#and it's made this post huge with vast chunks that are way off topic and pointless...

[psudopod]

I feel like dappercat is live-demonstrating their own point here by willingly accepting new evidence on the psychology stuff. Like, that's the point. If they thought ghosts caused mental illness you'd end up playing with a ouija board to try to change their mind, while they play with their own. Sidhe-said/banshee-said. Instead people brought up the current state of psychology and it's failings, they agreed it needs to be changed, no planchette needed.

I think it's an accurate observation that most people just pick and choose their justifications based on what they want to do, in practice. The original post is also right, despite the circular arguments going on in this dumpster fire. Religious texts make for great books-o-justifications for to cherry-pick from. I don't ever bother to meet a religious bigot in the field of their own religion, it is just a tool for justifications, and a waste of air to try to tell them how they are wrong about their religion when it's all equally disconnected from objective reality.

It's all just an excuse, the behavior comes first, they'll find an alternate excuse somewhere, religious or secular.

They'll cherry pick from the historic body of scientific learning, like some outdated Freud crank. They won't change their mind when faced with new info, like when people stick with old disproven DSM crank. Science will keep producing new info, testable things. Meanwhile, old religious doctrine will just gain authority with age.

OP's closing words on their original post is right, I just think it's healthier to, you know, engage with reality for your beliefs. It's probably also healthy to accept that things with a scientific consensus are serviceably true until more information is uncovered. If you must be arguing with a bigot, it's less of a waste of air if you are arguing about real things. Real things can be true. You gotta believe that real things can be true. If a bigot tries to make an excuse out of real things they can be proven a liar. You can't prove someone a liar about things that were never real. Real things can be true.

When criticizing religion that promotes or claims some form of bigotry as a central belief, it's very important to remember that people who don't want to believe in god but want to be bigots will find new ways to frame and justify their bigotry.

For example, "women are more likely to be possessed by demons" easily turns into "women are more prone to mental illness that compromises their judgment."

"The gods decreed that these people would be our servants forever" easily turns into "these people never evolved intelligence like we did, and they need us to guide them and tell them what to do."

"You'll go to Hell if you do that!" easily turns into "This is what's destroying society! You're betraying everything your ancestors worked hard to create!"

"They worship evil gods! We have to convert them to our good and pure religion!" easily turns into "their culture is primitive and barbaric! We have to free them from these backward beliefs!"

Basically, remember that what you're criticizing is selfish, fearful, and manipulative behavior, which can and will emerge in any context; and that atheism is not a quick fix for systemic issues and deep-seated prejudices.

[angularnotions]

Right, I have to get this off my chest

I'll start off by saying I love Harry, I do. I firmly believe, even now, that he is ridiculously talented, brilliant, fully capable of producing amazing music and could have a very long career in the business. So what the fuck is this promotional campaign for his first solo album? We start off with dead silence for a year, which, fine, he was busy, he wanted time for himself, he's notoriously private. That's ok, that's perfectly acceptable and I don't blame him for one second. But to then go from that to a bizarre, creepy, cheesy commercial? What the fuck? Is that really how you want to introduce yourself to the world as a solo artist? By looking like a pretentious drowned rat? It made no sense, no one who wasn't a Harry fan would have a clue what in fuck was going on, so why do it? Since then, it's all been sort of downhill, with so many great opportunities that seem to have missed the mark or been squandered. He gets SNL, which is huge and he essentially bombs his first song performance because of a lack of practice performing it live. Yes I'm sure he was nervous, don't blame him, SNL is kind of a big deal, and he did pull his shit together for the second one, but that first one is going to stick in people's minds. Graham Norton should have been the first live performance, a much smaller stage to work out the kinks, a more familiar place, it would have made sense. But that wouldn't have fit into this metric they are pushing that Harry already is a superstar, he doesn't need practice. Pretentious, ridiculous and a incredibly stupid mistake. Then we get Rolling Stone, which again, was a fantastic opportunity for him to show the real Harry, be organic and authentic and he did to a point, but then he got contradictory, stopped making sense as this weird need to keep up the mystique seemed to battle with his desire to be honest. Harry has said he doesn't like to talk about the meaning of his songs yet he gave a very detailed description for SOTT and talked about a relationship that influenced a big chunk of the rest of the album. So which is it? Do you want people to take what they feel from the song or are you gonna tell us what it's about. On top of this, the relationship question had to be brought into the discussion. I get it, for the vast majority of the general public, the name Harry Styles is synonymous with a womanizing player who bangs everything that moves. It's not fair, we don't know if it's true, he understandably has refused to address it in the past aside from complaining that he doesn't like the reputation, so why let it become a talking point in Rolling Stone? Why let Ben Winston talk about listening to Harry fuck A-listers upstairs night after night, why let James joke about 'house guests'. Again, contradictory. Are we to believe that when Cameron asked about Taylor and Harry left the table that he was in the bathroom crying about his long lost love Taylor? Or was he outside angry about it, we don't know. But it's still weird. And the worst bit is, the only topic that made it to the media in regards to the Rolling Stone interview is the paragraphs about Taylor. Everything else he said, any important pieces about his process, writing, his personal feelings on the album were erased by that one topic. Extremely unfair to Harry in my opinion. My point in all of this is that the whole metric of his promotion has been off. And I don't think, based on the sales numbers, that it's working. Yes the fandom is losing its shit, but that's fandom, it's what they do. But I've been seeing more and more Harry fans like myself questioning and becoming disappointed by something that should be happy and exciting. Harry seems to be super proud and excited himself, the guy we see in interviews live and on radio is a funny, charming, talented, down to earth person who is easy to love, easy to be happy for, but then I look at the promo and all of that happiness and excitement fades. And I'm left with a cheesy commercial, creepy post-rape pink water pictures (complete with condom) and a guy in a hideous Gucci suit. When has having this aesthetic, being this pretentious, clothes horse, mysterious enigma taken precedence over being a person? Who came up with this promo campaign? Who sat and thought, hey this'll work? Was it Jeff 'just exist' Azoff? Was it Rob Stringer from Columbia? Or was it Harry? I still have high hopes for the album and if I'm honest, I think they chose wrong for the first single, it's way too overproduced, dreary and unfriendly for radio. I personally don't really like it and it doesn't seem to translate to a wider audience. Ever Since New York would have been a much better choice, it just feels more authentic, it's still groundbreaking in its departure from what we've heard from Harry in the past but it's more real, more genuine to me. Speaking of departures and contradictions, why the big push to separate Harry from his 1D days? While at the same time they seem to be depending on his established fan base, the majority having come from 1D, to help him in sales and charts. I get wanting to break into a newer audience but alienating the old one isn't the way to do it. Sorry not sorry, but this has been my impression since promo began, I don't want to feel negatively but it's how I've been left feeling.