Thoughts on Taclink

I recently left Taclink, and at this point, I have no real intention to return, although I do wish that I was still a part of the community. It would be hard to overstate how much I've benefitted from my involvement with Taclink/Opchan. It's because of members of those sites that I'm a student at Tulsa Tech, it's because of members of those sites that I got to build my AR-15, and I've even had meals to eat because of them. I've gone on road trips, hung out in bars, and generally had a fantastic time.

Taclink/Opchan posters are among my best friends.

But I left, and the decision to leave took less than ten minutes.

Here's why:

I'm not allowed to defend my faith, or even to mention it. If the subject of the thread is "How's your day going?", I catch flak from the mods and the admin for mentioning my faith, even if, as in the most recent case, the only thing I mention is "I'm getting ready to debate my pastors".

Other people asked me questions about Christianity, I told them to send me an email. That's against the rules now.

Now, I have no problem with folks giving me all kinds of shit about what I believe. Most of the time, they don't even understand what they're talking about, and I view it as a chance to set the record straight. I generally do this by citing verses that back up my position, or linking a article on the subject. This is against the rules as well.

It was suggested that I should simply stop mentioning my faith. Well, it might be easier for some people, but it's not really possible for me. Let me try to explain that part:

Taclink's admin/owner, BTDT, is a decorated US Army Ranger, and I have a lot of respect for the man. He's retired, but he once lived, breathed, ate, and crapped Ranger. It wasn't an eight-to-five job for the man, it was a lifestyle. He thought like a Ranger, he talked like a Ranger, he acted like a Ranger. He lived a Ranger lifestyle because when it came time for him to fight like a Ranger, he wanted to be at his very best.

Now, if back while he was active duty in the Rangers, someone had asked him about his life, chances are the conversation would have at least brushed upon his status as a Ranger, and would most definitely have mentioned his military service. It would be hard for him to talk about his life without mentioning something he does seven days a week, right?

Makes sense.

Now, take me. I'm a Christian, and I'm training to be a Christian missionary aviator. My job will be to fly and occasionally repair airplanes, and talk to people about God. I'm currently in training for the repair part of it, and I practice the talking part whenever possible. If folks ask me about it, and I mention it frequently because it's who I am, I'm more than happy to spend as much time as they want to explain what it is I believe and why.

Being a Christian is not an eight-to-five thing for me any more than BTDT was only a Ranger while he was actually doing missions in Afghanistan. For me to avoid mentioning my faith would be about as logical, and about as possible, for him to do the same while he was training with his unit.

Now, I know there are people who treat Christianity like a chore to be taken care of Sunday morning. I've also met soldiers who treat their military service like a chore to be taken care of one weekend a month with a two-week camping trip in the summer. Those soldiers don't belong on a Ranger mission any more than a guy who never practices his faith belongs in the mission field.

I train hard for my future career. I train by studying my Bible, spending time in prayer, by talking to everyone I get a chance to, and by studying for whatever class I'm currently in. I train hard because I do not intend to be a half-assed weekend warrior when I get to whatever country I go on a mission to. I want to do the very best work I can for my CO, and to complete my mission, just as BTDT trained extremely hard so that he could do his very best, and complete his missions.

But, as things go, BTDT's not cool with the way I live my life, and has "ordered" me to stop mentioning my faith. It's his website, so he can make whatever rules he decides. As a user of the website, my choices are simply to either play by the rules, or to leave.

Because of the way I treat my faith, as central to my life and career, not as an accessory, I do not feel I can play by his rules in a respectful manner.

So I left.

I wish that it could have gone another way. I tried to keep the debates down, to do things via emails, and by not getting into the specifics of what I was studying, but that wasn't enough, and I was catching flak for it, so I left. I'm not bitter, I'm not pissed off, and I'm hoping this doesn't come across as too disrespectful, but it's simply no longer a place I feel comfortable hanging around.

Superheroes and Bridges

"Soon there will be war. Millions will burn. Millions will perish in sickness and misery. Why does one death matter against so many? Because there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this."
-Rorschach, Watchmen

I'm a philosopher who likes comic books, or perhaps more precisely the comic book heroes in them. The actual medium has never seemed all that attractive, perhaps because a 20-page installment of a story shouldn't cost $5. Regardless, I've always been attracted to the heroism depicted by comic book heroes.

Oddly, it's not the fighting evil part that I'm drawn to, it's the principles by which the heroes live. Anyone can go out and punch criminals, and while few people do (probably due to lawsuits and other assorted recriminations), it doesn't take a cape. What makes superheroes heroic isn't their fighting prowess, it's their refusal to back down when things aren't going their way.

In the world we live in, everyone loves a comeback kid, people who fight on despite grevious wounds. That's not what I'm talking about. No, what I'm talking about is when a superhero refuses to compromise his or her principles.

I think Captain America said it best in Amazing Spiderman #537. This is the panel, but I'll put the text below it.



"Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — 'No, you move.'"
Captain America, Amazing Spider-Man #537

See, when the truth is known, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to give in to anyone who says "It's not the truth", no matter what convoluted reasons they come up with. When the truth is known, one can never compromise it, or it's lost forever.

I've heard it said once that if a politician takes a bribe even once, he's forever bought. That small compromise not only opens to door to further compromise, but it becomes leverage against future principled stands. A once-bribed politician will forever fear the knowledge that he once took a bribe coming out, and it becomes easier to take the second bribe than to refuse it.

I'm hardly the first guy to have said this. It's conventional wisdom, there aren't many folks out there who will say that resisting compromise becomes easier the more one compromises.

So, why then do Christians allow even that smallest of first compromises when it comes to the authority and inerrancy of the Bible?

It's easy to start with the small things, things that don't have much bearing on the "major" doctrines like Salvation or who Christ is. So the Church ends up taking small step away from Truth and decides to compromise on the Creation. It's not really relevant, they say, and they don't realize that they've just compromised the authority of the entire book by weakening one part of it.

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is a marvel of engineering. It's massive, beautiful, and made up of thousands of separate parts, all riveted, welded, and bolted together.

If you were to ask an engineer what would happen to the integrity of the entire bridge if one a minor structural member was to be cut in half with a blowtorch, but left attached on both ends, he would probably be able to tell you that the bridge would still hold, but wouldn't be quite as resilient in an earthquake.

But the Church doesn't stop with one compromise on the Bible, does it. That wasn't a question, these days it's hard to find a church that's never allowed politics to influence the sermon of the day. For example, there's a pesky pair of verses in the New Testament that say women should not be allowed to speak in church. 1 Cor 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12, specifically.

Surely they can't mean what they actually say? That sort of attitude is soooo 2,000 years ago. Church tradition values women in leadership, after all.

Now, go back to the engineer, and ask him what happens when a second structural member is blowtorched in half, but left attached at both ends. That dead weight, pulling on the bridge, but giving no strength, is going to start causing trouble when the winds pick up, or if an earthquake strikes, he'll say.

And the winds of change will pick up, won't they? It's 2011. We've got a dozen kinds of contraceptives, cheap and easy STD testing, most of which are now curable anyways, and hundreds of experts who will line up to talk about the liberating aspects of open sexuality. We've advanced as a culture, sex isn't something we're afraid of anymore, we don't have to speak about it in hushed tones.

Surely all those verses that talked about sexual purity were just the result of a misogynistic culture that oppressed women, hated sexuality in every form, and was afraid of disease and women bearing children out of wedlock, right?

Go back to the bridge, cut up a third piece.

Homosexuality can't really be an abomination before the Lord, right?

Go back to the bridge, cut up a fourth piece.

Abortion's okay under certain circumstances, right?

Go back to the bridge, cut up a fifth piece.

Casual drug use is fine if you're responsible, right?

Go back to the bridge, cut up a sixth.

Those lists of qualifications for positions of authority in the Church are just too much for anyone to live up to, right?

Go back to the bridge, cut up a seventh piece.

The Bible can't really mean that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, right?

Go back to the bridge, cut up a few of those cables that holds up the road.

The Bible wasn't really written by God, it was collected by men, right?

Go back to the bridge, cut a few more of those cables that hold up the road.

Jesus wasn't really who he said he was, right? He never came right out and said "I'm God, Israel. Bow to me!"

Go back to the bridge, cut up one of those big cables that goes end to end.

And about this time, along comes a big storm or an earthquake, in the form of a particularly rough patch of life. How long is that bridge going to hold? How strong can faith be when it's been compromise so many times? How strong can anything be when it's been chopped up every time it's inconvenient to keep it strong?

It is for that reason that I will never compromise my belief that the Bible is the inerrant, authoritative Word of God. I will not allow that first compromise, no matter how minor, to degrade the structure of the whole book.

Not even in the face of Armageddon.

New ink, and philosophy.

I over-think stuff. Which is fine, I think, and I think it's fine because I've spent hours thinking about how much I think about stuff, and concluded that it wasn't too much.

This, of course, extends to important stuff like "should I get a tattoo, and what should it be, and what would it mean to me, and what would it mean to other people, and would it mean more than 'I like how it looks', and would it accurately reflect the person I am?"

So, this is what I got:

On my left wrist is the Doomsday Clock, a bit worse for wear. It symbolizes the brief time we may have left. It's the idea that in five minutes, we could *all* of us be dead, cinders floating in the atomic breeze. In five minutes, you, I, and everyone we've ever met could be dead. It's a constant reminder that we're on our way out. That life is short, and often wasted. That the things we do will not last, that our greatest works will never survive Time.

On my right wrist is the Punisher's Skull logo. It symbolizes death, and judgement. It's a reminder that I will die, and you will die, and that on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. It's a symbol of harsh judgement, a reminder that when we die, there's no lawyers, no plea bargains, no early release for good behavior, no short sentences, but harsh, permanent, and black-and-white Justice. Frank Castle is not a man of gray areas and compromise, he's the embodiment of Genesis 9:6. Similarly, God's judgement is stark, final, and permanent. There's no hidden actions, no way to squirrel out of every nasty thing we've done.

The "12:13" and "ECC" stand for Ecclesiastes 12:13, the closest thing I have to a "inspirational life verse". I know other folks read the Psalms to marvel at the beautiful poetry and be inspired by it, I prefer Ecclesiastes' nihilistic treatment of this world, followed by the simple answer to life's only real question "What is the meaning of my life?" Ecclesiastes 12:13 gives that answer. "The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person."

Those three parts, put together, are basically the way I try to live my life.

I could be dead in five minutes, and standing before God. Do I want to spend those five minutes doing something that I would be ashamed of in front of God, or do I want to spend those five minutes doing something useful? Do I want to spend the rest of my life in pursuit of God's will for it, or in pursuit of my own fulfilment?

In the end, I will die. You will die. Everything we've ever said will be forgotten, the lives we lead will be irrelevant, the great things we build will end up falling apart. Perfectly illustrating this point, the food I've made for people, no matter how much I enjoyed cooking it, how good it tasted, or how much they enjoyed eating it, has long been turned into poo.

When I really think about it, the only thing in this life that's worthwhile is serving God. Everything else is vanity, and chasing after the wind.

That Guy

So, I'm a guy who loves action movies, good ones and bad ones alike. Being a philosopher, I tend to prefer the ones that have a slight philosophical undercurrent to them, something a bit more deep than "Rawr, kill the bad guys". But it can't be overbearing, or it'll rejected by most of the fans (I'm looking at you, Matrix Trilogy), and thus if it's there, it generally shows up in a Hero Speech.

A Hero Speech is the part where the hero, sometimes in a conversation with a Counterpart, gives a short, motivational speech. It's generally short, since heroes generally aren't portrayed as all that smart, and thus they're generally not exemplary, but occasionally, a real gem pops up.

Thus, I turn your attention to John McClane's speech in Live Free or Die Hard, where he talk about being "That Guy".

Matt Farrell: It's not funny, I'm not like you, I can't do this shit.

John McClane: What's that mean? Like what?

Farrell: I'm not like "heroic", and everything. I'm not brave like you are, I'm not that guy.

McClane: I'm nobody's hero, kid.

Farrell: You've saved my life like ten times in the last six hours.

McClane: Just doing my job, that's all. You know what you get for being a hero? Nothin'. You get shot at. You get a little pat on the back, blah, blah, blah, attaboy. You get divorced. Your wife can't remember your last name. Your kids don't want to talk to you. You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me, kid, nobody wants to be that guy.

Farrell: Then why you doing this?

McClane: Because there's no body else to do it right now, that's why. Believe me, if there were somebody else to do it, I'd let them do it, but there's not. So we're doing it.

Farrell: Ah. That's what makes you that guy.

The most painful thing I've heard someone say to me in the past year, ehh, two years, is "You need to consider that you don't have the social skills to be a missionary." Big ups to a man at a school I used to attend for that bit of exhortation and confidence-building, right?

Well, the simple fact is, I've never really thought I'll make a good missionary. I'll be a pretty good pilot, and a skilled mechanic, but as for the talking and witnessing part? You better get someone else. I've met some people that would make great missionaries, but I'm definitely not one of them.

I'm not a preacher, I can barely hold a conversation with anyone. I'm tattoed, I wear black almost exclusively, and combat boots 365 days a year. I tend to ramble, I get nervous if I have to speak in front of people. I can't remember the reference for half the crucial verses of the Bible, even the ones that it seems everyone else knows. I don't even talk like a Christian, since I say words like "shit" and "fuck" too much. I'm also an asshole, and things get worse from there.

Things must be bad indeed if God needed to tap me on the shoulder. Obviously, God ran out of Billy Graham's, Al French's, and John Wesley's, I mean, I'm the bottom of the fuckin' barrel when it comes to people meant for missions. You'd have to look pretty hard to find a bigger asshole while still remaining inside the faithful.

Then again, if things are that bad, then the better people are either doing something else, or aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. So I got tapped on the shoulder, and shit, I've got nothing better to do, right? Why not throw away my otherwise pissed-away life flying in the backwoods jungle of nowhere?

The man who told me I lacked the social skills to be a good missionary was totally right, but the thing of it is, as soon as I know that someone else will take my job, I'll quite happily go back to being the angry asshole that just wanted to live in a shack and left alone. This was never my dream for my life, but I'll do it until I'm dead, or God finds someone better.

It's kinda funny, though, when people think that God really needs socially skilled, sweet-talking, nice-acting people in order to do what He needs done. If you really think that God needs anything but obedient people, you might want to open the fuckin' book, and read it instead of talking about it.

Take Moses, for example. Yeah, remember that bit about him being called by a burning bush on the side of a mountain? Do you remember why he was there? He was herding sheep, and the reason he was there herding sheep that day is that he ran away from Egypt to avoid being punished for murdering a man.

Or Paul, who was on the road to Anneus to find and kill more Christians when he got called.

Or Peter, who's a poster boy for bipolar people everywhere. Peter's the guy that had no idea what he was doing, or was supposed to be doing, but was going to do it as intensely as he possibly could.

Or David, the murderous adulterer who had so much blood on his hands that God specifically told him that someone else would build the Temple.

Or David's son Solomon, who built the Temple...and never passed up a chance to bang a new concubine, worship a new idol, or attend a party.

Or Jonah, who thought he could run away from God, and obeyed only so that God would be justified in wiping out those scumbag Ninevites...then got really pissed when the Ninevites repented and God spared them.

Shit, compared to those guys, I'm a saint, but in the end, I'm just another asshole who thinks that his meager contributions will matter. You know, someone like...you.

See, the thing is, we're all assholes, we're all too dumb, too stupid, too angry, and too arrogant to ever do anything right. There has been, in all of history, only one person who ever did it right. Jesus was the only guy that could ever have been a good missionary on His own.

The rest of us will fuck it up. That's not an "if" statement, it's a damned guarantee. We will fuck up every task God ever gives us, but doing it right isn't the point, just doing it is. We do our part, even if it's a task that's way, way beyond us, and God will do the rest. Really, it's all up to Him, all we have to do is show up and be there.

The only common thread among the people I listed above is that they obeyed when God called. And that's all I'm trying to do, and that's all you should worry about, either. Just obey, and don't worry about whether or not you're "That guy", so long as you go when you're told to go. Maybe we'll all get lucky, and someone else will show up to do it all for us, but until that day, it's up to us.

The best and brightest of the bottom of the barrel.