#listened to or supported or.. welcomed in society and not shamed for literally just existing as they are

[snekdood]

i feel like so much anti theism is a trauma response from being subjected to oppressive (mostly christian, since thats the pov i hear from the most) religious institutions. it reminds me of when radfems are like “men are bad so we need to kill them/wall them off from us/they serve no purpose and should be ignored/ostracized/exiled, etc.” and we all know they’re only saying that bc of trauma.

[aen-lliash]

I also just wanna address this before the queue starts running! I know it’s long, but please read this.

This (side)blog is primarily for sharing my Star Trek Online shenanigans. It’s become more of a screenshot repository as of late, but if there’s anything I’ve learned in my time here and on twitter, it’s that my content is still recognized as generally being more gaming-focused and less Star Trek-focused.

With “gaming-focused” content comes the outside expectation of Only Posting About Gaming, Not Getting Political, etc etc and so on. I don’t want this blog to contribute to that. I was a Trekkie before I was a STO player, and to me, being a Trekkie means upholding the ideals of Star Trek and getting political. That is to say, as a Trekkie (and a Political Science grad, and soon-to-be Master of Public Policy student) I cannot in good conscience be posting and acting “as normal” when what’s “normal” is harming others.

Systems in the US fail People of Color, and we’re seeing this in real-time. Police brutality occurs at disproportionately higher rates against Black people.There’s no denying this fact. George Floyd was murdered because the state continually sanctions this kind of violence against and oppression of POC. He was not the first, and it breaks my heart to say that he will not be the last. This is what we get for trying to “tolerate” intolerance. This is what we get for saying “tolerate ALL opinions, even the ones you don’t like!” and then classifying racism as an opinion. You don’t tolerate racism. You don’t tolerate nazis. Giving them a voice opens the door for violence, oppression, and genocide. And we’ve given them more than a voice here in the US; we’ve allowed them to assume positions of power and enter systems intended for the protection of citizens.

This is discussed in Star Trek -- I’m not just ascribing political stances to the show because you think I’m some ~virtue-signaling SJW,~ IT IS LITERALLY IN THE SHOW. Even TOS, with its plethora of microaggressions against minorities, tried harder than our goddamned president to send a hopeful message about anti-racism.

I want the future to be more like Star Trek, and not just for myself, but for everyone (this is actually my motivation for entering public policy!! but I won’t get into that here). I feel that actively seeking changes to the systems that oppress minorities is one of the greatest things that we can do for our society. We all need to actively work against oppressive systems, and this starts by truly listening to the voices of the oppressed.

So, tl;dr, this sideblog supports Black Lives Matter, social justice movements, and anti-fascist action. I don’t give a fuck if you think it should be otherwise. You are not welcome here if you’re a racist. This blog and its content is not for you. Delete my screenshots from your computers and cloud storage, because they are not for you. Reconsider your place in the STO and Trek communities. Unfollow me, block me, and know that any comments you might have to make against my stance only further serve to prove your shameful existence as an intolerant fool... so don’t waste your time.

To close, I’m going to provide links to ways in which we can help affect change. Please take this seriously, follow their advice, and share them with others.

→ https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234

→ https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#resources

[idiopathicsmile]

Why You May Already Be A Unitarian Universalist! Or, a short guide to the goofy hippie aunt of the theological world (but the kind of aunt who has been to protests and Seen Some Shit)

Do any of these sound like you:

“I’d like a safe setting to explore my spiritual beliefs, but I’ve got baggage about organized religion!”

“I wish there was a church for atheists!”

“I wish there was a church for people who aren’t sure if they believe in god or not!”

“Over the years I’ve slowly assembled a highly personal grab-bag of spiritual beliefs and practices, but I miss service projects and singing hymns and drinking coffee on Sundays!”

“I need a religious community that supports rights for people of all genders, races, religious beliefs, sexual or affectional orientations, ability statuses, and national origins!”

“I want to raise my kids in a church that offers an extremely comprehensive, LGBTQA-friendly, shame-free sex ed program to all teenagers!”

Or conversely,

“I’ve already found a different personal belief system that feels right for me, but I am intellectually curious about where you’re going with this!” (Perfectly valid!)

If any of the above is true, or if you just feel like killing some time on the internet (also valid), read on!

“So, what do you guys believe?”

Modern Unitarian Universalism is a religion without a creed. That means you can be UU while believing in as many or as few deities as you want (including none or “I don’t know” or even “the very question doesn’t feel that important to me”). There is no consensus within the church on an afterlife (if any), or a holy book (if any), or even which holidays to celebrate, other than presumably, like, the birthdays of your friends and loved ones.

Plenty of UUs identify as agnostic or atheist, but we also have members whose beliefs are informed by Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, earth-centered/Pagan traditions, and/or Humanism, among others.

Asking an individual UU about their beliefs is sort of like asking someone about their taste in music. It’s meaningful to them, it’s shaped by their own history and experiences, and no two people will have exactly the same answer.

“Wait, you guys don’t agree on anything? What even brings you together?”

A DEEP AND EVERLASTING LOVE OF COMMITTEES.

No, sorry, that was a hilarious joke playing off an old Unitarian Universalist stereotype, which is that we are super into discussing things and then voting on them as a group.

Hilarious.

It’s hard to speak for all Unitarian Universalists, and some of them might quibble with the exact wording I’m about to use, but I feel like part of what makes us a bonafide religion is a deep shared conviction that trying your hardest to be kind, fair, and moral is itself sacred.

“If you can’t agree on a religious text, how in the world are you guys on the same page about what it means to be moral?”

I mean, sometimes we’re not? We like a good debate.

But although we don’t have a creed, we do have a common set of principles we try to use as a guide. Here they are, straight from the Unitarian Universalist Association website:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

“Uh, that’s compatible with every world religion and also, like, Captain Planet.”

Listen, nobody in the Unitarian Universalist church is gonna stop you from using a nineties environmentalism cartoon as a holy text. Embrace your truths. As a group of young sages once said, “Saving our planet is the thing to do.”

“I already believe all of those principles. Am I a Unitarian Universalist?”

I mean, if you want to be!

…although the definition of a UU is broad enough these days that we’ve got a quirky (and in retrospect maybe kind of problematic?) habit of retroactively claiming dead historical figures* who demonstrated a belief in the seven principles during their lives. Like, “That person PROBABLY WOULD’VE BEEN Unitarian Universalist, given the chance! One of us! One of us!”

That said, if you’re reading this, you’re probably alive, so at least for the time being it is your call!

*I am now bound by ancient UU law to list to you some dead historical figures who actually self-identified as Unitarian Universalists (or Unitarians or Universalists, since the two didn’t meld together until a series of meetings in the 1960’s):

Olympia Brown (the first fully ordained female minister in the U.S., also an abolitionist and feminist)

President John Quincy Adams 

Joseph Priestley (18th century theologian credited with discovering oxygen)

Ralph Waldo Emerson and a number of the early American Transcendentalists

Louisa May Alcott

Elizabeth Gaskell (author of North and South, among others)

Rod Serling (Twilight Zone creator)

Beatrix Potter

Pete flippin’ Seeger, hell yeahhhhhh

“Who runs this show?”

Rife as it would be for comic possibility, there is no Unitarian Pope. There are no cardinals. Authority is for the most part pretty decentralized. Individual congregations govern themselves, through committees and elections. A minister has to be approved by their congregation before it’s official.

Those Seven Principles above came, like I said, from the Unitarian Universalist Association, which is made up of delegates from churches all over the country, and every year they get together and vote on major stuff. But yeah, congregation to congregation, things can vary pretty widely in terms of how they do stuff, or even whether to use the word “church.” (Some instead call themselves a “society,” or a “fellowship.”)

“What the heck does a UU hymn even sound like?”

Oh man, this reminds me of that classic Unitarian Universalist joke, “Why are Unitarians so bad at hymns?”

Answer: “Because they’re too busy reading ahead to make sure they agree with all the lyrics!”

Priceless.

But in reality, some of our songs are, like, transcendentalist poems that have been awkwardly squeezed onto the melody of some older hymn or classical piece. Sometimes you sing John Lennon’s “Imagine,” seemingly without a trace of irony. Sometimes you’ve got old spirituals about justice (like I said, things can tip towards well-intentioned appropriation) or Christian hymns that have been revised to be nondenominational and gender-inclusive. Sometimes you break out the classics, like “This Little Light of Mine.”

Here’s one of my all-time faves, which is based on a translation of a poem by 13th century Persian philosopher and mystic Rumi. You’ve got to wait until the rounds kick in. So good.

“What’s the official stance on rights for the LGBTQ+ community?”

It’s formally recognized by the UUA that our seven principles are totally incompatible with homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or any other type of bigotry.

Because the power is so decentralized, I can’t say that every congregation has always been enlightened, but as religions go, I think it’s pretty widely accepted that the UU church has long been on the forefront of LGBTQ+ rights. There have been UU ministers performing same-sex marriage ceremonies since at least the seventies, and there’s a long history of activism within the church.

The UUA website has a section detailing our ongoing efforts to be inclusive of all genders and orientations. If you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community and nervous about visiting a UU church for the first time, you might also want to aim for one of the churches that’s specifically opted into our Welcoming Congregation Program, which requires the congregation to go through special training and to offer gender-neutral bathrooms, among other things. (Most UU churches at this point have opted in. If you’re trying to find the closest location that’s also a Welcoming Congregation, there’s a checkbox you can click on this handy look-up tool.)

“So for decades when American politicians were arguing that same-sex couples couldn’t marry because it ‘went against religion’, it literally went against this particular religion to discriminate against those same couples?”

Yes. Yes, it was. The Bush years were a weird time.

“What’s the official stance on racial justice?”

We’re in favor of it. (Again: if you take those seven principles seriously, there’s no pussyfooting around opposing racism.)

I’m not gonna lie: at least in the suburban midwest UU churches I’ve attended, we are by and large, uh, pretty white. So I can’t really speak to whether or not a person of color would feel comfortable there. I’d imagine it would widely vary by individual and by congregation.

Our track record with Civil Rights is probably on par with any ultra-liberal, service-based American religion. We had a lot of early white abolitionists (given how low the bar was back then, I’m sure many would be considered racist by today’s standards), we had members active in the Civil Rights movement (if you saw Selma, that minister who gets killed by an angry mob was one of ours), and I think there was even a while pre-McCarthyism where we were closely allied with socialism and our members included some people of color who were key activists in confronting racism and supporting unions.

And then the Red Scare happened and our religion barely survived and we leaned away from socialism, and since then we’ve always kinda been predominantly an upper to middle class white liberal thing, with all the blinders that implies.

But a lot of UU churches have expressed solidarity with Black Lives Matter and with the protests at Standing Rock, and there is a growing movement within the church to confront and examine any latent white supremacy in ourselves and in our congregations.

One of the things that endeared me to my current church was when the minister announced that we were all invited to a racial justice protest, which had been organized by a black Christian church in the Chicagoland area. And the minister said, essentially,

“Listen, they are going to use religious wording that may not align with your personal beliefs. And what I need you to do is imagine you’ve got a Universal Translator like in Star Trek. And if they say “the glory of God” and it makes you uncomfortable, think “the glory of human kindness.” If they say “the spirit of the Lord”, you can think “the spirit of Life.” Because these Christians are out there doing the work that fits with our deepest values, and in the end, we have more in common than not. Sometimes we need to get over ourselves, and follow where they lead.”

At our worst, I’d characterize us as well-meaning but clueless (i.e. using the stories or imagery of world religions as a metaphor, in a way that flirts with appropriation). At our best, we’ve got some activists of color on the front lines, doing cool shit.

“This all sounds...so incredibly Politically Correct…”

Yeah, we strive to be accepting of everyone but I should warn you upfront that if P.C. culture upsets you, Unitarian Universalism is probably not gonna be a good fit.

“Did you say something about comprehensive sex ed for teens? In church?”

I certainly did! Through the OWL (Our Whole Lives) program, specially trained adults teach the youths a multi-year curriculum about bodily autonomy, consent, respect, healthy communication, gender identity, sexual orientation, safe sex (including passing around condoms and dental dams), destigmatizing sexuality, and relationships, among other things. Also, you can anonymously submit questions at any point, and your teachers will do some research and provide an answer next week.

When I was young, this was seventh and eighth grade Sunday school. I think since then, they developed the program to include age-appropriate components for younger kids, and to focus more on high schoolers.  

“Seriously?”

When my older brother went through an earlier iteration of the program, the curriculum included a slideshow with photos of actual naked people, who were just random UU volunteers from the seventies. By the time it was my turn, these had been replaced by tasteful charcoal drawings.

“So on a scale from one to ten, how warped is your brother?”

He’s doing great! Actually, he’s a member of his local UU church and a volunteer OWL teacher. Though if I had to guess, he’s probably pretty relieved he doesn’t have to contend with those slides.

“Where can I find out more about Unitarian Universalism?”

Here’s the UUA website. Here’s that nearest-church-finding tool I mentioned before. If you don’t know if you’re ready to jump from 0 to physically stepping into a sanctuary, especially if you’ve got a bit of that ol’ social anxiety, here’s the ask that reminded me to post this whole mess in the first place, about how to maybe ease yourself into things a little first.

“Hang on…if you break these words down into their roots, ‘Unitarian’ implies existence of a single god, as opposed to the widely accepted Christian trinity, while ‘Universalism’ surely refers to the notion of universal salvation, meaning that both terms seem to point to a specific concrete (if perhaps somewhat heretical) doctrine based around Christian concepts like God, Jesus, and Heaven—meaning, in short, that the very name of your religion seems to belie the nigh-endless spiritual possibility you’ve been describing in this blog post…what gives?”

Well, you’re not wrong. The name at this point is largely vestigial. But to understand how we ended up where we are today, and how we arrived there with this awkward polysyllabic soup of a name, I’m gonna need to take you through a couple of centuries of heated theological debate.

“Do you NEED to?”

I mean, ‘need’ is relative, but that’s definitely my plan!

Stay tuned for part II, “A (Very Very Very) Informal History of Unitarians, Universalists, and their Unholy (or Possibly Very Holy) Melding”

[elev8dideas-blog]

The Future Workforce The state of the workforce is often derided for their lack of respect, reliability, understanding of corporate culture, willingness to work hard, and ability to perform as needed within their roles.  These critiques are especially laid at the feet of Millennials.  As with any generation, you have your superstars who go above and beyond the call of duty and inspire excellence either by doing their job really well or they inspire excellence through innovation.  But you also have those who fall short of the mark and are a stain on your generation, with everyone else falling somewhere in between.  It's dangerous to label an entire generation by the characteristics attributed to a subset within them, just like it is dangerous to place a label on a race or religious group based on the actions enacted by extremists who exist amongst those who live completely upstanding, moral, and ethical lives.  Millennials as a generation may not be living up to the standards placed upon them by members of Generation X and the Baby Boomers, but here are three takeaways to consider when reframing the discussion. First - History is recorded by those who are doing the writing.  At the moment, most of the prolific writers and journalists of today are members of Generation X and the Baby Boomers.  Therefore the prevailing point of view and perspective is coming from those beyond the Millennials.  It's important to recognize the source of the opinion.  It's also important to know whether there is bias.  Baby Boomers continue to possess most of the wealth in this country.  They also hold most of the senior positions at their respective employers.  But this realization comes at a price.  They understand their time of job security and enjoying the benefits of a steady income may be drawing to a near.  What better way than to inspire a need to keep your job than to minimize the value and abilities of those who might be looking to continue the circle of life in working America?  It makes sense.  When politicians try to keep their party in power, they rail against the other party.  In an attempt to maintain their standing in the workforce, you rail against the ambitious and eager generation looking to step into your footsteps.  Millennials as a whole may lack some of the qualities that their older cousins, parents, or grandparents' generations might have possessed.  But that said, Millennials as a whole is a more creative and disruptive generation.  Boomers began the computing age and ushered in the internet with disrupters like Bezos, Gates, Jobs, Brin and more but Millennials have completely rewritten the book when it comes to mobile technology.  The entrepreneurial spirit shines much brighter in Millennials and red hot in the younger generation after that.  Following the status quo are not common staples of those two generations.  The methods and tactics used by Millennials to succeed are far less conventional than their parents and grandparents.  Earning a living isn't just about finding a 9 to 5 job anymore.  Some may still take that path but more are opting for identifying a niche in need of disrupting and then they create a company that is capable of doing that. For anyone else who finds the aspect of just doing the same job over and over again to be boring and a waste of their abilities, they are turning to the power of the masses to give themselves the ability to earn a living.  Social media tools like YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and more are empowering the outspoken, gregarious, and aesthetically pleasing to engage with an audience.  The true entrepreneurs amongst them have learned how to monetize their fan base and earn themselves a very nice living.  Entertainment and access is key.  Fans will pay for that.  The need for Hollywood, record labels, advertising agencies, studios, modeling agencies, photographers, etc is becoming less crucial to gain visibility.  A well placed hash tag and a persistent person who is willing to live their lives publicly and to engage with their followers will be able to generate a fan base.  Traditional modes can certainly help self made celebrities and brands cross over into multiple platforms and to gain world wide recognition in a short amount of time via traditional mechanisms like movies, albums,a SuperBowl Commercial, print campaigns, billboards, etc.  That said, you don't need to be scouted by a talent agency anymore in order to find a path for yourself.  Justin Bieber, Charlie Puth, Shawn Mendes, Psy, Jeff Seid, David Laid, Christian Guzman, and more all started their careers in entertainment, music or fitness by following the core tenets of marketing and creating content everyday via their Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube accounts.  They became superstars when the likes of Usher or Ellen DeGeneres identified them but each had millions of followers well before that.  If all you're trying to do is earn a good living, you don't need to get casted in a Marvel film or go on a worldwide tour.  A Japanese man made $2.1 million in one year by just allowing fans from around the world watch him eat lots and lots of food after he worked out in his home shirtless.  The ways to earn money for those willing to let people into their weird and quirkly lives is immense. Second - Millennials may not possess the traits their parents or grandparents exhibited in the workforce, but that's okay.  Times change.  Things evolve.  And let's keep this in mind, Millennials didn't just descend on planet Earth and begin living life as working adults from the moment they came to be.  Millennials aren't aliens.  The biological order of things was maintained with them.  Why is that important?  Millennials were raised and brought up by Baby Boomers.  Their core values, work ethic, education, morals, and all the rest were taught by parents, coaches, mentors, and employers who were for the most part Baby Boomers.  So if the critique is that Millennials are a disappointment as a generation or not living up to expectations, then look in the mirror.  if legislation that fails to pass is blamed on those writing it and steering it through the committee process, then the adults who were responsible for child rearing and educating the next generation are just as much at fault for the failures they claim exist in that generation.  It's a two way street.  The children of your peers can't be failures but you're absolved of wrongdoing with your kids. Lastly - This essay isn't trying to blame Millennials.  It's not seeking to blame Baby Boomers.  The purpose is to reframe the question and to shift the dialogue.  The critique about Millennials is that they aren't as hard working, studious, polite, and respectful.  This may all be true, to a point.  But a generation who lived their high school, college, and early professional years in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were the parents to all these Millennials.  Therefore, it's to be expected that children of the Boomers would grow up to question authority and to be more free spirited.  Instead of shaming an entire generation, the parameters for how to evaluate them should be changed.  The United States didn't put a man on the moon by accepting the status quo.  The evolution of technology from time clocks to computers in rooms to personal computers to the internet to smartphone devices to virtual reality to artificial intelligence didn't happen because society accepted life when buggies were pulled by horses.  As the human race, we've evolved over time.  This should be expected.  This should be welcomed.  Millennials may not possess the same virtues in the work force that Boomers or members of the "The Greatest Generation" may have possessed, but society shouldn't want them to.  Millennials are rewriting the book on how business is done.  Sure, there can still be some behemoths out there like Facebook but as a whole Millennials are finding new ways to make a living in smaller business environments or ones centered around brands instead of businesses.  They are finding ways to live where they don't rely on corporations, pensions, health care packages, and company perks.  The Great Recession has taught Millennials to be creative.  It's taught them to live lean.  It's taught them that nothing can be expected blindly.  In order to survive and to thrive, you have to create your own way.  To do this, you need to step beyond the shadows of the past and forge a new way.  This means that those who have come before you will feel like the world around them is changing.  And it is.  But the world the Boomers lived in just isn't enough anymore for Millennials.  Millennials want to control their own destiny.  And so for some who lack the self confidence to listen to their entrepreneurial instincts, they'll struggle in the mainstream workforce for awhile building up resentment and poor evaluations by their employers.  For those with a larger than life sense of self (and/or parental support) they can embrace their desire to make their own way.  They can concoct interesting ways to disrupt certain market verticals by building new companies.  They can also just embrace what they possess within themselves and utilize the power of social media to create brands with a path towards monetization via ads, subscription and product promotion.  Millennials are literally rewriting the book and doing so without pen and paper.  They are thinking of new and better ways to document living history. Change is hard but change is necessary.  It's a good thing Millennials aren't like the generations to come before them.  And Baby Boomers are to thank for this.  Boomers themselves might not have had the confidence or ability to step out of line and do something that bucks with tradition.  And that is okay.  Look who their parents were and what their generation was like.  But the children of the 60s, 70s, and 80s who accepted they needed to join the grind of the workforce, still at their core wanted to be different, and that desire translated into their children.  Millennials are the result of the many men and women who fought for Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, Non-Discrimination Laws, Equal Pay, Paid Leave, etc.  These values and virtues is what makes Millennials unwilling and unable to just accept the status quo of working a 9 to 5 job and not challenging norms.  Employers shouldn't ask them to suppress their instincts.  They should embrace the very thing that makes this generation so important for the future of this country and this world.  Employers, management, professors, teachers, and coaches should change the way they approach things instead of trying to stifle the future.  This world needs a brighter future and trying to force a round peg into a square hole is not going to work.  Let's take a page out of the NASA Handbook from back during the Apollo 13 mission.  "Let's find a way to take this (square air filter) and find a way to put it into the place where this (round air filter) is suppose to go, using only this (lots of different things the astronauts had with them)."  That's the task society is faced with in 2017 and beyond.  Let's rise to the occasion instead of just pointing fingers at each other.  Millennials should be embraced for all their quirks.  These quirks were instilled in them by their parents who belonged to the Baby Boomer generation.  Now that Millennials are in the work force, these quirks shouldn't be derided.  They should be embraced and worked into the current landscape.  A win-win situation needs to be found so the world continues to grow and evolve. ** Content is curated by elev8dIDEAS, a sister agency of CC. Champions Combine and elev8IDEAS are managed by Winning Solutions Advisory. elev8dIDEAS is a marketing and communications agency designed to provide online content for Champions Combine, Winning Solutions Advisory, and other MicroBrands. tag "strategy" tag "sports" tag "performance"