Chained Letters

So my mother sends me the most amazing mail, what's the keyboard shortcut to insert sarcasm? I guess you'll have to infer it. Anyway, I've taken it upon myself to try and combat a wee bit of ignorance that comes my way. Not to say my mom is ignorant, she's a very smart lady in her own way. I had to get it from some where.

Anyway here's the most recent e-mail I got from her and my response.


I received this from a friend who had a choice to make. It said that I
had a choice to make too.

I've chosen. Now it's your turn to choose.

The story goes that some time ago a mother punished her five year old
daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was
tight and she became even more upset when the child used the gold paper
to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift box to her mother the
next morning and then said, "This is for you, Momma."

The mother was embarrassed by her earlier over reaction, but her anger
flared again when she opened the box and found it was empty. She spoke
to her daughter in a harsh manner.

"Don't you know, young lady, when you give someone a present there's
supposed to be somethinginside the package?"
She had tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Momma, it's not empty! I blew
kisses into it until it was full."

The mother was crushed. She fell on her knees and put her arms around
her little girl, and she begged her forgiveness for her thoughtless
anger.

An accident took the life of the child only a short time later, and it
is told that the mother kept that gold box by her bed for all the years
of her life.

Whenever she was discouraged or faced difficult problems she would open
the box and take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the
child who had put it there.

In a very real sense, each of us, as human beings, have been given a
Golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children,
family, friends and GOD. There is no more precious possession anyone
could hold.

And my response:

So....this story is basically: a mom yells at her daughter during a stressful period in her life (holiday, money tight etc.) like any normal human would, and like any parent should do to imbue their child with a sense of right and wrong, I think its called parenting. And then she feels bad for previous yelling because the little girl did something "cute". Which is to say she probably didn't regret yelling at her (assuming she's a sound parent and realized that her daughter does need to learn not to waste things. And I'm sorry but a box full of kisses is a waste, unless they are of the Hershey variety) but in reality she hated seeing her daughter being so cute and upset at the same time, because no parent wants their child to be upset and the very fact that they can be so cute is one of the main reasons why they don't want that; so you see her conundrum. And then, what I'm sure would be just another mishap along the busy stressful Christmas season and maybe would be recounted at her wedding or other social gatherings where this is much nostalgia floating around is thrust into rock hard symbolism by this little girls accidental death (accidental to assure us she wasn't murdered). Like any mother she is upset and toppled into grief, but low and behold she has this golden box of "kisses" that now couples with the dire wish to have her daughter be alive becomes a personification of her dead daughter forcing her to ritualistically remove a "kiss" from the box whenever she feels down, not just about her daughter mind you, but any problem that she is facing. Be it another stressful time in her life, troubles with her relationships, or just having trouble getting the lid off the coffee maker she pulls a "kiss" from this box. This is what we commonly call, insane. I can understand thinking of the nice thing your daughter did for you whenever you feel down, or just thinking about your daughter and what a joy she was in your life when you are down, but saving an empty box and pulling invisible kisses out of it is crazy and this woman needs help. And then it caps off with, "In a very real sense each of us has a golden box full of kisses" What? Is this a metaphor now? I thought this lady had a real box? But wait, in a "real" sense we have a box full of kisses?

Okay, obviously I could go on, but what is the point of this story? Jerk your heart strings? Or to tell us to believe in imaginary things, because it will make it all better. I guess maybe it is. But from a certain point of view it seems really stupid. And I'm sure you can tell what my point of view is.


Harsh? No? Maybe not.

Let's Try This Again...

I don't mean to rip here, its just I am a little disappointed in the fact that I can't find much stuff about Christmas that doesn't leave some loop hole open for the existence of Christ, even if that is a stretch. So I'm going to post a few videos that make up what is the first part of a full documentary Zeitgeist. A good doc over all, even if I am not %100 on everything they say in parts two and three, this first part on religion is pretty spot on and hard to argue with. It covers the whole Dec 25th thing also. So without further ado:

An attempt at classification

Evolving Thoughts has this post attempting to classify the various types of religion in the world. A good read; a bit dry, but it does a good job I think.

Graphs Prove I'm Smarter Than You

Interesting that Kuwait and the U.S. don't fit the pattern. Thoughts? Aren't we not suppose to make assumptions based on correlation? Nathan? That's a psychological thing right?

Sign me up!

The Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Apparently some kids at MSU are really into it. I first heard about the FSM way back when Intelligent design was getting big, with Kansas and what not. It was a response to ID. They claimed that if ID said that an intelligent creator made everything, well then that very well could be The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Sounds about right to me.