You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2013.
Nothing you shouldn’t already know.
Pop-culture is another avenue through which white/Western imperialism and misogynistic standards are spread. This is how the thin, able-bodied white woman ideal was created and WoC and “third-world”/Global South women and girls were devalued, denigrated and taught to hate their physical appearance, and even take dangerous measures to mimick the thin, able-bodied white woman ideal.
Awww! Isn’t religion cute all snuggled into the framework of society!
Let’s play a game!
The game is called “I’m right because GOD SAYS SO” – and festoon it into a train wreck of an blog post. This mangled piece of sputum drips of religiously condoned contempt for human beings and their rights.
Nothing new right?
We all know that religion is the ripe ground that makes misogynistic, patriarchal bullshite flourish and grow. Regressive societal tendencies and religion go together like peaches and cream, MRA’s and rape culture or any other fetid combination that one can think of. Anyhow (back to my sanctimony), religion is the toxic worm that twists and festers in society, we can all see the harmful effects of religious thought, but most don’t (or choose not to) see it.
Religion is like Cymothoa Exigua, a parasite that eats and then replaces(!) the tongue of the hapless fish it infests. The fish, superficially, is fine. Only on closer examination can we see the damage done to the poor host fish and thus to make a kludge of a comparison, we can relate religion’s role as the ungainly parasite that quietly, invasively, despoils society for its own benefit (also, who wants an icky tongue like that? Sqicky!).
Today’s Disservice features a fine example of the religious rot that makes the world a shittier place for you and me. “Not my Law” by Oldguyvirgin hits all the suppurating highlights of the harmful nature of religious thought. Rather than directly interspersing my thoughts with this particular induhvidual, I’m going to try the blockquote format to see if that will improve readability, as well, there is a metric-fucktonn of egregious material to cover.
“As Christians we’re supposed to place God’s law above man’s, right? Absolutely, but in practical terms, what does that mean?”
Damn, here we go right off the bat straight to bug-nutz delusional statements about everyone’s favourite sky-daddy/ooga-booga, god. Let me offer an answer: the fireside stories and rantings of scared ignorant people written some 2000 years ago should never, by any means, supersede or transcend the rational evidence based laws and norms western society has come to embrace. We are still barbaric in what we do to each other, and you are fucking pining for a time when we had less civility. Awesome.
“According to the modern church in America, or at least the way we act, that means to pursue a vigorous, staunch, often demeaning and dehumanizing political campaign against anything with which we happen to disagree.”
The idea that there is one unified church in America is just wrong. In reality it is a sectarian paradise with more sects and factions than you can shake a bible at, all condemning each other to eternal torment in the various circles of hell in a festival of hatefappery happily condoned by their god(s). This kind of inconsistency doesn’t make a whit of sense, but then this is place were we get the natty idea that “God loves you, but ooooooh you’ll burn forever sinner!”, you know, the standard religious boiler plate notion of mandatory cognitive dissonance.
I’d like you folks to remember that last sentence from the quoted material as we’ll be referring back to it soon.
“Abortion is immoral. Therefore it should be illegal in any and all circumstances, no matter what the populace has to say about the matter.”
Boom! Abortion is immoral! Most people when making a moral case tend to state a few premises first, but oh no and Oh Ho!!! Mroldguyvirgin(MOGV) has no need for the pale frippery of cogent argumentation. No sir! We skip the whole ‘premise thing’ and instead magnificently conclude, planting the confused flag of religious certainty, that Abortion is Immoral. Say no more.
“Homosexuality is immoral. Therefore homosexual couples should hold a lower legal status than heterosexual couples, including a lack of access to combined health insurance, a lack of inheritance rights, a lack of power of attorney, a lack of tax breaks, etc, etc, etc. These are the two major issues right now, but certainly not the only issues.”
Boom! Were these moral bon mots written on stone tablets that you can, only now, share? These nuggets of torpid wisdom might be too much for us poor schmucks that blithely purport to inhabit evidence based reality.
I have a hypothesis about these declarations and why they have been interspersed with talk of God’s law. To be taken seriously as a christian commentator you need to show the requisite amount of misogyny and bigotry to be part of the ordained ‘God Club’. Not a lot of love thy neighbour going on here as far as I can tell. On the other hand it is par for the course considering the unsurprisingly dogmatic adherence to shitty ideas that concomitantly spawn shitty ethical values.
Nothing like the honest words from the religious to illustrate the inherent toxicity and the hate religion breeds.
“However, what does placing God’s law above man’s law do to man’s law? In declaring abortion to be murder we effectively announce our dismissal of American law.”
Oh MOGV, I hate to break to to you but the bible says exactly nothing about abortion. Could it be that just plain old *you* are projecting what *you* think the ethical standard should be and then dressing it up in the skydaddy’s clothes to make it sound all authoritative and convincing to the gullible?
“Murder is a term that is defined by law, and American law does not define abortion as murder.”
If there was a whit of sense in this entire bunghole of stupidity, this sentence taken out of context would be it.
“Thus, when we declare that abortion is murder we remove ourselves from the conversation by declaring that American law is unimportant to us.”
And that’s how the South fell from grace… Seriously though, removing yourself from the conversation is the sane thing to do. Unfortunately, the religious can never keep it to themselves and feel the burning desire to distort society and impose their flawed notions on the rest of us.
[Skipping extra wordy bits about defending god]
“But wait!” You say, “doesn’t that mean that there’s no point in apologetics?”
I ask you, since when was apologetics the defense of God? There is every reason to pursue an apologetic defense of the faith. The task of apologetics is not to defend God, or his law, but to defend the rationality of Christian belief.”
*facepalm forever* There is no rational explanation of faith as faith is intrinsically irrational. Your magical claims hold as much weight as my cherished notions that pink unicorns regularly steal my car keys and hide them in obvious places (a thousand poxes on you little bastards).
“In light of questions like: Can God be real? Is the scripture trustworthy? Did Jesus really die on the cross? We must have an apologetic response. This is a part of what Peter meant when he commanded us to be ready to give an account of our faith. To answer reasoned questions with a reasoned and thoughtful faith is very different than spewing thoughtless rhetoric and pursuing a legal divine mandate of Church rule.”
(Arbourist looks up at previous paragraphs, then looks at this one. Looks up again… Riiiiiiiight.)
“In too many ways the Church resembles Senator Palpatine’s description of the Jedi in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, we have held political power in this nation for a very long time, and we are loathe to give it up.”
What? No really, what the frack are you going on about? This blog post makes word salad look like a cogently articulated legal brief. MOGV continues to jump all over the place in spastic word orgasms that defy comprehension. However, what is predictable about MOGV’s inept ramblings is the periodic interlacing of untrammelled misogyny and bigotry heaped with righteous scorn, into this rotten corpse of an essay . We’re about due for another injection…
“However, make no mistake, the attempts to legislate marriage, sexual conduct, the handling of pregnancy, etc is less about the rule of God and more about the fear of the church. It shows a lack of trust and an extreme cowardice. Does this mean that there is no homosexual agenda bent on attacking the church?”
Ah, there we go. Those damn homosexuals and their agenda, protesting against an institution that think of them as less than human or somehow fixably flawed. Judge not, lest ye be judged – unless of course its going after the gays, then by all means judge away! If there is a constant in christianity it would be that black vein of hatred of one group or another that has somehow been judged to be impure or unethical (and maybe another constant is that its *all* desultory cockn’bull fapping).
“Of course it doesn’t, though it would be ridiculous to assume that all homosexuals are a part of this agenda. Certainly the nation is becoming more hostile towards Christianity, and persecution is coming. However, Peter does not tell us that when persecution comes we should fight for our power and rights tooth and nail, even if it means destroying the other side. Instead, Peter tells us to rejoice that we may share in the sufferings of our lord!”
Ah yes, the fabled persecution of the majority. It must be rough living in a society that is structured around your wants and needs. The audacity of minorities who think that they should not be treated like crap. They should be grateful for their place at the table, not trying to upset the natural(?) order of things.
“To those who would see the Christian faith persecuted, hurt, injured, and destroyed, I would say: Bring it on! Do your worst and find out just what our God is made of.”
Hollow words and comforting ideas for scared people. Your mythology is being rolled up and tucked away safely in the Fiction section of the library. Modernity and reason will see the end of the reverence of your cherished fairy-tales. And in my opinion, the sooner the better.
[skipping more ‘woe is me’ blather]
“This is what we should be. A face of courageous love and truth that stands against hate and violence, not a face of hate and violence that seeks to oppress those who disagree. We should be better than we are.”
I hate to use the same device twice but….
(Arbourist looks up at the anti-woman and anti-homosexual passages, looks down at this one….Riiiiiiight.)
And that wraps up this RPOJ post. The navigating was treacherous this time, as the pontification was strong with this one. Also – question begging, internal consistency and the lack of any sort of rigorous argumentation. I hope your brains aren’t too mushy from our latest foray into the strange and wilde world of internet christianity, because there is plenty more where this came from.
Woo-haa?
Rape culture is a culture in which people who have survived a violent crime are asked to laugh about it because other people think it’s funny.
TRIGGER WARNING for the images below the fold, these are examples of the sexism and misogyny men display with impunity, often under their real name and with their picture attached, on social media.
View original post 10 more words
Chris rock makes a point about how to think about “progressive politics” and what it means to people. It is almost always informative to hear the story of those who regularly receive the short end of history’s stick.
This space usually hosts a classical selection of music that I find appealing in one way another. But the genesis of today’s video lies in the dark sorcery better known as the CD wallet the resides in my car. As I was driving to my voice lesson I was perturbed at the distinct lack of musical profundity playing on CBC radio 2 Drive and at a red light I grabbed my trusty musical dark-side and flipped over to a CD labelled the Best of NIN.
“Hmm”, I thought to myself, “I haven’t listened to NIN like in FOREVER. Thus, in went NIN and out came the lovely baroque trio that I had been listening to ( La Gamme Et Autre Morceaux De Symphonie ). Anyhow…
I got to the second last track and boom, the rock-out started. Steering wheel tapping, head nodding, singing-along goodness that made the wait in traffic come quickly to end, saddening me slightly as there was more raw tuneage to listen to.
More about the song now, “Only”, like many NIN tunes has a distinct anti-religious message along with being able to easily rock out to, and that makes me happy.
I would recommend adding this to your reading lists, I’m only a third of the way though, but it has been a detailed and interesting account of genesis and growth of the large mean streak of anti-intellectualism that is currently dominating the zeitgeist of American society. Jacoby was interviewed by Bill Moyers and thus, allow me to wet your whistle with an excerpt from the transcript.
SUSAN JACOBY: Now, this was not always the case in our country. In the 19th century Robert Ingersoll, whom we’ve talked, who is known as the great agnostic, had audiences full of people who didn’t agree with him. But they wanted to hear what he had to say. And they wanted to see whether the devil really has horns. And now what we have is a situation in which people go to hear people they already agree with. What’s going on is not so much education as reinforcement of the opinions you already have.
BILL MOYERS: Yeah, why is it we’re so unwilling to give, as you say, a hearing to contradictory viewpoints? Or to imagine that we might learn something from someone who disagrees with us?
SUSAN JACOBY: Well, I think part of it is part of a larger thing that is making our culture dumber. We have, really, over the past 40 years, gotten shorter and shorter and shorter attention spans. One of the most important studies I’ve found, and I’ve put in this chapter, they call it Infantainment– on this book. It’s by the Kaiser Family Foundation. And they’ve found that children under six spend two hours a day watching television and video on average. But only 39 minutes a day being read to by their parents.
Well, you don’t need a scientific study to know that if you’re not read to by your parents, if most of your entertainment when you’re in those very formative years is looking at a screen, you value what you do. And I don’t see how people can learn to concentrate and read if they watch television when they’re very young as opposed to having their parents read to them. The fact is when you’re watching television, whether it’s an infant or you or I, or staring glazedly at a video screen, you’re not doing something else.
BILL MOYERS: What does it say to you, Susan, that half of American adults believe in ghosts? Now I take these from your book. One-third believe in astrology. Three quarters believe in angels. And four-fifths believe in miracles.
SUSAN JACOBY: I think even more important than the fact that large numbers of Americans believe in ghosts or angels, that is part of some religious beliefs. Is the flip side is of this is that over half of Americans don’t believe in evolution. And these things go together. Because what they do is they place science on a par almost with folk beliefs.
And I think– if I may inveigh against myself, ourselves, I think the American media in particular has a lot to do with it. Because one of the things that really has gotten dumber about our culture the media constantly talks about truth as if it– if it were always equidistant from two points. In other words, sometimes the truth is one-sided.
I mentioned this in THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks there was a huge cover story in TIME Magazine in 2002 about the rapture and end of the world scenarios. There wasn’t a singular secular person quoted in it. They discussed the rapture scenario from the book of Revelation as though it was a perfectly reasonable thing for people to believe. On the one hand, these people don’t believe it. On the other it’s exactly like saying– you know, “Two plus– two plus two, so-and-so says, ‘two plus two equals five.’ But, of course, mathematicians say that it really equals four.” The mathematicians are right. The people who say that two plus two equals five are wrong. The media blurs that constantly.
BILL MOYERS: You call that a kind of dumb objectivity.
SUSAN JACOBY: Yes. Dumb objectivity. Exactly.
As an educator I find Jacoby’s work illuminating and depressing at the same time. We have such a large hill to climb in the struggle to reclaim children’s minds from the media.
I would recommend going to Alter.net and reading the full article as it also focuses on the nuclear threat that humanity faces and how we in the West have been merrily poking at the hornets nest of annihilation with a stick. The part I quoted (after the Idle No More manifesto) deals with the struggle between the so called civilized societies versus the indigenous societies that is going on in many countries.
In Canada, our First Nations are organizing into a national movement called Idle No More. From their manifesto:
“We contend that: Currently, this government is trying to pass many laws so that reserve lands can also be bought and sold by big companies to get profit from resources. They are promising to share this time…Why would these promises be different from past promises? We will be left with nothing but poisoned water, land and air. This is an attempt to take away sovereignty and the inherent right to land and resources from First Nations peoples.
We contend that: There are many examples of other countries moving towards sustainability, and we must demand sustainable development as well. We believe in healthy, just, equitable and sustainable communities and have a vision and plan of how to build them. Please join us in creating this vision.”
They are pissed, and rightly so, and are demanding that we build a sustainable future in Canada as opposed to the Neo-Conservative capitalist trajectory we are currently on. Their movement is incrementally gaining traction in Canadian politics as their message, when and if it is heard, resonates with much of Canada’s populace.
INM and the indigenous people that Chomsky mentions understand that the market is not god and that the idea of a sustainable future runs counter-current to many of the practices Western societies take as the norm. The indigenous societies understand the link between the land and the people that live on it.
They get it. And we, fundamentally, do not.
The view from the business end of the colonial bludgeon provides a clarity that Western societies desperately, necessarily, need to listen to. Ignoring indigenous movements that demand sustainability over profitability such as Idle No More imperils the future for everyone.
So, at one extreme you have indigenous, tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster. At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible. Unlike Ecuador, and indigenous societies throughout the world, they want to extract every drop of hydrocarbons from the ground with all possible speed.
Both political parties, President Obama, the media, and the international press seem to be looking forward with great enthusiasm to what they call “a century of energy independence” for the United States. Energy independence is an almost meaningless concept, but put that aside. What they mean is: we’ll have a century in which to maximize the use of fossil fuels and contribute to destroying the world.
And that’s pretty much the case everywhere. Admittedly, when it comes to alternative energy development, Europe is doing something. Meanwhile, the United States, the richest and most powerful country in world history, is the only nation among perhaps 100 relevant ones that doesn’t have a national policy for restricting the use of fossil fuels, that doesn’t even have renewable energy targets. It’s not because the population doesn’t want it. Americans are pretty close to the international norm in their concern about global warming. It’s institutional structures that block change. Business interests don’t want it and they’re overwhelmingly powerful in determining policy, so you get a big gap between opinion and policy on lots of issues, including this one.
So that’s what the future historian — if there is one — would see. He might also read today’s scientific journals. Just about every one you open has a more dire prediction than the last.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…