#Blame Richard Dawkins

[emperornorton47]

[madwomansapologist]

notes on Dying

"Let the Vorin believe as they wish—the wise among them will find goodness and solace in their faith; the fools would be fools no matter what they believed." - Jasnah Kholin, chapter 48.

I know Jasnah would love to read Richard Dawkins. Specially The God Delusion. Since it's essencialy a counter argument, Richard presents thesis and hypothesis to, as expected, prove them wrong.

Believing or not in any deity has little to no connection with morality, but what you do with your faith can and should be studied. That's exactly why, at least until this very moment, she doesn't judge any believer or priests (i'm so sorry but since i read in portuguese i don't know exactly what word is used to describe those whos vocation is vorinism, in br-pt is Fervoroso) as better or worse than her, but she does judge their actions in name of vorinism.

There is not a need to believe there is a being from above watching you for you not to do horrible things. As a atheist, I heard often phrases similar to: "So what stops you from stealing or hurting others?". And the answer is pretty simple: because I don't want to.

She hates that they stop the questioning. (also I lowkey think Jasnah would be jewish, I really do.)

I do wonder how class will be presented in the future.

With Kaladin we see the lowest. He himself says that some of slavers' only sin is poverty.

Szeth is a case apart. He talks about how a man who builds instead of destroying is better and has more value, and in one of the interludes we see another character understanding the same thing, so he doesn't act as if he does not deserve what's happening to him. It's less than injustice, more like a fair punishment in his mind.

But with every other character we see the highest. Even Shallan, who I think we all agree is in a pretty disturbing situation (she could pretty much become a slave depending on what happens to her family), enjoys the best of things.

Before when Bridge 4 made a lot of other teams die, we knew Gaz hated himself from putting people in that situation. But he doesn't. It's Sadeas, and ultimately Elhokar who does that. Kaladin also has a similar thought about the apothecary, but in a second he notices the one to blame is Sadeas.

Still, it isn't Sadeas. It isn't Elhokar. Alethkar is build to take from those that have little to offer. It's build on realizing there is a simple question that moves the world, and that they have an answer for it. "How much does a life costs?" If Sadeas wasn't the one to decide on those bridges, someone else would. If Elhokar didn't allowed, another king would. Not to say they are not to blame, but that this nation won't be fixed by killing either of those two.

To make it shorter: read marxist theory.

Light-eyes do horrible things, but we as readers are also supossed to care and cheer for a lot of them for the book to have an emotional weight upon us. I wonder how Brandon will deal with it.

@ madwomansapologist.tumblr.

[marta-bee]

Today I’m struggling a bit. There’s an email chain- exact context is personal and not really relevant- where a child had a bad fall and had to be rushed to the hospital. The child is now more or less fine; the family is of course exhausted. And because a lot of people in this exchange are religious, the first response was to ask and offer prayers. The second, when the good news came in, was to thank God. 

I am not unreligious. I’m involved in a local church and a local synagogue (I’m.... let’s just say something of an ecclesiastical mutt; it works for me, more or less or at least better than any other alternative I’ve found). I’ve actually tried to be an atheist but seem psychologically incapable of making that leap; it’s like some kind of a higher order is just a basic concept too much of my worldview is built around to step away from fully. And I’ve seen how religion done well can be very helpful, just as religion done badly can be disastrous. Both in my own experience and others. 

So I’m not full Richard Dawkins new atheism, or atheistic at all; nor am I one of the comfortably orthodox, in any faith tradition or theism generally. But theodicy is a bear of a concept, ain’t it? It’s a big part of why I went to grad school though not what I ended up studying. I’d say I prefer the faith of Job, if choice entered into it; or perhaps Jonah running out to sea so he didn’t have to go to Nineveh.  And the whole concept of intercessory prayer is like one step removed: we ask God to do what we want, as if He’d do what’s less good just because we asked; or wouldn’t do the optimal thing if we hadn’t appealed to his ego. Prayer as meditation, as thankfulness, I’m okay with. My preferred method is usually tantrum-throwing, would-punch-God-in-the-gut screaming matches (see above re: faith of Job....) Which is still talking (screaming is communication) so to my mind it still counts.

But Jeez. Thank God, not for getting this family through the night, but for sparing this child from getting her head cracked open? I just can’t do that, because I’m too logical not to blame God for creating this whole situation to begin with. And seeing email after email with that hateful (unintentionally! but even so...) message is just chipping away at my mind.

Thank goodness it’s Friday. If this keeps up much longer, by 5:00 I’m definitely going to need a drink.

[darkisthefuture]

Richard Dawkins Interview.

I don't believe that religion is to blame for everything and is always fundamentally bad, but I agree with most of the time.

[kgdrendel]

The Surprising Value of the Concept of Sin

The idea of sin makes people feel uncomfortable, and people blame sin for making them feel bad about themselves.

Many people bristle at the Christian idea of sin, and many people fault Christianity for its emphasis on sin. Richard Dawkins criticized Christianity in his book, The God Delusion, that it’s all about sin, sin, sin. His sentiment seems to be a popular one. As a long-time Christian, I have a “robust” view of sin not just because I have robust respect for the Bible. I see sin in myself, and I see…

[doccitanuzuki]

‘Tough.’ But do not blame ‘us.’ Blame ‘yourself’ or ‘Richard Dawkins.’

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I wrote a while ago about how, for the first time in a while, I’m sort of approaching a point of not having a hundred things on my immediate list of comedy to see/hear, so I have room to add another big thing. Of course, since then I’ve added a bunch of little things, a few at a time, so I’m in no danger of running out.

The latest things I added were some Robin Ince and Michael Legge things. Which I group together because I know they’ve done a bunch of stuff together, but in this case, they were separate things. In the last week, have listened to a couple of Michael Legge things purchased of Bandcamp - Strawberries to Pigs audiobook and Halloween EP - and a couple of Robin Ince things purchased off Go Faster Stripe - his 2008 DVD, and his 2016 DVD, which comes with three separate files and several hours of material that's meant to be a kind of "best of" for his career until then. All things I can do now that I have a small amount of disposable income. Really not much disposable income, all that happened is I got a low-paying but consistent and reliable job, so I've gone from "can't spend money on anything but rent and groceries and a bit worried that I'll lose the ability to pay for that", to "it won't kill me if I drop $12 on an audiobook once in a while". But it does seem worth reiterating now that if people want to financially compensate comedians for their work that we take from them, Bandcamp and Go Faster Stripe are both ways to actually do that, as opposed to large corporate streaming platforms that pay them basically nothing and I don't feel guilty for taking from those.

Anyway. Really enjoyed my few days dedicated to Michael Legge and Robin Ince. They have a few things in common that makes you see why they put themselves together for various projects, like a comedy style of mimicking (or… maybe just doing) a stream of consciousness, frequent distractions and asides of the sort that don’t come off as hugely professional (I assume this sort of thing is why Robin Ince has named half his stuff “shambles”), being really angry about everything, and talking a lot about how much they like 80s music and 80s comedy. Also some differences, like Robin Ince talks a lot more about science and Michael Legge does a lot more shouting, and sheer visceral barely directed anger. Also I can't really picture Michael Legge meeting Richard Dawkins and Alan Moore. He maybe has met those people, it just seems to fit less well.

I wrote earlier this week about Michael Legge’s Halloween thing, but now know that his audiobook was very entertaining. It's him reading out a collection of his blog posts, from across about 10 years. Most of those blog posts being about seeing stuff in everyday life and getting angry about it. And then understanding the unfairness and pointlessness of his own anger, getting angry at himself for that. And then going back and forth between blaming himself and blaming everyone else, playing with this cycle really masterfully in a couple of stories in particular.

I’ve said before that a lot of comedians will admit to/affect little pockets of self-loathing for a particular bit, but the comedians who can take self-loathing and really do it properly, are more rare but very entertaining (to the point where I almost feel guilty for how entertaining I find that shit, I don’t want other people to be genuinely miserable for my entertainment, it’s just that if they’re going to be miserable anyway, I may as well get some entertainment out of it and they may as well make some Bandcamp money off it). Michael Legge definitely does it right. Or wrong, depending on your perspective. He does self-loathing right and life wrong.

It ends with an eight-part short-ish story, moving from blog post reading to fiction, that was also good. It started a bit slow, and early on I thought I could predict where it was going. That he was just using the premise of a store's complaints department to pick on some more little annoyances of everyday life, which was mildly amusing, but I was a bit disappointed, because I thought there wasn't enough in that to carry an eight-part story that took nearly about two hours to read. I won't spoil it all because I think people should get the book, but I'll say I was wrong, it picks up quickly after the first couple of parts, and and gets really good.

Robin Ince was someone I'd heard in a few different places before, and I knew his reputation. Science guy (and relatedly, atheist guy), book club guy, shambles guy. Has hosted events with other comedians and musicians and scientists and important thinkers/writers and Alan Moore (honestly, I think I'm more impressed that that he's hosted Alan Moore than some of the Nobel Prize winners), to celebrate intellectualism. Is the exact guy other people are talking about when they complain about self-righteous, snobbish, self-proclaimed intellectual comedians, who are preachy about their atheism and brag about how smart they are and do routines about how they're better than anyone who's religious or doesn't read Carl Sagan. The thing about all those complaints is they kind of just make me more interested in seeing the comedians in question. And now that I've seen his DVDs, I can confirm... yep, he's exactly what they complain about.

Some undefined number of years ago, it might have been different. I actually don't think we should all look down on all religious people (at least... that's what I think as a theoretical principle, I'm a bit uneven about how well I can maintain in this in practice). And I'll be honest, I have never read Carl Sagan. I was shit at science and math in school. I barely made it through the hard science-y courses that I had to take for my psychology degree in university, making up my poor grades there with better ones in the courses that were more about research and writing. I am in no position to look down on anyone who doesn't fully understand that shit.

However, I do support the glorification of people who are at least trying to understand. The idea that those of us who don't understand should look at those who do and say "Wow, in this one specific way you are, in fact, better than me, I'm glad you exist so the world can get better." Some undefined number of years ago, I felt like this was the default position in society, so pushing it too hard could feel a bit self-righteous.

But for the past undefined number of years, there has been such a massive anti-intellectual backlash, such a smearing of experts as elites that are trying to force you to think about stuff and we shouldn't listen to them, that Robin Ince feels refreshing. It does feel like saying something unusual and powerful and exciting for someone in popular entertainment to say "I think we can do better than just not giving a shit. Giving a shit about some things that actually matter is cool and probably important." I makes me think of a David O'Doherty bit where he complains about reality TV, and says he knows people's argument is they know it's bad but just want to turn off their brains, but maybe people spend too much time turning off their brains these days, and brains are important, and should be switched on more often.

Does he always do it perfectly? Maybe not literally 100% of the time. The 2008 DVD has a couple of bits where he's pretty specifically going after people from working class backgrounds. But I didn't see anything like that in his 2016 DVD, which suggests he's grown out of that stuff, which is fair enough. You cannot hold people to everything they said in 2008 (also it was only a couple of bits, most of that DVD was good).

Anyway, I really enjoyed the Robin Ince DVDs. I enjoyed the glorification of shit that matters, and I enjoyed all the jokes he found within it. The way he didn't need to stop and justify everything, he started with the idea that his audience was on board, and then set about mining the humour in stuff he likes. And it wasn't all Carl Sagan. There was some parenthood stuff that was nice and funny and short enough to not annoy me (I think that's the trick with parenthood stuff, I can laugh at it a little at a time, not so much if it's the focus of a long routine). There were a few absolutely spot-on Stewart Lee impressions. And one of the files that comes with the digital purchases features a performance by the brilliant English folk singer Grace Petrie, whose music I heard years ago (I think I bought one of her albums at a folk festival somewhere) but not for a long time, this DVD reminded me of her existence, and I think I might be in love with her, so that's fun.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"It's very easy to blame radicalization, but radicalization is very easy if people are brought up in the first place to believe that faith is a virtue.

If you bring up children and tell them that believing without evidence, (which is what faith is), is a virtue, only a tiny majority might become radicalized, but the ground has been fertilized for radicalization."

-- Richard Dawkins

When you endorse faith as a way to know the world, you authorize anything done in the name of faith. You don’t get to remove material reality itself as a boundary for belief, and then judge people who follow your lead. Faith is faith.

[evilsoup]

I feel like we've collectively forgotten that at the time new atheism was at its height, Bush 2 was declaring a "crusade" and talking about his invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (and proposed invasions of Iran, Libya, etc) in terms of biblical prophecies from the book of revelations, while having advisors drawn from the apocalypse-accelerationist wing of evangelical Christianity. Evangelicals were also pushing to teach "intelligent design" in school science classes as a legitimate alternative to the theory of evolution (under the slogan "teach the controversy"), and were presenting themselves as respectable intellectuals who were up for a debate.

Ultimately, new atheism was an idealist philosophy which blamed "stupid religion" rather than material structures of power etc, so an islamophobic current could find its home there pretty easily, and once bush was out of office the people who were there for anti-rightwing reasons drifted away (a process accelerated by Richard Dawkins' attacks on feminism). But it was reacting to something real that required opposition.

Talking about logical fallacies etc makes sense in this context -- the scumbags early new atheism defined itself against were far-right Christian fundamentalist death cultists trying to come across as reasonable by using fallacious arguments.

[noctumsolis]

Just a quick note here.

Holding religious beliefs is not mutually exclusive with being intelligent or well educated.

I say this as a lifelong atheist.

[malewifegrantaire]

The Birthday Thing

READ PART ONE HERE

PART TWO: Guess who’s coming to dinner hang out for no apparent reason (as far as Grantaire can tell)?

Combeferre had inadvertently ruined the rest of Grantaire’s week. It wasn’t his fault, of course. He couldn’t be blamed for Grantaire’s Incredibly Bad Brain. But still, “I just know Enjolras and I know he likes you” is a very reckless phrase to pepper into a conversation with someone of Grantaire’s constitution. He could hardly fall asleep that night because the words I know he likes you were clanging too loudly against the bars of the jail cell he called a mind. He didn’t mind too much though. The clanging was because Enjolras liked him, which made all of the noise sound a bit like music.

Grantaire picked out an outfit for the party and laid it out like he was a little kid excited for a school trip. Embarrassed with himself, he threw the entire outfit into his clothing hamper so he wouldn’t have to look at it lying out on his dresser anymore. Which was obviously a mistake, because now the clothes were are wrinkled and they were touching his actually dirty clothes. Which meant now he had to do a half load of laundry on a weekday, which he really didn’t like doing.

As he folded his laundry, Grantaire felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Huh. It was from Combeferre. Odd.

hey, are u free? sorry lol i am bored and wanted to know if u wanna hang out ??

Very odd. Maybe the wrong number? Just to be safe, Grantaire texted back:

grantaire is folding laundry right now, like a responsible adult.

Two texts back:

very interesting use of third person..

i can help if u want! i love 2 fold things

So this was Grantaire’s life. He used to be young and wild, and now he’s the sort of person that makes plans with people who text him sentences like “i love 2 fold things.” He typed his response.

uh, sure? might get boring, but i’ll never say no to an extra set of hands.

About fifteen minutes later, Combeferre was inside of Grantaire’s apartment. “You got here fast.” Grantaire said.

“I was in the neighborhood.”

“Aren’t you always?”

Combeferre took in Grantaire’s apartment, which gave Grantaire such a wave of self-consciousness that he thought he might be sick. It was a fine apartment, kept clean mostly because Grantaire hardly spent any time in it. The ceilings were far too low for Combeferre.

“This is a really nice place.” Combeferre said. “Have you lived here long?”

“Five years, I think.” Grantaire said. “I think the landlord thought I’d have left by now, but, well. I’m still here.”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s nice. Good windows. Not easy to come by.”

Grantaire laughed at that. “Hey, was there something you wanted to talk about? Or are you just here to admire my big beautiful windows?”

Combeferre looked slightly embarrassed. “Uh, the latter, I guess.” he said. “I mean, just what I texted, I was bored, and I guess . . . I don’t know. I guess I thought we could just hang out?”

Now it was Grantaire’s turn to be embarrassed. Of course. Combeferre is the sort of person who’s actually, you know, decent. He was just trying to be nice and Grantaire was accusing him of having an ulterior motive. Way to go. Grantaire cleared his throat. “Well, thanks for coming. Feel free to park wherever. I only did a half load of laundry so I’m finished folding, sorry. I know how much you love to fold.”

“I went through a very intense Marie Kondo phase.” Combeferre grinned. “Let me know if you ever need your closet to be reorganized.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Grantaire said. It was dawning on him that, being more of the roaming type than the nesting type, Grantaire almost never had people over his apartment, and therefore had very little hosting experience. So he did what he always did in situations like this - said what people say in movies and books and all that.

“Can I offer you a beverage of some kind? I’ve got . . . tap water. And orange juice. And maybe beer?”

“I’m alright, thanks.” Combeferre said kindly. Combeferre’s fridge was probably fully stocked with sparkling water in every flavor for guests to sip on, the bastard. He sat down in a little chair by the kitchenette. “What, what is it?” he asked, looking at Grantaire’s expression. “Why are you - what’s funny?”

“Everything is too small for you in here. It’s like shoving a Barbie doll into a Polly Pocket house.” Grantaire said with a laugh. Combeferre tucked his long legs a bit closer to himself.

“Well, Barbie is a good role model, so I’ll take that.”

“I think an averaged sized woman or two might disagree. Anyways, you’ve got impeccable timing.”

“What do you mean?” Combeferre inquired.

“I mean that someone must have wanted us to hang out today. God, the Fates, some non-denominational arbiter of Destiny.” Grantaire was doing that thing he always did where he ended sentences in a way that begged the listener to ask him to explain himself. Why he chose to speak in these irritating circles? We will likely never know. Grantaire sure as hell didn’t.

Combeferre rolled his eyes, but he seemed more amused than annoyed. “You’re impossible.”

“It’s been said before.” was Grantaire’s reply. “What I mean to say is I’m literally never home. Not literally-literally, but, you know. This apartment is basically a glorified storage unit that I visit when there is absolutely nothing else to do. So the fact that you happened to be passing by on a laundry day...”

“... a work of divine intervention?” Combeferre finished.

“I’d go so far as to call it a miracle if I believed in that sort of thing.” Grantaire said.

Combeferre’s next question caught Grantaire off-guard somewhat. “So you’re an atheist, then?”

Grantaire had never actually seen a shrink, but he had the passing sensation of being sprawled out on some brown leather fainting sofa. Maybe that’s what this was, a psych eval. He’d get a message from the official Les Amis de l’ABC e-mail account later in the week saying “sorry, R, you’ve been deemed mentally unfit to be a part of this organization. We know the Musain is public property, but if you could avoid the premises during our scheduled meeting times we all think that’d be for the best.”

“Well, yeah, aren’t all of the lefties heathens nowadays? At least that’s what Twitter tells me.” he said. His paranoia would not rob him of his (debatable) sense of humor.

Combeferre just shrugged. “I guess if I had to call myself something I’d say I’m agnostic.”

“Huh!” Grantaire said, genuinely surprised. “A member of the ‘namby-pamby, mushy pap, weak-tea, weedy, pallid fence-sitter’ brigade, are we?”

Two things occurred to Combeferre at once: One, that Grantaire was quoting Richard Dawkins, and two, that Grantaire could not have been certain that Combeferre would recognize the quote when he said it. Grantaire was both the sort of person that committed Dawkins to memory and the sort that didn’t really care if someone mistook his references for a string of improvised insults. The more Grantaire spoke, the more Combeferre became aware of how little speaking they’d ever done.

“I guess I just think one can never be sure.” Combeferre said.

Grantaire thought now would be a good time for a subject change. “So, how is party planning going?” he asked.

Combeferre sighed. “It’s . . . it’s going.” he said. “Well, okay, I’m being dramatic. Courfeyrac is actually the one doing most of the planning. I just get weird about stuff like this. I want Enjolras to like everything, you know?”

“I don’t think Enjolras is capable of disliking anything you do.” Grantaire said in a way that to the untrained ear might sound like a veiled insult, but that Combeferre suspected was an attempt at genuine sincerity.

“Well, thanks.” Combeferre smiled gratefully. “I just want him to have a good time.”

“He will. It’s the rest of us you’ll have to work to entertain.”

“Well, Courfeyrac has a slew of party games he’s preparing. Oh, and, uh, Enjolras mentioned he’s glad you’ll be able to make it. By the way.” Combeferre said, which made Grantaire blush, which made Combeferre smile.

Grantaire hated that. Not just when Combeferre did it, when any of them did. Making faces or little comments, as if they were in on some big secret. It’s like they were proud of themselves for noticing Grantaire’s little crush, like they knew something funny or scandalous or cute. But they didn’t know anything, not really. Grantaire didn’t have a crush on Enjolras at all. It was more like a religion. Maybe he’d been too quick to brand himself an atheist earlier.

His annoyance with Combeferre soured the rest of their conversation. He became mean, curt, and downright humorless. This wasn’t at all fair, he knew. Grantaire probably annoyed Combeferre every third sentence (maybe every third word) and that had never stopped Combeferre from being his usual amiable self. There was another difference between the two: Grantaire lacked both grace and graciousness, and Combeferre, it seemed, never ran out of either.

“Well, I guess I should be leaving.” Combeferre said after a while, rising from the squat chair he was sitting in.

“I guess.”

“Uh, thank you for having me over. We should do this again some time. I had fun.” Combeferre lied.

Grantaire smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. “Yeah, why don’t we all do brunch some time? You can bring your friends, it’ll be a real party. Everyone can sit around admiring my huge windows. What a blast!”

Combeferre knew he was joking, but he couldn’t decipher the punchline. What would be so bad about having all of their friends over for brunch? Why did he say the word “friends” like that, all sardonic and italicized? Combeferre almost asked him, but instead he just shook his head and smiled.

“Okay. Well. Bye!”

Grantaire waved lazily. “See you around.”

Under normal circumstances, the phrase “Enjolras mentioned he’s glad you’ll be able to make it” would have found itself fluttering in the pit of Grantaire’s stomach. Instead, there was something else sitting in there. Something that felt a bit like failure, a bit like guilt, and - most surprising of all - a bit like affection.

This is precisely why he didn’t like having people over.

[noosphe-re]

There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else (parents in the case of children, God in the case of adults) has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point. It is all of a piece with the infantilism of those who, the moment they twist their ankle, look around for someone to sue. Somebody else must be responsible for my well-being, and somebody else must be to blame if I am hurt. Is it a similar infantilism that really lies behind the ‘need’ for a God?

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

[wellthatwasaletdown]

Can someone tell me what Gemma did that was Islamaphobic? I always got a bad vibe from her, like she kind of thinks she’s smarter and better than everyone.

She deleted all her tweets and things regarding it but basically when there was terrorist attack in Paris a few years ago, Gemma posted a tweet that implied that she was blaming Islam as a whole as to why terrorist attacks were happening. She retweeted a tweet and article from Richard Dawkins, who’s a known islamaphobe and has also said some anti-feminist things in the past. She used to follow him on Twitter but after the backlash she unfollowed him I think. Her apology was super condescending and not really an apology and she deleted that as well.

.

[automatismoateo]

The "Don't blame the whole religion and it's followers for the bad things" card is getting old quick and should have died via /r/atheism

Submitted May 19, 2021 at 04:25AM by RyeKei (Via reddit https://ift.tt/349kMF7) The "Don't blame the whole religion and it's followers for the bad things" card is getting old quick and should have died

Annoying would be an understatement, not to mention it would be a huge disrespect to the victims who fell prey to the cruelty of religions and their followers. Imagine this, put yourself as an atheist or whatever small minority group of people in a town fill with majority muslims or christians whatever. Due to your rejection of religion, a group of 20 muslims murder your family, destroy your house and do ugly and hideous things to you, now YOU the victim should have all the rights to curse the whole religion, town and it's people. Because regardless of how good or moderate the others are, the majority DON'T MATTER AT ALL once your loved ones are dead, your homes are destroyed, your very well-being is laid waste mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The other good and moderate majority don't freaking matter at all when an airplane crashed into a skyscrapper, killing many lives, the majority are useless. The good and moderare majority don't matter at all when terrorists bomb cities and even the people who are of the same faith as them. The good and moderate majority don't matter at all when Islamic invaders invaded India continents and committed genocide to the Hindus and Vedic traditions which have served and contributed to Humanity in many ways possible, eg: The Sage/Rishi Brahmagupta and his Algebra principles (Mark Twain and many others would have cursed those Islamist batshits. Luckily the Vedic traditions and wisdom survived to this day), destroying Vedic civilization/wisdom would be an equivalent of destroying the Roman and Greek if not much more. The good and moderate majority don't matter at all when the Crusaders committed one of the worst crimes ever in history.

Whenever there is a conflict driven by religious values and teachings, a muslim or christian would pull up their anti-bullet proof shield by saying "Oh they don't represent Islam, they took the Qoran out of context. Here are the many good verses God tells us to treat non-muslims as brothers and friends", well dude, i'm not buying any of your religious shit and happy dazzling one size fits all promotions crap bullshit! What about the other verses that flat out says you should kill and genocide non-believers or Jews? Who gets to decide whom should have the right interpretation? What about the other hideous shit that your prophet did as an individual? Yikes. These sheep would turn a blind eye on those things and pretend that they don't exist!

This is classic dodging and projection, people should accept their garbages, acknowledged it and work for the better changes. That applies to everyone and everything not just theists and religions. Richard Dawkins once said in one of his lectures which you can find anywhere online that says something along the lines "Well you damn well don't have to respect people opinions" and to that i would like to take a similar approach in this case, i would say "We damn well don't have to respect other people religions!".

I like this quote because it's true in every sense:

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil. But for good people to do evil - that takes religion"

[startledstars]

How can for (extreme) example kids being physically abused/raped by strangers/parents be a trial to overcome for good? Girls being kidnapped and sold for sex? Students stepping on a little puppy for views? If this is a sometimes situation where god lets evil thru, then its everyday 24/7 around the world not just sometimes. God cant stop evil, bacause we are everything between good and evil. Not god makes live wonderful nd miserable but we do. Towards us and others. Being afraid of live being meaningless none guiding us, that is what makes religioun(and other factors) u are free when u are open to see. There is no pure good and evil. Whatever you wet thru its not your fault, you happened to be where its bad but you are grown up indipendent and you can choose to be 'good' or 'bad' in order to help u or other people so long u live. But this god, at least how christianity potrays him, is a fear in your head that prevents you at crumbling infront of the worlds truth to make this all more bearable. People should believe whatever they want as long as it gets them going. But saying all you want is the truth, and yet believing in a god as the catholic religion and you present him. You seem to scared for the truth if you are willing to leave it at that. A simple as god knows. What kind of truth are you after? Be at least honest with yourself

Hi,

These are the right questions. The problem of evil is a Big One. 

In the past century, we’ve had:

two cities decimated by a nuclear bomb

hundreds of millions of people killed by their own governments (socialism is orders of magnitude worse than the holocaust)

famines that lead to parents killing and eating their own children

a global “pandemic” that governments used as a power grab, shutting down the global economy, causing millions of people to starve

And these are only the things we know. For every rape, abuse, and act of violence that is reported, there are many more that go unreported and unpunished. However, almost every rapist/abuser/theif/murder/politician is justified in their own mind. The true mark of an evil person is that they believe they are righteous, to the point where they are above any laws, and will never be sorry for anything they do. 

So, in a Godless world with no objective standards, it’s anyone’s game. Evil is simply a perception; an opinion. Same with good. You can choose to believe in a random, meaningless world where Shit Just Happens and humans are the highest power. You can choose to ignore the fact that there is an undeniable order to reality, where even atheistic scientists admit the universe is so finely tuned, they have to reevaluate their own theories. (That’s actually why the multi-verse theory exists. Scientists have no solid evidence that our universe is one of infinite parallel universe. Watch this video, time stamp 43:19 where famous athiest Dawkins admits the multiverse theory has no scientific evidence.)

You can turn your back on God because He allows things you disagree with. That’s what it usually boils down to: we look at evil with our limited intelligence, perception, and imagination, and decide that because we can’t find a reason for every single instance of wrong doing, no reason can exist. 

It’s like a teenager getting mad at his parents because they enforced curfew. Like a toddler raging because she was denied that fifth piece of candy. In those moments, because the child can’t comprehend their parent’s decision, the parent’s character comes into question.

This is pride and short-sightedness, especially when we’re talking about an infinite creator operating on an infinite universe over an infinite span of time. 

Again, I’m not condoning or justifying evil. The question of evil and human suffering is extremely valid. And I’ve never shied away from looking at the darkest parts of humanity, because that is an important piece of understanding reality. If you do a little digging, you’ll find that this world is so much more evil that you or I could begin to comprehend. People are evil, and it’s going to continue to get worse.

In the face of such evil, it would be easier to not believe in God. (There’s a post sitting in my drafts about how I actually tried to be an athiest because I couldn’t justify evil.) So I think you’re saying that I’m not sincere when I say “search for the truth,” because from your perspective, I believe in God either out of fear, or because it gives me a false sense of comfort. While I can understand why you might think that (because this is how I used to feel about Christians) it’s simply not the case here. 

No one forced these beliefs on me. I am not part of any church or denomination-- the ‘catholic’ comment is a bit out of left field. I don’t blame myself for what happened to me. I don’t blame any victim for their circumstances. Idk there’s some level of misunderstanding and too much to unpack entirely. 

But, if you’re looking for real answers to the problem of evil, I’d suggest approaching The Big Man himself. I do this all the time-- when I see something absolutely horrible, I ask Him how he could possibly allow that. Sometimes, He will give you answers (if you’re willing to hear Him out) and almost every time, He will send a sense of peace. This is something you have to experience for yourself to understand. 

Also, here are some debates between Atheists at the top of their field and Christians. Both sides present arguments better than I ever could, and I actually watched these videos thinking the Atheists might sway me but. Well, see for yourself:

Does God exist? William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens

Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox - The God Delusion Debate

William Lane Craig and CosmicSkeptic Discuss The Kalam Cosmological Argument

(Not a debate but worth checking out)  Stephen Meyer: The Return of the God Hypothesis

Would God Allow Evil? CosmicSkeptic vs InspiringPhilosophy

And here’s a muslim vs. atheist debate to round things out

Bolded my favorites. These take a few hours to get through, but if you’re really interested in the problem of evil or the proof for God, these guys present it well. (btw surprisingly there is more logical/scientific proof for God’s existence than for the athiest or pantheistic model of reality. Check out this short clip. Science and religion used to be two sides of the same coin; people took an intelligent, ordered approach to studying the universe because they believed in an intelligent, ordered creator. So God answered the “why” and science answered the “how” of existence. Just some food for thought.)

I’d also recommend you look into the biblical story of Joseph (his own brothers sold him into slavery, but because of this, Joseph ended up ruling all of Egypt and saving the very brothers who betrayed him). And also the book of Job. While we can’t know everything about the mystery of evil, we can know enough to make an informed decision about God’s existence/character.

Anyways, thank you for this message. I hope you’ll consider the information in this response. I’m glad that you are asking the hard questions, and assure you that the answers are worth seeking and finding. Good night and God bless you :)

[60b3r]

Memes Kill Creativity?

Memes vs. Genes

In the 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the term 'meme' to describe something with symbolic meaning that spreads by imitation from person to person within a culture. This idea is an analogue to the nature of selfish gene, described similarly as a piece of genetic material possessing information required to be able to replicate themselves inside a living. The only key difference in both terms is that the gene is natural, while memes are artificial. The rest of memes' operating schemes completely mimic the genes perfectly. In our current timeline, memes as we know today are taking many forms: as image macros, short videos, and rick-rollicking music. Memes in imageboards and forums have been pushing internet porn traffic into a stalemate and putting our power grid into unnecessary burden. Of course, memes are not to be regretted, but otherwise need to be taken seriously, since they are able to put our current understanding of media industry and economic system into shame.

As with every other thing that have existed, memes are not exempt in its dualistic nature. If you ever venture to the depths of dark web, you may know that memes also took part in the infamous mimetic Tumblr-4chan War. Not only that, some memes are reportedly causing harm towards some users, even though it is often disguised or said to be a dank joke or mere sarcasm. Memes have seen its share of use in online bullying, mass shootings, and hate crimes, cowering behind the freedom of expression tag. Regardless, memes are also an extremely effective form of information transmission. Like all living systems with no set moral standards, memes do evolve and are subject to natural selection. Memes, like genes, actually work like a mindless machine. Again, this is eerily like the performance of DNA in living systems. The last thing we want from this thing is virulence.

Every day, something went viral on Twitter. Hashtags are flaring into the top trends, some videos are being watched billions of times, and another cat vs. cucumber pic garnered thousands of likes. Viral properties of a virus (duh) is defined as the capability to multiply quickly in relatively short amount of time. The term saw a huge increase in usage during the dawn of the internet age and the rise of computer malwares spread through unsecured ports of network protocol. This term is being applied to memes, as it is like a virus (which is a pure embodiment of a selfish gene). Now, a lot of people are utilizing memes to create art, because it enables them to cater the short-attention spans of current internet users. They create shorts, illustrations, inside jokes, and small comic strips. Some of you might not agree with me on this one, but stay with me now and I will explain to you why I would like to treat memes and art as a single unit of interest in this argument.

The dawn of meme-technology

Viral memes and their popularity are now often considered important in defining a time period in the internet culture. Now every netizen can somewhat distinguish the approximate age, sex, and political views of other users from the usage of rage comics, meme songs, and meme platforms they use. Intuitively we can make a generalized difference between the userbase of Reddit, 4chan, 9gag, Vine, and now Tiktok. Others, by the share of relatability with sub-genres of different areas of interest (film memes and game memes). Some others, even, in the perspectives of different social and economic class system (first world problems and third world success memes). Meme preferences to us netizens are ironically giving away our anonymous identity. Identity which the media companies are vying to get their hands on. That's where I would like to come into my opening argument: both memes and genes which originally possesses no intrinsic value, suddenly become a subject of value with technology.

How do we draw the logic, I say? The ones and zeros inside electrical systems are value-free, so does DNA in living cells. As we meddle ourselves with biotechnology to manipulate genetic material for profit, we also simmer ourselves in the computer sciences and tweak physical computation to perform better. We give value in the inanimate object by manipulating them. In our world, we often heard these expressions: that communication is key, sometimes silence is golden, and those who control the information wields the power. What’s these three statements have in common? Yes, information and expression. Memes are the simplest form of both. This is the beginning of the logic: memes are no longer in and on itself independent of external values. The infusion of utilitarian properties in memes as artificial constructs are seemingly inevitable, and for the better or worse shapes our current society.

We might have heard that somewhere somehow, the so called ‘global elites’ with their power and wealth are constantly controlling biotech research and information technology—or, in the contrary, they control these knowledge and resources to keep shovelling money and consolidate their power. Memes are one of their tools to ‘steer’ the world according to their 'progressive agenda', seemingly driving the world ‘forward’ towards innovation and openness. Nah, I am just joking. But, stay with me now. It is actually not them (the so-called global elites) who you should be worried about. It is us—you and I, ourselves—and our own way of unwittingly enjoying memes that are both toxic and fuelling the age-old capitalism. Funny, isn't it? We blame society, but we are society. But how are be becoming the culprits yet also be the prey at the same time?

Middle-class artists are hurt

Now, aggressive marketing tactics using memes are soaring. Media companies are no doubt cashing in the internet and viral memes to their own benefit. Streaming and cataloguing are putting up a good fight compared to their retail, classic ways of content delivery. This is quite true with the strategies of Spotify and YouTube, other media companies alike. They can secure rights to provide high-quality content from big time artists and filmmakers and target these works directly to the end consumer, effectively cutting the cost of distribution which usually goes to the several layers of distribution line like vinyl products, radio contracts, and Blu-ray DVDs. I believe this is good, since it is like an affirmative action for amateur artists to start a career in the art industry. Or is it? Does it really encourage small-time artists to begin? Yes. How about the middle-class artists? Not necessarily.

You might sometimes wonder, “how the hell did I get somewhere just by following the trending or hot section in the feed?”. This toxicity of memes often brings some bad things to our tables. Social media algorithms handle contents (like viral memes) by putting those with high views or likes to the front page, effectively ‘promoting’ the already popular post and creating a positive feedback cycle. By doing so, they could capitalize on ad profits on just few ‘quality’ contents over huge amounts of audience in a very short amount of time. The problem is most of the time, these ‘quality’ contents have no quality at all. They just happen to possess the correct formula to be viral, with the correct SEO keywords and click-bait titles with no real leverage in the art movement. This way, I often find both the talented and the lucky—of which the boundaries between them are always blurred—overshadow the aspiring ‘middle-class’ artists who work hard to perfect their craft.

If you are already a famous guitarist with large fanbase, lucky you, you are almost guaranteed to top the billboards. What, you have no skills? Post a video of you playing ‘air guitar’ and… affirmative actions to the rescue. Keep on riding the hype wave and suddenly you get to top trending with minimal effort, thanks to your weird haircut. Those haters will surely make a meme out of your silly haircut, not even your non-existent guitar skills. But still, hype is still a hype, and there’s no such thing as a bad publication. This also answers why simple account who reposts other people’s content could get much more followers than the hard-working creators. Not only being outperformed by the already famous artists taking social media by storm, now the ‘middle-class’ artists are also dealing with widespread content theft and repost accounts because of the unfair, bot grading system. It is unimaginable how many nobodies got the spotlight they don’t deserve just because they look or act stupid and the whole internet cheers around them. Remember, this is not always about the artist, but also the quality of the art itself. I believe a good art should be meaningful to the beholder.

Why capitalism kills creativity

The problem in current art industry is that we are feeling exhausted with the same, generic, and recycled stuff. We indeed already see there’s less discourse about art now. Sure, the problem lies not in the artist or medium, but is in the viewers—the consumer of the art form—and how the capitalist system reacts to it. The hyper efficient capitalist system doesn’t want to waste any more time and money trying to figure out what’s new or what’s next for you. What we love to see, what is familiar to us, the market delivers them. The rise of viral memes phenomenon in the social media pushes the market system to the point where they demand artists to create the same, redundant, easy art form. Listen to some of The Chainsmokers’ work and we'll see what music have become: the identical 4-chord progression, the same drop, the predictable riser, and the absence of meaningful lyrics. We sat down and watch over the same superhero movies trying hard to be the next Marvel blockbuster. The production companies are also happy not to pay writers extra to come up with new ideas and instead settle with borrowed old scripts from decades old TV drama. Disney's The Lion King and its heavy use of the earlier Japanese Kimba The White Lion storyline is one guilty example.

Despite it initially being an economic system and not a political ideology, it is untrue that many Marxist philosophers usher the suppression of art. While it is ironic that Stalinist policy intends to curb ‘counter-revolutionaries’—in this case his enemies—by limiting freedom of press and media; American propaganda added further so that it seems that the ideology is also limiting art and kill creativity. We all know the Red Scare in the U.S. during the Cold War saw a popular narrative of communism and socialism that is devoid of freedom of expression. This state propaganda then further become ‘dehumanization’ and make freedom of expression invalid under the guise of equality. Marx argue that total equality is not possible, and the uniqueness is being celebrated by having them doing what they do best and provide the best for their community. Thus, an individual's interests should be indistinguishable from the society's interest. Freedom is granted when the whole society is likely to benefit from an action. According to Mao in his Little Red Book, freedom of expression in art and literature, after all, is what initially drive the class consciousness. It is capitalism, not communism, that kills creativity.

If left unchecked, the threat of this feedback loop is going to cause a lack of diversity, resulting in stale content, less art critique, and overall decline in our artistic senses. Artists’ creativity that are supposedly protected by the free internet are destroyed within itself through the sheer overuse of viral memes. Capitalism has successfully turned the supposedly open, free-for-all, value-free platform that is the internet against the people into a media in which they are undeniably shaping new values on its own: the art culture that's not geared towards aesthetics and appreciation, but towards more views and personalized clicks. How social media and media industry caters to the demands of the consumer are, in Marx's own words, “digging its own grave”.

Spare nothing, not even the nostalgia

Well, people romanticize the oldies. The good old days, when everything is seen as better and easier. Look at the new art installations that uses the aesthetics of naughty 90s graphic design to become new, the posters released in this decade but with an art deco of the egregious 80s pop artist Andy Warhol, or the special agent-spy movies set frozen in the Nifty Fifties. Nostalgia offers us a way to escape from the hectic choices of our contemporary: different genres of music, dozens of movies to watch, and different fashion to consider. We choose to settle with our old habits, that we know just works. Remember how do we throw our money on sequels and reboots and remakes of old movies we used to watch during our younger days? We don’t even care about new releases at the cinema! Did you remember how Transformers 2 and their subsequent sequels perform at the box office at their opening week?

The huge sales of figurines and toys of Star Wars franchise—if we could scrutinize them enough—came from the old loyal fanbase of the late Lucasfilm series, not primarily from new viewers. Then suddenly, surprise-surprise. Our love for an old franchise deemed dead enough to be remembered and treasure soon must be destroyed to pave way for three new outrageous sequels (the ones with Kylo Ren and Snoke) by the grace of our beloved capitalism. Sadly, nothing is left untouched by the capitalism’s unforgiving corruption. Nostalgia has become a gimmick that makes people like some art more than they should, because it’s familiar. It is another way of squeezing your pocket dry.

Not that it is bad to make derivatives like covers or remixes, but the trade-offs are far too high. Consequentially, the number of original arts is now very little, because artists don’t bother making new stuff if they just aim for a quick buck. Most of the young adult novels are essentially the same lazy story progression with only different time setting and different character names. Most of them even have the same ending! No more a beautiful journey like the thrillers of Dan Brown or the epic adventures of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings, which defines their respective times. Do we seriously want to consider Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey as a unique work? Isn’t the Hunger Games and the Maze Runner essentially the same?

If you play video games, you must have known that the trend always starts over. Game developers are making gazillions of sequels, and only a few of them that are actually good. Most are outright trash. Oh, wait, old video games like Homeworld are also getting remasters to cater the demand of nostalgic consumers. No new Command and Conquer release from EA Games? Re-release the 25 years old Red Alert because people will re-buy it! Profit!

15 June 2020 8.03 PM