Unfortunate Religious Connotations
August 12, 2011 By
I was listening to a new band called Sleeping Bag on Rdio. They had a song that had some religious references in it. In particular:
I’m not that kind of Christian
No I’m not that kind of a Lutheren
It’s not that type of a question.
I’m not that kind of a Christian.
That made me curious, so I looked at their label. It was curiously called Joyful Noise Recordings. I thought, surely they must be a Christian label – something similar to Tooth and Nail. After looking around their site, it seemed if they were a Christian label, they were doing a good job of hiding it.
I finally stumbled upon a link on their About page that enlightened me to their stance on religion. It was a link to Unfortunate Religious Connotations. It was a very simple WordPress site with only one blog entry. The entry, “On the name Joyful Noise”, explained the label’s position on its name and their relationship to religion/faith. The entry was very respectful and thoughtful, and concluded that they were in no way religious, but certainly wouldn’t be against taking on a religious group.
I would not shy away from working with a religious band, provided that they were artistically honest and aesthetically on par.
However, the reality of such a possibility came with this amazing caveat at the end of the entry.
We simply strive to be honest with our religious beliefs (which means we are basically agnostic), and we would be happy releasing an inventive Christian group alongside of Montreal’s genital draining fuckfests.
While they are certainly taking what I consider to be a high road, there’s a part of me that entertains the idea of purposefully using religious connotations in the use of organizations and movements that are not religious in nature. Mainly to show that good and morality are not exclusively held by those who are religious. Of course, there’s also the reality for some that religion is void of good and morality, but that’s a completely different blog entry.
Michael Shermer interview with Mr. Deity
August 10, 2011 By
Mr. Deity interviews Michael Shermer, author of The Believing Brain. The conclusion from Mr. Deity is that he needs to make his creatures more gullible.
Psychologists spreading smartphone FUD
July 30, 2011 By
The Tennessean recently published an AP article entitled, Smartphone obsessions trouble psychologists (Evernote archive). The psychologists they interviewed are completely full of shit!
“Watching people who get their first smartphone, there’s a very quick progression from having a basic phone you don’t talk about to people who love their iPhone, name their phone and buy their phones outfits,” said Lisa Merlo, director of psychotherapy training at the University of Florida.
Anyone going from a RAZR to an iPhone is going to be enamored by it. They’re moving from a phone where the most they could do beyond calls was text using numbers, to a phone that can now play games and videos, provide a full keyboard for texting and emailing, and can be used as a GPS device in your car. Of course they’re going to love the phone! As for naming their phone, nobody does that. And if they do, who cares?!
…psychologists say the love of them is becoming more like an addiction, creating consequences that range from teenagers who communicate in three-letter acronyms like LOL and BRB to car accidents caused by people who text while driving.
Using shortened text and acronyms is not an addiction. As for car accidents caused by people who are texting, that has nothing to do with smartphones, and has everything to do with stupidity.
Merlo, a clinical psychologist, said she’s observed a number of behaviors among smartphone users that she labels “problematic.” Merlo says some patients pretend to talk on the phone or fiddle with apps to avoid eye contact or other interactions at a bar or a party. Others are so engrossed that they ignore people completely.
They are using their smartphone, because the information and interactions on the smartphone are far more interesting than the people in the room. Before the smartphone, a person would stare at the TV screen at the bar, needlessly check the time on their watch, stare at their drink, leave, or grin and bear with people who annoy the living shit out of them. When you look at it like that, the smartphone is the greatest device ever made!
“The more bells and whistles the phone has,” she says, “the more likely they are to get too attached.”
This is where the psychologist, Merlo, really gets it wrong. What is a smartphone really? A smartphone is a replacement for separate, antiquated and immobile devices. It consolidates all of those devices into one tiny, portable device. Some of the things it replaces are:
- Landline phone
- Desktop computer (for email, web browsing and e-commerce)
- Calendar
- Address Book
- Stereo coupled with CDs/Cassettes/Records
- Video game system
- Wallet
- Newspaper and Magazines
- Notepad
- Camera
- GPS devices
- Alarm Clock
Of course they’re going to become attached to it, but that’s because it just replaced 10+ things in their life.
It’s too bad that the psychologists interviewed in this article are so clueless. The entire piece reeks of self-motivated job security – creating and perpetuating problems that don’t actually exist for self gain. If you focus on any human behavior without considering the full context and history of its actions, it will almost always be troubling. However, it’s the job of a counseling psychologist to cut through the bullshit, not create it.
The word “addiction” was needlessly and unprofessionally misused in this article. The reality is that everyone has an addiction to something. It may be a concentrated addiction to one thing, or an addiction to many things (which subsequently helps mask it from a clinical perspective). Addiction in itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s only bad when it interferes with your ability to relate well to others, harms other people or yourself, causes you to lose your job or not pay your bills, etc… The person who chooses to pull out their smartphone at a party they don’t want to be at is not ruining their life with their so called addiction to smartphones. What they’re doing is making the best out of crappy situation that’s full of douchebags and blowhards.
The Norwegian bomber was a white Christian, so…
July 26, 2011 By
Ness Fraser does an excellent job of highlighting the inherent bias of our approach to terror.
The Norwegian bomber was a white Christian, so I guess that means we should have increased security checks at airports for anyone wearing a crucifix, should treat any Christian-looking person like a potential terrorist, and we should probably try to stop any Churches from being built around where the attacks took place ‘cuz like, it would be as if they were celebrating. OH WAIT…
Original screen capture from Facebook:
It’s gonna be, OK
July 17, 2011 By
I live in a neighborhood (just South of Nashville, TN) with a lot of evangelical Christians. This seemingly majority belief in my community is usually not a big deal. The only time it gets annoying is when leaders force a truly evangelical prayer onto the festivities – something that was done a few weeks ago at our neighborhood Fourth of July celebration. It’s completely inappropriate and insensitive to those who believe differently, but in the grand scheme of things it’s still not a big deal to me. For me it’s no different from having a leader thanking a Sun god or asking a blessing from ancestral spirits. It’s all just modern day mythology, and I’m just happy nobody is sacrificing a goat, or worse, a virgin.
While I tolerate the evangelical god-speak at community events and in neighborhood email newsletters, there is one thing that has me continually irritated, and that’s IGBOK. It irritates me, because it’s a patronizing statement based on a false hope.
It’s gonna be
The first part of IGBOK I agree with. At least they recognize what I would call the ineffectiveness of prayer.
God’s “o.k.” doesn’t mean that the cancer will be healed, the relationship fully restored, the physical pain or emotional ache will go away in this life.
However, the second part – the O.K. part – is based on delusional false hope. The hope that even if life is giant ball of shit, you will still spend a blissful eternity with God.
It means that because He has entered and overcome our brokenness…we can live this life with real hope — a hope that knows one day everything will be set right forever in the life to come.
Hope is the drug of choice for Christianity and many other religions. Similar to antidepressants, the false hope of life after death is meant to mask reality so you can better cope with your problems. All you have to do is believe.
Is religious hope a bad thing? I don’t have a good answer for that. If hope for a better afterlife helped keep my daughter from killing herself, or my son from living in despair now, then I would be more accepting of it, regardless of my own philosophical differences. That’s simply based on wanting my children to be happy and to thrive.
However, like most drugs, there are side effects. In order to sustain hope powered by religion, a person must fully immerse themselves into its religious dogma. That means a denial of what is rational and logical (from a scientific perspective), and buying into a worldview that perpetuates exclusion and hate onto other people in the name of love.
Philosophically, I think the only true statement that can be made is, “It’s gonna be.”
As I’ve written before, the idea that anyone can explain the existence of life, let alone what happens after we die, is greater than or equal to bullshit. For me, clinging to a mistruth during a time of grief is both living on false hope, and dishonest to your being.
If you take away all of the things that cannot be observed – the superstitious beliefs that have been passed down from generation to generation, and whose origins can only be attributed to human imagination and creativity – we are left with existentialism. There was a time when we didn’t exist, and now a time when we do exist. And like all living things, we will return to the same state as before we existed. There is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise, even though our survivalism mixed with higher reasoning would have us believe otherwise.
“It’s gonna be.” There’s nothing that comes after that, and that’s O.K.
When Should You Talk To Your Kids About Star Wars?
November 17, 2010 By
You’re watching Talking to Your Kids About Star Wars. See the Web’s top videos on AOL Video
10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong
September 6, 2010 By
- Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
- Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
- Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
- Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
- Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
- Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
- Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
- Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
- Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
- Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
Originally published on Craigslist
All Creative Work Builds On What Came Before
March 7, 2010 By
Question Copyright put together an intriguing video to highlight how all creative work builds on what came before it.
Irrational Disbelief Syndrome
February 14, 2010 By
The marketing agency for FiberOne has launched a clever campaign called Irrational Disbelief Syndrome. The advertising campaign is a mixture of clever, stupid, and the absurd, but it’s all of those things on purpose.
The premise is that their high fiber foods taste good and will help you lose weight. From the campaign’s perspective, that’s a fact, like gravity and the existence of bears. What’s interesting about the campaign is that they’re subtly attacking people with superstitious beliefs. The kind of beliefs that make the Creation Museum possible.
The opening video on their Web site begins with a fake doctor, named Dr. Taggert Bane. He sets the tone of the campaign by stating:
Irrational Disbelief Syndrome is when people are incapable of believing things that are universally understood to be true. Things like science, eggplants, and…
Believers who disbelieve in the logical, rational world around them, may end up protesting against this new marketing campaign, because it’s directly mimicking and making fun of them. However, I’m betting they don’t get it, in the same way they don’t believe “things that are universally understood to be true.”
