Shit that Pissed me off – 6/5
There’s a New Kids’ Book About Hell
If you believe in hell, you don’t want your kids to go there. I understand that on a basic level.
Yet, when someone makes a book that is meant to scare kids into believing in god, I feel as if they need to question their fundamental beliefs.
Actually, this kind of looks like something from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Maybe it’s cooler than I thought.
They make god out to be a weak and petty tyrant. A tyrant who will punish kids for all eternity because two people ate a fruit they weren’t supposed to eat. Maybe it was an apple. Maybe it was a pomegranate. Maybe it was a tomato. Because tomatoes are a fruit.
Hell is a horror story. Most kids don’t respond well to horror stories. This book is intended to create faith through fear. I guess I feel god shouldn’t need to scare kids into believing.
What if Darwin Presumes that God Speaks to Him?
I never really believed in god.
What I mean by that is I never believed in god as he was presented to me in Sunday school. My logical brain couldn’t reconcile the inconsistencies of an all loving god all-knowing god who held his own creation responsible for being imperfect.
What became very clear to me was god existed as an authority figure to lend support to the beliefs of the person speaking for him. If you believe that homosexuality is wrong, you don’t have to be the bad guy. It isn’t you – it’s god.
And because you are using an unquestionable authority, you can get other people to believe as you do. You didn’t convince them. God convinced them.
The idea of theism alone isn’t a damaging concept. If you want to believe that something created the universe, you aren’t hurting anyone.
When you work to convince people you know what that being is thinking, I think you can begin to do harm.
In the debate over same-sex marriage, there are people of all faiths who think it is right and people of all faiths who think it is wrong. They are both using the ultimate authority of god to support their claim.
But what if none of them knows what god thinks? What if no-one has a direct line to heaven? What if we need to figure this stuff out for ourselves without an authority who cannot be questioned?
Shit that Pissed me off – 2/6
A Totally Insane Video By a Gamergater
Brianna Wu is a frequent target of Gamergate supporters because she, rightly, thinks they are idiots. They have countered with death threats because that’s proven to be the most effective way to fight for ethics in game journalism.
This kook had an accident because he was driving too fast in slippery conditions. Somehow, he seems to think that Wu had something to do with the fact that he can’t drive and has decided that she tried to kill him.
That’s right – all ice storms are plots to kill members of Gamergate
Because he seems like a really important guy. The kind of guy who it would be important to kill by magically summoning up an ice storm and making him forget how to drive.
Or maybe Wu was his driving instructor and she did a really shitty job.
This video is made by a crazy person and the only thing that bothers me more than the crazy person is the ones that take him seriously.
Shit That Pissed me Off – 10/10
Judge Forces Mom Change Her Son’s Name Because She Was Incapable of Making a Rational Decision
An appeals court had to overturn this idiotic ruling so I guess sometimes the judicial system works. Eventually.
If we are to believe this “irrational” mother’s story, she chose to give her child her own last name after the father abused her during the pregnancy. The judge in the case felt that she just wasn’t in the right mind to make that sort of decision and, I guess, thought it would case harm to the child if the child didn’t have his father’s last name.
I’ll bet the judge would have ruled differently if the father’s last name was HITLER!!!
An appeals court saw it differently and apparently felt the judge in the case was far more irrational than the mother.
This last name thing is problematic to begin with. I like my last name so when I got married, I kept it. That’s totally fine because I’m a dude and nobody questions when a man wants to keep his name.
Nobody questions when parents given their child the father’s last name.
But if a woman wants to keep her last name or give her last name to a child, well then it is time to take the case to court, I guess.
It’s a double standard. And a stupid one.
Grail Diary 