Feelings... Nothing More Than Feelings

It used to be that if you asked people to list places they'd like to travel, it was all but certain that a huge percentage of people would include Paris on the list.  Well, France in general has a reputation for being one of the great bastions of culture, philosophy, art, literature, and heck, gastronomy for that matter.  In days past, it was the hub for the likes of Sartre, Dali, Camus, Hemingway, Picasso, Beauvoir, and god knows who else.  Maybe that's why it was targeted last week -- cultural beacons that aren't advancing some morally bankrupt vision of backwards disgrace unto humanity are the single greatest enemy of religion.  For any religious fundamentalist, moral, intellectual, and social regression of mankind into a condition of universal detriment is the greatest possible good.

Aamir Khan recently met with backlash, as usual, for the crime of opening his mouth and saying things people didn't want to hear.  He brought up a sense that there was an atmosphere of growing intolerance in India...  Sure enough, he brought up a wide array of details and elaborated on the matter, but do you think a single person heard that?  Everywhere it was about taking it personally as if Aamir was somehow making a blanket statement.  How dare you spout an unpleasant truth, Aamir?  The boycotts and such, just as he saw from the furor over PK and/or the threats around Satyamev Jayate before only betray an abject lack of self-awareness when people shout -- "We're so not intolerant that we won't tolerate you saying anything bad about us!"  It was especially hilarious to see some other defenses like those who argued "If we're so intolerant, what about ISIS?"  That is a pouting child defending his transgressions by saying "That other kid down the street is worse, so that makes me awesome by default."

Then of course, you've got the Republican talking heads who, as a rule, spread lies in the course of their discourse about Planned Parenthood and promote more guns as the answer to gun problems, and are suddenly shocked that a Planned Parenthood gets attacked.  Naturally, they want to say "I didn't do anything"...  Never mind the outright falsehoods we spouted...  Never mind the propaganda of antipathy towards Planned Parenthood...  Never mind the bending over backwards for gun lobbyists...  People are responsible for how they're influenced by our rhetoric!  It's so unfair to blame the political demagogues who didn't do anything other than double down on fallacious bullshit!

Playing "God's Advocate"

One of the arguments I have been faced with is the notion that to be as much of a dogged rationalist as I aspire to be, one must be prepared to take the position of the adversary in a rational way as well.  So a challenge came forth to me to put out the most rational and thorough argument I can make in favor of religion and faith in general.  As much as it might give me pause to support religion in general, I still have to say that this makes for an interesting intellectual exercise, so I'm actually quite pleased to go through it.  And indeed, the one who dared challenge me to do so is fair in doing so, but simultaneously expects me to fail.

I will say, at least, that this cannot possibly consist of any arguments for the truth of a religious belief system.  Such arguments cannot possibly be made while still maintaining full intellectual honesty.  Rather, this would consist of arguments that posit that religion is, at least on some level, a positive thing.  A large part of this is going to rely less on intrinsic qualities of religion and more to do with human nature and the practical outcomes that connect these two.  Furthermore, I am leaving out such arguments as the ways in which religion has molded the fine arts (something I've mentioned in the past with respect to music) or the way it served humanity in ancient times -- these, I would consider elements that outline historical value, which although passable, are not entirely relevant in a qualitative way today.  I will refer to these as examples, but only in reference to a larger point. After all, this is supposed to be about the idea that religion is, not was, a positive force.

So you can go check outside your window for flying pigs, and then proceed below the jump.

DRM -- Prices and Values

So since I'd already done one post recently as a result of my former game development history, I figured I'd touch on one topic in gaming which is causing a lot of buzz right now, especially in the wake of E3.  This is regarding the respective DRM outlays that Microsoft and Sony are taking on their new consoles -- XboxOne and Playstation 4 respectively.

Looking at Microsoft's vs. Sony's respective press conferences at E3 earlier this week, I think anybody would say that Microsoft gave the better presentation out of the part.  Sony's was actually kind of dull but for a few moments, but then the DRM announcement came and all of a sudden, there was thunderous applause.  End result, people came out of the conference with 94% preferring Sony's console to Microsoft's, at least according to Amazon's survey.  This is far too strong of a bias to be explained away by fanboyism or sample bias, especially considering that prior to E3, Amazon was seeing pre-orders for the two consoles running a dead heat.  So clearly, DRM is one of those things that presents a serious issue for consumers.  But it also presents an issue for developers and publishers.

That said, there's a lot of information out there that demands culling and correction.

In Where I Throw My Hat in the Ring...

I'd largely been avoiding this whole drama with Thunderf00t and his recent outlashes against feminists, most of which got him kicked off of Freethoughtblogs.  Main reason I was avoiding it is because it's something of a childish battle with both sides being partially right, and neither side having the maturity to own up to that reality.  Recently, however, one of the fields in which it had taken a turn was in regards to video games.  As a former game developer myself, I've seen all sorts, and it's hard for me to say I have never had any skin in that game.

Well, there's little doubt that the gaming community is filled with its abject lack of maturity, or at least it seems that way.  It's more accurate that the "mature" gamers are also the ones who tend to keep their mouths shut, so of course, it seems like the crowd is made up almost entirely of idiots.  But I think you can say the same thing about almost any online community,  so you've got a bit of a serious sampling bias here.  And the problem with all the people who have a problem with it is simply that they don't acknowledge that bias or look any deeper...  making them ultimately come off every bit as stupid as the communities they impugn.

In the Name of Balance...

You are currently watching a news program.  The anchor is talking to a scientist about how positively absurd the whole end-of-the-world bullcrap.  The scientist's counterpart in the discussion is one of the Doomsday believers who argues that the Mayan long count calendar ends on December 21, 2012.  Did you also know that the Gregorian calendar comes to an "end" on December 31, 2012?  Of course, there's also the talk about how the sun, the Earth, and the center of the Milky Way all come into alignment on December 21, 2012.  Of course, the scientist points out that also happened on Dec. 21, 2011, and in 2010, 2009, 2008 and so on...  because that happens every year on the Winter Solstice (and the "perfect" alignment people talk about happened in the '90s).  Moreover, there's nothing anywhere in cosmology that indicates that anything could ever possibly happen simply because of that.  Then the doomsday believer points out that it fits with the Bible and the return of Jesus...  which of course, it doesn't, since the Bible says it should have already happened within the lifetimes of the apostles.  Then of course, the nutbar doomsday freak alludes to the idea that "Hinduism" predicts the end of Kali Yuga in 2012...  uuuhhhh...  no, it doesn't.  Where the hell did anybody get the idea that there is such specificity in any Hindu text?  If anything, dates are the sort of thing Hindu texts are least specific about.  In any case, the scientist, who can't really be expected to be an expert in every culture on earth can at least offer the most obvious objection that those are unfounded claims -- most likely fabrications simply to ride the popularity wave of the 2012 bullshit-mania, and not even a real genuine coincidence.  But even if they were, that would have no impact on the fact that the evidence shows nothing.  In the end, no one really listened to anyone, and the show ran out of time for the segment leaving the whole issue "unresolved" as it were, and simply moves on to something else.

Does anything about this strike you as wrong?  The description probably sounded plausible for a news program, but that's not quite where the problem lies...

How about the fact that there is even a dialogue on the topic in the first place?