Just a neglected ore mule

One of the things Stein said about MMORPGs I disagreed with, the mood is not always playful.
"The general mood in third places is playful and marked by frivolity, verbal word play, and wit."
Often times the conversations degrade to young horny men insulting each other with sexually explicit insults and poor grammar.


With almost complete anonymity online games can bring out the worst in people.


But I won't repeat the ones that actually drive my point home.

Other times however I must admit the online community can produce some amusing things, an example from bash.org, " There was a 23% drop in temperature.
That's almost 25%!
... That was one of the most worthless comments I've ever heard."

Or, " some girl on the street asked if i was saved yet
i told her i saved at the checkpoint a couple minutes back
and can reload from there if i die
she was confused"

That last one I kinda like.


But I must also admit there is something beautiful in two players helping each other out in the virtual world. A stranger whom you may never meet, taking the time to heal you out in the wild even though it is of no benefit to himself reminds me of the good Samaritan. I have heard of high level players stopping to help out beginners and giving them items just because it is the decent thing to do.

Maybe in the online world people are just that, people. The good and the bad and all the pent up sexual frustration that comes with it.

All Your Soul Are Belong To Us

I am gonna have to go with M & M on this one, the meduim is the message, that is regardless of how well written a sermon is on a website the message people are most gonna take away from it will still be, "look I am a website, everything is quick and easy, don't like that? Don't read it! Do you like this? Click on this link! Wanna comment on what this nameless idiot wrote? Do it! There's no responsibility here! Wanna connect with someone? Do it, and you you can never talk to them again if you decide you don't like them, but you will want to accumulate as many friends as possible because the interactions are so shallow!"

Yes, it is an incredible tool, you can reach billions of people, but when it comes to gut wrenching, heart tearing spiritual contact, it just can't compete.

Marshal you got it right... both of you. Also the candy you guys got it right too.

You can't fool me Mr. Cruise

I wonder if any superheroes are Mennonites?

No, probably not.

Superman is a Methodist.
Batman is a Catholic.
Spiderman is a Protestant.

Somehow it fits, but I wonder if villians are atheists? or practice scientology?

But some of the most inspiring and moving pieces of literature I have read would be Calvin and Hobbes. Particularly when Calvin finds a wounded raccoon which he takes in and tries to nurse back to health but unfortunately it dies during the night. Some parents would rather opt for a happy ending but I like what Tom Carmody said, "If we are dishonest, if we hold things back from children, they discover that later and there's a backlash. 'You weren't honest with me.' 'You didn't trust me.' 'You didn't empower me to deal with that.' Bye, goodbye, and they're gone.

These particular mediums are therefore, the most important because they are the favored of children and the young at heart.
To dismiss them would be silly.

But seriously, why are we Mennonites so lame?

Oh, well. Then we wouldn't be Mennonites.

"Bleeech!" puked the bald man behind me

"In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of anal fissures!"

A grim demon to have on your shoulder.

I hope that isn't the punishment for reading Harry Potter...

But when Matt Taibbi went undercover for RollingStone and infiltrated a Christian Zionism retreat I found myself just as shocked as non-Christians would be, those guys do some crazy "batshit!"

"When the word of God is in your mouth," he said, "the demons can't come out of your body. You have to keep a path clear for the demon to come up through your throat. So under no circumstances pray to God. You can't have God in your mouth. You can cough, you might even want to vomit, but don't pray."

Yipes!

Matt had good reason to be scared but I think a small grain of salt is needed.
Most of the things they did during the weekend I would have no problem with and would encourage others to do so but everything they did was slightly skewed. This doesn't mean that speaking in tongues is wrong or healing wounds but from the way Matt described it they had different views on how to go about it, craaaaaazy views. At the same time Matt is biased going in and the constant snide remarks weaken his arguments like a holy-vomitus/demon-exorcism.

Throughout the article there are hints of Matt's bias, his upbringing was upper class and a struggle with drugs. Dealing with wounds and the past should be something of interest to everyone. Just weed out the ones that make you puke.