As promised, the other cliché that I detest.

“Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” I picked on a fairly large group of Christians with my last post, but this silly cliché very much extends to the secular world. So I’m not picking on anyone of any particular faith (or lack thereof) with this post, but I am picking on anyone who utilizes this phrase and believes in it. It’s categorically wrong.

Some wounds heal; some wounds scar. I’d venture to say that the wounds that completely heal probably do make you stronger…but that leaves a large amount of bad events completely unaccounted for. I’d certainly argue that tons of bad things happen that make us weaker rather than stronger.

Christianity’s dumbest cliché

“Everything happens for a reason.” This is what far too many Christians like to say when something bad happens to them. It’s their coping mechanism to tell themselves that what just happened to them is all part of God’s plan…and it’s nonsense like this that compelled people like Karl Marx to refer to religion as “the opiate of the masses.” Religion isn’t supposed to be some irrational coping mechanism, people.

Look…if you want to throw another common line at me like, “Through God, all things are possible”…I’ll nod in agreement. That one is true. God can help us turn about just any bad situation around, to find some silver lining in it and go forward with something positive. I very much believe that.

But we have free will. And let’s not mince words: we’re all morons. As such, we go around screwing everything up. I thought that pastor Grant Fishbook made a good analogy when he likened God to a GPS system that sees us repeatedly going off course, then just patiently keeps saying “recalculating” and giving us a new good course to take. The GPS will never give up, it’ll just keep giving you the right route until you finally decide to stay on course. There’s always a chance for recovery from a wrong turn; there’s always a chance for salvation. Heck, God is so good at being able to seamlessly redirect crappy situations into being good ones that he’s got a bunch of people running around saying “everything happens for a reason.” No, no, no. “Those things never should’ve happened…but since they did, let’s make the best of it.” That’s the proper reaction.

For the record, nothing negative happened to me to inspire this subject, I just heard that saying one too many times and had thought for a few days now that I should blog about it. So…there it is. At some point I’ll get around to writing up a rant against another stupid cliché that I hate, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Complete and utter nonsense, but that’s a rant for another time.

Promises.

Why are promises even part of the common vernacular in our culture? Isn’t making a promise a concession that your word really doesn’t mean that much, from day to day, to begin with?

Take two sentences…

1. I’ll write you that letter of recommendation by Friday.

2. I promise I’ll write you that letter of recommendation by Friday.

Shouldn’t these two sentences mean the exact same thing? Obviously they don’t for some reason, but why is that?

A simple children’s fairy tale reaches this cynic during Christmas season.

My brother and I are reading some short Christmas stories as part of the holiday season. I’m through with a few of them, and a couple didn’t really do much for me, but yesterday I read Hans Christian Andersen’s The Fir Tree. You could read it free at that link, I’m guessing it took me 30 minutes or so to finish and is a really easy read; I definitely found it to be a touching and important fairy tale that I hadn’t run across before.

The cliff notes, if you don’t care to read it, are as follows…

Great quote.

I long have considered it a personal flaw that I’ve got very little knowledge of classic literature, a flaw I’m finally coming around to fixing lately. So, I recently read Jane Austen’s Emma. I enjoyed it, it’s a good book, but I was flogged heavily for reading such a feminine book.

So, I decided to restore my masculinity a bit by shifting next to Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe’s classic novel about a man shipwrecked alone on a deserted island (See? No real possibility for romance. Now leave me alone). So far, I don’t think it’s amazing or anything, I’ve been bored at times and have had a bit of difficulty sticking with it…but it’s got just enough high points to keep me from putting it down completely. I’m a little less than halfway through it.

This quote jumped off the page to me as the best of the book so far:

And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things, they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than deliverance from affliction.

Words of wisdom, I would say. Deliverance from sin, being less tangible than deliverance from affliction, is a lot easier to take for granted…for me at least. Now it’s just a matter of coming to a true sense of things, as Defoe puts it; easier said than done, I’m sure.

I love running across quotes like this.

Debunking silly, overused complaints.

“That’s your opinion.”

I will say something like, “The Godfather is much better than Star Wars.” Some idiot will interject, “that’s your opinion.” Yes, it’s my opinion. What the HELL is your point? Every time I state an opinion, I have to stick that addendum into the sentence somehow? Can I not go through life assuming that I’m dealing with people intelligent enough to know when I’m stating a fact and when I’m stating an opinion? Am I expected to constantly hedge every subjective sentence I speak, in order to show that I’m aware that I’m not speaking in concrete facts? This is maddening. Sometimes the distinction needs to be made for clarity, but not nearly as often as some people (namely, the people who commonly use this throw-away line) want to believe.

“<insert name here> thinks he’s always right.”

Turn the other cheek?

One part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has always been baffling to me. Matthew 5:38-42…

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Seriously, Jesus? I mean, I know it’s right. Everything Christ said is right, and we should all heed and follow His word to the best of our ability every single day. But as far as the New Testament is concerned, I don’t know of a more counterintuitive idea that was taught to us.

When we give in to greed, lust, pride, or any other part of our sinful nature, it feels wrong. Either while we’re doing it, or looking back on it later, it feels wrong. Does revenge feel wrong? Heck, not to me. Not at all.

Self-awareness.

Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, “would an idiot do that?” And if they would, I do not do that thing.

-Dwight Schrute

Okay, so I’ll admit that Dwight isn’t self-aware in general, but those are sage words that a lot more people should follow.

We all experience the following scenario: we’re driving along, and come to a crosswalk with an able-bodied young pedestrian waiting to cross. You slow to a stop and yield to them so that they can go ahead and cross. The able-bodied young pedestrian proceeds to saunter across about as slowly as a person can go from point A to point B. They’ve got the legal right of way, after all, and they really don’t care about how long they make you, and other cars behind you, wait.

Is this a big deal? Well, I’m an awfully impatient person in general, but I will still concede that it really isn’t that big of a deal, it costs me an extra 15-20 seconds and it’s over. It’s mostly just an irritation, a microcosm of the complete lack of respect that people today (particularly young people) pay to courtesy and selflessness. They’re going to take their time crossing the street, they’re going to talk too loudly on their cell phone in a quiet public place, they’re going to let their kid misbehave and raise a ruckus in a restaurant and not do a thing about it. Is this an inconvenience to others? They don’t care. Most of them probably don’t even think about it.

Accountability.

Money is the root of all evil. Cigarettes kill you. McDonald’s is causing America’s obesity problem. The woman was asking for it, dressing in clothes like that. It wasn’t my fault that I missed the deadline at work, other people made mistakes that slowed me down. “That’s just the way I am.” “He started it.” “The devil made me do it.”

This type of nonsense is infuriating. People give in to greed, to gluttony, to lust, to pride, to any and all sins…and they’re quick to place the blame on anything but their own shortcomings. In the court of public opinion, inanimate objects actually seem to often get more scorn than the people who abuse them.

In the movie Changing Lanes (a decent movie, worth a watch), there’s a scene where Samuel L. Jackson’s character, an alcoholic who is trying to improve but runs into problems at every turn, gets chewed out by his AA sponsor. This sponsor hits the nail on the head…

You know, booze isn’t really your drug of choice anyway. You’re addicted to chaos. For some of us, it’s coke. For some of us, it’s bourbon. But you? You got hooked on disaster.

I hate courtesy laughs.

When you tell your tone-deaf friend that they sing really well and should perform in public, you’re doing them a disservice.

When you tell your friend that their ugly yellow shirt looks good, you’re doing them a disservice.

And when you laugh at someone’s joke when you don’t even think it’s funny, you’re doing everybody a disservice. I’m quite serious about this.