Cold War "peaceful." My essential point is that two untruths don't make a truth.

Nowadays, each individual citizen has to put in their own legwork to find out whose money and bias are behind each news story they read; that's the new normal. But don't get me wrong, though - I'm definitely not arguing equivalence between more liberal and more conservative media in this particular time and country. I mean, it's gotten bad enough that I prefer getting my news from foreign or international news agencies just because they're more likely to tell the plain facts - but these prove more similar to the stories you'd hear on the "liberal" side of the news, rather than the conservative, which I don't think is a coincidence. And at its root, I think the "two-party news" we have in the US is very much just a case of one news organization setting itself up as the "conservative" voice, opposed to... everybody else, which is a bit of a manufactured dilemma. I hate those.

So journalists! Take heart, go out there, and find the real stories. You probably don't have much longer before some combination of corporations and the government decide that there is still too much truth going around, and the internet is too free. Come to think of it, that might be as good a story to start with as any...