This Open Thread is brought to you by every Cosmo ever.
Search It!
-
Recent Entries
Blogroll
- Alas A Blog
- Ami Angelwings' Super Cute Rants of DOOOM XD
- Anti-Intellect
- Asexual Curiosities
- Balloon Juice
- Ben Kling
- Brand X
- Clarisse Thorn
- Feminist Critics
- Feminist Cupcake
- Feministe
- Feministing
- Figleaf's Real Adult Sex
- Fuck Yeah Menfolk
- Girl Is Not An Insult
- Greta Christina
- Intimacy Cartography
- Just A Bit Radical
- Just Smith
- Less Wrong
- Manboobz
- Masculinities.org
- Maybe Maimed Never Harmed
- Questioning Transphobia
- Rachel Rabbit White
- Sex Is Not The Enemy (NSFW)
- Shakesville
- The Good Men Project
- The Pervocracy
- Yes Means Yes
Organizations
Reddits
Contributors
Tags
- abuse
- advertising
- body image
- boundaries
- bullying
- consent
- dad
- dating
- depression
- disposable male
- domestic violence
- education
- emotions
- family
- father
- fatherhood
- femininity
- feminism
- feministe
- femmephobia
- food
- gender
- gender egalitarianism
- gender policing
- gender roles
- health
- homophobia
- intersectionality
- masculinity
- masculism
- media
- men
- mental illness
- misandry
- misandry in media
- misogyny
- movies
- myth of men not being hot
- objectification
- penis
- penis size
- personal experience
- prison
- prison rape
- privilege
- queer
- racism
- radical feminism
- rape
- rape culture
- rape of men
- relationships
- religion
- sex
- sexism
- sex objects
- sexual assault
- sexual harassment
- sexuality
- sexual orientation
- slut-shaming
- social justice
- sociological images
- sports
- stay-at-home
- success myth
- success object
- success objects
- suicide
- toxic masculinity
- transphobia
- two rules of desire
- video games
- violence
- women
Archives
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
It’s not our faults! I knew it!
http://tmblr.co/ZITXFxINUs6a
League of Legends pro-player (e-sports) and popular TwitchTV streamer telling people to knock it off and stop sexually harassing him. Proof positive that it isn’t just the South Korean Starcraft guys who get harassed and stalked by both male and female fans.
I like the part where it’s hard to tell if this Cosmo pic is fake or not.
I feel like there will be examples of vaginal legerdemain.
I imagine the nipples on the balls comes after the rope suspension and the flailing.
http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2012/03/senate-caps-crowdfunding-because-that-was-necessary/
Say what America? Say mother-fucking what. One moment you’re all about the free-market Keynesian economics, and now you are like “Fuck That Noise” ™. Lets screw Kickstarter!
Great idea, I forgot that we are supposed to be consumers of authorised and official sanctioned products for a moment there. How dare Psychonauts, Wasteland 2, FTL and dozens of other projects crowd-source their funding.
Pack of useless mother-fuckers.
PUT YOUR NIPPLES ON HIS BALLS! The laughing fit resulting from that was painfully intense! Those magazines would be hilarious if not for people actually taking their advice.
On an unrelated note, has anyone else seen Game Change? I never got around to the book, but will definitely be checking it out after seeing the film. Two things struck me particularly (spoilers ahead, I guess? Can you spoil a historical event?):
First, it was interesting to see the gender dynamic at play when Sarah Palin got overwhelmed and stopped working. Some of McCain’s advisors just jumped on the idea that she was mentally unstable. Now, if what was shown was indeed accurate, that might have been a concern. This says a lot about how women are perceived, to be sure, it seemed to me that a strange unwillingness to confront her because of her gender also came into play. Rather than confronting her about her stubborn petulance, crippling naivete and outright lying, they wondered whether to bring in a third party. I thought that was odd, especially given there was a lot less and-wringing over telling McCain he was wrong. What do you guys think?
Secondly, I thought it was interesting that they used the word “charisma” almost in a pejorative sense when talking about Obama, when they were really talking about his excellent oration and inspiring presence. Since when are oration skills a bad thing, and part of a cult of celebrity, rather than an important skill for a president to have?
Oh yeah, and also! I thought the scene where Nicolle Wallace said she didn’t vote was pretty powerful. Seeing voting as an important personal thing, a sacred matter of conscience, seems to be a minority point of view these days, and I got a little teared up seeing it spelled out so clearly.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but yeah, I’d definitely recommend that film.
@dancin, Sady Doyle has an interesting piece on Game Change over at Tiger Beatdown – she makes some good points on how it seemed like in the film, the McCain team went straight to “this lady is out of her mind!” and started to treat Palin like she was made of blown glass, instead of just, you know, talking to her.
I actually haven’t seen it yet because I completely lack the desire to relive the 2008 campaign season in any way, shape or form…
Something i have wanted to post here for a while:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/5436-Not-Okay
Only obliquely related to insecurity, but i’m just glad that it exists.
@f.: Thanks, I’ll check that out. I’m not always the biggest fan of Tiger Beatdown, but that sounds neat.
@ PetroniusArbiter: great video!
@Druk: I thought it was real until I squinted at it and realised, nope. Fake. But perhaps more real than the actual magazine in coming right out and naming outright the body-shaming tactics such magazines use to attract hordes of insecure readers.
This may be TMI, but on the insecurity topic, I grew up in a household where mostly everyone is overweight, so I too was chubby most of my life. I got called nicknames like Creampuff and Cow, and got teased so much. It hurt so much that I became a statistic, a teen girl with an eating disorder. Even now that I’m older and am finally at a healthy weight for my size and have had several people tell me that I am an attractive woman, it’s hard for me to believe them.
If anyone is willing to share, what makes you most insecure about yourself? For me I’ll always struggle with body dismorphia. And if there are any other ED survivors out there, I’d love to talk to you. Most people who find out I was anorexic go “oh” and distance themselves from the “crazy person.”
🙂
@coffee_queen: I’ve got a lot of insecurities, some of which I’m getting over quite successfully, but one that’s stuck out recently is with writing. I’ve gotten a couple short stories published, but it’s always been a huge struggle to put anything down that isn’t purely factual. It’s getting worse lately, too. A couple weeks ago, I had a minor meltdown because my writing just looked so stupid to me, like something a kindergartner would write and oh god why do I even bother being alive WAAAAH. I’ve been considering finding or making a program that blacks out everything but the current word, and doesn’t allow deleting, or something like that.
coffeequeen:
If anyone is willing to share, what makes you most insecure about yourself? For me I’ll always struggle with body dismorphia. And if there are any other ED survivors out there, I’d love to talk to you. Most people who find out I was anorexic go “oh” and distance themselves from the “crazy person.”
Probably my body image issues because of the effect they have had on other parts of my life from self esteem, dating/relationships/sex, travelling, simple conversation, etc….
@coffee_queen:
I’m not good with body language or social cues, but I really don’t want to be “elevator guy”. That could so easily have been me. I don’t try to flirt or “hit on” women, because I wouldn’t know when/where it’s appropriate and when not.
I also worry in conversations or other social situations whether there’s subtext I’m missing out on. Because when there is, I don’t get it at least 90% of the time.
@Dancinbojangles:
Try typing with a keyboard from which you have ripped off the backspace and other control keys, and then email the writings to someone you trust.
I always feel an ego boost when I read Cosmo because they don’t know what they are doing in bed.
@coffee_queen: I hate hate hate hate being tall and basically the opposite of petite. Spent a good many years getting over it, too. It ruined my posture, complicated my scoliosis, and warped the shape of my ribcage… all so I could sit and stand a couple inches shorter; even if it meant literally crumpling myself up. I feel insecure for being religious in an increasingly atheistic society (and atheist family and friends who think belief is for the intellectually weak). I feel insecure about having a really low tolerance for film violence and depictions of drug use (Trainspotting and Fear & Loathing are like, panic-inducing for me despite them being great movies).
They’re insecurities, but not really major ones. They’re definitely there, but I don’t let them make me miserable is all.
OK, not to derail: Anyone else see hunger games? Holy. Cow. Awesome. And Katniss was SO COOL. Gah!
@Engineer Krauss: Great idea, thanks! I’m gonna try that! Sorry for the double post.
@L:
“tall and basically the opposite of petite”
Do you mean built like a female wrestler? My sister is 5’10” and big boned, and guys chase after her all the time. Make the most of what you have, no matter your body type.
“I feel insecure for being religious in an increasingly atheistic society (and atheist family and friends who think belief is for the intellectually weak).”
Remind them that Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Francis Bacon, and René Descartes were all religious, and obviously not intellectually weak. Blind faith perhaps might be, but so long as there is no proof of the absence of God, agnostic theism is as valid as agnostic atheism. If you’re not clouding your mind with delusions, or imposing your beliefs on others against their will, I don’t see what their problem is.
The good news is, second generation atheists tend to be more mellow and open-minded about other people’s beliefs, probably because we didn’t grow up having to justify our own atheism to just about everybody, and fighting off silly myths about atheism. As much.
@L: I’m an atheist myself, but have never understood that impulse to be so angry at the religious; those who don’t impose their will on others directly or indirectly, at least. My policy is typically one of “don’t-bash, don’t-preach.” So long as I’m welcome to my atheism, you’re welcome to your theism, and there’s no real reason to butt heads over it (or to be buttheads about it). That said, I’d be interested to hear more about your beliefs, and the insecurity you feel surrounding them. I’ve had a lot of experience talking to people coming from the other side, but don’t have many religious friends inclined to talk about it at length.
@daelyte brings up an extremely interesting point about second-gen atheists, and I see a parallel between that and feminism. You rarely see the child of a second-waver who’s as gung-ho as their parents were. Then again, as discussed earlier in the Gynocratic Rage thread, such anger tends to fade as well. The most adamant and confrontational atheists I know are apostates in fact, and most of those have had personal harm done to them by the church or other people presuming to speak for some god. I see this as being ruled by childhood experiences, rather than true fact and rights-based activism. That is something I do not countenance in myself, and cannot admire in others.
@daelyte – I appreciate that you’re trying to make L feel better about hir insecurities, and I don’t mean to criticise, but perhaps “don’t worry, men still find you attractive” isn’t the best way to go about it? I mean, I don’t want to speak for hir, but ze didn’t say anything about wanting to be attractive to anyone, men or otherwise.
Great points about atheism and belief, though.
And @L – I wouldn’t have thought to call it an insecurity, but I have incredibly low tolerance for sexual violence in films. I started watching ‘The Skin I Live In’ the other day, and had to turn it off about 30 minutes in because I just couldn’t take it! I’m glad you don’t let your insecurities make you miserable 🙂
Pingback: Suggestion Saturday: March 24, 2012 | On The Other Hand
“Blind faith perhaps might be, but so long as there is no proof of the absence of God, agnostic theism is as valid as agnostic atheism.”
Occam’s Razor says that in absence of POSITIVE proof for something, you don’t even have to look for negative proof of it’s absence. Like magic unicorns, or fire-breathing flying dragons. If not, then you’re saying that we can posit the possibility of *anything at all* that we want, and we might as well make it intangible and omnipresent so that you can’t even prove it’s existence or non-existence.
Flying Spaghetti Monster exists through this kind of loophole in Christian thinking. You can’t say he doesn’t exist without proving he doesn’t, right? (wrong…but same for God, YWHW, or Allah)
Belief in gods, especially named specific gods that have certain traits we give them, has never been scientifically valid.
It’s something personal, but obviously, it shouldn’t affect any kind of policy. Say abortion, same-sex marriage or contraception. Those are social issues, not religious issues.
@coffee_queen: I used to be really insecure about being petite (I’m 5’2″) but got over that. My current issues involve my stomach. I am not overweight by any sane measure, but my stomach protrudes because I never bothered to keep in shape as a kid. Toning that thing is harder than I would like.
Also…I’ve found someone awesome to start dating. And I’m afraid to talk much about him to my parents because I’m afraid it might slip out that he’s Jewish. Dad still thinks that I’m going to have a Catholic wedding.
@Schala: Here’s a riddle for you: Prove that things like the moon, sun, and earth exist. All those things we see in the waking world. But be careful, and don’t prove that things like magic unicorns and dragons exist, all those things people dream about. Don’t assume your answer. Go!
Not to be blase about belief, because this stuff is worth talking about, but this ground is well trod upon. At the end of the day certainty requires faith in your axioms. Faith is a big part of dealing with uncertainty, even if it’s faith in an understandable, godless universe.
@daelyte: Oh trust me, I’ve heard it all before. Doesn’t make a lick of difference. Also, I’m married, so it REALLY doesn’t make a lick of difference. If you’re wondering, though, I’m 5’8″, lanky, and am closer to the shape of a man than not. (I have small hips and not much in the way of a defined waist. Though I do have a killer butt, so that helps in keeping me from looking like a 2×4.)
@dancinnojangles: Yeah, first-gen atheists I can’t usually deal with. Especially on the internet; their tendency toward self-righteousness is worse than any of the religiously devout I’ve ever encountered in person.
@Schala: Thanks for not helping whatsoever! This is why I often stay away from religious debates– they’re ideologically-driven, and ideology isn’t likely to budge over the course of a discussion. Also, the comparisons that wind up getting made “for the sake of argument” (you know, like comparing homosexuality to pedophilia “for the sake of argument”) just turn me off of the whole idea of talking about it openly period and make staying in the closet look really, really nice.
PS- I’m a Yucatec polytheist and animist…i.e. pagan. Bet none of you saw that coming?
@The_L: Oh god I’ll trade you. ;_;
Okay, I’m posting in this the Open Thread because even though it deals with Trayvon Martin, it deals with other stuff. This article bothers me.
http://globalgrind.com/news/michael-skolnik-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-race-sanford-florida-photos-pictures
I weigh over 200 pounds and shave my head. I do so because I’m going bald, but I know to many people even that seems threatening.
I would ask the author if any woman has ever considered him a potential threat. If this is derailing, I apologize, but I think it needs to be said: how is racial profiling in any way different from Shroedinger’s Rapist?
“PS- I’m a Yucatec polytheist and animist…i.e. pagan. Bet none of you saw that coming?”
I’m agnostic (not atheist), with a certain belief in Pagan stuff (not the Goddess worship, just the karma dealie) and Buddhist stuff (their concept of reincarnation).
Still, I would never want my beliefs to be used for politics. In any kind of way. Same for other religious beliefs.
“@Schala: Here’s a riddle for you: Prove that things like the moon, sun, and earth exist. All those things we see in the waking world. But be careful, and don’t prove that things like magic unicorns and dragons exist, all those things people dream about. Don’t assume your answer. Go!”
We can measure and observe things about the Moon, the Sun and the Earth (and yes, they’re proper nouns, not common nouns; even if planets, natural satellites and stars are not unique, those particular ones are). We cannot measure and observe things about deities. Especially invisible omnipresent deities.
Regardless of the actual existence of any one deities, positing their existence is unscientific. You can believe in them all you want, as long as you don’t include them in science stuff, lest what you measure is the effect of organized religion on people (still, it’s a sociological phenomenon, not even needing to posit the existence of a deity).
In short: Believe what you want, but don’t use your beliefs as law for anyone but yourself. Don’t try to pass laws that concern your deity, mandating prayers before meals to your deity, or mandating even saying your deity exists on coins (In God we trust).
Secularity doesn’t mean killing all beliefs, it means keeping them private, and not forcing others to partake in them.
monkey:” I apologize, but I think it needs to be said: heow is racial profiling in any way different from Shroedinger’s Rapist? ”
It’s not. But using a prejudice to reduce personal risk is qualitatively different from using that prejudice to harm someone else. The line can be fine, but it’s there. btw it sucks to be a perceived threat.
@Schala: Why is all of that even necessary? When did anyone here even so much as hint that we intended to put our religion into politics?
Assuming anyone who is religious is bigoted is… well, bigoted. Thanks for warning me against something I have absolutely no intention of doing (and actively fight against) because you saw me fit to talk down to!
@Schala: “We can measure and observe things about the Moon, the Sun and the Earth (and yes, they’re proper nouns, not common nouns; even if planets, natural satellites and stars are not unique, those particular ones are). We cannot measure and observe things about deities. Especially invisible omnipresent deities.”
I’m not sure how this answers the riddle at all… I can measure things about dragons or magic unicorns in my dreams. Also I assume you include measurements by asking others? (If those aren’t included we can’t measure anything about political prisoners in China, and I assume you aren’t arguing they don’t exist…) I bet I could ask the magic unicorns in my dreams and get answers about God as well.
@L: In case you didn’t get the point of my exercise, belief is a perfectly intellectually valid position.
“@Schala: Why is all of that even necessary? When did anyone here even so much as hint that we intended to put our religion into politics?”
Anyone here no, but even a secular country like Canada still has religious stuff actually having some impacts. Churches are still exempt from paying taxes, and transphobia and homophobia often are provoked by completely religious sentiments. Femmephobia certainly is, too.
Are you going to argue that I have to target people on this blog? My activism and writings include everything of influence, governments, organizations, grassroots stuff, blogs, etc. Not just “people I might not agree with on blogs”. If I wanted to just discuss “people I don’t agree with on blogs” I wouldn’t be here, I’d be on some Christian forum trying to refute their selective application of scripture and their trying to apply it to their country as law (ie DOMA).
“I’m not sure how this answers the riddle at all… I can measure things about dragons or magic unicorns in my dreams. Also I assume you include measurements by asking others? (If those aren’t included we can’t measure anything about political prisoners in China, and I assume you aren’t arguing they don’t exist…) I bet I could ask the magic unicorns in my dreams and get answers about God as well.”
Nope, its WE, not you, who can measure stuff.
The rest doesn’t even deserve an answer.
You’re calling science bullshit, for no other reason than being contrarian.
You can take courses in astronomy and go measure the damn things if you want. You can personally measure it if you’re so distrustful of science.
Go measure a god’s feet though. Or their presence’s aura. Or their happiness effect using a happiness-o-meter. No one ever can do that.
This “you have to believe in science, so it’s just as valid as belief in religion” is sophistry of the highest order. I can believe I’m a turtle too. And are you using a computer? You need to believe in how it was made for it to work? Nope, it works regardless.
Schala: ‘This “you have to believe in science, so it’s just as valid as belief in religion” is sophistry of the highest order. ‘ Yet science’s failing have a taste of the religeous about them, especially in the treatment of the “mentally ill”, or assimilation of things like accupunture. Science at the edge of its understanding can be as cruel an an inquisition.
@L: “PS- I’m a Yucatec polytheist and animist”: Whaaaat! No, I did not see that coming, and it sounds more than a little rad! I was unaware that Yucatec religions were practiced today in a non-Christian-informed way. Or is it informed by Christianity? Dang it, another cool thing I’ve gotta read up on… I’ve got a friend who’s Mayan, and I seem to recall him saying that he was never able to get much of it. How did you find out about it, if you don’t mind my asking?
@everybody talking about religion:
Why Atheists are Angry: (with social justice shibboleths, so everybody here has to give it some weight!) http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2007/10/15/atheists-and-an/
Mostly focuses on mainstream christianity, but the Armor of God is often co-opted by non-mainstream religions.
The assumptions of science are as follows: 1. The universe works in a way that is not totally arbitrary.
2. If a god or gods exist, they are not pranking us in a completely perfect manner. (I.e. we could be in the Matrix, and find out that we are, but that is different from believing that reality is being perfectly, absolutely undetectably faked.)
You see that link to Less Wrong in the blogroll? Go there and read some stuff. You don’t need to absorb their ideas on AI, which are contested. And they do break some of their own rules. But they are pretty good. There comes a time when you may actually have to change your mind.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gq/the_proper_use_of_humility/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/
For a much easier to read text in novel form, try Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (google it).
Measurement by asking others also requires judgement of those people’s objectivity and measurement techniques.
As to the “prove to me that the sky is blue” questions, there are two problems.
1. This can allow you to believe in ANYTHING. People usually invoke this to defend a fairly narrow range of religious/spiritual beliefs found in humans, when it would be possible to believe in many other things.
2. People should not make this statement if in real life they actually kind of accept that the sky is blue.
In fact, this argument should not be used to defend any _specific_ belief against criticism whatsoever.
@Schala, hear hear. There is nothing more irritating than listening to theists criticising science for not knowing everything. Sophistry indeed.
@Matthew Swank, ‘Science at the edge of it’s understanding can be as cruel a(s) an inquisition’. What a load of B.S. Did you even think about that statement before you typed it?
“Schala: ‘This “you have to believe in science, so it’s just as valid as belief in religion” is sophistry of the highest order. ‘ Yet science’s failing have a taste of the religeous about them, especially in the treatment of the “mentally ill”, or assimilation of things like accupunture. Science at the edge of its understanding can be as cruel an an inquisition.”
Science is a method, a tool, a way of seeing things experimentally. You probably do much of that when you change your behavior based on past experience doing the same thing, where your driving improves because you subconsciously take care of other variables as time goes on without thinking about it.
Religion is a way of seeing the mechanics of the world that cannot be questioned, cannot be fully understood (except in a “A wizard did it” way), and has dogmatic beliefs about how things SHOULD be. Science describes things. Religious prescribes things.
Science will observe that a lot of girls like pink, making no value judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that, or even how natural it is. Since color is not an innately gendered thing, it’s safe to say that it’s highly-cultural and highly-dependant on how prescribed socially it is, as ” a color girls should like”. Religion will say the woman’s place is in the home popping babies and that contraception is evil because it prevents “the miracle of life” from happening every 9 months. See the Pope’s and even Protestant people’s stance on contraception and abortion.
So yeah, science can be misused, like political influence, social influence, physical strength can be misused.
Since you cannot critically think about religion without being excommunicated, religion will always be misused by those who want to impose an ideology on others, even if some/most/nearly all people who believe in this religion are morally good. If God says something is morally bad (homosexuality), then it becomes this horrible sin which will have you physically burn in an imaginary place like hell. People shun them socially, refuse to hire them, refuse to rent to them, maybe refuse to sell to them even…and they’re still morally good people, just manipulated into not thinking critically about their actions.
@ollie:
“I appreciate that you’re trying to make L feel better about hir insecurities, and I don’t mean to criticise, but perhaps “don’t worry, men still find you attractive” isn’t the best way to go about it? I mean, I don’t want to speak for hir, but ze didn’t say anything about wanting to be attractive to anyone, men or otherwise.”
I was talking about my sister, you’re the one jumping to conclusions.
@Schala:
“Occam’s Razor says that in absence of POSITIVE proof for something, you don’t even have to look for negative proof of it’s absence. Like magic unicorns, or fire-breathing flying dragons. If not, then you’re saying that we can posit the possibility of *anything at all* that we want, and we might as well make it intangible and omnipresent so that you can’t even prove it’s existence or non-existence.”
Oh btw, William of Ockham was religious too. You can’t claim something as fact without positive proof, but quantum physics is full of unproven speculation, and indeed must be for any scientific progress to ever be made. Belief is motivation to search for proof, delusion is when you refuse to accept evidence that doesn’t match your beliefs.
“You can’t say he doesn’t exist without proving he doesn’t, right?”
That would be speculation not fact. I don’t know for a fact that there’s no unicorn in my bedroom, though I don’t suspect it strongly enough to bother looking.
“Belief in gods, especially named specific gods that have certain traits we give them, has never been scientifically valid.”
At its introduction in 1915, the general theory of relativity did not have a solid empirical foundation. It was not until a program of precision tests was started in 1959 that the various predictions of general relativity were tested to any further degree of accuracy in the weak gravitational field limit, severely limiting possible deviations from the theory
Want to know how long the greeks’ atomic theory went until it was proven?
“It’s something personal, but obviously, it shouldn’t affect any kind of policy. Say abortion, same-sex marriage or contraception. Those are social issues, not religious issues.”
Totally agree there.
“We cannot measure and observe things about deities. Especially invisible omnipresent deities.”
We can detect the presence of exoplanets long before we can observe them. If an invisible omnipresent deity chose to make its presence known in an obvious way, we could clearly see its effect on the world around us, at which point it would be scientifically valid to say “WTF???”.
“Believe what you want, but don’t use your beliefs as law for anyone but yourself. Don’t try to pass laws that concern your deity, mandating prayers before meals to your deity, or mandating even saying your deity exists on coins (In God we trust).”
Agreed again.
@L:
“Why is all of that even necessary? When did anyone here even so much as hint that we intended to put our religion into politics?”
Alas, too many examples of intolerance, from too many religions. Mayan religion and state were one and the same, I double atheists would have been exempt from it.
So far I know only of the Norse religion as being tolerant of atheism.
You seem to be unfamiliar with the history of vivisection, the treatment homosexuality and other nonconformities as an illness, eugenics, the tuskegee syphilis experiment. Do you want more?
It is misleadingly dogmatic to say religions don’t change: schisms and metapor frequently provide the flexibilty to integrate empiricism. Science doesn’t have dogma, but it does have orthodoxy. That orthodoxy can evolve, but people can still be harmed by it.
I do apologize for not threading my comments properly. My phone has made this difficult.
#Swank
Here’s an idea, give up on the computer and try and communicate with the internet by asking god to do it. If science and religion are equal…
“You seem to be unfamiliar with the history of vivisection, the treatment homosexuality and other nonconformities as an illness, eugenics, the tuskegee syphilis experiment. Do you want more?”
And who, in the end, decided these were bad ideas? Here’s a hint, it wasn’t religious organisations. Science admits its mistakes. Science does everything it can to perfect itself and right these mistakes. This is far more than I can say about religion.
@Schala: “Nope, its WE, not you, who can measure stuff.
The rest doesn’t even deserve an answer.
You’re calling science bullshit, for no other reason than being contrarian.”
OOOHHHH…. you are assuming the people in the waking world are real, and dismissing the people in the dream world. So that falls under assuming you’re answer. The point I’m trying to make, its not a riddle that can be answered. I’m not calling science bullshit, I’m saying that ALL beliefs are based on faith sans proof. Sure most people share the beliefs that science runs on: Namely that the five senses are valid while awake and false while asleep. However if someone came along and disbelieved that? All the arguments amount to, “I’m really really sure the waking world is real”. But guess what? That same argument works for religion too. “I’m really really sure God is real.”
@Skull Bearer:
“Science admits its mistakes. Science does everything it can to perfect itself and right these mistakes. This is far more than I can say about religion.”
Except Buddhism, from what I can tell.
@Lamech:
If someone kills you in your sleep, you can wake up and kill them back the next night. Not so the other way around.
“However if someone came along and disbelieved that? All the arguments amount to, “I’m really really sure the waking world is real”. But guess what? That same argument works for religion too. “I’m really really sure God is real.””
Wrong.
Also, double-wrong if it involves a capital-G god (which, doesn’t even exist Biblically-speaking, fun stuff – the name of the Abrahamic god is not God…it’s the Tetragrammaton (the 4 part word that “must never be said” (according to Jewish tradition)). Tetragrammaton is a way of saying it’s THE 4-part-word-for-God, it’s not the name. The name is Hebrew, and Hebrew doesn’t have vowels. It was translated to Jehovah though.
Wiki: Jehovah (play /dʒɨˈhoʊvə/) is the romanization of Hebrew יְהֹוָה, a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH, also transcribed Yahweh), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible.[1]
Thank you wiki, though I knew that already. Others call that god Allah, you know. Same “bearded guy”. Ancient testament is the common source of the three Abrahamic religions… and it’s where the character of the creation god is introduced. A god of vengeance ordering Jewish people to kill other people (as in populations, no just random killings), and giving 666 laws to Moses on Mount Sinai. A god ordering bears to claw 42 kids to death for laughing about a bald monk. That one.
Science tells me the Earth is Spheric. The Bible tells me that Jehovah wants us to do contradictory things, treat people as your neighbors…while having slavery (the Old Testament decided prices for slaves, didn’t advocate for banning slavery).
Skull Bearer: “Science admits its mistakes. Science does everything it can to perfect itself and right these mistakes. This is far more than I can say about religion.”
Well, there have been whole careers made studying change and reform in religion, so it should be unsurprising that I dispute your claim. However, you may claim a victory of sort in that I am tired of arguing about this.
There has been a surprising amount ignoring, and ignorance of the nature of human institutions, and the nuance of thoughtful believers in the shoutiest of the comments.
Science advocates claim to have the tools for formulating sound policy, while at the same time frequently asserting that science it self has no moral or ethical content. There is a menu of secular ethics to pick from but none are explicitly associated with science in public discourse: except by its opponents. Religions, of course, wear their morals on their sleeve, so to speak, so it’s easy to castigate them on what they believe.
However, it is disingenuous to characterize science as “just a tool” while simultaneously holding it up as superior frame of reference. People who use science have to believe something and if it’s simply “science and it’s method of inquiry are good”, that can take you to places as scary as any religion.
It’s interesting that you assume I’m a theist.
“However, it is disingenuous to characterize science as “just a tool” while simultaneously holding it up as superior frame of reference. People who use science have to believe something and if it’s simply “science and it’s method of inquiry are good”, that can take you to places as scary as any religion. ”
Nope because science doesn’t come to prescriptive conclusions on its own. There is no Pope of Science saying that eugenics is good, because we would make a Master Race. Or that disabled people should be killed off, institutionalized or sterilized (or all 3, see 1930s).
Those are people who can claim no better authority over the rightness of their position based on their goodness in it, or their relation to the god of science (ie Pope claims authority over Christian religion on a supposed relation to the Abrahamic god).
No one can contest the Pope (within the religion anyways), everyone contested Hitler (and others who also tried to invoke eugenics at various times). The religious right and some libertarians might advocate for the poor to “just die already” if they can’t afford their healthcare costs because insurance costs a crapload and the right don’t want their precious taxes going to those welfare-abusing poors who would just waste their money on beers. They’d probably use the same arguments to underfinance the elderly and the disabled: They are a burden, we should get rid of them. Praying to the god of economics. But their arguments are not scientifically sound, and not morally right. You do not harm people just because they don’t give you money. Secular ethics.
@Matthew Swank:
Science is a tool. Some people will use it in a bad way, some will use it in a good way. Furthermore some people say they believe in science while their beliefs are unscientific – most of Communism was like that.
@Schala: Do you go around telling every man you meet “oh and by the way, it’s totally okay if you’re a man, just be sure not to rape anybody” regardless of what they’re saying or doing in that moment? What is this, Schrodinger’s Religiously-Motivated Asshole Voter? Schrodinger’s Deluded Theist? I started off by talking about my hesitancy to reveal to people that I’m religious, and you go and proceed to remind me why I’m still in the closet about it. Thanks for the tip, I think I’ll be keeping this to myself indefinitely.
@Lamech: Oh, intellectually I know it is, just as I intellectually know that having a weird fetish doesn’t make me a bad person. But sometimes, the shit you have to put up with when it comes to people who don’t think so just makes keeping it hidden from everyone forever the more favorable option.
@dancinbojangles: It’s… complicated all around, lol. There’s a long history there, complicated by things like syncretism, colonialism, systematic dismantling of the culture by the early missionaries (including book burning). Let’s just say that if there were any one source that I could have read to go down this way, it’s probably a giant steaming pile of shit. As far as I know, there doesn’t currently exist any reliable source for this sort of thing; it’s either extremely academic (and really hard to analyze for the layperson), or it’s really superficial information that’s probably mostly wrong. If you’re at all interested in finding out how in the hell I’m doing this, I started a blog a couple months ago that serves as something of a journal about it. If it’s at all possible, I’d be interested in hearing what your friends thinks of it too.
Photos of our Trayvon Martin rally today… lots of men expressing their feelings, suitably goes on this blog: http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/03/rally-photos-i-am-trayvon-martin.html
“@Schala: Do you go around telling every man you meet “oh and by the way, it’s totally okay if you’re a man, just be sure not to rape anybody” regardless of what they’re saying or doing in that moment? ”
Nah, I’d be equal opportunity and tell every man, woman and child that, if I did that at all. But I don’t.
“The L: My current issues involve my stomach. I am not overweight by any sane measure, but my stomach protrudes because I never bothered to keep in shape as a kid. Toning that thing is harder than I would like.
Also…I’ve found someone awesome to start dating. And I’m afraid to talk much about him to my parents because I’m afraid it might slip out that he’s Jewish. Dad still thinks that I’m going to have a Catholic wedding.”
I hear you on stomach issues. I still can’t look in the mirror some days and like what I see there. No matter how much cardio and core strengthening exercises I do, it just seems…there. Like it’s determined not to get toned, haha.
That’s great that you found someone, although the clash with faith must be hard to navigate. It has always seemed odd to me that many Christians are so antagonistic toward Jews when the Hebrew Bible is included in the Christian Bible.
Trying to date forced me to come to terms with the fact that I’m bisexual, or at least bi-romantic. And although I accept that part of myself after years of trying to push away and deny my attraction to women, the idea of coming out to my conservative fundamentalist Christian family scares the utter shit out of me. 😦
That and telling them that I’m spiritual rather than religious after deciding to check out of the mythology surrounding much of the Christian belief system and renounce all forms of stultifying dogma.
Anyway The L, best of fortune in your relationship with your “someone awesome.” 🙂
Look what I just found at Good Men Project….
http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/role-reversal-short-film-flips-sexuality-on-its-head/
@Danny: This. It’s so fantastic I really can’t say more. (which for me is rare, as I like to see myself type…hahah).
Whenever I get the courage up to come out to them, this will definitely be a part of my strategy to minimize shock and help them at least start to understand and accept me.
🙂
Good luck to you on your future coming out day.
Thanks so much 🙂
Schala: It has *never* been a tenet of any religion that the Earth is flat.
As for “love your neighbour,” that’s precisely why JC challenged this and turned it into “love your enemies.”
Matthew Swank: The thing is, though, that Zimmerman would probably claim that he felt threatened, even though it seems ridiculous to everyone else.
I don’t think Martin’s gender had anything to do with him being killed, however, it does make me think of the Central Park rape case. The Central Park Five might not have been convicted if they were white, but there’s zero chance they would have been convicted if they had been teenage girls.
“Schala: It has *never* been a tenet of any religion that the Earth is flat.”
It wasn’t a tenet that it was spheric either.
Schala: so what’s your point?
Science tells me it was spheric, the bible did not provide any information whatsoever about that.
So I learn stuff with science.
As for the age of the planet, I think the Bible itself is not as specific as Young Earth Creationists think it is. This is mostly a failure of interpretation.
As I don’t think the Bible claims the Earth is only 6000 years old. I think it claims nothing at all regarding its age. People trying to oppose geology on the grounds that carbon-dating can’t be right because it gives dates greater than 6000 years old…on religious grounds…don’t know what science (or critical thinking) means. You don’t put the conclusion and make up data to fit your conclusion, you find data and draw a conclusion from it.
Though religion is not the only one failing there. Any ideology-driven thing can fall into this trap. Blanchard’s hatred of trans women is ideology-driven, so he tries to make his data fit into his preconceived notion that trans women are just weird extra-perverted males, and in no way females at all. Some ideology (conservatism, paternalism, and victim-feminism*) says that women are victims and men are violent, so this portion of society tries to invisibilize male victims of females as much as possible, to keep the conclusion the same as the premise.
*A portion of 2nd and 3rd wave feminism that claims women are powerless, are always victims of men (not of women), and have no agency. Not all feminism.
Sorry, got caught off.
All I can say is that science doesn’t solve everything. Looking to the Bible for scientific facts has nothing to do with looking to it for wisdom.
Science tells me it was spheric, the bible did not provide any information whatsoever about that.
I remember reading long ago a book by Isaac Asimov saying that the Bible imply that the earth is flat (more precisely a dome) and the center of the dome is Babylon. In the past, many people around the world believed that the Earth is flat. The idea that Earth is a sphere date back from the Greeks 2500 years ago. Before that, the Earth was seen as flat and the oldest part of the Bible was written more than 2500 years ago.
As for the age of the planet, I think the Bible itself is not as specific as Young Earth Creationists think it is. This is mostly a failure of interpretation.
If you add up the age of the patriarchs in the Bible you end up with 6000 years.
“If you add up the age of the patriarchs in the Bible you end up with 6000 years.”
But this is then taking the creation story as being literally 7 days, and believing that they used to have incredible (900 years long) longevity back then.
The one point where I have trouble following is where we go from Adam and Eve and their two children…where one kills the other (so population: 3), and arriving at having thousands and thousands apparently a few generations later only. Like boom we’re not alone, we have big cities now…
“I remember reading long ago a book by Isaac Asimov saying that the Bible imply that the earth is flat (more precisely a dome) and the center of the dome is Babylon. In the past, many people around the world believed that the Earth is flat. The idea that Earth is a sphere date back from the Greeks 2500 years ago. Before that, the Earth was seen as flat and the oldest part of the Bible was written more than 2500 years ago.”
However, in the Common Era there has never been a time when a majority of people believed that the Earth was flat.
The Hebrew creation story was never meant to be taken literally. “Adam” simply meant “Man,” and in fact this has survived as the word for Man in Turkish.
I know you can’t derail an Open Thread, but I think we’re getting pretty far afield here. The main point is that I think there’s a difference between healthy skepticism and an open hostility towards anything spiritual.
“The main point is that I think there’s a difference between healthy skepticism and an open hostility towards anything spiritual.”
So it’s OK to be sceptical as long as that scepticism doesn’t lead to any negative conclusions?
Hugh: There is a difference between saying “I don’t believe what you believe” and saying “you are wrong, and what you believe is what’s wrong with the world.”
“Hugh: There is a difference between saying “I don’t believe what you believe” and saying “you are wrong, and what you believe is what’s wrong with the world.””
How about:
“People (including the Pope) use your belief to make the world a more corrupt place, make people miserable, and make the Vatican richer. They benefit from people not critically thinking and being kept in ignorance.”
Schala:
Well, that might be something you could say to a Catholic, but I’m not sure why anybody else should feel beholden to it.
In fact, even some Catholics do not respect or support the current Pope.
@monkey :
With the rise in religious fanaticism and totalitarianism, “you are wrong, and what you believe is what’s wrong with the world.” is very often true. Religious beliefs are not a God creation, they are a man-made creation.
No more mr nice guy:
Totalitarianism works just fine without religion. The biggest threat to global democracy right now is corporatism, which needs no religion, and in some cases (Objectivism) outright rejects it.
In any case, it’s beside the point, because rejected someone simply because they are religious is making a prejudgment without any other evidence. I think that’s unfortunate.
“In fact, even some Catholics do not respect or support the current Pope.”
Even if Protestants and others don’t support the Pope, the Pope is still The Law in regards to condom usage and wether its accepted for Africans to do it.
Apparently, they prefer preventing disease with circumcision over there. Let’s not use latex, let’s mutilate all male people’s genitals without their say in the matter – because it’s a global health concern, you see. And 3 failed studies are enough to advocate it everywhere where they don’t routinely do it at birth.
So… I have a question:
http://lgbtweekly.com/2012/02/28/anti-lgbt-violence-bill-approved/
Does barring discrimination on gender identity, bar discrimination based on biology too? If this is supposed to help LGBT people, focus on the G, then this should finally bar any discrimination in shelters. Maybe we should all start a campaign that shelters will use biology to discriminate against gay people and see if we can get biology added…
““In fact, even some Catholics do not respect or support the current Pope.”
Even if Protestants and others don’t support the Pope, the Pope is still The Law in regards to condom usage and wether its accepted for Africans to do it.”
Um, he’s not. there’s not a single place in AFrica where Catholicism is the majority, let alone the official religion.
Protestants (like, for example, Desmond Tutu, who supports condom use) are not beholden to the Pope in the least.
Hunted down the text of the law.
Click to access BILLS-112s1925is.pdf
They have a thing on non-discrimination on page 16. Includes (among other things) sex. I really hope at least this part gets passed. Should have been in their nearly 20 years ago…
Schala: Even if Protestants and others don’t support the Pope, the Pope is still The Law in regards to condom usage and wether its accepted for Africans to do it.”
The Pope is only The Law when he speaks Ex Cathedra. That is when he makes rules, AND he has to properly preface the statement with the papal equivalent of “I am about to speak Ex Cathedra, so everybody pay attention.” Until then, he is merely expressing an opinion, and its like any president or senator or king or whoever, expressing theirs. It is not regarded as church doctrine or dogma, but his own opinion. (It has slightly more importance if its an Encyclical, but really, contradictions of old Encyclicals are standard. They are like legal precedents and can be used a variety of ways.) The Ex Cathedra rule was only established in 1870.
The last time a Pope spoke Ex Cathedra was 1950. It really is something they DON’T LIKE to do, since it supposedly has to stand up to the ages.
“Even if Protestants and others don’t support the Pope, the Pope is still The Law in regards to condom usage and wether its accepted for Africans to do it.
Apparently, they prefer preventing disease with circumcision over there. Let’s not use latex, let’s mutilate all male people’s genitals without their say in the matter – because it’s a global health concern, you see. And 3 failed studies are enough to advocate it everywhere where they don’t routinely do it at birth.”
This is such an ugly caricature of the actual issue that I feel insulted while reading it. No WE DON’T prefer preventing disease with circumcision over there, we prefer preventing disease via condom use or abstinence, either/ or seems to suffice. Many Africans have gone to medical school, or have done sex Ed. I’ve never met anyone unfamiliar with the knowledge but then again I’m from a very recent generation and country that has had a sort of educational renaissance. The “Circumcision prevents disease” bullshit is reactionary to pressure being placed on the ‘practice’ itself, circumcision was not invented or perpetuated by our ancestors because it “prevented disease”, that’s certainly NOT what any of us boys hear years later when it’s time to ask mummy or daddy, why the other non-African kids at the urinal have ‘different looking wieners’. At least my ma’ gave me a straight answer “it’s something we just do to our boys based on tradition, less cleaning, easier maintenance, aesthetically pleasing to do woman you’ll end up with”.
The only reason we all get circumcised is ‘tradition’ any other excuse is just padding so our elders do not have to have their traditions scrutinised, the issue of circumcision is also something western men will not convince southern men to abandon any time soon. In between preserving traditions, and personal reasons, hearing from the ladies you’re going to date or marry that “it looks better” is not something you’re going to risk for a “flap of skin you won’t remember having”.
Religiosity and sexual conduct as well as transmission of STD’s/STI’s are not the fault of Catholicism, African religiosity, proposed African ‘primitivism’ or any other stupid phenomenon propagated from the mouths of the ignorant. IGNORANCE is the leading cause of STD’s. The young think they are invincible, the old think the young are innocent and the retailers as well as educators are just too far and few in between and the actual situation can be far more complex and simple than anything I could say within a single paragraph. Now all of that plus the cultural phenomenon of sexual chastity, expression repression and elder reverence and what you have is a near multicultural silence on the issue. I’ve not come across any African person of any nation or even ethnicity that openly talks about sex nonchalantly.
I’m guessing there aren’t many Africans here; if there are I’ll gladly hear your take on it, compare notes.
DaisyDeadhead: How about Vatican II? Or are encyclicals not Ex Cathedra?
@DaisyDeadhead:
And what about Humanae Vitae ? It forbid people from using most forms of birth control.
Monkey: How about Vatican II?
Nope, that was a Council. It made policy, not rules. It did “seep over” into doctrinal issues (especially in the statements on Protestantism), under the guise of changing policy, however. (I am speaking of official definitions, not actual “facts”–as you might know, they don’t always match up!)
Monkey: Or are encyclicals not Ex Cathedra?
No, encyclicals are not Ex Cathedra, you could compare them to position papers, State of the Union, something like that.
No more Mr Nice Guy: And what about Humanae Vitae ? It forbid people from using most forms of birth control.
NMMNG, that was an encyclical and you have to remember: EASTASIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH OCEANIA. Like the old USSR, the Catholic Church operates on this concept.
People ALREADY weren’t allowed to use birth control. They have NEVER been allowed. (officially) The idea was that the anti-birth control doctrine had always existed and was only being explicated carefully in Humanae Vitae, since the subject had just recently “come up” after the invention of the birth control pill. It was presented as an exegesis of an existing concept, although IN PRACTICE it was presented as a new rule, or possibly “a refresher course”. It was actually an exegesis of an old rule; a re-stating of the rule with new, updated reasons, written for a post-Vatican II audience.
Now, as I carefully delineated on my radio show (which you should immediately go listen to!) yesterday, Catholic doctrine has always shape-shifted and changed, but Vatican propaganda is that it is forever and unchanging. (“Jesus Christ: the same yesterday, today and tomorrow!” say the shopping bags in the Catholic bookstores… well, not quite.) See above reference to Oceania. But you have to understand this, to understand the doctrine: They insist the doctrine has NEVER CHANGED, but has only “developed further” or that we now understand “the fullness of the teaching.”
So they can freely say “the church has always been against abortion”–but of course, St Thomas Aquinas declared fetuses weren’t even babies until they moved (known as “quickening”), so that left a good 3-4 months (and in the cases of some women, even longer, or never) that a woman could drink some nice Pennyroyal tea and start up her late period, and nobody was the wiser.
They will claim the doctrine hasn’t changed, but that we now understand “the fullness of the teaching”–science taught us about “the moment of conception”–which was not known until the invention of microscopes. So, see, the PRACTICE has changed, while they can claim the doctrine hasn’t.
Hope that made sense. But yeah, I understand if it doesn’t!
I’ve always thought that when the Pope invokes ex cathedra he is effectively admitting “What I am about to say is going to be complete bullshit, since the only way people will take it seriously is to invoke infallibility”
Hugh: There is a difference between saying “I don’t believe what you believe” and saying “you are wrong, and what you believe is what’s wrong with the world.”
I don’t really see how there’s any difference between “I don’t believe what you believe” and “You are wrong”.
“What’s wrong with the world” is another thing entirely – although it is possible to believe religion is part of what’s wrong with the world without believing it’s THE thing wrong with the world.
I’ve seen this attitude before, that it’s OK to be an atheist as long as it’s a matter of private conscience and doesn’t inform your stance towards any real-world institution (even an explicitly religious one). It’s just bullshit.
Hugh: I’ve always thought that when the Pope invokes ex cathedra he is effectively admitting “What I am about to say is going to be complete bullshit, since the only way people will take it seriously is to invoke infallibility”
Nope, it means respected and scholarly Catholics disagree on the issue (must be “a matter of faith and morals”–not something unimportant or esoteric) and *somebody* has to officially decide what is true.
As I said, they strongly prefer NOT to, since its always going to piss off one faction or another, and he may need that faction in a later political fight. Its just like the Senate! In fact, long predates the Senate, but a remarkably similar operation.
“I don’t really see how there’s any difference between “I don’t believe what you believe” and “You are wrong”.”
Belief means different things. It’s the difference between faith in the factual veracity of something and fidelity towards an idea.
“I’ve seen this attitude before, that it’s OK to be an atheist as long as it’s a matter of private conscience and doesn’t inform your stance towards any real-world institution (even an explicitly religious one). It’s just bullshit.”
I’m sorry, but I see a lot of atheists who explicitly say that the world would be a better place without ANY religion. In other words, no Dalai Lama. No Thich Nhat Hanh. No Dorothy Day, Berrigan Brothers, MLK, Bishop Tutu, or countless other religious people who *have* made the world a better place. The argument is usually “they would have been activists anyway,” which simply doesn’t wash.
That goes beyond “informing your stance towards any real-world institution.”
In any case, unless someone’s belief specifically infringes on your rights, I think it’s bad form to call them on it.
Speaking of the Catholic Church, I uncovered some interesting data while discussing it on another site.
The United States has about 70 million Catholics, and 18 cardinals. Brazil has more than twice as many baptized Catholics, 150 million Catholics, the largest Catholic population in the world, but only a little over half as many cardinals (10). Mexico has a larger Catholic population than the US, but only 4 cardinals. And it’s not based on geography, either; there are more cardinals from the United States than the entire continent of Africa, despite Africa having three times the land area (and more than double the number of baptized Catholics).
Also, of course, all of those cardinals are men.
I would say that it takes mental gymnastics, but doing mental gymnastics would actually negate the whole thing.
I can’t tell someone that they’re wrong if there’s no hard science that specifically supports their claim. I’m a pagan that believes in all sorts of things, and I coexist just dandy with monotheists, duotheists, pantheists, hard and soft polytheists, and even the atheists that play nice. I’ve got a Heathen friend that I get into good discussions about the nature of deity and worship with sometimes, and her religion is just as valid as mine. In her reality, Thor and Freya and Odin and the landwights all those guys are important and have relevance. In mine? Not so much. It’s sorta like how I can think Harry Potter sucks for X reasons, and you can think it rocks for Y reasons, and neither of us are wrong.
http://www.dailylife.com.au/life-and-love/love,-sex-and-realtionships/racebased-attraction-20120326-1vta1.html
An article on the problems of racism on the dating scene here in Australia.
The difference between “you are wrong” and “I believe you are wrong” is purely semantic. It’s pretty safe to assume that most people, when making a statement, are stating their own beliefs, not somebody else’s or making a claim towards universal truth.
That being said, do you find a religious person say “god exists” is insulting towards atheists because he’s telling them they’re wrong?
“I’m sorry, but I see a lot of atheists who explicitly say that the world would be a better place without ANY religion. In other words, no Dalai Lama. No Thich Nhat Hanh. No Dorothy Day, Berrigan Brothers, MLK, Bishop Tutu, or countless other religious people who *have* made the world a better place.”
Well, you can say the world would be a better place without something without saying that that something is the main thing responsible for making the world a bad place.
I’d rather live in a world with no class or gender divisions and religion than vice versa, but I would like to see religion disappear.
The whole Dalai Lama thing is an interesting one, but I think most atheists would say that the good that religion has provided by motivating people like Desmond Tutu is outweighed by the bad it’s done, rather than that Desmond Tutu was a bad person.
Hugh: We’ll have to disagree, and leave it at that. I’d simply ask for some tolerance, as I tolerate and respect atheists.
Frankly, if you’d like to see religion disappear, you’re in for a lifetime of disappointment.
Not offended because I know you’re close-minded about the subject of religion and probably just have a chip on your shoulder, but that’s technically a heavy-handed microaggression, FYI.
It’s also racist in a roundabout way.
For what it’s worth, religion is not like other oppressions in that religions actually have factual content and challenging that is not an aggression against any PEOPLE. It’s like how saying “I think Moby Dick is full of crap” is not an aggression against people who liked Moby Dick.
No two oppressions are quite the same, really, and I wish we’d stop pretending that they are.
@No More Mr Nice Guy:
The idea that Earth is a sphere date back from the Greeks 2500 years ago.
And they (someone there) even made an approximation to its circumference, didn’t they?
IIRC, something about measuring the distance between two cities, and then measuring the angle of the sun at a given time.
Hugh, ever heard of “The God Gene”? I assume you have. I believe there is something like that, stronger in some than in others. Doing genealogy, I got religious fanatics going back like 6-7 generations. It explained my whole life to me!
@L: Sorry to have abstained from the increasingly acrimonious conversation, and thus failing to respond to your last directed at me. I wish there were some way to PM someone, or at any rate to take the conversation out of a thread. Anyway though, I’d be happy to take a look at your blog, and show it to my friend, but I’m gonna need a link!
@Blackhumor: Okay, so are you wishing “religion” would go away (even though it isn’t innately a “good” or “bad” construct), or are you wishing all of the nasty stuff often associated with religion would go away? Because in that case, you should just be wishing for a world free of hate and intolerance, moral objectivism, world-rejecting doctrines, and oppressive orthodoxy. None of which are exclusive to religion like, at all. The fact that you see it as such a destructive thing is half-projection. And yes, it’s racist because it’s prescriptivist–much like how colonial missionaries were prescriptivist in their dealings with “primitive” idolaters–and completely ignores the importance that organized religion has for billions of people all over the world and the functions that it serves in non-Euro-centric communities. Would you be okay with some white people going around and telling religious groups that they’re deluded and that atheism is the One True Way? Or do you just hope that they’ll eventually educate themselves and be more civilized like non-believers here in the west?
@dancinbojangles: Shoot me an email at mechanistagirl at gmail dot com and I’ll link you. :]
@DaisyDeadhead
Now, as I carefully delineated on my radio show (which you should immediately go listen to!)
I had no idea you could listen to your show online – thanks very much for the link!
@Flyingkal :
And they (someone there) even made an approximation to its circumference, didn’t they?
IIRC, something about measuring the distance between two cities, and then measuring the angle of the sun at a given time.
It’s Eratosthenes but the idea that Earth is a sphere was developed a few centuries before than him
@Matthew Swank:
“It’s interesting that you assume I’m a theist.”
I assume you’re a philosopher, which is far more dangerous. 🙂
@DaisyDeadhead:
“Hugh, ever heard of “The God Gene”? I assume you have. I believe there is something like that, stronger in some than in others. Doing genealogy, I got religious fanatics going back like 6-7 generations. It explained my whole life to me!”
There was tons of clergy on my mother’s side of the family, including a cardinal. Some religious folk initially assume I’m a priest when they hang around me for a while, which as an atheist I find mildly amusing.
@monkey:
“I’m sorry, but I see a lot of atheists who explicitly say that the world would be a better place without ANY religion.”
Religion provides many community services, has done so for a long time, and often better than current secular alternatives.
I’m considering someday joining the First Church of Atheism and getting ordained as a minister:
http://firstchurchofatheism.com/
@monkey:
“I’d simply ask for some tolerance, as I tolerate and respect atheists.”
Well you’ve got mine. My best friend growing up was from a very religious family, his dad suspected the internet of literally being the devil incarnate, but they were nice people so we got along just fine.
Discussion about NSWATM on reddit’s *breathes in* shitredditsaysdiscussion -> http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSDiscussion/comments/rexvl/no_seriously_what_about_teh_menz/
Hey there BlackHumor!!!
Oh god not SRS… here is there FAQ, this is linked in the side bar.
In it they realize people will ask about the blatant bigotry
Q: Doesn’t all the hate towards white, straight men make SRS just as bigoted?
Then then proceed to claim its okay to be bigoted as long as its against the right target. …
That place is seriously not okay.
AGBirch you are welcome and thank you!
daelyte, I think churches of atheism are a great idea… really, my mother was an atheist forever, but bingo is bingo! 😉 She never left the Catholic church (all while calling it bullshit), free counseling for your taxes, thrift stores, fellowship, bingo, some guy from Catholic Charities came over to change her locks after a break-in while somebody else fixed her roof, old ladies visited her in the hospital and brought pound cakes. DO NOT underestimate all of that stuff!!!
She said leaving the church would be like moving out of the USA, she wouldn’t even know the language and the traffic signals.
Oh yeah, open thread, meant to link the obituary of Peter Bergman. A GREAT MAN whom you should all know.
“There was something fishy about the butler, probably a Pisces, working for scale.”
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/03/peter-bergman-1939-2012.html
Did anyone else see this? http://www.cracked.com/article_19785_5-ways-modern-men-are-trained-to-hate-women.html
Sexual activity be damned I want RISUG (in the States it will be called VASGEL) not now but right now.
VASGEL
1. One contraceptive shot that can either last nearly 10 years or be counteracted with a second second.
2. Its about as expensive as the syringe used to inject it.
3. Its been 100% in human trials in India for about 15 years.
4. It will give men even more control over their reproductive rights.
5. If brought to the States it could make to to human trials in the next few years (probably thanks to those trailblazing Indian men that have been using it for so long already).
That product is amazing. I read through all the material and signed the petition. What really sruck me is that, on top of being 100% effective (at least in trials), it’s also easily reversible should the man and his partner decide that they want to have children together.
*struck oopsie haha
@Danny
That’s awesome. Here’s hoping that it’ll make it through the trials.
@Invictus:
“Frodo gets Sam”?
That article is full of both misandry and misogyny at the same time. How he can juggle that is beyond me.
“It’s why every Nice Guy is shocked to find that buying gifts for a girl and doing her favors won’t win him sex.”
Either that or the Nice Guy has been called a “loser” and a “creep” so many times, he just assumes that his gifts and favors weren’t grand enough for her. “What more does she want?” he moans, “I’ve already given her everything I could!”.
“There are actual occasions where women aren’t thinking about sex.”
So you mean men are always thinking about sex? Uh, no.
“men are far, far more likely to engage in extremely high-risk masturbation in public”
A simple search would show that women do this as well, not to mention women willing to engage in high risk public sex can find a partner better than a piece of furniture.
“My theory is that evolution needs males who will stay horny even in times of crisis or distress, and thus cuts off the brain’s ability to tamp down those urges.”
This one is so bad I’m not even going to answer it.
“The point is that a man can be giving the eulogy at his own grandmother’s funeral, and if there is a girl in the front row showing cleavage, he will be imagining himself pressing those boobs in his face, with his own dead grandmother not five feet away.”
And this was written by a guy??? If that’s what he thinks is normal, he should get himself checked before his libido overwhelms him.
“You know how every comedy has that stock character of the womanizing, amoral guy who just says what he thinks all the time, and cares only about himself?” “Guys love that character because he’s doing what, on some level, we all wish we could do.”
I smell a Nice Guy ™
“See, every single male can remember the first time, (bla bla bla) he got in trouble for hitting somebody, for peeing in public, for trying to jump off some high object or set something on fire.”
Again, this man’s normal is not normal, and possibly dangerous.
“It’s like that for most men, most of the time. We’re starving, and all women are various types of food. Only instead of food, it’s sex.”
Objectification much?
“historically, when an army takes over a city, what happens to the women there?”
Same thing as happens to men in modern days, when an army takes over a city.
(trigger warning)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
“And this was written by a guy??? If that’s what he thinks is normal, he should get himself checked before his libido overwhelms him.”
David Wong…this is the guy who wrote John Dies At The End
“John Dies at the End is a comedic horror novel written by Jason Pargin (published under the pseudonym David Wong) that was first published online as a webserial beginning in 2001, then as an edited manuscript in 2004 and printed paperback in 2007 via Permuted Press. An estimated 70,000 people read the free online versions before they were removed in September 2008. Thomas Dunne Books published the story with additional material as a hardcover on September 29, 2009.”
And from reading the book and its sequel (and I have it on my computer, got it free while it was available)…it’s extremely cynical dark humor. That’s what makes it funny. But it’s everything but realist a portrayal. In fact, it’s surrealist in a “I smoked 2 lbs of pot” way. You need an appreciation for very dark humor for this. I’m cynical myself, but even that is a parody and extreme exaggeration of a cynical person…it’s still funny.
So his articles on cracked sound exactly like that. Makes me laugh out loud of the topic is not touchy.
So, Jenna Talackova was MAAB, and disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada pageant for that. There was plenty wrong with beauty pageants anyway, but I guess we can add transphobia to the list.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/26/jenna-talackova-miss-universe-canada-disqualified/
h/t:
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/03/29/if-it-looks-like-a-duck-walks-like-a-duck-and-thinks-its-a-duck
Nice duck. Maybe there should be a Miss Trans Canada pageant. When it starts to pulls serious advertising money, watch how fast the other guys change their tune. I could totally see Maybelline as a sponsor.
@daelyte:
The problem I have with something like a Miss Trans Canada is that it basically perpetuates the othering. Also, it sounds like a highway ;).
Better than nothing? Probably, especially if it grabs advertisers and results in a change in policy. But not ideal.
This is old, but I found it interesting, about an indie video game designer lamenting that “it’s actually very hard for indies to not be sexist in a gaming culture that assumes sexism is mandatory.”
http://www.eldergame.com/2011/07/alpha-art-woes-sex-crazed-elves/
Being an indie, they (it’s a husband/wife team, though this post is by the husband) don’t have much of a budget, so they need to use “cheap prefabricated” art rather than hiring a custom designer where ever possible, especially for the placeholder art in the prerelease version. So that means using what’s available, and what’s available for female models tends towards “ridiculous sexualization.”
@daelyte :
Thailand have beauty contests for transgenders and queers :
“Thailand have beauty contests for transgenders and queers :”
I’m not fond of people who use transgender as a noun. It’s an adjective, like tall, white, straight. Not a noun.
And such a pageant only perpetuates the othering like Fnord said. Did you know that trans women (aka ladyboys) in Thailand cannot EVER change their legal sex? Regardless of what surgery they have, what treatment they follow. The government basically thinks they’re feminine men gone too far – but never ever women. Must be nice for employment right?
@Fnord
Thanks for sharing that link. It was relevant to a lot of my interests. There are a lot of weird gender false equivalencies in fantasy and video-gaming that wind up amounting to some pretty blatant sexism. I’d be the first person to argue that there’s a time and a place for your high-heel wearing, metal bikini clad, elven battle goddesses (except that I don’t typically like elf women); but it’s going to be a hard sell for what’s probably going to be a 3rd-person dungeon crawler; and the fact that it’s a default generic fantasy elf warrior female is just the worst thing about it all.
Then the designer does swerve in the other direction. It’s something I see a lot – people completely disgregarding the objectification of men because they can’t even see it. Then to ‘invent’ the sexual objectification of men things are taken to the absurd. I believe, in this instance, he said he’s going to try and tweak the bikini armor issue with a new skin, but there’s no getting around the heels without editing the model. So what’s the equivalent of heels in battle? Super-long dual penises. He seems to be tongue-in-cheek about it, and the funny thing is that it’s still, like, a lip-service fix because it isn’t like he’s going to model a new huge double codpiece for the elves, and players will still have to *see* the heels.
It still illustrates my point tho’. Bikinis don’t equal battle-armor, but loin-cloths don’t equal exposing a little cleavage. (And yet for some people being nude except for a pair of olympic swim trunks still doesn’t even amount to the objectification of a plunging neckline because, I dunno, dudes wouldn’t draw themselves that way if they weren’t asking for it.)
@Fnord:
I had a reply in mind but lost it when scrolling past the pretty thai ladies.
Oh yes! I was going to point out that many women gamers play male characters, and many men who often play females, for many different reasons.
http://www.themarysue.com/for-they-are-weary-of-space-marines-why-some-men-are-playing-women-and-why-game-developers-should-take-note/
Gender Everywhere:
http://www.hrc.org/press-releases/entry/rick-santorum-tells-boy-not-to-use-pink-bowling-ball
Oh Rick Santorum, you insufferable asshole.
@daelyte
I do that *all* the time. I’m so tired of looking at the backs of shaved heads on top of monster shoulders. I’m 6’2 and I like to think I have (or at least, once had) a nice set of shoulders on me, but the friggin’ elves in WoW look like they could snap me over their knee. With the humans you have to get the ‘slimmest’ form of the model just to go from shaved sasquatch/cartoon caveman to humanly possible but with freakish roided out limbs. When I want to play an orc, troll, dwarf, or ogre I’ll play one! I can’t even see my model’s butt in a great deal of the games out there once the heavy armor’s on, but you go female then at least you don’t look like a small-side down trapezoid anymore. It’s not that I really have a preference for playing women, it’s just… why no twink rogues? Why no nerdy wizards?
@ f
I want to make a joke about prefering to play with black balls so bad…. Gah! What a maroon (sic) that guy is. I used to love the colored bowling balls. My alley had a swirly white-pink-red one that I used all the time as a kid, because red’s my favorite color. They don’t have them as much in the larger sizes or I’d still use ’em.
“Two graceful Sith Inquisitors bowed towards me — the female lithe and sleek, the male broad and beefy. The character my brother wanted to create was a stealthy assassin, the kind of person you send in to quietly solve problems. In his eyes, the smaller female character was the obvious fit. I had to admit, it was hard to picture Darth Barrel Chest sneaking through windows.”
Skyrim is a tough place to be a woman…because one female NPC said so. Male NPCs said nothing at all (at least, according to this person) about the difficulty of being a man in Skyrim. No one even wants to know.
The whole comments discussed how misogyny affects women, and how men could see misogyny. Misandry never even discussed at all.
Elephant in the room, make enough noise now. The hunters can’t even see you.
@ Schala
I bought Skyrim but haven’t had the oppurtunity to start it yet. (I don’t have the most free time to play games anymore. I bought Fallout: New Vegas last February and only started it about three weeks ago. ) So, I’m not at expert but that sounds like a throwaway line to me, anyway. Since the same commenter goes on to say that he doesn’t notice any difference when he actually plays a female, maybe it’s just a nod to all the eglatarianism only seeming to apply to PC’s? I noticed in some RPG’s nobody bats an eye at the statuesque ladies armed to the 9’s tromping around, selling giant rat carcasses for red ptions, and rudely raiding their bookshelves, like that’s as normal a young girl’s aspiration as nurse. And yet the NPC’s, save for a couple of romantic interests and one or two highly visible authority figures, seem to all be bar wenches, prostitutes, mom’s with lost kids, housewives and female nobles.
“And yet the NPC’s, save for a couple of romantic interests and one or two highly visible authority figures, seem to all be bar wenches, prostitutes, mom’s with lost kids, housewives and female nobles.”
And poor salespeople, poor innkeepers, poor artisans, poor thieves – probably half or more male.
It’s great to have a penis, it lets poverty roll off your back – you don’t complain to random adventurers about it, so you must have it made.
@ Schala
Je sui desole, mon amie! I didn’t mean to sound dismissive or combatative about it, not about an opion on computer RPG’s from someone actually named Schala, especially. Respect! It’s just an instance where the throw away line really only makes sense for me the way it is presented. (Particularly in the less scripted, open-ended, sandbox style of western RPG’s)
Not all RPG’s are populated with obviously poor people, but it’s less the level of wealth anyway. They’re all peasantry, or sommat, so the status is shared. ( And you can’t really convince me that an innkeeper is as poor as the couple of bar wenches he can afford to hire. ) It’s more about the heavy handed gendering in the jobs, the Glass Thatch Cottage Roof if you will, right up until the crazy dissonance re: the occupation of unusually gorgeous, barbarian, murder-savant with a double-bladed axe; because that’s got about a 50-50 demographic, strange enough. It’s true that RPG world men would have the gendered problems of being disrespected, oft slaughtered, mook city-watchmen or filthy bandits so stupid they don’t retreat even when 60% of their numbers are disintegrated by the first fireball. However, it’s just not so much of a non-sequitor to have a career choice between guy who waits around with a weapon and guy who sallies forth with a weapon, as it is to choose between prostitute or paladin. (Talk, about yer Virgin/Whore complex, am I right?)
I can just see the guidance-counselor now- ‘Would you prefer to serve men their frothing mugs of ale, a fade-to-black implied orgasm, or their swift untimely demise to a +2 blade of chilling -er- A small note of caution: One of those professions has high heels as required attire, and it’s probably not the one you’re thinking.’
Jocularity aside, I just see the comment as lip service to why women may have to routinely do such ‘womanly’ things right up until the conventionally unfeminine role of adventurer. It could be their way, to paraphrase, of showing resolve and earning respect. A similar line for a conventionality like a male adventurer would require way more explaining, I think.
@Schala: You’re talking about the “strong independent Nord woman” (to reference another of her lines) in Whiterun (I think it was), right?
I found her irritating, but that probably had to do with everyone having ~5 basic one liners (and a bunch of story/character/gear dependent ones that she seemed to be missing) when you got close to them, and her consistently being in my path when I was in Whiterun (there was a point where I thought she was intended to be like the cat in KQ3 and intentionally always in the way). I’d murdered for less (if only the Night Mother had asked for her head).
Her lines were especially odd given most other roles seemed to be handed out in a more egalitarian fashion than most other fantasy games (no shortage of female guards, merchants, etc). I know I tore through a significant number of female bandits, necromancers, and the like. Not 50/50, but far better than the “mooks are always male because violence against women is extra wrong” that happens in most other places. Maybe 1 in 4 or so (at a guess)?