Reading | The Evils of Christianity

I updated my reading page with some of the titles of books I've been reading the last couple of months. It's a rather eclectic list, I'm afraid. But if anyone has any questions about them, please do not hesitate to ask since books are a large part of my life, an important part.

I've always been a strong fantasy literature enthusiast ever since I was old enough to understand Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and other similarly fantastic stories. I remember devouring Howard's Conan the Barbarian books and the other authors that kept the character alive, notably Sprague de Camp who had a beautiful way of describing violent settings and characters. Then I fell in love with Tolkien and CS Lewis and the John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. So when Terry Brooks comes out with a new novel, I usually read it.

The Le Carre book was an experiment, my dad admires him and I wanted to see what was the big deal. I still don't know.

And you're probably thinking, "three Stephen King novels?" -- well, I think he's a pretty good writer but beyond that he is one of the few authors that can really make me laugh. I appreciate that. Maybe I relax more reading his work, and it makes me more receptive to humor, I'm not sure.

My browser, Netscape, does not seem to want to translate the two spaces I place after each sentence, so I apologize for the density of text. I'll keep trying to change it. It's probably one of those bobby traps set by the Microsofts of the world designed to make you use their hypertext editors.

This friend of mine and I went out to a coffeehouse today. First, we went to the video store, because I wanted to rent a couple of movies for the coming week (the weather is miserable today). I rented the following -- "The Big Kahuna," "The Cradle Will Rock," and "Deuce Bigalowe: Male Gigolo." I know, I know, it's shameless.

At the coffeehouse, my friend started to rant about all the evils Christianity and religion have provoked over the years. I'm not sure if I incited her or what, but it took me aback. Like slow down and chill, it's not Jesus' fault psychotic people over the years have found in religion and its misinterpretation a handy excuse to kill, rape and pillage. The "good news" in the new testament is that love saves and has saved. Anyway, I didn't know what to say. Gentleness will penetrate the hardest substance, as the ancient Chinese proverb goes.

I'm in a baseball fantasy pool (Yahoo) this year. Earl talked me into it. Ironically I began the season not knowing anything about the game, and frankly finding the game quite boring. But after just a couple of months, I have become fairly knowledgeable, and I have been in first place in the pool almost from the beginning. I was in a basketball fantasy pool last year, and I ended up in next-to-last place, just above Earl. It was a pathetic showing certainly, but next year will be different.

Now, of course, I like baseball.