Eph 5:24

I'm going to get hung for this one. 

Ephesians 5:24 is a tough bit of scripture to swallow, especially if you lack male parts.  I contend that women across the globe, and my particular complaint here is against Christian women, fail at this, and if we are honest, they don't even put forth a "C" grade effort at it. 

"Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."  - Ephesians 5:24, NIV, courtesy blueletterbible.org

I've seen lots of people try to twist this around so it says anything but what it says.  That, well, unless husbands are like God they don't need to submit.  I find it remarkable that when you diagram it, you find that the comparison is not "Church is to christ as wife is to husband"  I see "submit is to Christ as submit is to husband"  Church (subject) submits (verb) Christ (direct object)   wives (subject) submit (verb) husband (direct object)  the comparison is the submission, not the subjects.  The church submits, the wife submits, the churches submission to christ = wives submission to husbands.  

Why do I bring this up?  I find in america women are encouraged too much.  I am NOT saying that women need to shut up and get chained to the stove barefoot and pregnant. (though accepting at least one of these states may enhance your marriage) I AM saying that a woman cannot do all the same things a man do and also bear children.  

But we tell women this, we encourage them to hold masculine traits of strength, toughness, perseverance, bravery.  In the end we really give the impression that "Okay girls, you have to hold everything together, it's all your responsibility"  This is a lie. 

If anything it's about perfectly backwards.  

I see americans changing the definition of submit in order to follow this verse.  The definition of submit as used here is Webster's first definition.  To submit to governance or authority.  What I primarily see women doing, even (especially in many cases)  christian women, is using the third definition of submit and then following the verse flawlessly on that assumption.  Let me read you (well, you'll read it, but I'll put it up here)  webster's third definition of submit. 

Submit: (v): to put forward as an opinion or contention.  This is the WRONG definition, but this is what women are doing.  Instead of letting your young husband delight in his children and the wife of his youth, you submit to him that he ought to be doing his homework instead. 

Instead of submitting to authority or governance, I see women submitting their opinions and contentions, often in completely inappropriate places. 

I'm fairly convinced that marriages die by starting down this path, where the woman is DOING things she shouldn't be doing.  Part of submitting to the government is letting them do their job.  Submitting to the department of transportation is you NOT going on the road and filling potholes.  Submitting to the IRS is NOT going out and collecting your neighbor's taxes.  Submitting to the police is NOT grabbing your own gun and slapping handcuffs of your favorite suspect.  Submitting to your husband is NOT doing those things that he has said, or the Bible has said, he shall do.  If your husband tells you he will do the dishes, the act of submission is allowing him to do the dishes.  It is not nagging him to do them on your exact timeframe, it is not doing them for him because he is so busy, it is trusting that he will do what he said on his timeframe. 

What if the church took this submission attitude with Christ "Jesus!  You're not back yet!  it's getting really late, the kids are misbehaving, there are people that need to be judged and you're just not showing up!  *sigh*  I guess I'll have to clean this mess up myself  "

A woman is not to sterilize and stabilize the world, she is not to be strong and tough and persevere.  A woman ought to be soft and full of grace and enduring.  I'm not advocating that men walk all over their wives, and leave their dirty socks on the floor, and sit before the tv because "they've done their job by putting food on the table"  I'm simply advocating that women read the parts of the bible that talk about them and do it, and men read the parts that talk about them and do it, instead of treating your husband like the untrained puppy that needs to be housebroken.  

Husbands are meant to be wild.  A husband who is housebroken is just plain broken.  You train your wolf to sit and stay and roll over and then wonder why he doesn't act like a wolf.  Spark isn't there when a man is not allowed to fix the things in his house, even if they don't get fixed perfectly on time. 

Most of all all you women are killing yourselves slowly and find it hard to respect your husbands because you refuse to put the relationship ahead of that lightbulb that needs replacing.  You say you replace it for him out of love, to be helpful.  But you aren't.  If you want to be helpful, tell him how strong and tall he is, and watch when he gets up on that wobbly chair and replaces that lightbulb, and aknowledge that yes, he is hot, and yes he is stronger than you, and yes, he would to a better job than you at taking the trash into the dangerous dark alleyway.  It's okay for him to be your hero when he does that.  

Life isn't a movie.  It's filled with little adventures.  Instead of being "strong and independant, and unafraid of the boogyman in the dark alley"  maybe try being reliant and thankful, and overjoyed that you have a strong man whose deepest desire is to beat the crap out of the boogeyman in the alleyway for you, and mount his head on a pike so all will see that he is Thor, defeater of boogeymen.  

If not, have it your way.  But I've got boogeymen's heads on pikes.  I am Thor the conqueror, and my marriage has more spark than a truck load of flint colliding with a semi filled with propane.  

The homosexuality disease.

Secular psychology confuses me.  A boy sitting in a classroom who behaves like over 50% of the boys his age, that is, he's fidgety, doesn't want to hold still, has trouble listening to hours of boring pointless lectures on end, and would rather be doing something with his hands, this boy has a disease.  We call him ADHD, and give him pills so he can "act normal"  

Meanwhile, a man sitting on a park bench in San Francisco dislikes riceroni and is making out with another man, a trait shared by a maximum of about 2% of the entire population, and he is the normal one, who was just born that way and can't help it.  I just need to learn to accept it, and if it makes me uncomfortable, I'm a homophobe, and I need sensitivity training.  

Furthermore, the boy in the classroom isn't going to put anyone in life threatening danger through his life of ADHD,  don't give me this crap about "Well, if he was a doctor his adhd could kill someone"  Yes, and if you accidentally ate an entire shaker of table salt you would die, let's look at real life exposures to risk of death or injury from ADHD, we're all pretty safe. 

Meanwhile, nearly 50% of homosexual men carry a lethal disease for which there is no cure: AIDS.  But they need no treatment, it's tragic and clearly a government conspiracy that these people are afflicted by this disease, clearly mother nature would never consider a trait causing a person to ignore the only part of his species with which he can produce viable offspring to be a liability and breed a disease to pick it off as it shows up.  

and there's absolutely no chance that God would afflict these people with a disease, even though they are committing a sin which he repeatedly says he abhors, one which the punishment is listed as death for in the old testament.  

I am confused that ADD/ADHD is an abnormal trait that makes you a candidate for psychological treatment.  However homosexuality, shared by (according to the most liberal estimates I can find) 2% of the nation, a tendancy which statistically acts as an incubator for life threatening, untreatable diseases, is a perfectly normal variation in the human creature. 

Pardon me while I call BS!  Sounds like someone has been running the propaganda machine overtime, while the other side of the silent war sat idly by and went without a voice. Check out the number of sitcoms featuring cute, witty, gay men.  Compare that to the number of sitcoms featuring cute, witty, christian, men.  

How often in a crime show does the gay guy turn out to be guilty?  How often is it the catholic priest?  I can just about guarantee you that the catholic priest is guilty if he appears in the show.  

Homosexuality actually used to be in the DSM, but thanks to a pro-homosexual campaign, it has been removed from the DSM IV.  And I'm not talking homosexual as referencing the person, I'm talking homosexual as referencing the behavior. 

The people are not homosexual, they are suffering from homosexuality.  Just like with schizophrenia, or Bipolar.  The people aren't the problem, they suffer from a disorder and need help.  Instead, with homosexuality, we make it cool to suffer from the disorder, even though it encourages deadly diseases that endanger public health. 

It is cruel to showcase these people that need help as a cute anomoly, rather than helping them get past their disorders, so they can live healthy lives apart from their psychological afflictions.  

Childrens

It saddens me to see how few people like or want kids today. There are so many people that view them as a burden, or a problem. Like it would be stealing from themselves to have children. Or they even view having children as irresponsible, just because they lack the maturity to raise a child.

I see so many kids popping out on accident and people do their best to step up to the plate, but it's still not the same as wanting to have a kid before you have one. I applaud the parents that step up to the plate to an unexpected baby, but most of them are totally unprepared for the wild ride ahead, and while many will inevitably tell me that "you can never be prepared" frankly, I think that they are wrong.

I think most people don't take the time to get prepared, or they get prepared in all the wrong ways. they look up the stuff that is actually quite non-essential, like how to change a diaper, and what kind of things babies eat. These actually can be messed up on pretty drastically and you can still have an okay kid.

They totally ignore things like, what is a priority for their child to learn? what values to they want to be core for their child, how will they handle it when their child wants something that they have no value in, for example a youngster that is interested in music, born to a father who is a sports fanatic. So often dad ignores the child's natural bent and pushes him into baseball anyhow, under the false idea that "it teaches valuable life lessons" like what? like "you suck at sports and no one on your team wants you to go up to bat"? Why not get the kid violin lessons like he would want and love? I think it's because most parents arent prepared for a kid, and get it in their heads during the formative years where kids depend on their parents for EVERYTHING that sonny here is just a mini-me, and I can live out my delusions of grandeur through him.

I know a lot will change once I have a kid, but I've worked as a team with my wife to build a framework of what is most important that our children gain from us, and low fat meals aren't in the top ten. Responsible, Christian, God fearing children are fine for me in any shape, size, or career.

I pray for my kids already because despite all I do, God's soverignty is the best thing I can rely on for my kids to turn out right, because my best won't be enough, and they get their choice too.

I just wish we could value children more than our dogs. It's really sad when the same lady who chews her kid's head off in Wal-Mart because he asked for a toy heads home and gives fido a new chew toy, treats, and food that costs more per serving than the McDonalds meal she's feeding her child.

Treat your child better than your pet, it'd at least be a start.

Blow stuff up and kill people.

In our current time of war-weariness, many people want to cut spending on the military.  We seem convinced that war is not the answer, we don't need the military, can't we all just get along?  let's make love, not war!  except for with Africa, we'll just shake their hands, cuz they will give us aids.  But aside from them, make love, not war!  

This overwhealming philosophy sure sounds nice, until you take into account that our culture is not actually the sum of all cultures on earth.  It is increasingly Liberal American Culture.  It is not what you really would get if everyone joined together and mixed their cultures in honest. 

It IS what you'd get if some fundamental deists got together, agreed on ideas, set up a sound framework, then imported a bunch of slaves.  Then the slaves were freed, and the former slave's fight for equal rights turns into a backlash against traditional deist values, which eventually snowballs (due to an influx of eastern cultures) with eastern religion into a relativist-agnostic viewpoint which values all people as basically good as long as they aren't fundamentalists, which the nation was founded by.  

I think what you'd really get if you tried to mix all the cultures together would be a muslim state, because muslims don't mix, they just conquer.  Some examples of this: Egypt and Denmark.   Pakistan would probably be up there on the list too.  Here is Islam coming against different cultures and they manage (through the value of children, polygamy, and perseverance) to take over cultures, via war and/or peaceful means.  

Now's the part where I tell you that we need to crush the infadels, right?  Wrong!  I'm not muslim.  I'm Christian.  But I'm also American.  I have a triumvirate of citizenry:  I'm a citizen of Heaven, the Bible is clear on that.  I'm also a citizen of humanity, this one, unlike the others listed, is not optional.  I must abide by human nature, some of these things are the basics like I need food and water, others of these things are difficult to grasp concepts, like the basic human needs for competition, and desire for sin.  Finally, I am fortunate enough to be a citizen of America.  

As a citizen of heaven, I actually have a high tolerance for injustice done to myself and my kin.  I'm on earth, this is not my primary citizenship, I don't expect the natives to be friendly.  It is not my job to make everything just and right here on earth, particularly when we are talking about religious issues.  I ought not be suprised when, as a Christian, I am persecuted or even killed for my beliefs. 

As a citizen of humanity, I also have equal right to live on this little blue ball we call home.  This includes rights to defend myself from those intending to harm me, for their personal gain, aside from my philosophies.  A right to have and defend a family, and raise them in the way I deem best.  I also have equal right to pursue those things that I need, my food my water, and my shelter, and to secure ways to provide those things for me.  This in and of itself often causes need for  wars of any scale.  Check out the repeated genocides we find across the African continent, the Jews in WW II, and the Kurds in northern Iraq. These are people fighting merely to exist, which as humans, they have equal rights to, just not equal strength to hold onto those rights.  (remember that thought It will be important later) 

Finally I'm a citizen of America, a free, soverign nation which (thankfully) lets me believe what I do, and practise it.  The group of rights that my country grants me is an incredible blessing and something I would fight to the death to keep.  Things like, I can speak out against my motherland if she grieves me, I can protest against her laws, I can carry my Bible with me in public, and no one can legally kill me just for my philosophy.  The government can't even take my stuff without giving me some kind of "just and fair payment" for them.  I even get to tell my government what to do by voting!  

This sounds so cool until you realize not everyone is an american or a Christain.  People of other faiths may actually (shock and awe for the liberals)  have a philosophy that mandates the destruction of all others ON THIS EARTH!  that is to say, they are to convert or destroy them, startrek borg style.  Sadly, the relativistic-agnostic philosophy that is popular today is one of these styles.  Because the statement of "All beliefs point to the same place"  and "There is no absolute truth"  are exclusive to everything but it's own belief, and refuses to consider the idea that, well, maybe some beliefs actually do send people to hell, or even that there might be an absolute place like hell. 

I couple that with the tragedies of genocides, that is, people who HAVE THE RIGHT to exist as equals, but NOT THE STRENGTH to hold on to those rights (believe it or not, there are philosophies that say they don't have the right because they lack the strength)  and I wind up with the need for a military.  I love my Christianity, and I have the ultimate cavalry of angels and Jesus himself, who will show up someday and liberate this world from darkness, there we are talking ultimate power to protect rights, so if I forfeit some of them here, it's not a big deal to me.  I love my humanity, hence I eat and breathe and drink.  I hate some aspects of it, but all in all, the unfallen part of my humanity is peachy, so yah, I'd die defending my, or those I love's right to exist equally as a human being.  and finally, as an American, I treasure these rights that really ought to be included as being human, but unfortuantely, not all beliefs work that way, so I will die defending MY american rights, because there are many out there who think I ought not have them.  

So to defend our rights, we need the strength.  This is where the military comes in.  It was once said "Armies are like lawyers, the only reasons you have them is to take something that isn't yours, or to keep someone from taking something that is"  I find this to be an honest ultimate mission statement of both lawyers and armies, it's just the battlefield is different. 

A lawyer fights on the landscape of the legal system, an army fights on the landscape of the human system.  An army takes the fight for the survival of certain rights, or all rights, depending on the particular fight, and makes it a literal fight for survival. 

At the end of the fight, ideally, you either take what you intended to take, or keep what you wanted to keep, be it rights to ideaologies, rights to land, or just the right to go on living.  

And contrary to our liberalized philosophies today, there are some enemies that can only be defeated in war.   I'm not saying all war is right or just, but I AM saying that we can't judge wars based on casualties, monetary cost, survival rates, or post traumatic stress inflicted.  The only way to correctly judge a war is by its cause, if the cause is just, then it is worth fighting to the last human being who truly believes in the cause.  

For example, I actually applaud the southerners in the civil war, because their fight was for the right to have equal say in their economic situation, wether that be through ownership of slaves, or waivers on tariffs for their goods.  Slavery was actually secondary in the mind of most southerners, because many didn't even own slaves, lots of them were upset enough about the fact that their raw materials were dually taxed going north, and then they would pay premiums on the untaxed finished products running south.  Owning no slaves, they couldn't continue to make ends meet.  Their pursuit of hapiness was imposed upon and the government ignored their complaints.  For many of them this would mean complete poverty at the hand of an unsympathetic government, so they turned to war.  The war ultimately wound up impoverishing many of the wealthy that managed to survive the earlier harsh economic climate, but it united the states, and accomplished what the poorer man was hoping to get done:  A united nation that did not favor industry over agriculture.  

So as you can see, war is therefore as much a war of the philosophy as it is about killing people,  a war that does not start up the propaganda machine is a war doomed to failure, because the other side will certainly start theirs.  And this is the only way to run a war if you don't want to kill every last person on the other side.  

In my estimation this is why our wars against terrorists are so dismally failures.  The terrorist propaganda tells the media and us, that it's a numbers game.  They kill x people, we kill x people, and when we start losing more than x people, it's time to pull out.  this demorallizes the American public who ignore, or don't see any propaganda of our side.  I love how people love to demonize some positive war reports as propaganda, when propaganda is a positive element in fighting wars.  Those on the other side who buy the propaganda don't have to take a bullet, they will surrender!  And by many people's definition of propaganda, well, all it takes to make propaganda is an opinion different from the opinion of the person hearing the report.  

When there was the intelligence of possible WMDs in Iraq, people were all balls to go in there shooting, when we didnt' find any, everyone wanted to pull out at once, ignoring all of the effects that a war has.  The appropriate response from a warrior point of view would have been to demonize the saddam regime, particularly by pointing out that we put him in power and how he was behaving like a child when his father is not home.  Make him out to be immature, corrupt and power hungry, and make it our right to save the iraqi people from a dictator that kills their children and rapes their economy for his personal gain.  There is a certain truth to all of this, and we might have actually been more effective, because this propaganda also would have a demoralizing effect on the enemy, but the route we did take was to allow our own media to slit our throats by publicizing negative critizism constantly against the effort that couldn't be averted, now that we'd gone in and shot the place up.  Basically we failed because we did not perform the work-in stage of propagandizing, that is, we didn't spend a decade prior to the war pointing out to our people that the other side deserves to be stripped of its rights and power. 

At the end of the day, we need a military that blows things up and kills people, because there are some true believers out there, ones who believe very destructive, dangerous philosophies, and they can't be reasoned into a peaceful compromise. And if they are especially cunning, comprommise will actually wind up with the total loss of our freedoms, because those who say "War is good for nothing" will trade their freedoms, and basic rights for a semblance of peace.  I won't so I say, lets blow stuff up and kill the people who need blowing up and killing, because war is not a civil action, it is a national action, and must be judged by the merits of it's cause, not the losses it entails.  A war without losses, after all, is not a war, it is a slaughter.  And a war without propaganda, is a cause that is lost.  

Credit FRAUD!!!

What do you look forward to in the mail?  Coupons?  Letters from Grandma?  Netflix?  The things I don't look forward to finding in the mail are bills, credit card offers, and large stacks of hundred dollar bills.  However, I did find one of these items in the mail today that I actually enjoyed. 

Unfortunately it was not the large stack of Benjamins, it was a credit card offer.  What makes me go gaga over a credit offer?  Well!  to be honest, I've been in the market for a while, looking for a credit card that would give me cash back, so I can buy my groceries, pay the card off, and then get a little spending money.  This card also had a year with no interest on balance transfers, which would save me money while paying off my current card.  I was intrigued.  The fine print was okay, and the ultimate APR after the introduction period was lower than I was currently paying.  With the giant PRE APPROVED stamped on the paper, I was thinking, good deal!

So I went to the website given, entered enough information so that they could pay my taxes, buy insurance, and vote as Kyle, and away it went!  and it came back and said I was DENIED the offer!  "But Cheer up Kyle!  all is not lost, here is this crappy credit card that has no introductory benefits, no cash back, and a higher interest rate than you have ever paid in your life!, we'll let you have this one, but you can't transfer your balances to it."  As if I would go for that.  

Basically I feel ripped off, discover sends me the offer, I don't go to them and after going through all their stupid hoops, I'm not qualified?  what does pre-approved mean then?  I'm pre-approved to look at credit card offers I can't use, and waste a half hour of my time feeding them information that they can turn around and sell to their "affiliate companies"  who will then spam me to death? 

Don't get a discover card, or you'll discover that they suck.  

Teaching

My wife and I have been talking about the possibility of teaching students of a nearby Christian School an apologetics course, with an emphasis on dealing with non-believers.  I would find this enjoyable, and I hope they would find it useful. 

The administrator at the school seems to agree that it would be useful to the students.  But I should start very soon, because there is a lot of ground to cover.  I am of the belief that you need to cement your own beliefs before you go nosing in on others, and frankly, others will insist you nose in on them.  Secondly, unless you are secure in your beliefs, you will not be able to confidantly explain what and why you do believe. 

In the end, in dealing with an unbeliever, the goal is to unwaveringly represent Christ to him.  Unfortunately, I see too many Christians taking a timid tact for fear of "pushing them away"  they fail to see that the unredeemed man, living in sin, ought to be repelled by Christ.  Roaches scatter when the lights come on.  If the roaches aren't scattering, I would challenge your lightbulb.  

We cannot take what is offensive to the sinful, and make it nonoffensive.  In order to do this, first and foremost, we would have to admit that they are not sinful, as this is the initial, and possibly chief offense that we do to the non-believer.  If we concede to them that they are without sin, then they have no need for Jesus Christ.  If they have no need, then why do you fear that you will push them away?  I say better to let them know that they are indeed the sinner, and they indeed need Christ.  This charge is offensive to their sensibilities, indeed, everything in the world has been teaching them "You are no worse off than the person next to you, look at her!  you don't do half the things wrong that she does, you will be allright.  No one is condemning you!"  This is a flat out lie, their own lives and consciences condemn them.  If a christian's goal is to not offend, they'd best give up being a Christian at the outset. 

This isn't to say that the first thing you say to a person is that they are going to hell!  Unfortunately, when asked our opinion, we are obligated to give a truthful answer, if possible, a Biblical one, naming the Bible as the source.  And believe me, if you are living your faith, you will get asked.  They will ask you knowing full well that your answer will piss them off, but they ask in this hope:  You are the closest to Christ that they know, if they get you to sign off on it, then perhaps it is not wrong in God's eyes either.  Hence: it is crucual that you do not sign off on their sin!  Otherwise you are a false Christ representer, indeed, very nearly an antichrist.  

You won't have to wait long before the unbeliever asks if you think they are going to hell.  It will be all fine and dandy one moment, you'll be sharing a common interest.  Then for a moment things get serious, they rehash something they regret and ask it in this way: "Am I a bad person for doing that?"  The answer is YES!  but do not fret!  there has not been a good person born, save for Christ Jesus, and he saves only the bad, so you are in the best of company to be a bad person interested in redemption, and why would they not want justification?  Is this not the root reason they asked about their regret?  

Doors open for us all the time, and they will call us judgemental, and arrogant, ignorant, part of a religious cult of extremists, or fundamentalists.  What you need to see is that this is them RUNNING from the Christ they see in you, not you pushing them away from Christ.  They are sadly misled, but this encounter with the light is their best chance for salvation.  You cannot walk into a cave with your flashlight inside your coat and lead anyone to safety.  

Besides, if they dont' get a chance to see light in you, they might not recognise it when they see it later!

Aphro.

With valentine's day right around the corner, I can't help but notice all the pink candies that make me fat, calling my name.  These are surrounded by the chocolate candies that call louder and contribute more to my waistline.  

At any rate, I did not begin this blog to complain about my lack of self control.  The point is the M&Ms,  well that's not the whole point, but that's where it begins.  The M&Ms.  It has long been urban knowledge that the green M&Ms are aphrodisiacs.  apparently the fine folks at Mars Snackfood Inc.  got wind of this, so for valentine's day, there are special bags of all green M&Ms.  No, I'm not going to complain about them.  I thought they were cute!  

However, it turned my mind to the plethora of other things that have been considered aphrodisiacs over the course of history, and let me tell you, by comparison, the green M&M sounds boring and common place.  Let me compile a brief list which has no supporting evidence other than my word, wikipedia, and whatever other sources I can scrape together in five minutes.  

1. Lard
2. Anchovies
3. The Moon
4. Oysters
5. Rabbit Genitalia
6. Rhinocerous Horn
7. Dried Blister Beetle Remains (aka Spanish Fly, actually poisonous!)
8. Pearls
9. Tiger Genitalia
10. Bananas

What would drive someone to ingest an energy shake comprised of rhino horn, dead bugs, oysters (pearls and all), garnish it will a little "Peter Rabbit" and down the hatch, and at the end exclaim "It tasted suprisingly like bananas, and wow is it hot in here or is it just me?"

Aparently a lack of companionship.  Suprising to me how much work people through history have and will go to just for the jackrabbit shuffle!  They'll grind up stuff that I would never consider touching without rubber gloves and burn their entire digestive tract with it!  Apparently this was more alluring than putting some effort into their marriage. 

I can already tell you the greatest aphrodesiac:  a great spouse!  When my wife takes care of me, respects me, and loves me... when she goes out of her way to make herself attractive to me, well, lets just say that it does it for me much more than giant cat 'nads.  

Even today people falsely believe things like viagra are an aphrodisiac, when in reality, it just causes a biological feedback that isn't necessarily tied to desire whatsoever.  I was suprised at the credibility of sources I was able to uncover in my five minutes of research, I'll tag the websites at the end, but more amazing still is that everyone you read will tell you the same thing, the most potent aphrodisiac is your mind.  

So many things that people claim enhance performance in bed boil down to nothing but placebo effect.  You could hand out sugar pills that say on the label they boost libido and you would have over 90% satisfied customers that are coming back for more.  

You can see this at work all over culture, even in the documentary "Supersize Me"  where the experimentor's girlfriend comments that he was better in bed before he started eating McDonalds.  This alone was probably enough to get men to despise the creepy clown who makes such very good food.  But it's completely unfounded.  These words come from the mouth of a super vegan who couldn't even WATCH her boyfriend eat meat.  (as though McDonalds is real meat)  odds are SHE was no fun to begin with as kissing would likely violate the "Nothing taken from living things" policy.  I'd say 80% of the disappointment was from her mental image of a man with raw hamburger coursing through his veins, and the other 20% because she was a fridgid contentious woman.  

In short, if you want to get turned on, forget about eating an aphro-shake, the best way to turn Green M&Ms into an aphrodisiac would be to buy a one pound bag and tell your spouse something you love about them for every one you eat.  Spice that up with some love, respect, and commitment to your relationship.  In the end, these will help you a hundred times more than 99 bananas.  But 99 bananas might help a little.  :D

Oh yah, the sources:

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/196_love.html

http://www.livescience.com/health/top10_aphrodisiacs-1.html

http://www.medhunters.com/articles/aphrodisiacs.html

Also, unfortunately, I could not find anything on a duck that is considered an aphrodisiac, if you can, let me know!

Ordered by Importance and Chronology.

Okay, I'm going to pad this one by saying, "I do not intend to insult specific people, it is your right to live your life however the heck you want, no matter how wise or retarded that may be, furthermore, aside from you feeling personally convicted, my viewpoints have nothing to do with you personally, so don't imagine that I judge you based on my own criteria for right and wrong, if you feel convicted about it, maybe that's something you need to take up with your own moral code and work out, I will not authorize your moral code regardless of how nifty you think it may be, but I do not condemn you for it either, I will however say that Jesus is better."

Now that we have the quasi disclaimer out of the way, I can make statements from my point of view that will thoroughly irritate anyone who reads this, which is probably why my wife is the only dedicated reader of my blog.

Some people get married first, then have kids, some people have kids then get married, and both of these couples have a tendency to make the VERY american mistake of putting their kids before their marriages as a priority.

Seriously, in the Bible, the whole, get married, do it, pop out babies, love your wife as you love yourself, discipline your children and then they get married and you kick them out of the house thing? Remember that thing? Well if you've never seen/heard/or read about it, it is there. And it's not just a suggestion, or an archaic way of thinking, or a mere chronology of how "Good little Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic boys and girls live their lives." It's actually a listing of not just chronology, but priority.

Often times, chronology and priority are mirrored. This is the case here. Let me give you an example. One that is not charged with millions of people's anti-religious beliefs, and poor choices. Therefore, we should, theoretically be able to establish a baseline. If you are already set to disagree on me about everything, well, bummer for you, you probably won't learn much.

Let's look at the idea of setting up a television.

1. Take the TV out of the box, position it where it is visible.
2. Plug it in.
3. Connect to an A/V source.
4. Turn it (and your a/v source) on, select the source (if applicable)
5. Enjoi

Is this chronology? Yes! Is it ordered by importance? Yes! The steps are important not just that you do thiem in this order, in fact you can actually do them in whatever order you want, but you will run into problems should you choose to do so. Furthermore, number one and two must be in place at all times for the rest to work. It is paramount that the Television be visible to watch TV. It is critical that the television have power, it is very important that it is connected to a source (unless you like watching Polar Bear in a Snowstorm, or Raccoon in a Monsoon, two of my personal favourite programs on disconnected TV) turning it on is also important, Finally enjoyment is optional, depending on what you do with the TV from there.

You can do everything but step one, and you will be thoroughly convinced that television is retarded. You can do all but number two and wonder what a television is good for, you can do all but number three, and you will continually say that some people have good televisons, but yours sucks and you want to get rid of it, you can do all but number four, and you will wonder why your tv doesn't seem to work right, and if you do all but number five, there's probably something wrong with either your TV or your attitude.

Now lets replace TV with marriage.

1. Grow up, be a good man
2. Find a good woman
3. Get married
4. Have Sex
5. Have Kids

Just like the TV, this isn't a chronological suggestion, we are well aware you can do all the steps in the wrong order and still get them all done, but just like the TV you have made it harder than it ought to be and the whole deal is much less enjoyable, and!!!

You can do everything but step one, and you will be thoroughly convinced that marriage is retarded. You can do all but number two and wonder what a mariage is good for, you can do all but number three, and you will continually say that some people have good relationships, but yours sucks and you want to get rid of it, you can do all but number four, and you will wonder why your spouse doesn't seem to work right, and if you do all but number five, there's probably something wrong with either your marriage, your parts, or your attitude.

Harsh, I know. But lets face it, Biblically, we ought to grow up first, learn the basics, be a man and not a boy, because marriage is for men! Then we need to find someone who has grown up, because marriage is for adults, not people over 18. Then we need to get married, because sex is for married people, not any two idiots who have the parts and can put A and B together. Being able to perform the act does not qualify you for the responsibility of sex. And finally have some kids, because sex is ALSO for kids, but!

All of it needs to STAY in the right order, If you get married and allow yourself to degenerate back to pre-human batchelor state, it would be like taking your TV and putting it back in the box in the middle of the superbowl (ie retarded, in case you couldn't figure that out) If you get married and don't continue to care for your spouse and encourage them to be the best human being they can be, it's a lot like pulling the plug on your television. Cutting your partner off is like setting your tv to antannae when all you have is satellite. So many people in these two situations say the exact same thing to me, "I don't know why it doesn't work, how did you get yours to work?" And if you don't have kids, frankly, I'm convinced you aren't enjoying your marriage to it's full potential. Most of the people that can't have kids WISH they could have kids, there are multitudes of old men married to old women, who are both amazing people, and their great kids are grown and gone, and they secretly wish they could be young again, not to skip out on the arthritis, not to get their hot bodies back, but so they could have just a couple more kids!

Now I want to point out the biggest mistake I see people making, they get through all the steps, even in the right order sometimes!!! And then! They unplug their cable box. They disconnect their x-box, they ditch their marriage, because they have kids now. This precious bundle of joy that you brought into the world is the most important thing, and being a mommy or daddy is the most important job you'll ever have, right? WRONG!

Your marriage was (or should have been) there before your kid, your marriage will be (or should be!) there after your kid takes off, your marriage is there through thick and thin, and here's the part that should freak you out! YOUR child is learning how to run THEIR marriage by watching YOURS. Pretty much everything a little boy knows of how to treat a woman, the stuff that goes so deep he doesn't even know WHY he does it, he learned from watching his mom and dad. The man a woman looks for is almost totally dependant on how she watched mom and dad act together. People often complain "I'm attracted to bad men, and I don't know why!"

Skip the therapy session, look at your parents, do things start to add up now? If not, maybe go get a therapy session but I dare say 9 of 10 times it makes perfect sense when you see what's really going on with your parents. And the same thing is going to happen with yours.

Yah, kids are tons of fun, yah sex is lots of fun, and yes, marriage can have its trials and difficulties along the way, and let me tell you, growing up is not fun, and being grown up when the people who act like infants get their way all the time is less fun, but doing those things ensures that the rest of it works.

So before you go complaining that your tv sucks, maybe you ought to make sure you have it at least out of the box, plugged in, hooked up, turned on, and on the right channel before you complain.

Safety!

I've been really negative lately, so I want to lighten it up, now if you really know me, you know that the lightest I get is watered down cynical, so if you dont' know me, don't expect too much!

We went out with friends while I was visiting "the city" for a doctors' appointment for my wife. I will not say what her ailment is, just in case someone random wanders across my blog (like that would ever happen) and they would love to turn this blog post into all about the disease and how brave she must be to live with it every day and bla bla bla. My wife and I laugh at these people. This is an example of the safety of which the title implies I will be addressing.

As we were out with friends, I observed the single friends working very hard to "hook up" or even just strike up a relationship. There was generally a lot of alcohol involved and many things were said which no party believed to be true, even while inebriated. It was kind of like watching mule and white tail deer try to mate. If I recall correctly, mule deer love to have a wonderful chase around the fields, while white tails pretty much get down to business. Humans courting is a lot like Mule Deer, they give you the run around when you both know how it's going to end. It makes me very sad because the goal of this usually isn't a positive and lasting relationship, it's usually a one night stand, or adding a "benefits" clause to an existing friendship. In the end they could take a lesson from the white tails: If you are going to run around acting like an animal, why waste your time and energy? Just admit that you are nothing more than beasts, and then act like them.

I actually spent a decent chunk of my night in the car with my wife while our friends were dancing and drinking in a club, and I was much happier. With my wife, there never have been and never will be any little games. We don't pretend we want something we don't. We just are what we are, we love each other, and it's a safe place. We can say what we mean, unfiltered, as it enters our heads.

I feel sorry for all the single people who have to wade through the games and the guessing, and the horrible backstabbing that goes on, even with the people who honestly want a relationship, they feel like they are "guarding their heart" or something by playing games to test your loyalty, or whatever the heck it is they think they are doing!

So many people speak negatively of marriage "The Ol' Ball and Chain" "Tied down" etc. etc. Even apparently kind comments have a negative connotation. "Make an honest man out of him" Implies that the spouse in question is saddled like a horse and then trained with a stick. I'd like to point out that pretty much all of these are false, in fact, from a certain point of view I became "less honest" after I got married. Because there is a whole side of me that I used to have to hide from others, because whenever I showed it, they freaked out. I can show it all to my wife and not worry.

When I'm alone with my wife, it's like being alone and talking to yourself, but not crazy. It's totally safe. I can say anything, do anything, drink anything, and I know who I'll wake up next to each morning. I don't need to dance on a bar for attention, I just rub my wife's back, and I have more genuine affection than if I had five girls grinding up on me on a dance floor. Furthermore, I don't have to worry about diseases with my wife.

If I was ever tragically put in a position of singleness again, I don't know if I could put up with the BS of the dating world. Even the BS that other women have. There's rules about who and what you can talk about, what you can say, what is allowed and not allowed. With my wife, none of those exist. In fact, someone who got to witness our totally alone moments might be shocked to see the Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde transformation. Yet, they shouldn't be. Inside marriage there is utter freedom that is never found in any dating relationship anywhere, where people hold their dignity and egos so dearly.

My advice: Get out of the dating world and find a spouse that won't play games with your head, someone you can curse at, grab inappropriately, and laugh.