The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[Oxymoron]

One of the reasons why I am an atheist is because I reject the very notion of Cults, or the notion of things being sacred. Why then would I treat someone, anyone, like something else than any other human being ?

[Flagg]

Hitches was the bomb until he started chugging neocon dick like it was priceless single malt scotch.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Dawkins has some pretty cool biology books if you're interested in that sort of thing, but I can't think of a reason for anyone to buy any of his atheism stuff.

[Djinnkitty83]

Why then would I treat someone, anyone, like something else than any other human being ?

Because you're human, and humans aren't robots who can effectively operate among 'everyone is equal no matter what' lines in anything beyond a thought-exercise. I fully admit that if I were in a hostage scenario where I had to choose between the life of my fiance or that of an unknown stranger, I'd choose her in a second. If I had to choose between her life and my own, I'd choose hers in a second. Objectively speaking her life is more or less equal to anyone else's, including my own, but as a human with emotions and not a robot I place a ridiculous amount of value on her life and well-being.

[Infinity Biscuit]

One of the reasons why I am an atheist is because I reject the very notion of Cults, or the notion of things being sacred. Why then would I treat someone, anyone, like something else than any other human being ?

Mostly I'd say it's because it makes things easier. If someone is always right and worth listening to, it cuts down on a lot of decision making and analysis, as well as some measure of personal responsibility.

[magic princess]

Hitches was the bomb until he started chugging neocon dick like it was priceless single malt scotch.

Flagg, if you haven't tried it, how the fuck do you know that neocons don't cum priceless single malt scotch?

[zhaktronz]

Hitches was the bomb until he started chugging neocon dick like it was priceless single malt scotch.

Flagg, if you haven't tried it, how the fuck do you know that neocons don't cum priceless single malt scotch?

Do they?

[Flagg]

Hitches was the bomb until he started chugging neocon dick like it was priceless single malt scotch.

Flagg, if you haven't tried it, how the fuck do you know that neocons don't cum priceless single malt scotch?

Because they aren't cool enough to.

[magic princess]

It's just rational inference to conclude that they drink so much fine booze they pay for by making a hundred thousand people pull twenty hours of unpaid overtime a week that it's the only thing that comes out.

[Jung]

Thought on the movie Apocalypse Now I posted in a discussion on SB:

This is personal interpretation cause Kurtz's characterization is pretty ambiguous, but I really got a sense there was a lot more to him than "crazy jungle warlord who likes killing people." The way he saw it our civilization had created projects that demanded the kind of brutality he practiced, but was unwilling to be honest with itself about what those projects actually demanded, hence a misguided kindness that resulted in it being ineffective at both its aims - too squeamish to win the war, but not humanitarian enough to call it off, hence the absurdity we saw earlier in the movie, which as it drags on might actually inflict more suffering than clear-headed ruthlessness. And this contradiction was reflected in himself as he hated what he had become - it really seems to me you can read the way he just let himself get killed as him not wanting to live with what he was anymore. It is, depending on how you look at it, a critique of Hard Men Making Hard Decisions or of what I suppose you might call the Kindness Lie, or both.

Discuss plz

Edit: the funny thing, viewed from this perspective, is he's seen as completely crazy and beyond the pale, but he realized that what a grotesque he had become, but there's tons of people who follow the Hard Men Making Hard Decisions line who actually seem to kind of revel in it. But of course those people are generally just shooting their mouths off, not living the logical consequences of that philosophy. Which would seem to tie into this pretty well.

[thejester]

The only thing I disagree about is your use of ambiguous. I'd be staggered if there's any other convincing read on the character, and the film. Kurtz explicitly and repeatedly cites the hypocrisy and contradiction at the heart of Western constructions of war in the film, and the journey down the river reinforces this view. Killgore is the antithesis of Kurtz: he revels in the war and clearly dreads it ending, and will happily shoot up a village with a nice surf break under the pretext of hunting Charlie and transporting the PBR to the mouth of the river - but flips his shit when an ARVN violates an imagine code of honour by not giving a wounded VC a drink.

[Oxymoron]

@ Jung : That was pretty much my own interpretation as well. It's pretty obvious to me that Kurtz wanted his misery to end.

Because you're human, and humans aren't robots who can effectively operate among 'everyone is equal no matter what' lines in anything beyond a thought-exercise. I fully admit that if I were in a hostage scenario where I had to choose between the life of my fiance or that of an unknown stranger, I'd choose her in a second. If I had to choose between her life and my own, I'd choose hers in a second. Objectively speaking her life is more or less equal to anyone else's, including my own, but as a human with emotions and not a robot I place a ridiculous amount of value on her life and well-being.

True. But what I meant isn't "everyone is totally equal from my point of view". How to explain... This tie into the other thing I said, that for me nothing is "sacred". The way I see it, once something is said to be sacred, you can't change. It is labeled as the most good there can ever be. And if you're a good person you must protect it.

In a cult, be it religious or a cult of personality, you put someone in the place of being a sacred "object". You cannot criticize it, as it is the most good there can be. you cannot fight it, lest you'd be labeled as evil.

What I mean by treating everyone as equal, is that I refuse the notion that anyone could be put into such a position. That everyone will be judged by the same set of values than everyone else.

Everyone is not equal by their individual value in my eyes, but by the "balance" they are weighted with. That's what I meant.

[Oxymoron]

Mostly I'd say it's because it makes things easier. If someone is always right and worth listening to, it cuts down on a lot of decision making and analysis, as well as some measure of personal responsibility.

I didn't want to put it that way, but thanks for illustrating part of my malaise with cults.

[Oxymoron]

Anyway, happy First of May.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=aZ731aR_SBY

C’est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous et demain
L’Internationale
Sera le genre humain

Stand up, damned of the Earth
Stand up, prisoners of starvation
Reason thunders in its volcano
This is the eruption of the end.
Of the past let us make a clean slate
Enslaved masses, stand up, stand up.
The world is about to change its foundation
We are nothing, let us be all.
| This is the final struggle
Let us group together, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be the human race. |

There are no supreme saviours
Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribune.
Producers, let us save ourselves,
Decree the common salvation.
So that the thief expires,
So that the spirit be pulled from its prison,
Let us fan the forge ourselves
Strike the iron while it is hot.
| This is the final struggle
Let us group together, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be the human race. |

The State oppresses and the law cheats.
Tax bleeds the unfortunate.
No duty is imposed on the rich;
The rights of the poor is an empty phrase.
Enough languishing in custody!
Equality wants other laws:
No rights without duties, she says,
Equally, no duties without rights.
| This is the final struggle
Let us group together, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be the human race. |

Hideous in their apotheosis
The kings of the mine and of the rail.
Have they ever done anything other
Than steal work?
Inside the safeboxes of the gang,
What work had created melted.
By ordering that they give it back,
The people want only their due.
| This is the final struggle
Let us group together, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be the human race. |

The kings made us drunk with fumes,
Peace among us, war to the tyrants!
Let the armies go on strike,
Stocks in the air, and break ranks.
If they insist, these cannibals
On making heroes of us,
They will know soon that our bullets
Are for our own generals.
| This is the final struggle
Let us group together, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be the human race. |

Workers, peasants, we are
The great party of labourers.
The earth belongs only to men;
The idle will go to reside elsewhere.
How much of our flesh have they consumed?
But if these ravens, these vultures
Disappeared one of these days,
The sun will shine forever.
| This is the final struggle
Let us group together, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be the human race. |

[Dooey Jo]

or as the US government prefer you call it: loyalty day, americanization day, law day, kiss-a-capitalist day, or first amendment cage day.

[Civil War Man]

At least for me, transitioning from smugtheist into a healthier version of atheist involved going from not believing that gods existed to not caring whether gods existed.

[evilsoup]

I was raised an atheist (with the general assumption that there are no gods & also up the workers!), and only went through a very brief smugtheist phase in my mid-teens
I look at the hardcore smugthiest lot (mostly 'converts' from religious households AFAICT) with a certain sense of smug superiority
would you call that meta-smugness? IDK

[Aaron]

At least for me, transitioning from smugtheist into a healthier version of atheist involved going from not believing that gods existed to not caring whether gods existed.

Realizing I was an asshole for hassling people over the internet because of their religion, was a big one for me. Followed by realising I was wrong for essentially being an evangelical athiest.

[Ralin]

I would say it makes you a better one.

Wong said something similar, if I remember right.

[Shroom Man 777]

the angry atheist thang is a reaction to shitty experiences with religulons

[adr]

it seems to me that the biggest backlash is always from former believers. wanna hear the most reactionary capitalist speech of your life? find a former communist. wanna hear the most ridiculously wrong hatred of sailor moon ever? find a former moonie.

this is why I just never change my mind about anything. (well that and i'm always right the first time). helps keep me moar chillz lololololololol

[Civil War Man]

the angry atheist thang is a reaction to shitty experiences with religulons

This kind of angry atheist usually strikes me as something akin to the atheist caricature that shows up in movies where a character's beliefs are relevant to the plot. Their stance is not necessarily due to genuine disbelief, but because they are angry at the (usually Judeo-Christian) god that they claim to disbelieve.

There really are a lot of similarities between the evangelical atheist and evangelical everything else. If you reach the level of fervor required for evangelical to be an apt description, it's pretty much going to be the single defining characteristic of your personality, and anything or anyone who disagrees, or even fails to feel the same amount of enthusiasm, becomes an enemy.

[Oxymoron]

In unrelated news, I just finished watching Threads for the first (and I hope the last) time.

God in heaven.

I think I would rather kill myself in the first few days than have to live what follows.

[Oxymoron]

Just for my education, as you never know when those things might be useful...

What kind of commonly used drugs and / or chemicals could be used to permanently put someone to sleep with minimal pain ? Morphine isn't "commonly available" as far as I know.

[Dooey Jo]

I would think most angry athiests have had very few actual experiences with religions, and most of their "stupid fundie" stories stem from youtube comment battles (of course in the old days they would stem from forum excursions or newsgroups). Their anger, while surely not faked as such, is a way to ensure group cohesion, like in all other hilariously macho groups.

There are many parallels to internet's angry racist brigade, or the angry men's rights battalion. It's not surprising that there is also a fair amount of overlap between these groups.