Stories that made me laugh so hard. Or inspired me.
Today I was on the computer in the school media lab and discovered that someone had created a file called "Once". Curious, I opened it, only to find another file titled "Upon". I opened this to find one titled "A" and then another titled "Time". This went on for about 50 files and actually told a story. At parts it would have multiple files to pick from, like a choose your own adventure story. This was by far the best thing to happen to me all day, and I'm determined to hunt down the mystery creator and thank them. MLIA
Today, my step brother followed me around the house with his acoustic guitar giving me personalized theme music. I adore my new family. MLIA.
Today, I was in line at Target, wearing my new Hogwarts hoodie, when the elderly woman behind me whispered into my ear, "Do you think the ministry approves of Dumbledore letting muggles wear those?" She smiled at me and then proceeded with putting her items on the belt. Old lady, you made my day. MLIA.
Today my friend showed me the late slip that he turned in. His excuse was that he had been "stuck at Platform 9 and 3/4". It was approved as a valid excuse. It made my day. MLIA.
Today, I was looking at Halloween costumes on the Toys 'R Us website. Under the category of "Occupations", there was a bowling ball costume. I now know what I want to be when I grow up. MLIA
Today, I stepped out of the shower and put my glasses on, but noticed that I could see perfectly fine without them! I spent almost 5 minutes thinking about my exciting new life as spiderman before I realized I had my contacts in. MLIA.
Today, my parents went to open house night at my school. While listening to one teacher, my mom took notes. My dad drew airplanes attacking a stick figure version of my teacher. MLIA.
Today at my school, we had a lock down drill to prepare for any intruders. We had to lock the door and sit quietly in the corner for ten minutes. About half way through, the door bursts open and my principal dressed in a Darth Vader suit shouts, "Fools, I have a spare key!" and runs out. It was the single most frightening yet thrilling experience of my life. MLIA
Today, I realized that the two main characters in the Veggie Tales, the tomato and the cucumber, are actually fruits. Now I don't know what to believe. MLIA
Today, while my bio teacher was lecturing, his phone went off. He looked at it, then out the window, gasped, said, "Hold that thought," and ran out of the room. He came back two minutes later holding an ice cream sandwich, and said, "Sorry, the ice cream truck was here." This year may be better than I thought it would. MLIA.
Today, I was cleaning out stuff from my past and stumbled upon a paper from first grade. A question on it was, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I wrote, "A marshmallow." I'm glad I set my standards high. MLIA.
Today, I saw a middle school teacher herding his class down the halls with a pointer-stick and shouting "Feeding time, you animals!" The entire class was making animal sounds. MLIA.
Today, I handed out Raptor Attack Plans to my teachers. Everyone of the teachers laminated them and hung them close to the door. I'm glad to see my school is taking this threat seriously. MLIA
Today, I had to take a test in my AP Biology class. The second to last test question was "Make a barnyard animal noise. You have 10 seconds to comply." I looked up, confused, and saw my teacher staring intently at me. He mouthed the word "Go" and tapped his watch. I mooed. The rest of the testing period was completely silent, except for the occasional clucking, neighing, and mooing. MLIA.
Today, I was in the bathroom at a popular coffee chain. Someone wrote "What would Jesus do?" on the wall. Another person wrote directly underneath that "Wash His hands." And a third wrote "And your feet." I smiled. MLIA
Today, I realized that a lot of people on MLIA talk about their favorite parents. I decided to figure it out. Later, my mom thought our family should go say hi to the new neighbors. My dad and I were sitting in the kitchen as she began making brownies to bring to them. My dad said to me "How much pot do you think we should add to say Welcome?". I think I figured it out. MLIA
Today, I was driving home from work when a huge bird came flying down across the road in front of me. Instead of stepping on the brakes...I ducked. MLIA
Today, I was looking at my statistics book and the first part is called Getting to Know Statistics. On the footnote it stated, "we were going to call this section the Introduction, but nobody reads the Introduction. we feel safe putting this in the footnote, as no one reads footnotes either." Best textbook ever. MLIA
Today, I saw a giant bottle of hand sanitizer in the computer lab that had a label reading "DO NOT MOVE!" I moved it, and a rock hit the window right next to me. I put it back. MLIA
Today, my dad told me that when he was in the army his friend legally changed his last name to "Sir" so the drill sargeants would have to scream "SIR!" to their inferior. Way to beat the system. MLIA.
Today, I went to McDonalds and saw a vacuum cleaner chained to the bike rack. Never have I had so many questions. MLIA
Today in Maths, my teacher noticed a kid who was daydreaming. He walked over to her and asked what she was thinking about. The girl sighed and said "waffles..." Satisfied, my teacher nodded and went back to the board. MLIA
Today I plugged my iPhone into my car speakers and started to use iGun. I turned up the volume, rolled down the windows and started shooting at a girl walking by me. She proceeded to act out the most dramatic death I've ever seen. We're having coffee next weekend. MLIA.
Today, I saw a FedEx and UPS truck racing. This made my life. MLIA
Today, I learned that my history teacher will try to counter-doodle any doodles on handed in work. I plan on stepping up my doodles in that class now to see what I get back. MLIA.
Today, the book I ordered on Ebay arrived. On the front cover, there was a post-it that read: "Stroke the spine before opening. Say hi to Hagrid for me." I'm in love. MLIA
Today, I turned on my laptop and went to connect to a wireless network. One of the options that showed up was a security-enabled network named "NARNIA". I connected by typing in "wardrobe". It made my week. MLIA.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
"Doubt is Their Co-Pilot"
A religion of uncertainty.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
November 16, 2005
(http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/16/nation/na-newreligion16)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It takes a certain amount of audacity to found a religion.
Ford Vox does not look audacious.
A tall, slightly stooped medical student, Vox speaks in a mumble and rarely lifts his eyes. But if he lacks confidence, that only makes him all the more qualified to lead his flock because Vox, 28, has created a religion for people who know only that they know nothing.
Universists might believe in God, or might not. (Personally, Vox thinks he does.)
The only dogma they must accept is uncertainty.
Relinquishing any hope of cosmic truth, Universists worship by wondering how we got here, and why, and what lies ahead.
From his base here in the Bible Belt, Vox has built an online congregation of more than 8,000 in the last two years. They meet in cafes and living rooms across the nation; they join online chats with scientists and theologians; they find profundity in admitting their confusion.
"We want to rework religion from within," Vox said.
It is a surprisingly common impulse these days.
In vast numbers, Americans are turning away from traditional religions. They're not giving up on God, but they are casting aside the rituals and labels they grew up with.
Conventional churches still have enormous pull. There are more than 300,000 Protestant congregations in the United States, and mega-churches can easily attract 8,000 worshipers on any given Sunday.
But the number of Americans who claim no religion has more than doubled in a decade. More than 27 million adults -- nearly one in seven -- reject all religious labels, according to the City University of New York's respected American Religious Identification Survey.
Even among committed Christians, restlessness is growing. Pollster George Barna, who works for Christian ministries, estimates that 20 million Christians have largely forsaken their local church in favor of discussion groups with friends, Bible study with colleagues or spiritual questing online.
"They want less of a programmed process and more of a genuine relationship with God," said Barna, who describes the shift in his new book "Revolution."
Vox hopes to offer one possible path in Universism.
Instead of hierarchy and ritual, his religion offers rambling chats about the meaning of life. Instead of a holy text, members put their faith in the world around them, trying to figure out the universe by studying it.
The go-it-your-own-way philosophy at the heart of Universism troubles Douglas E. Cowan, an expert in emerging religions at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. As he put it: "One guy worshipping a potato in a hotel room in New Jersey is not a religion."
True religion, Cowan said, gives structure and meaning to people's lives and elevates them above the humdrum of their daily chores.
He can't quite see how uncertainty does the trick.
Universists respond that he's missing the point. They're trying to build a religion that lets people find their own structure and meaning. Universists know they're on their own in the great journey of life -- but they take comfort in meeting every few weeks to talk through what they've discovered along the way.
"We need a social structure that doesn't involve other people telling us what to believe," said E. Frank Smith Jr., 61, an early convert.
Vox has felt that way since he was 14 and a camper at a Christian summer program.
One of his counselors specialized in picking out -- and raging against -- the sins alluded to in Top 40 songs. Vox found himself wondering why he should listen to the church when he really preferred listening to Chris Isaak.
That disillusionment grew, and by college Vox had turned away from the Presbyterian church his family attended in Tuscaloosa, Ala. But he wasn't ready to abandon religion altogether.
Vox believes that humans are hard-wired for faith, as some genetic and neurological research suggests.
Also, he was lonely.
Vox missed the sense of community he found in church -- and the feeling of spiritual uplift. He could have joined a book club. But in his senior year of college, he had an epiphany. Hobbled by back pain so severe he sometimes lost the will to live, Vox vowed to give his existence meaning by founding what he dubbed "the world's first rational religion."
Vox spent the next two years exchanging e-mails with other lost souls who helped him sketch the outlines of Universism.
"What if there were a religion that does not presume to declare universal religious truths?" Vox wrote in an online manifesto. "What if there were a religion that demands no blind faith in prophets or their writings?"
Vox wrote tens of thousands of words about this new faith for the faithless. For a guy devoted to doubt, he sounded pretty sure of himself:
"Universism seeks to solve a problem that has riddled mankind throughout history: the endless string of people who claim that they know the Truth and the Way." His religion, he wrote, would "dispel the illusion of certainty that divides humanity into warring camps." It would unite the world.
"It wasn't arrogance," Vox said. "I'm not a guru. I just feel that a lot of the things people believe in, they should be a lot less certain about."
Skeptics point out that Vox demands certainty about his own concept of truth -- namely, that it doesn't exist. Russell D. Moore, dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, dismisses Universism as a bleak "parody of a church."
He adds: "It's very hard to create a sense of community around a nonbelief."
Universism also faces competition in recruiting the faithless, as several secular groups have stepped up their public profiles this year.
The American Humanist Assn., which has 7,500 members, is running a national ad campaign to persuade the public that atheists can be ethical, even patriotic. The Secular Coalition for America hired its first lobbyist to promote the separation of church and state. The Brights, an atheist civil rights group, has signed up 18,000 members.
Vox supports those efforts, but he doubts atheists will ever win the masses. They're too political. They don't inspire wonder. And in much of America, they're viewed as vaguely disreputable.
That's where Universism has an edge, nonbeliever James Underdown said with a hint of envy.
"You can tell someone you're a Universist and they won't know what the heck that is, but at least you're not a dirty atheist," said Underdown, who directs the Center for Inquiry-West, a Los Angeles institute for freethinkers
Now in his final year at the University of Alabama Medical School, Vox became too busy to continue leading his movement. This fall, he turned Universism -- and its $2,200 bank account -- to his friend Todd Stricker, an office manager who until recently would have described his religion as "nothing."
"I make no claims to be a spiritual leader," said Stricker, 25. "I'm just good at organizing."
Stricker met Vox at a political rally two years ago, when he was new to Alabama and seeking a support system. After long discussions, he decided to try Universism. He now spends much of his free time at his computer, helping people start chapters.
There are Universist groups in San Diego and in Denton, Texas, in Salem, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, and Rochester, N.Y. The Los Angeles-Orange County group is holding a bonfire and "big questions" discussion on a Corona del Mar beach this Sunday.
"The process of ordination is just having a nice chat with me," Stricker said. Worship itself is just as informal.
Because Vox and Stricker disdain religious authority, they're reluctant to set rules, aside from a few meek suggestions that meetings start with a reading of a thought-provoking text ("or maybe a guitar version of 'Kumbaya,' " Stricker said).
On a recent evening, 22 members of the Birmingham congregation gathered in a lounge at the Safari Cup coffee shop with little agenda but to talk.
John Earwood, a 60-year-old architect, worked the crowd, trying to promote a word he had coined: "afideist," meaning without faith.
Buster George, 52, a nuclear engineer, introduced his teenage daughter Rachel. "It ought to be illegal to take anyone to church until they turn 18 and can think for themselves," she said by way of explaining her interest in Universism. Her dad beamed.
The room crackled with intense orations on God, creation and eternal life. But it's a bit hard for Universists to sustain a good debate. Defending your own view, after all, makes you sound as though you're sure you're right. And in a religion dedicated to uncertainty, no one wants to be accused of that.
So meetings can devolve into a series of provocative statements without retort.
After Vox called the group to order, the conversation swung from abstinence to Woody Allen, from existentialism to Terri Schiavo and then to the poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina.
"People are poor because they don't want to work," one woman asserted.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Well, sometimes," a young man said, diplomatically. The conversation veered into the war on drugs.
After a meandering hour, Stricker redirected the group by reading a passage from a Tom Robbins novel that struck him as hilariously insightful. No one had much comment, so they settled down to a guest lecture on Albert Schweitzer, the missionary physician who rejected much of his church's dogma but promoted an ethic of love he said came straight from Jesus.
Kathleen White sat on the edge of her seat, her face rapt. An accountant in Huntsville, Ala., White, 36, came across Universism while trolling online.
Though she still believes in God the creator, White rejects much of her church's teachings: "A lot of what I was taught doesn't have proof to back it up, like life after death and heaven and hell," she said. "I don't want to take that all on faith."
She drove two hours to commune with strangers she figured would understand her struggle. But as she listened to an inconclusive discussion of morality, the downside of Universism struck her.
"Do y'all have any firm beliefs about anything at all?" she asked.
"Our only firm belief is that we're uncertain about everything," Earwood replied.
White looked unsettled.
"I don't think it will be enough to keep me coming back," she said. "It's kind of frustrating."
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
November 16, 2005
(http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/16/nation/na-newreligion16)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It takes a certain amount of audacity to found a religion.
Ford Vox does not look audacious.
A tall, slightly stooped medical student, Vox speaks in a mumble and rarely lifts his eyes. But if he lacks confidence, that only makes him all the more qualified to lead his flock because Vox, 28, has created a religion for people who know only that they know nothing.
Universists might believe in God, or might not. (Personally, Vox thinks he does.)
The only dogma they must accept is uncertainty.
Relinquishing any hope of cosmic truth, Universists worship by wondering how we got here, and why, and what lies ahead.
From his base here in the Bible Belt, Vox has built an online congregation of more than 8,000 in the last two years. They meet in cafes and living rooms across the nation; they join online chats with scientists and theologians; they find profundity in admitting their confusion.
"We want to rework religion from within," Vox said.
It is a surprisingly common impulse these days.
In vast numbers, Americans are turning away from traditional religions. They're not giving up on God, but they are casting aside the rituals and labels they grew up with.
Conventional churches still have enormous pull. There are more than 300,000 Protestant congregations in the United States, and mega-churches can easily attract 8,000 worshipers on any given Sunday.
But the number of Americans who claim no religion has more than doubled in a decade. More than 27 million adults -- nearly one in seven -- reject all religious labels, according to the City University of New York's respected American Religious Identification Survey.
Even among committed Christians, restlessness is growing. Pollster George Barna, who works for Christian ministries, estimates that 20 million Christians have largely forsaken their local church in favor of discussion groups with friends, Bible study with colleagues or spiritual questing online.
"They want less of a programmed process and more of a genuine relationship with God," said Barna, who describes the shift in his new book "Revolution."
Vox hopes to offer one possible path in Universism.
Instead of hierarchy and ritual, his religion offers rambling chats about the meaning of life. Instead of a holy text, members put their faith in the world around them, trying to figure out the universe by studying it.
The go-it-your-own-way philosophy at the heart of Universism troubles Douglas E. Cowan, an expert in emerging religions at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. As he put it: "One guy worshipping a potato in a hotel room in New Jersey is not a religion."
True religion, Cowan said, gives structure and meaning to people's lives and elevates them above the humdrum of their daily chores.
He can't quite see how uncertainty does the trick.
Universists respond that he's missing the point. They're trying to build a religion that lets people find their own structure and meaning. Universists know they're on their own in the great journey of life -- but they take comfort in meeting every few weeks to talk through what they've discovered along the way.
"We need a social structure that doesn't involve other people telling us what to believe," said E. Frank Smith Jr., 61, an early convert.
Vox has felt that way since he was 14 and a camper at a Christian summer program.
One of his counselors specialized in picking out -- and raging against -- the sins alluded to in Top 40 songs. Vox found himself wondering why he should listen to the church when he really preferred listening to Chris Isaak.
That disillusionment grew, and by college Vox had turned away from the Presbyterian church his family attended in Tuscaloosa, Ala. But he wasn't ready to abandon religion altogether.
Vox believes that humans are hard-wired for faith, as some genetic and neurological research suggests.
Also, he was lonely.
Vox missed the sense of community he found in church -- and the feeling of spiritual uplift. He could have joined a book club. But in his senior year of college, he had an epiphany. Hobbled by back pain so severe he sometimes lost the will to live, Vox vowed to give his existence meaning by founding what he dubbed "the world's first rational religion."
Vox spent the next two years exchanging e-mails with other lost souls who helped him sketch the outlines of Universism.
"What if there were a religion that does not presume to declare universal religious truths?" Vox wrote in an online manifesto. "What if there were a religion that demands no blind faith in prophets or their writings?"
Vox wrote tens of thousands of words about this new faith for the faithless. For a guy devoted to doubt, he sounded pretty sure of himself:
"Universism seeks to solve a problem that has riddled mankind throughout history: the endless string of people who claim that they know the Truth and the Way." His religion, he wrote, would "dispel the illusion of certainty that divides humanity into warring camps." It would unite the world.
"It wasn't arrogance," Vox said. "I'm not a guru. I just feel that a lot of the things people believe in, they should be a lot less certain about."
Skeptics point out that Vox demands certainty about his own concept of truth -- namely, that it doesn't exist. Russell D. Moore, dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, dismisses Universism as a bleak "parody of a church."
He adds: "It's very hard to create a sense of community around a nonbelief."
Universism also faces competition in recruiting the faithless, as several secular groups have stepped up their public profiles this year.
The American Humanist Assn., which has 7,500 members, is running a national ad campaign to persuade the public that atheists can be ethical, even patriotic. The Secular Coalition for America hired its first lobbyist to promote the separation of church and state. The Brights, an atheist civil rights group, has signed up 18,000 members.
Vox supports those efforts, but he doubts atheists will ever win the masses. They're too political. They don't inspire wonder. And in much of America, they're viewed as vaguely disreputable.
That's where Universism has an edge, nonbeliever James Underdown said with a hint of envy.
"You can tell someone you're a Universist and they won't know what the heck that is, but at least you're not a dirty atheist," said Underdown, who directs the Center for Inquiry-West, a Los Angeles institute for freethinkers
Now in his final year at the University of Alabama Medical School, Vox became too busy to continue leading his movement. This fall, he turned Universism -- and its $2,200 bank account -- to his friend Todd Stricker, an office manager who until recently would have described his religion as "nothing."
"I make no claims to be a spiritual leader," said Stricker, 25. "I'm just good at organizing."
Stricker met Vox at a political rally two years ago, when he was new to Alabama and seeking a support system. After long discussions, he decided to try Universism. He now spends much of his free time at his computer, helping people start chapters.
There are Universist groups in San Diego and in Denton, Texas, in Salem, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, and Rochester, N.Y. The Los Angeles-Orange County group is holding a bonfire and "big questions" discussion on a Corona del Mar beach this Sunday.
"The process of ordination is just having a nice chat with me," Stricker said. Worship itself is just as informal.
Because Vox and Stricker disdain religious authority, they're reluctant to set rules, aside from a few meek suggestions that meetings start with a reading of a thought-provoking text ("or maybe a guitar version of 'Kumbaya,' " Stricker said).
On a recent evening, 22 members of the Birmingham congregation gathered in a lounge at the Safari Cup coffee shop with little agenda but to talk.
John Earwood, a 60-year-old architect, worked the crowd, trying to promote a word he had coined: "afideist," meaning without faith.
Buster George, 52, a nuclear engineer, introduced his teenage daughter Rachel. "It ought to be illegal to take anyone to church until they turn 18 and can think for themselves," she said by way of explaining her interest in Universism. Her dad beamed.
The room crackled with intense orations on God, creation and eternal life. But it's a bit hard for Universists to sustain a good debate. Defending your own view, after all, makes you sound as though you're sure you're right. And in a religion dedicated to uncertainty, no one wants to be accused of that.
So meetings can devolve into a series of provocative statements without retort.
After Vox called the group to order, the conversation swung from abstinence to Woody Allen, from existentialism to Terri Schiavo and then to the poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina.
"People are poor because they don't want to work," one woman asserted.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Well, sometimes," a young man said, diplomatically. The conversation veered into the war on drugs.
After a meandering hour, Stricker redirected the group by reading a passage from a Tom Robbins novel that struck him as hilariously insightful. No one had much comment, so they settled down to a guest lecture on Albert Schweitzer, the missionary physician who rejected much of his church's dogma but promoted an ethic of love he said came straight from Jesus.
Kathleen White sat on the edge of her seat, her face rapt. An accountant in Huntsville, Ala., White, 36, came across Universism while trolling online.
Though she still believes in God the creator, White rejects much of her church's teachings: "A lot of what I was taught doesn't have proof to back it up, like life after death and heaven and hell," she said. "I don't want to take that all on faith."
She drove two hours to commune with strangers she figured would understand her struggle. But as she listened to an inconclusive discussion of morality, the downside of Universism struck her.
"Do y'all have any firm beliefs about anything at all?" she asked.
"Our only firm belief is that we're uncertain about everything," Earwood replied.
White looked unsettled.
"I don't think it will be enough to keep me coming back," she said. "It's kind of frustrating."
Sunday, July 12, 2009
My Life is G
Website here
MyLifeIsG is a place to share your everyday successes. It is a place to post the good things in your life, and read about what makes life rock for other people.
We believe that for every fail story, there is an equally good success story. So tell the world what makes your life G. Anyone can submit a story.
Submitted stories are voted on by other MyLifeIsG users, and the best ones get published to the front page. You can vote on submitted stories by clicking "Moderate The Submissions".
MyLifeIsG is a place to share your everyday successes. It is a place to post the good things in your life, and read about what makes life rock for other people.
We believe that for every fail story, there is an equally good success story. So tell the world what makes your life G. Anyone can submit a story.
Submitted stories are voted on by other MyLifeIsG users, and the best ones get published to the front page. You can vote on submitted stories by clicking "Moderate The Submissions".
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