I, personally, think that religion is just another form of tribalism, and besides the just-so stories, the routine misogyny and xenophobia and discouragement of intellect, is simply outmoded for the global society we live in.
Islam works for such a situation, but I can’t accept the wars and physical punishments it requires for even the slightest deviation from doctrine that it enforces.
I’d rather live in a world of no rules and law than a world of totalitarian rule and law enforced by the flaying of hands and whipping.
As far as I can tell, religion enforces fear, and such a philosophy only serves the gutless cowards. And if there’s one thing in this world I hate, its those whose personal fears are motivation to rule the innocent who have nothing to fear but the violent of the fearful cowards.
I hear you. Essentially, we agree. Do I recognize the obsolescence of religion in a modern context? Yes. Absolutely. However, I don’t fault people their coping mechanisms. Besides, arguing with religious people is fun. If we were all athiests and agnostics, I’d have to find a new hobby.
I think we agree generally. It’s just that I’d rather argue with people about stuff that actually matters, rather than stuff that is obviously bullshit if you spend a year reading the bible or whatever “holy” book without the assumption that whatever it says is true and/or valuable/relevant /meaningful.
I judge people for their coping mechanisms, but I try (and fail pretty often) not to label otherwise intellectually normal people who choose to abdicate moral responsibility to an ideology they simply don’t understand and have little familiarity with. Those who understand and have rejected decency are fair game for endless ridicule and sometimes even hatred as far as I’m concerned.
It sounds to me more like you have contempt for certain parasitic doctrines. Do you find that religion as general process is somehow inseparable from those doctrines? When you make it so completely general, it reminds me some arguments I have heard from friends and family about “avoiding all politics”, which gets tricky to pull off. And I say that as somebody who is more anti-politics than most, even. Can/should people get rid of politics similarly because some of them have been thoroughly evil and an affront to human dignity? It can be argued that all life has political aspects to it, so that redefining its boundaries to hasten its demise would involve putting semantic blinders upon one’s self. Instead of saying that a kind of system is only as good or bad as one chooses to make it, we give up agency by insisting that it can only be perceived or used in specific ways.
This can involve defining the concept itself as embodying what you hate, so that you can excuse whatever reactions against it you experience. This sounds zealous, but the strong reaction allows it to subtly define you. “He who fights too long against dragons”, and such. Much of your thinking now might be functionally similar to what is “religious” to someone else, with the main difference being your striving to avoid defining it and yourself that way to reenforce your narrative.
I would be doing that if I weren’t feeling exhausted all the time from ceased taking a shitload of psychostimulants for the last ten years in large doses and replacing them with drugs like modafinil and a good diet and exercise.
I used to use Modafinil. At first I thought it was very useful and fun for days when I was forced to deal with minimal sleep (1-2 hours). But over the span of a couple years, it became both a bit less effective, and leaving me feeling more strung out. I don’t have any now, but if I did I’d use it only in dire emergencies where I needed to be awake during the daytime. I feel gross even thinking about the stuff now.
If that’s your assessment of modafinil, I’d be apprehensive to hear your opinion of the drug I used for the last ten years missing only 3-4 doses during that period) methylphenidate. It’s essentially 8 hours of constant-release cocaine.
I got to wondering if the name Felicia (or Felisha) dropped in popularity as a baby name after the movie Friday came out in 1995. Here’s what I came up with. I’m no statistician, but it looks to me like it did (although the name was already gradually losing ground before 1995):
From ssa.gov – top 1000 most popular baby names by birth year and rank.
1989 111 (felicia, and felisha at 693)
1990 121 (felica, and felisha at 774)
1991 121 (felicia, and felisha at 792)
1992 146 (felicia, and felisha at 827)
1993 159 (felicia, and felisha at 887)
1994 181 (felisha disappears as a spelling from 1994 on)
1995 211
1996 264
1997 347
1998 377
1999 417
2000 484
2001 554
2002 579
2003 689
2004 878
2005 988
2006 to 2014 (Felicia no longer in top 1000)
Let’s start a thread about legal racetams some time. But it may be a skooch off topic for a thread about bibly class. (Also, @popobawa4u good tea is fantastic).
Did I mention I am both an Internet minister as well as the church of our noodly overlords? I can conduct your marriage in i think 45 states.
