Alright guys. Here's a story I wrote. I'm gonna fine tune it later, but I don't want to forget my initial perspective on a particular topic. When I learn more about it, I might lean one way or another, but this story has some back story that I don't really want to write outright atm. I would prefer to just put it down as an analogy or a parable, sortof, to get my thoughts in writing.


OK. So there's this baker, named Yoshi. He's a dark-skinned guy from the Mediterranean, he's an excellent cook, and he runs a successful business. So successful, in fact, that he has lots of time and resources to personally promote his business.

Yoshi's specialty product is a delicious muffin. It's the most satisfying muffin there is. In fact, it's so good, that many people who have tried it say that it is the only muffin that has ever satisfied them at all. They just didn't know what it felt like to be satisfied prior to eating this muffin.

Yoshi has spent most of his time giving away this muffin for free, and everyone who ate it got to know Yoshi and was invited to come in and have more of his delicious produce. He would walk around town with a cart full of free muffins, and many people were coming to know and love his muffins. Often people would take multiple muffins with them, and hand the muffins out to anyone who would take them, because the muffins were delicious. Yoshi's regular customers firmly believed that nobody should ever live their whole life without trying Yoshi's muffins.

There was a running debate among his regular constituents as to whether he was the Yoshi who gives muffins to you, or the Yoshi who you take muffins from. Some people who didn't know Yoshi well, or who had not met him in person but had still tasted the muffin, would occasionally argue about whether Yoshi was calling people to eat his muffins, or if people were going to get them. In some cases, the debate became so deeply founded that people began to wonder if Yoshi's customers were talking about two different Yoshis. Some of the people who had not met Yoshi, but had tasted his muffins, thought that Yoshi was only the Yoshi who gives, and everyone else was talking about the wrong Yoshi. Others thought that Yoshi was only the Yoshi who you take from, and everyone else was talking about the wrong Yoshi. It didn't help that occasionally someone would come along and claim to be the true Yoshi, sometimes with some success, but most often without, as only Yoshi's muffins were truly satisfying.

However, among these people who had tried Yoshi's muffins and argued about his character, they were ultimately talking about the same Yoshi, just from different perspectives. They would not even know how to have the debate if they had not first tried his muffins anyway.

Eventually, there came a small and ambitious group of people who took some of Yoshi's muffins and did not eat them. They hadn't tasted the muffins, but knew by the smell that these muffins were too good to be free. So, instead, they took the muffins down the road and around the block to another part of town, where they set up a small stand with the muffins on display. They called people over saying, "why trust some guy giving muffins away for free on the side of the road?! These muffins are legitimate -- just look at the price tag and see for yourself. They are more legitimate and more delicious than Yoshi's free produce" The muffins were so exorbitantly priced that nobody on earth could afford them. Nobody in the history or the future of humanity would ever be able to afford them.

When people came and asked, "how can I get one of those delicious looking muffins? The price tag seems so steep!" They would respond, "The price tag is not as bad as it seems. You can come work for us, and in addition to your pay you will earn muffin credits. Eventually, if you earn enough muffin credits, you can cash them in for one of these delicious muffins. If you work very hard, we will teach you the secret recipe, so that you can make them yourself. However, if you ever stop working, you will lose all your muffin credits and have to start over."

The people came and worked hard to earn muffin credits. Eventually, however, their bodies would fail them and they would stop working, and in that moment they would lose all their muffin credits. They continued working, however, more diligently and with more strength all the time, but nobody ever gained enough muffin credits to get a muffin. Eventually, the untasted muffins on display began to get moldy. At first, the con artists would cut the mold off, but after a while the muffins became so disfigured that they were unrecognizable and completely unappealing, so that the cons hid the muffins from sight.

The people who worked for those muffins wanted the secret recipe badly, and they were decieved into thinking that Yoshi's muffins were not satisfactory. So they worked and worked until they had no energy to even reach for Yoshi's muffins. All this deeply troubled Yoshi, but Yoshi's business was still successful, and he did not deviate from his business model, because it worked. Occasionally, someone from the false muffin stand would collapse and be completely unable to work, and Yoshi would rescue them and give them a taste of the good muffins. Many people who were tricked into thinking Yoshi's muffins were not satisfactory would refuse to taste his muffins at all, saying that they were working for a better muffin. Often, people would die without ever tasting Yoshi's delicious muffins.


It's not a perfect metaphor, obviously, but it touches on several issues that I'm handling right now. I'm gonna go have a muffin.

"We're praying for you."