Isn't Dancing A Sin?

Arulba, the author of Dance of the Mind, really drew the short straw this week when it came to reviewers. I like to think that I'm usually pretty fair-minded and objective as a critic. This week, however, I find myself in a stupid-ass blogument with some of my more religious readers over at my personal site. Therefore, the ice on which the God squad can skate is pretty thin in my neighborhood. When I saw the sea gulls that festoon DoMs header, they did not elicit the serenity that I'm sure they're designed to.

Now I need to be honest. I didn't read a lot of DoM. I went deep into the archives but the problem is that the vast majority of the posts are lessons from "A Course In Miracles". I didn't know anything about ACIM, as it's apparently known, and Arulba's description is far too verbose and jargon heavy. A quick Wikipedia search later and I found out that ACIM was a book "divinely penned" by two American psychologists in the 1970's. Great - disco era self-help meets Christianity. It's developed quite a following over the years much to the consternation of a lot of the more established Christian denominations.

I don't know what ACIM preaches, but if it's brought to you by the same people who want to make homosexuality, abortion, birth control and teaching evolution illegal then I'm not really interested. Even if it's brought to you be the more liberal theologians that had me singing "Kum-bay-fucking-ya" at summer camp in my formative years, I'm pretty happy with my spiritual life as is. Thank you very much.

But, even if I were more open minded to what DoM is selling, I would find it a difficult read. Arulba's posts are long-winded and are written with the assumption that the reader is already well versed in ACIM. It looks fine - clean, simple and well organized. But even the posts that aren't about ACIM aren't all that compelling. DoM is a blog for a very specific audience.

Which brings me to the real question for Arulba - why did you submit your site? If you're really after a review, then fine - far too wordy, a bit single-minded, but nice clean template. Verdict - "Meh".

But I get the creeping feeling that you're not really after our opinion. You've seen the goth avatars, you've read the foul-mouthed critiques, I wonder if your not here to proselytize. I know that the way a lot of these religious movements work is by conversion. Call me paranoid, but I can't fathom why someone who essentially writes a religious blog would submit here. If that's the case, if you're in the market for converts, then in the words of Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall "sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here." That being said, your site will no doubt get an increase in traffic from this review. Maybe you've got what you wanted after all. You know what else you've got- a new rating, the Melvin*. Congrats!

* I hope I haven't exceeded my authority as fuckin' new guy. But I feel that we need a rating for blogs that, like a Jehovah's Witness, we'd just like to shut the front door on and hope that they go away. The Melvin.

UPDATE:
There is every indication to suggest that Arulba did not submit her site to be reviewed. That being the case, then I'm sorry for comparing her to a Jehovah's Witness.

Now, to the malicious ass monkey who did submit her site: knock it the fuck off. It's not funny, it's juvenile - like volunteering someone to be bathroom monitor in junior high school. If it happens again, I'm coming over to your house and pissing on your PC.

That is all.