[519] Mortal Criti-sin

I'm trying to recall the last time I heard someone criticize something in colloquial conversation that didn't reduce to a cliché. It strikes me that the backlash I receive for not describing things in generally positive ways might be comprised of several screwed up forces in tandem. Like threads on a rope that snap together to whip me into submission.

Consider Pokemon Go. It seems like it is on its way to taking over the world. Jokes about getting outside for the first time in whenever. Screen shots of who's got the most and where they found them abound. For every article that's abused the relentless capacity for “millenials” to feel “nostalgic,” this app seems to have screwed right into the heart of it. I certainly don't blame people for having fun or connecting with people. I'm unable to shake how this feels like a culmination of perpetual infantilism.

I liked Pokemon as much as the next guy. Then I started to grow up. I don't want this to be overstated as I don't draw stark lines in the sand about acceptable ways to kill time, have fun, or whatever. Collect Pokemon, stamps, jerk off all day, I don't give a shit. I care that we only seem to find enthusiasm for “stupid” things like apps or get arm-chair “outraged” by things like shootings and racism. Our emotional perspective seems trapped, stunted, and ignorant.

What if we put as much time and emotional energy into learning about the world as we did wandering the neighborhood to catch Pokemon? Let me put it to you like this. Time is the most valuable thing. I have watched more movies and television than anyone I've ever met, and am a couple hundred levels from beating the main story of Candy Crush. I know how to waste time. I don't call what I do any more or less worthy of my time but for it's capacity to distract me or keep me entertained. But I couldn't do any of those things unless I thought I could offer a salient opinion about my place in my country or our collective responsibility to the world. I get guilt stricken. I feel lazy and dishonest. I honestly don't know if other people do, and frankly doubt it.

I fear we abuse apps and “nostalgia” like we abuse alcohol or drugs. One is arguably better if you had to choose, but what provokes the abuse and, perhaps overstated enthusiasm, I think is the same mechanism. The mad dash away from coping and dealing with larger problems. These are late 20's people who can't afford shit, aren't fucking, and have been under the unrelenting heal of debt and corrupted social services, if the news is to be believed, so why not Pokemon? It rings like the modern peasant farmers who at least get to get wasted at the end of the day.

Your 20's seems to have become this new tender age. People react so poorly to my critical statements because subconsciously their whole life has been under review and doubt and problems. They're just now maybe glancing at an opportunity to look like an adult and achieve things they dreamed about as kids. And here I come shitting even more. The stark contrast between why I seem to get along with adults verses kids is simple. Kids just wanna have fun and I'm a meanie. Adults have grown resolved to hear it all and move with or work past without much fuss.

While I was working out the details of emotional struggles and the lack of wisdom in relationships, people were doubling down on those feelings and believing in the future 10 years later. While I was giving myself headaches learning every angle of choose-your-topic, school was stressful enough for them or, “what's the point?” of driving yourself insane about things you can't fix. Add the backdrop of financial insecurity onto the undeveloped disposition of a batch of children, it's not a secret why anything remotely not ironic or critical on a site like reddit gets shit on to oblivion. It doesn't matter if you have a point, no one has developed the capacity to see it.

This is also different from a pretentious thing. Like, you can make convoluted crazy “points” about anything, drawing from your disparate experiences that...well they certainly seem to make sense to you. I'm talking about a kind of ignorance that has old white people saying Black Lives Matter is overreacting and need to take more responsibility for themselves. Any black person, as well as any reasonable person, would not look at someone in police custody ending up in a coma and say, “He should have worn a seat belt” like the dude wasn't kicked the shit out of. You can see the rates of incarceration, read histories worth of racially targeted legislation, and just be generally awake and honest and land on the side of sympathy.

I look down on those people. The ones who have no reason to pretend about something simple, but choose to anyway. Impersonal hive-mind children on an internet forum? Not my target audience. The same mechanism of defensive fear for conceding that the world ain't roses? I think it stems from the same kind of insecurities. The world can be described accurately in a way that transcends your opinion. There's degrees and levels to consider if you're going to act like your approach is relatively wise. If we persist under a cultural lunge to suppress and escape, well, Hitler 2 is actually a presidential candidate.

So I'm willing to double down. I'm willing to write 10 blogs contemplating why you would think it's me who's “negative.” The negativity stems from your avoidance and reluctance. It stems from your inability or unwillingness to respect your time or capacity to change something. Me talking about it isn't the problem, and never will be. You making me the enemy instead of yourself will always be. By choosing to react to the suffering of institutional guilt instead of motivating yourself from a personal one, you ensure we'll drive right over the edge of a cliff while I insist it’s not worth trying to catch the Onyx at the bottom.

[149 (129) Holy Fucked] Prompted By Debates

Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 8:39pm

I have to stop watching debates. It sickens me to think that people with Ph D's can reach a level of dishonesty that is frankly sickening. Some of you may not find it surprising that after watching another debate between Dinesh and Hitchens, I still want Dinesh sniped. I only got through about 5 minutes of the opening argument in a debate between Ehrman and Craig, and had to stop because of how ridiculously Craig managed to present the “facts” that “most historians agree” about Jesus's resurrection. It doesn't take a doctorate in biblical studies to read, nor does it take a genius intellect to fact check. Those are the only skills I practice, and they allow me the privilege of becoming angry and sick when the amassed bullshit comes spewing from their putrid gullets. Dinesh, no surprise, did his usual dance around questions and has seemingly forgotten the words “yes” and “no” are still legitimate and understandable ways of conveying an answer. Craig manages to find extra biblical sources written 5-7 years after Jesus's alleged resurrection (despite not a single document placing the event any less than 40-70 years afterward, let alone confirming its truth), and maintains an extremely vague and naively formulated notion of what “evidence” means. I shouldn't be unable to contain myself in yelling at my Ipod when someone is speaking. I can't fathom the reasons someone would put themselves in a debate, when a meagerly interested layman who can use The Google, can gather more than enough real evidence to silence the lies.

I'm still debating what aspects of the debate format I truly hate the most. We can start with the ten minute rants the persistently ignorant debater may go on. A Dinesh rant can drift so far from any established topic, you wonder if he even listens to the opposition before he opens his mouth. Or maybe I am disgusted with the idea that granting someone the opportunity to “rebut” somehow redeems the previous bullshit they've attempted to pass off. Let's not forget that generally debates are open to the public, so one of the most redeeming factors must be that a mass of, perhaps ill-informed people, can now walk away with a song in their hearts and a tear in their eye after having been touched by Dinesh, yay. Maybe its the complete ignoring of what it means to commit a logical error, phonetic faux pas, quote mine, and mischaracterization. Of course I could just as quickly mention the manner in which Dinesh's tone goes beyond presumptuous and pious onto something his fervently flapping lips and flailing arms are struggling to mimic. It could all just boil down into the vote at the end about who “won” that really got me, but this feels more like that despicable icing on an ever growing and disgusting cake. These debates have done little more than make me agonize for the guys on the other end of the table, and clench my brow in baffled disdain for the pathetic conductor weaving such a masterful train wreck.

Evidence is not something we take to be true until something new comes in and trumps it. Evidence comes AFTER and in SUPPORT of the question at hand. With that said, when a fucking idiot says the evidence for Jesus's resurrection is the gospel accounts, indeed actually written no less, by Mark, Mathew, Luke, and John, I don't care if they are a Ph D, they are emphatically wrong. They are not wrong because I say so, they are wrong because they choose to accept an outright destructive and backwards notion of the methodology behind drawing conclusions and formulating arguments. How ridiculous would I look if I said something like “evolution is true because Dawkin's says so in The Ancestor's Tale”? This is exactly what those who fight for religion do. The presuppose, they already have their answer, everything needs to be forcibly packed within the confines of the story whether it makes sense or not. Why do we grant ourselves the right to give up thinking because someone is a “noted scholar and department head” of some name dropped university. Titles do not depict the character of an honest, and dare I say capable, person to wrestle with any given issue at hand. The mere facts alone that Dinesh has no training in biology, no training in physics, no training in textual criticism, and hasn't even grasped the notion of properly quoting someone who is sitting five feet from him, should be enough to automatically disqualify him as someone deserving your respect as a Crusader for the faith.

It is granting these kinds of concessions to characters like Dinesh that are slowly eating away what our country's founders fought and died for. It is when we give a platform to someone so adamantly stupid and dishonest, from which to practically corral the curious yet uninformed masses, that we compile our problems and fuel the rate of our destruction. Pat Condell is one of the most outspoken Youtubers on what's happening in Britain when Muslim ideals, namely treating women like property, executions, hate speech, and ignorance, are going to become exempt from criticism. The Muslim community can be governed my Sharia Law instead of the laws of the country. Do you understand what this means? I've linked to his talk about it HERE. Whether there are suicide bombers within Christianity or not, does NOT detract from the real issue of doing anything, absolutely anything, because of unsubstantiated faith claims. It isn't the mere facts of the Crusades and Inquisition that make Christianity wrong. Dinesh loves the phrase “atheist regime” as if it makes any fucking sense whatsoever to call the absence of something the motivation for anything. By doing so he makes the argument about body count, not process or reason, alluding to only a few thousand (50-80, not “6 a year” as he'd so non nonchalantly tell you) dead in the past, compared to the millions dead at the hands of Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, etc. who of course did all those things because they didn't believe in God. It wasn't totalitarianism, communism, psychotic mental dispositions, or a litany of other factors and pressures, it was because they didn't have God. Of course, no one would ask where God was while the ovens were heating up, but that's because they all know the answer. Next time I punch a baby in the face, just know it's because I found out the truth about Santa Claus.

Freedom of speech should not entail an ordained right to be considered correct before you present your case, yet this is what we concede. For example, when someone is introduced as Father or Pastor so-and-so, they are automatically granted a higher status when it comes to understanding “faith” affairs, or even when it comes to giving advice or guidance. I find it quite obvious that if a leader like that tells you to pray and read the bible more in response to financial or relationship troubles, they're frankly stupid. For whatever reason, and I've been mulling this one over for a while now, when you start a sentence with “my personal conviction, opinion, or view” it somehow makes you feel like you are exempt from being made fun of, being wrong, and being made a fool of. “According to me” only says to me “I have no clue what anyone else may have to say.” This is just sad and pathetic. Consequently, this is something we frequently see during debates. Some useless story about where the presenter is coming from and their path towards faith, is manifested as “evidence” behind the “truth” and “facts” they are getting ready to lie about. Dinesh is not only a fan of this, but he also throws mud at his opposition, attacks positions not on the table, and interjects random factoids, all of which are laced with half truths or outright lies.

I'm convinced that we are going to go down in flames, maybe much sooner than I had previously speculated. Are their fighters for reason and rationality, of course. Do they get a voice in public policy? No. Do they have the answers that can be packaged and shipped like the sound bites of religion and Republicans? No. Are there even enough of them to switch strategies and induce a violent uprising that would force natural selection upon those who enjoy rotting their brains and wallowing in complacency? Maybe with enough planning...

Some of my predictions for this lifetime:

1. America will be threatened with a nuclear bomb by an Islamic nation who is both willing and able to launch it.
2. More and more people will coalesce around religious or “spiritual” ideals as a result of their seemingly inexplicable combativeness with nihilism and reality, rendering them helpless and panic prone when faced with a life threatening problem.
3. Technology will drive us to always look for a new “fix” under the guise of words like “economical,” “environmentally friendly,” and “new and luxurious” all the while ignoring and never realizing what actually causes happiness.
4. A lesser tragedy will invoke the same kinds of responses we had to 9/11 that will further extinguish once sacred rights and privileges.
5. People will become exponentially ignorant, lazy, and afraid as the growing problems refuse to wait for us to become comfortable with solving and understanding them.

The less you care, the quicker these things will happen. Keep pretending you live in a bubble and watch as your reality changes day by day. Are you going to wait until you turn on the television to see a mushroom cloud before you stop worrying about getting your feelings hurt by learning something you didn't want to know? I await the day some new illness, who's greatest foe is stem cell research, starts wiping out the world because pandering to religious groups has stifled its progress. It was one too many when the first kid died because the parents believed in prayer and not going to the hospital. It is one too many who does not appreciate what it means to vote and be able to criticize the many many problems that will never get better without action.

These bullshit religious texts aren't saving us from global warming, no god posted a bulletin saying anything about what a fetus can or can't feel during an abortion, it is not a loving act to fuck alter boys in the ass, cover your women in black cloaks, tell your children they aren't capable of being good without a threatening god, persecute gays, execute by way of holy edict, deny horrors of totalitarianism, destroy your planet, pretend to love those who are evil, or martyring yourself for others “sins” that need to be acknowledged and grown from, not excused. ALL of these things come from faith, bias, ignorance, denial, delusion, fear, laziness, complacency, guilt, spite, immaturity, and piety, not revealed truth. From a universal perspective, you aren't even bacteria, yet you feel you are entitled to eternal happiness and perfect love. You seek this by way of opposing everything that fought to give you such an ego. Your faith brings nothing to the table. Your faith will be what kills you, and if I could sit back and watch you burn without resenting my own existence, I would.