Training Log & Fuck Religion

Squat - 245x13. Still weak as hell, but more reps with more weight than 3 weeks ago, so something's going right.
Did some box squats with chains & 3x15 kneeling band crunches for assistance.

While reading a story about my cousin from the Daily Iowan yesterday, I saw a link to a story about Curtis Fry, a kid who beat an old man to death the night of his 21^st birthday 4 or 5 years ago. I don’t know Curtis personally, but he did grow up in Wilton, which is about 15 minutes from my hometown, and he graduated the same year as my brother, so I'm sure my brother knew him at least a little bit from competing against him. So when it happened, it was a fairly big deal, if for no other reason than the sheer weirdness & proximity of it. 

Short summary: the night of Fry’s 21^st birthday, he went to Iowa City with his brother and a few friends, got hammered drunk, broke into some old man’s apartment thinking it was his own, and beat the man to death, likely thinking he was an intruder. Fry eventually then stumbled his way back to his friend’s house after they were able to get a hold of him on the phone. Fry had absolutely no recollection of any of the events even by the time he got to his friend’s house, much less the next morning. It’s really a sad story all around, as by all accounts, Fry was and is a good kid, and an old man lost his life. Fry was recently released from jail, which was the reason for the story, and covered what he has been doing since his release. He has been going to various schools and churches and sharing his story and the mistake he made, imploring kids not to do the same.

But here’s where it pissed me off. The old man Fry killed had converted to Judaism roughly 25 years earlier, so they interviewed the rabbi and a few other people from his congregation. I understand having outrage at the situation. I don’t really know how I would react to this happening to someone I knew. But the kid is clearly trying to make the best of it, and by all accounts this was truly a one-time event, as the kid hadn’t even been in trouble before. In any event, the rabbi talked about the fact that he wouldn’t want anything to do with Fry and wouldn’t want him to come share his story or apologize. He expressed his anger at the judicial system and the fact that Fry was released already. (Rant time) I thought religion is suppose to teach you how to be forgiving?! Especially the fucking leaders! It’s shit like that that simply enrages me about religions – all of them. The hypocrisy of it all is maddening. I’m not a religious person at all, and in fact am probably atheist, but one of the tenets of any religion that they will literally throw in your face is the forgiveness that God will give you, as well as the forgiveness and acceptance you will find from the church. Fuck that! It’s a crock of horseshit and drove me up the wall to read that from a religious leader. Again, to be clear, I’m sure if I knew the old man involved and didn’t know the killer, it would probably be a tough pill to swallow. But I’m also not a religious leader who prides himself on moral superiority. So spare me the bullshit.

As for the case itself, you can read up on it and form your own conclusions – my intent here was not to sway or inform anyone on the specifics. This was solely a rant on the hypocrisy and idiocy of organized religion in most instances.