What amoeba decided to grow legs and then a conscience??

So I have a subscription to Alternative Press that a friend bought me for Christmas. And as I was flipping through today, I noticed in the AP Poll, where they ask fans and band members to respond to a yes or no question every month, they had asked, "Do you believe in fate?" Reading through the answers from the bands to see what kinds of opinions people that I admire have, I read the following quote and proceeded to put down the magazine on the spot and write this blog post (with my own emphasis on the BEST part):

"Surprise, surprise; I do believe in a higher power. I personally believe in the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ. I grew up in church, but then in my late teens and early 20s, I rebelled and just didn't care. But I could never escape a few questions in my life that kept bringing me back to God. What amoeba decided to grow legs and then a conscience?"

-Toby Morrell of the band Emery

Um... How about... That's not how it works? Just because you don't have the intellect to understand something doesn't mean that you should ascribe it's occurrence to a fairy tale. Farther down in his little paragraph on fate, he goes on to say the following:

"There is truth and you can choose to find it or not."

Looks to me like Emerey's Toby Morrell has chosen not to find it. Because it's too hard for his brain to comprehend. I think that the thing that bothers me most about this is that he is in the public forum of this magazine, which thousands of young impressionable teens attempting to emulate their favorite bands will pick up and read. And when an 14 year old Emery fan reads that quote, he might say, "Wow, I love Emery and think they are awesome guys, so this must be right! Where could humans possibly come from other than God? I don't need to try to learn anything from my ninth grade biology class, because I have already CHOSEN to find the truth in this one quote from a dude in a band I like that God did everything."

It's annoying when you yourself choose to ignore something that you are not smart enough to understand. It's more than that when you decide to tell other people that what you believe is true, just because you are not smart enough to understand any alternatives, and imply that they should believe it too. Especially when you are a public figure for young impressionable people. Way to go, Toby Morrell. Way to go.

Never doubt yourself.

Everyone has an innate Buddha nature. Every thinking being on this planet has the potential to be enlightened and become a Buddha. At times in all of our lives, though, things go wrong and they may or may not be out of our control and they can make us lose sight of this fact. Someone may say something mean, a friend may hurt you, in work or academics you may come up short of your own expectations or those that others may have for you. These situations can understandable cause a person to think negative thoughts about herself. For example, a low grade on a test can make you feel stupid. A bad soccer practice can make you feel as though you suck at soccer. A rejection when asking out that hot girl that came into your place of work last week can make you feel like a loser. You may dwell on these thoughts and situations until you lose faith in yourself. These are the kinds of thoughts that the Buddha would refer to as delusions. They are simply not true. And just as negative thoughts against others can turn into negative words and actions and simply breed misery and anger, so can negative thoughts about yourself. Rather than change the crappy situations that happened in the past, or causing positive changes for the future, they will not accomplish anything except for making you feel horrible right now.

Always remind yourself that the negative thoughts you have for yourself are delusions, and they are only getting the way of your true potential. Always show love and compassion, and know that even if they don't seem to appreciate it, that you are a good and beautiful person. Take up a new activity that will allow you to help others. If you meditate, then concentrate on your innate great perfection and Buddha-hood. Meditate on the fact that everything is transient, and thus your current unhappy situation is bound to change. Remember the law of karma, and keep in mind that positivity in your own life can only come from taking positive action yourself.

The main thing to take away from all of this, though, is that negative self-talk is delusional. Always remind yourself when you think, "I am not good enough," that this is entirely untrue. You are perfect.


"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection."

-The Buddha

"Human potential is the same for all. Your feeling, 'I am of no value,' is wrong. Absolutely wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought -- so what are you lacking? If you have willpower, then you can change anything. It is usually said that you are your own master."

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I swear, the world makes me SO MAD sometimes.

So I work for Greenpeace. If you don't know, it's the world's largest independent environmental organization. In two days, I've had two people come up to me and tell me that I work for a criminal organization. Yes, there has been talk of Greenpeace being linked to eco-terrorism. Why do you think that is? Where do you think those ideas are generated? Greenpeace is professional organization that has been around for 38 years and has never had any problems legally. We do protests and sit-ins sometimes. But we do not and never will hurt anyone. Our name is Greenpeace for a reason. It's because we like peace. Here's our mission statement:

"Greenpeace is the leading independent environmental campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future."

One of the most important things to take note of from the above statement is that we expose environmental problems. This means that we are not afraid to stand up to big corporations and governments when they do messed up things to the world that we live in. Of course if we tell people about these messed up things and convince them that they should stop using the products made by these corporations, the companies are going to get really, really pissed off. And they're going to do whatever they can to make us look bad. And trust me, they say some really ridiculous things. Check this quote out from an article I found on the web:

"As nationally or internationally organized groups, environmentalists can become radical, extreme, anarchist or nihilist entities such as Greenpeace or Earth First with truly ecoterrorist tendencies. Greenpeace is widely known for its eco-stunts of installing human chains and large protest signs on ships, trees, skyscrapers and bridges, jeopardizing both lives and property."

Truly ecoterrorist tendencies? Yeah, because a bunch of people standing around holding signs or sitting in place is totally a threat to your life! Watch out! And yes, Greenpeace has climbed up on cranes (and other extremely tall objects) to post signs for politicians and others to see.


This is from April 27, 2009, when Greenpeace members hung this sign across the street from the State Department, where representatives from 17 of the world's biggest polluters, to discuss emissions. It was placed so that it would be right out Hillary Clinton's office window before she went to the meeting.

There's also this, on the statue of Jesus the Redeemer which is in Brazil:
This statue is HUGE. And that definitely looks really dangerous and I know I could never do it. Just seeing them up there makes me anxious. But the only lives being jeopordized there are the lives of the members involved, and it's their choice. No innocent bystanders are in trouble in these situations. And these are the most dangerous things that Greenpeace does, besides protesting certain things and risking people getting pissed off and getting violent.

After a Google search, I was not able to find any valid information that the Greenpeace organization is an eco-terrorist organization. If some of it's members have commited illegal acts, which I wasn't able to read about, then that by far does not mean the whole group is about violence. Just like we all know that not all Muslims are going to blow up buildings, right? It's the same exact thing. We have 3 million members and the vast majority of them are normal, every-day, law abiding citizens. And if any of them break the law, they are not doing so with Greenpeace's money, as all of the money goes to campaigning.

So seriously, know what you're talking about before you accuse people of stuff just so you can live comfortably without acknowledging that you need to do your part to help the planet.