What is Hate? Baby Don’t Hurt Me!

OK, so I’ve been accused of “committing hate” by another Xangan and I just want to take this opportunity to clear something up: I don’t hate anybody. I told this Xangan that I would create a post for them to showcase my hatred because it was, at the time, muddying up someone else’s perfectly good blog with a bunch of nonsense. Here it is, in all its glory!

Hatred is a very strong word that carries implications far exceeding displeasure or dislike. Honestly, if you just dislike something or someone you should just use the word “dislike.” Hatred should be reserved for those things you wish to destroy. Like, literally obliterate, never to be seen or heard of again. I can’t think of a single thing I want to completely destroy. I’m guilty of disliking a bunch of things. Actually, I’ve become quite curmudgeonly lately and there are probably more things I dislike than like.

So let’s examine some reasons why I might be accused of hatred:

  1. I’m an atheist.
  2. I’m not a liberal.
  3. I think Glenn Beck is a sensationalist idiot.
  4. I called someone a troll.

Now, let’s break these down and see just what kind of hatred I’m bandying about.

1. I’m an atheist.
Actually, this is almost too stupid an accusation to address. However, since it is the opinion of this other Xangan that atheists – by definition – are filled with hatred I suppose I have to explain. I don’t hate Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Pastafarians, Rastafarians, Buddhists, Jews, Baha’i, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, or Scientologists. I typically don’t even dislike them, though I make exceptions for the more abrasive members of all religions. I simply have a fundamental disagreement as to the truth of their claims regarding the supernatural and the unprovable/unfalsifiable. I speak out against what I view to be falsehood and/or dangerous ideas and sometimes I get riled up when I see that the effects of these ideas are causing people harm. Far from hatred, that shows a love for my fellow human beings who are being harmed. What I dislike about religion is its pervasive nature and the weaseling of religious ideas and “values” into every aspect of our lives whether or not they’re welcome. I don’t go knocking on people’s doors at dinner time to spread my hateful atheist message. I wouldn’t mind if people just stopped believing in gods and I try to tell people why, but I’ve never hatefully tried to force someone not to believe.

2. I’m not a liberal.
I was accused of being a liberal by the same person who says I resort to calling names. This, in itself, wouldn’t be a big deal even though it’s false. Some of my views are liberal; others are conservative. I consider myself a moderate and I am absolutely in no way affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties. However, since we have to consider the source of the accusation I think it’s fair to say that this was a definitive insult. The person accusing me of being a liberal holds the view that liberals are destroying this country, want a socialist state, like to bitch about their rights being taken away while lobbying for others’ rights to disappear, continually whine about things not being fair, would like nothing more than to see all Christians tarred and feathered, and don’t know their asses from their elbows. If I’ve missed anything, I’m sure this person will correct me. That being said, how would I see the accusation of being a liberal as anything other than a blatant insult? Maybe I’m just too liberal and being a whiner.

3. I think Glenn Beck is a sensationalist idiot.
Yeah, I really do. That doesn’t, however, mean that I hate him. If I were to meet him I’m quite sure I could have a civil conversation with him…until he calls me a socialist Nazi or whatever. He and I obviously disagree on nearly every issue (except he also thinks Birthers are distracting people from real issues) but that doesn’t indicate hate. I’m pretty sure he’s wrong about most things and that he probably doesn’t even believe a lot of what he says. That doesn’t indicate anything except that we’re two different people with different backgrounds and different philosophies. Big deal.

4. I called someone a troll.
This is damning. Well, it might be damning…or not. Calling someone a troll is not akin to telling them you hate them. In fact, sometimes trolls are very entertaining! On the Internet, a set of irritating behaviors displayed with consistency will normally get you labeled a troll. For instance, when someone comments on your blog posts in opposition (not a crime) and continually redirects the comments to slightly different topics (annoying) while refusing to answer direct questions in rebuttal (dishonest) and eventually claiming persecution (trollish), I’d call that person a troll. It has no bearing on my feelings for that person. It also doesn’t indicate that I think the person is ugly or stinky because I’m not calling them a literal troll, I’m calling them an Internet troll. There’s a difference, just so you know. Yeah, I realize that this post is sort of feeding the troll, but I’m bored.


This is a real troll.


This is an Internet troll.

In fact, let’s get something straight: people on the Internet are not important enough to me to have any real strong feelings toward or against.

Quit flattering yourself and thinking you’re important enough for me to hate. You’re not. At the very most (and this might even be a stretch) you annoy me. At the very least you amuse me and help my day go by more quickly. So there you go, I don’t hate you or anyone else. I’ve not “committed hatred” (whatever that means) and life goes on.

“True” Tolerance

A lot of people have probably already seen the Focus on the Family’s new Web site, truetolerance.org. This site appears to be a response to public schools’ anti-bullying programs where children are presented with the idea that different lifestyles are not evil. The way they present the information, it’s positioned as though implementing anti-bullying laws against sexual orientation is exactly identical in every way to not-so-subtly suggesting that everybody should choose that sexual orientation. They’re trying to turn kids gay!

Concerned about homosexual advocacy in your child’s school? You’ve come to the right place. TrueTolerance.org helps you respond in a loving and fact-based way. Click the links below for tips on communicating with your school officials.

Check out this PDF!


Teh gayz iz infexus!

In the video on the front page the woman explains that in some classes they even present sexually graphic material to the children. Now, I’m not personally involved in the school systems but I have to seriously doubt the veracity of this statement – unless the “sexually graphic” material being presented is akin to the “sexually graphic” content of sex ed classes. In that case, I’d suspect that it’s presented in a clinical manner to educate, not to indoctrinate. I have a hard time believing that our schools are trying their damnedest to convert the entire school to homosexuality. What would be the point??


Welcome to sex ed, m’kay?

I ran into a similar argument when I was talking to my father some time ago about homosexuality. He told me that homosexuals are recruiting and that they try to get kids as young as possible so they can mold them and turn them gay. I was appalled and felt nauseated. All I could do is tell him that I knew nothing of any homosexual recruiting campaign. I added that since his religion pretty much perfected and perpetuates this sort of tactic, he’s really just projecting. I mean, apart from the church(es), what group of people can you name who starts indoctrinating children straight out of the womb?


Get ’em while they’re young!

Anyway, Focus on the Family sickens me to no end. My parents idolize James Dobson and his hate-filled views on the world, transparently disguised as “family values.” They want to retain their rights to persecute and marginalize groups of people and are attempting to organize their lackeys to petition school districts and governmental representatives with their boilerplate e-mails and “educational materials” so that these anti-bullying laws will be repealed. Just what, do you suppose, Jesus would freaking do?!

You Can’t See My Balls

There are two men standing in front of you. One is holding a basketball and the other with just open, outstretched arms. The man with the basketball shows you the ball, describes its color and its size and how its shape and hardness change if you add or remove air using a pump (which he also shows you). He dribbles the ball, takes a couple of shots, and then sits down.

The other guy stands up and tells you he also has a basketball but you can’t sense it in any way and no tests you perform will ever reveal the kind of ball that the other man is showing you. He insists, however, that he has one and that it is, in fact, a basketball. He “dribbles” the ball and makes a couple of “shots” which he insists swished – nothing but net! Then he sits down.

basketball

As a theist/creationist you are choosing to believe the guy with empty hands. Sure, he can’t prove he has a ball but he is really nice, seems really skilled with his basketball, and he said it will make you feel happy if you believe him. Further, he promises that if you continue to believe him you’ll have a basketball just like his someday – but he can’t tell you when.

Let’s think about this for a second. In what area of your life, outside of religion, would you willingly accept this kind of scenario? Under what other circumstances could a person convince you to go completely against your senses and your experience of reality like this? You’re probably finding it difficult to come up with something and I don’t blame you. It’s typical for a believer to compartmentalize and show an unusually high degree of skepticism toward everything except their beliefs. Maybe that’s something on which we should work, yes?

I don’t know about you, but I chose to play basketball with real basketballs and it’s been a more enjoyable game.

Credit for concept goes to “speedjunkie13” from Gixxer.com. Used with permission.

Rampant Misunderstanding of Evolution

Look, I’m no scientist. I don’t even claim to be smarter than a lot of people. But when some Internet creationist retard comes up with a line like this, it only serves to make me feel like I’m at least smarter than one more person on the planet.

Very simple. Since you “scientists” claim that evolution is a continual, gradual process, where are the ‘tweeners?

Chimps that can talk (besides you)?
Gorillas that have built split-level ranch houses?
Monkeys that can fashion and use a bow-and-arrow?

Show me any of these, and you will have convinced me….


Evulooshin

Talk about impressive ignorance wrapped up into one tidy little package! What makes me mad is that people like this – and there are a lot of them – don’t even care enough to know what the claims of evolution are, let alone whether these would be valid. To them, the statement above represents wholesale their complete understanding of the Theory of Evolution, period. We came from monkeys. My response:

Evolution does not, in any way, make the claim that humans are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process. Therefore, it’s stupid to assume that the next step for chimps would be building condos or talking on cell phones. It’s also stupid because you seem to still be under the misguided impression that humans came from apes. They didn’t, and evolution will never tell you they did.


I’m sorry, this is just funny.

I’m really tired of dealing with stupid bastards and their “my beliefs are right no matter what and I’m not going to listen to you if you say otherwise” attitude! These are the same people pushing for efforts to keep all of our nation’s school children as stupid as they are by voting in creotards to office. Like this guy who, after posting a huge, blinding wall of text, posted this:

ill apologize for my grammar ahead of all the dumb “your grammar sucks” jokes. it was most certainly not my best subject in school and quite boring.

Well, duh! In addition, since it’s clear grammar was too taxing on your ignorant little brain there’s no hope on my part that you would ever come to even the most rudimentary understanding of how anything in the world works, let alone evolution! No, we wouldn’t want to pay attention in school now, would we? We might actually start to…gasp…THINK! And, look, I don’t like to talk about politics so I usually don’t but does it surprise anyone that these morons proclaim from the mountaintops that they’re proud Conservative Republicans and worship Ronald Reagan? I mean, really. Does it?

Wake up, you ridiculous imbeciles! Stop making our country so damned stupid!

Proud to be American? Pssht!

[EDIT] I timestamped this because I added an awesome picture of O’Reilly explaining the Beck situation at the bottom. Scroll down, pinheads!

Glenn Beck’s show is going away. For most reasonably intelligent people this would be a “who cares” kind of moment. However, seeing the poll on the NY Times story, I can’t help but lose that much more faith in America. An overwhelming majority of idiots Americans are sad that Beck is leaving Fox.

Beck compares himself to Paul Revere in a completely inane, nonsense comment about how Revere didn’t want to make a career out of riding his horse and yelling about lobsterbacks. Glenn Beck, the true patriot:

“When I took this job I didn’t take it because it was going to be a career for me,” Beck said.

“Paul Revere did not get up on the horse and say, ‘I’m going to do this for the rest of my life.’ He didn’t do it. He got off the horse at some point and fought in the Revolution, and then he went back to silversmithing.”

And this guy has a huge audience (his show was 3rd in the rankings) that thinks he was insightful and smart? I’m moving to the moon.

So…I Wrote a Review of the Bible…

…back in March of last year on Goodreads. While my underlying point holds true – that basing your world view and morality off of the Bible is dangerous – I think I would write it differently now. I’m not entirely happy with the wording I used.

On a whim, I read through the comments on the review again and there was some good information presented as well as some ignorant crap. For instance:

message 21: by Redneck – rated it 5 stars “What in the world is going through that little mind of yours? I recomend that you read it again with the perspective that God created you and that what you write on as your “reveiw” (more like a smack on the face to God and anyone who considers themselfs christain) can offend someone.”

This kind of sums up my general experience with religious people. Yes, I called it fiction. Yes, I said it was full of nonsense. But then, so is this person’s comment. And the grammatically-incorrect typo generator says I have a little mind? That’s a laugh.

Anyone who knows me knows that when I originally read the Bible from beginning to end I did have the perspective that god created me. I considered myself a Christian and thought I had a relationship with Jesus. It was only after reading through the Bible with my family that doubts started seeping into my mind and I began to question my beliefs. It was precisely the nonsense in the Bible that got me to the point of thinking critically about what I had been taught.

Second, even if I were to go back and read the Bible again right now I’d never be able to force myself into the perspective that god created me and that the book I’m reading is his authoritative, factual word. Try forcing yourself to believe that there’s a ninja creeping up behind you right now. Do it! You can’t, can you? That’s OK, neither can I. There are some things you just can’t make yourself believe no matter how much you’d like to. For me, god is one of those things.

So yes, I think the Bible is fiction. Yes, I think it’s full of nonsense. No, you don’t have to be offended by my opinion because nothing I say has to have an effect on what you believe. It’s a book review, get over it.