Planes, Protests, and People Who Walk While Texting

Okay, feeling the juices flowing out now, and I'm talking about the creative ones. Uh, the thoughtful creative ones, not the reproductive ones (this deserves to stay on here). First I'd like to put a plug out for a protest happening on BYU campus. We recently decided to have coffee night on Mondays for FHE but only 8 of us showed up so now we're wondering if we should go back Tuesdays. But, call it luck, chance, fate, or the Spirit, we happened to run into a bunch of liberal people who some of which happen to be atheists/agnostics/non-religious going to BYU. And they were meeting at the Coffee Pod to organize a protest against Condoleezza Rice for being a war criminal!

The link is here.

Now, I'm not one for protests, but I'll show my support for their cause by rushing out of class to take pictures of them, lol. The protest will be Thursday morning. It's a peaceful protest, with some LDS views being used in support of it. Show up at the parking lot by the Brick Oven or just be down by the south of campus and wait for the picketers. Most likely they will get thrown off, but I'm wondering how far they will get across campus, lol. Maybe some lurking BYU person on here will make it stop before it starts if they read this, but hopefully not. Free speech and beliefs right? Oh yeah, nvm, not at BYU.

So, go support this if you want.

On my last post I mentioned that there were some interesting people on the plane. On a short flight to my layover I happened to sit right in front of some tall guy about to go to Bangladesh on a mission for God. He had some old guy with him, who didn't talk at all. Not Mormon at all, though during the conversations I looked for similarities between the different people involved and Mormonism. There were quite a few, which still makes me believe that Mormonism is a part of Christianity, but definitely not mainstream ... whatever that is.

Well, the guy across from the tall guy happened to be some eastern religion nut. Not in a crazy sense or religious sense, but he was all into it and learning about it and looking for practical application. So Gigantor begins speaking with Buddha Lover about meditation and prayer, Jesus and spiritualism, medicine versus the sacred field of alternative medicine, and people being healed through miracles. Usually the later are famous evangelical preachers who had an experience no one knew about and then share it with everyone, making lots of money on the way. (Or, so Gigantor explained, though he didn't realize how ridiculous he sounded.)


They talked about how some person got cured from cancer because of a prayer, which probability and a skeptically raised eyebrow is all I need to doubt it had anything supernatural occurring or possibly wasn't even true. (Again, friend of a friend type thing.) Eventually the Buddha Lover went to his music and the guy BEHIND HIM began talking to Gigantor. This new third party was a Christian from another sect and began debating Bible scriptures, which Gigantor was as good as any Mormon missionary who has been out for a year (which I mean to say is that he was actually very good.) They went back and forth on whether Paul meant this or that, and eventually got to the faith versus works discussion, which Gigantor was all about faith and grace, works don't mean nuth'n! The new guy didn't agree but couldn't sway the big guy by any means.

Sitting in front of them and by the window I couldn't really contribute without turning awkwardly around and facing the whole plane while kneeling on my chair. I had really wanted to get in on it and start discussing the intense amount of logical fallacies they were drowning us listeners in. Especially all the pseudo-medicine talk. It was completely ridiculous. It came off as if Gigantor was completely adamantly sure he was right, and that Buddha Lover didn't know much but wasn't open-minded to anything except what he had recently been discovering. And from my point of view I just wanted to tell them everything they were saying was third-hand or further in distance, not supported by any evidence except that some person said so, who was momentarily benefiting from it, and that if alternative medicine worked then it would be proven to work! Medicine corporations are a business, and if something could be proven to work, cheap to make, and expensive to sell, they would. Oh wait, that's right, a lot of natural and alternative medicines are actually produced and sold by medicine companies!(no links, but do some research into this, it is a little surprising, except I just stole the punchline.) (And if you're too lazy then just look at bottles and who they are made by and connect the dots with some of these products.)

So I had meant to listen to music but ended up eavesdropping and finding it fascinating how smart they sounded up front but how unscientific and unfounded and fallacious everything they were saying truly was. I mean, some preacher says his wife had some disease no doctor could help with and goes to Asia and was cured by a shaman? And now they make money off preaching new age stuff to people? Suspiciooouuus.


My row-mate had fallen asleep but woke up later. After Gigantor and the new guy had been going at it about the Bible we both chuckled and began discussing religion ourselves. He made the comment that they all think they're own version is right, and I said that the problem is that they think everyone else is wrong. After making some more comments I decided he was non-religious, but I wasn't sure if he was an atheist or not, and now I'm wishing I had probed some more. Regardless, it was fun to agree on some things, probably made him happy to see a young man like myself agreeing with him, and we had a pleasant exchange of farewells.

Of course I should've written about this sooner, would've helped my memory, but I think y'all get the picture.

Lastly, at campus today some girl (and it could've been a guy) was walking down a crosswalk while texting. Only she was doing the 'texting walk' like you'd see some young kid who doesn't know how to walk and chew gum without going real slow or stumble-walking. So she holds up traffic, gets to the other side, and the car waiting turns right just as she obliviously turns out into that crosswalk and continues to hold up vehicles now sitting in the intersection. What a dumb c***!!! Holy hell, I'm sure I've done something stupid while texting, but nothing like that. And she was oblivious! She was going to the sports building and may have been blond. I better stop before I roll out more stereotypes.

Oh, also, I have collected several patriarchal blessings, so probably in the next couple weeks I'll make an 'educational' post about them. Lol. Thank you for everyone who has sent them to me. This is nothing new, other people literally have gathered hundreds and found deeper template foundations for the blessings, I'm just doing mine for fun. Very second-rate. Like most of my blog ....