Saddam Had WMDs
: There was no conspiracy, and the press knows it
Errors of Mass Destruction: WMD search and accusations
Not Just WMDs: Why we went into Iraq
WMD & More: Remember what we have found in Iraq
Weapons of Mass Distraction: Are we blind?
The “Bush Lied” Case Falls Apart: The president’s critics have to ignore too much evidence
Cheney’s Supposed Lie: What did he say and when did he say it?
The Surreal World of Iraq: Let us thank our soldiers on this Independence Day
Uranium-Gate?: Some context
Democrats’ Iraqi Attack Ad: Former Clinton officials produce an ad attacking the president on WMDs
Lies about Iraqi Nukes: Bill Clinton & Carl Levin
Are Iraqis Better Off?: Is that a joke?
War Folklore: Don’t listen to the latest groupspeak
Saddam: Dead or Alive?: The dictator’s ultimate fate

You know, I wouldn't be plastering my blog with these links if my best friend would pull his head out of his rear end and quit listening to NPR, whose opinions on the war he spouts frequently and doesn't seem to realize it. The day NPR actually reports the news will be the day I convert to Buddism and reincarnate as a flea. Bush went in with the best intelligence he had and to claim he went in "for the oil" is to ignore the fact that 97% of our oil comes from this hemisphere.

Why Did Bush Go to War?
No Flies on Bush
Saddam plus al-Qaeda = WMDs
The French Connection
Symposium: Bush’s Decision to Go to War. Was it Justified?
The Politics of Mass Destruction
The War Against Bush
Where, O Where Have the WMDs Gone? Part Deux

To my other friends who might be reading this, sorry. I'm sure you can find something interesting here.

I now know there are three people reading my insufferable excuse for writing. The joys of being read and well-received...

I ran into a statement today by a guy who thinks he knows alot about age dating but said something extremely stupid. I immediately pounced revealing to the world this man's idiocy and, hopefully, keeping him from saying something so stupid ever again. He said rocks from the earth have been dated at 4.54 billion years old. He might as well have said, "It's just a flesh wound!" because I would have laughed just as hard. The earliest period in time in Geology is known as the Hadian. The Hadian comes before the Archean which comes before the Proterozoic, like you needed to hear that. There is a reason we call that period the Hadian: there are no bloody rocks to represent that period of time geologically! The earliest-dated rocks are a whopping 3.9 billion years old. Hey, he's only off by the whole Phanerizoic! The tounge-lashing he got was purely for misrepresenting the scientific evidence. I could jump all over him for some of the silly assumptions of radiometric age-dating, but I thought I would take the criticism one thing at a time.

This is for Ron

Once again, I found one of my favorite websites of all time. I forgot about it until I stumbled upon it when I was piddling around on Bored.com. It is called The Dialectizer. You take any website you feel like (it didn't work on this blog, for some reason), out it through the dialectizer, and you get a new version of whatever website you are looking at. Are you sick of Deathstar spouting? Dialectize it! Sick of Jesus Last's tired takes on Benke and why it's good for him to get off? Dialectize it! Do you hate the Faiders as much as I do? Dialectize that website as well. This ought to be in the bookmark of any intelligent person who needs the occasional laugh, even at sites they might love.

An Open Letter in Response to 'the Benke Matter'

The laity of the church needs to sign this document to show that most of us are not as dumb as they think we are.

You know, your friends can sometimes drive you crazy.

Last Sunday, my best friend got into an argument with the campus missionary over whether or not Lutheran laymen should pray in public places. First, our campus missionary knows how to push my best friend's buttons and get him suckered into these arguments. He should know better. Secondly, my friend took the bait, swallowed the hook, and about ruined dinner. Now, I don't know about everyone else, but at dinner, I do try to shove food in large quantities into my mouth, and I happened to be working on dessert when this little argument erupted like Mt St. Helens having a bad case of the explosive runs. Even worse, both sides tried to drag me into their little sludge pit and make me spout an opinion that, honestly, I didn't want to give because I was at the dinner table and not at the bar where the liquor would have made me jump right into the argument. You argue over beer and you talk about the cult of Mary Kay at the dinner table. I should have told both of them to take it to the bar next door. Third, I reall don't agree with my friend on this issue anyway. The Confessions are lacking, and Scripture gives some guidance on how not to pray like a hypocrit and to pray away from everybody, but how you get from that to no public prayer is beyond me. Of course, there's the good old standby tradition, which, if I believed wholeheartedly in, I would be praying to St. Anne right now and prommising I would become a monk just to get away...

Speaking of monks, if you haven't seen this you are missing out. I cannot wait to see it. It shall be awesome!

Uday and Kusay (however you spell their names) are dead. Thank YHWH. Hopefully they are both where they belong, with Tim McVeigh, getting various large and hot items shoved up their respective rectums.

I have gotten zero e-mail response, so I am going to quit posting my e-mail address and use it to send messages telling you about how to get a bigger penis. Also check out the Alter Call.

You know, purging is good for the soul. I purged on Thursday. You see, I do not normally talk like that with, well, anybody. I had a discussion with one of my good friends tonight over things like why I left my old church and Pietism. All said, it was a good discussion, and I hope he will grow because of it. I am not the most eloquent speaker, and sometimes I contradict myself. I think he understood. Keep your eyes on the cross.

I have not received any hate mail yet. I have not received much of any mail, as a matter of fact. I have a captive audience of two right now (maybe three soon!), thus my rampant optimism. I do not have a respond feature, so if you read and your name is not Ron or Erica, e-mail me at beerisforamateurs@yahoo.com and I will know someone is out there actually reading.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Daystar is back. I was hoping God had permanently disbled their internet connection. They are back spouting off more about how Rev. Benke's participation at Yankee Stadium was a good thing and how us confessionals are the scum of the earth and must be eliminated. I sometimes wander if Deathstar and Jesus Last are the Borg.

WE ARE DEATHSTAR. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. I guess I could make a comparison to myself and Picard since he was assimilated and came back. I once would have agreed with everything these groups are saying when I was a stupid teenager who couldn't have found his ass even though it was right where I left it. I am sure the Deathstar/Jesus Last people will eventually find this blog. As a matter of fact, I'll post the link to this blog on their little piece of cyberspace, give out my e-mail, and say, "Bring it on". They will probably say. "That's not very Christlike!" to which I'll reply, "No Shit! Neither are you!"

If you didn't know, ad homenin attacks were considered a proper form of debate in Luther's time. That's how he could get away with many of the things he said, like comparing much of the clergy to hogs lying in their own, well, shit. An apt analogy for the Daystar/Jesus First crowd to think about.

I am starting to blog much more regularly now. Don't count on it lasting too much longer...

I hate core. I hate unloading core. I especially hate unloading core when it's getting hot outside and the boxes are wooden. I drank three bottles of Poweraide this morning in a futile attempt to keep myself from dehydrating. It happened anyway, and I've spent this afternoon trying to rehydrate. I think I am finally there, and I stink of sunscreen. What a day.

Why is it so hard for someone like me to talk to women? I mean, I have the perfect sob story (being bitten in the face by a dog when I was six) with a very high empathy factor, I am funny (Monty Python-warped funny, but funny none the less), and I have a nice dog who likes everyone. So why can't I ever get more than three words out of myself when I actually talk to someone available? How come it's easier to talk to women who are already hitched or in a relationship which you know they won't be pulled away from? I need a better job.

All in all, it's been a Murphy's Law week. Thank God. Otherwise, I wouldn't know what a good week is. I think. Maybe.

E-mail me at beerisforamatuers@yahoo.com and don't be too lazy to copy and paste. Maybe if I knew someone besides Ron was reading this, I might actually put more effort into keeping this silly place on the internet updated!

I love poker.

I don't know if any of you have seen the TV show on the Travel channel called "World Poker Tour", but it is some of the best TV I have seen in quite a while. Talk about your reality TV. Thousands upon thousads of dollars are bet in single outings and the drama of how someone will play and whether the cards will come up in their favor is amazing. Not only that, people will bet everything they have to try to "double up". The risk/reward factor is extremely high. Not only that, the tour goes to places where you would just love to play poker, like a cruise ship or Aruba. Everytime I watch the show, I want to get a deck out and start playing just to show my friends that I could cream them from what I have learned. No limit Texas Hold 'em, the greatest card game in the world.

What I am about to discuss is something I need to get off my chest. Please realize I am ranting, and, at times, I may not make much sense. Hopefully, I can clarify later. I really need to thank Ryan for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions as I struggled through this process. Ryan was a big help and, unfortunately, probably more of a pastor to me during this time than my own pastors. That, however, is for later.

It all started with a song. The song was innocent enough at first. I mean, who wouldn’t like to listen to an upbeat song every once in a while during the service like “Shine Jesus Shine”. There was one problem, however. The aesthetics of the song are not pleasing when played on a pipe organ. I also began to wonder if we should really be ordering God around by telling him to “Shine”. After that, the questionable theology began to pile up. Bad Baptist hymns replaced the Gloria, a “Jesus is my Boyfriend” tune (Open my eyes Lord) replaced the confession of Peter (Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life), and the liturgy was slashed as to be and hour or less, guaranteed. About a year and a half ago, I began coming home from church angry and questioning what the pastors were trying to do. Why was the service being dumbed down? Why were theologically questionable songs, at best, being introduced to the congregation, stuff so bad I wanted to puke? Why couldn’t the bell choir reverse this trend?

Article XIV of the Augsburg confession states, “Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called.” (Bente and Dau) So when the Vicar began consecrating the elements, I was quite confused. Ryan was a big help with my reservations about this practice. He reminded me of Article XIV and what it states. So, unless Vicars have suddenly received calls I am unaware of, he has no business consecrating the elements. This one drove me nuts because, somehow, I always ended up with the Vicar consecrating elements no matter what service I attended. I now wonder how many times did I participate in an empty ceremony without any meaning or power. I should have just had crackers and wine at home.

At this point, I am not only angry at my church, I am angry at myself for being at a church that has a problem with orthopraxy. What drove me even more insane was when I was asked to participate in a service in which the doctrine of Two Kingdoms would be proclaimed and then muddled. Ryan, once again, was a voice of reason to me, and I confronted the senior pastor about what I believed to be a violation of Article XVI of the Augsburg Confession. We discussed my conscience, my views, and he then sent me home with a CTCR document on Church and state. He said that the CTCR document was the official position of the Synod. I know CTCR documents are not the official positions of the Synod (except one that went through the proper means to become official) but just documents for further study and reflection. To his credit, he also said that if I was uncomfortable with the service, then I shouldn’t do it lest I sin against my conscience. I am not happy at this point, and I go to a different pastor and a vicar who tell me to see if I could separate the “masturbation for America” (as I called it) from the rest of the service. If not, I was given the bad advice of just gritting my teeth and bearing it because it was an issue not worth fighting over. I cannot really blame them. I was the one who decided to participate to help keep the peace, and I was the one who sinned. The other part of the conversation, however, was what really made me think. The conversation was about trust and the necessity of it. Did I like my pastors? Yes. They were both outgoing and cared deeply about the congregation. Did I trust my pastors? To answer that, I asked a different question: why was I asking Ryan and other pastors questions I should be asking my own pastors? Would I be bringing these other people into these problems if I completely trusted my pastors? The answer is “No”. At the point I realized that, I knew that all the thinking I had done about leaving prior to this would, at some point, turn to action.

After all of that, however, I still hadn’t requested to be transferred even though I began to attend other congregations when my obligations to my home church did not interfere with my plans. I intended to just fade away into oblivion and transfer somewhere else where I would not be angry after the service. I didn’t want nor need perfection. I just wanted somewhere where I could bicker about the church wasting its valuable money on decaf rather than questioning the practices of the pastor. My idea of transferring changed when I heard that District President Benke’s case had been reversed. Both of my pastors were big Benke fans, as was much of the congregation. I was alright with staying in fellowship with everyone as long as the Benke case was in limbo. I justified it somehow using logic. I don’t really remember how I justified such a move now. Anyway, as soon as the decision was announced, I began writing a letter of resignation. I neither resigned from my position as bell director nor my position as LOGOS chime director. I resigned my membership in the church. Many will say churches work very slowly. The elders accepted my resignation within 48 hours. All I have to say is I was happy. I no longer deal with the hypocrisy I saw every Sunday. I soon joined a church with a confessional pastor and arguments about the type of coffee. It’s amazing how much you appreciate the petty arguments after coming out of the situation I was in. I also have a pastor who I trust and can bring up concerns. That is a blessing I have not had in quite a while.

Here comes the hard part: where did I go wrong? Through this whole process, could I have done something differently that might of resulted in change or, at least, me leaving like I did? My only real regret is that I did not discuss my problems with the liturgy, the vicar, and the trust issue with either of the pastors. I believe those issues really needed to be discussed and much of the bad blood I now possess might have been avoided. At best, we might have found solutions to these problems so I could, with a good conscience, stay. At worst, I would end up where I am now. I do miss many of the people at my old church. I miss the bell choir. I am saddened by what I had to do, but yet I accept the burden gladly, because being sad is easier than being angry.

Numbers 6:24-26

For someone who hates it when websites don't update themselves, I am sure piss poor at it.

Good news: Daystar's website is no more (for now).