Real quick this time because I think I’ve already made my point, but I just saw this and wanted to throw it out there. Here’s a clip that was made off of Atheist Experience and I think it has good points and bad points. So first, here’s the clip, located conveniently below the fold. It’s less than a minute. Take a look and I’ll see you when you’re done.
Now as stated, I absolutely agree with it. Trans people, gay people, heck, all people, if they want to report on their experience, that’s fine. I’m with you there. However, listen to the way that it’s stated because words matter.
He responds to the question that theists are making a statement about objective reality, something that I fully agree with him on. They aren’t just reporting what’s in their head. They aren’t just saying “it makes me happy to believe in a god!” They are saying that a god actually exists and, in an increasing number of cases these days, they are trying, desperately, to legislate their internal beliefs into an external reality.
But so too are the left.
It’s one thing if someone reports their internal feelings, that they are more comfortable thinking of themselves as a woman or a dog or a 500-foot long red dragon. I have no problem with that, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. However, that’s not what the left is doing. They are asserting that, just because person X says they FEEL like a woman, that somehow makes them an actual woman by every legal and often, every biological metric.
That’s not the case.
They are trying to pass laws that would prevent people from making trans or gay people feel bad about themselves. “You can’t misgender me!” Free speech, mother fucker. It’s in the Constitution. Yours isn’t. Fuck off.
You are welcome to call yourself anything you want, you are welcome to REQUEST that others play along. You are not welcome to coerce others, through force of law, to do what you want because otherwise, your pathetic fee-fees might get hurt.
Grow a spine.
It’s just another example of what they say vs. what they actually try to do. Now I’m not saying that Johnny does any of that personally, although I wouldn’t be surprised, but the left side of the aisle, especially the extreme end, most certainly does. In that, they are absolutely no different from the religious right who are trying to force their imaginary friend onto everyone else and try to get everyone else to play along.
Fuck ’em both. ’nuff said.
Extreme Left = Religious Right✔💯%❗
I know you know this already, I’m saying it for my own benefit: Feelings are real, but they aren’t necessarily reality. What you want to question is whether the thoughts you have around the feelings are based in reality. How do you do that? Take a look at the actual evidence or lack of evidence. — It is wise to remember that, as important as emotions are, feelings aren’t facts. Many things may produce an emotional response. We can’t confuse feelings with reality. When we speak about reality, we are referring to that which we can objectively, demonstrably show.
I know they’re real, but if someone is focused entirely on their feelings and not remotely on reality, then they’ve got problems. Being overly-emotional is every bit as bad as being under-emotional. People need to be in control of their own heads and far too many people just aren’t. I’m going to post another example of this in just a second, something that has nothing at all to do with religion or politics. It is a problem. Far too many people refuse to acknowledge it. It’s why we’re in the complete disaster that we’re in.
💯%✔ If we, as the religious and even psychotherapists tell us, drop down out of our heads into our hearts (whatever that means); if we think with our heart (whatever that means), how do we keep our maps of reality grounded as to make important life decisions❓
Claims that arise out of faith are assertions of truth about the world. But faith is the perfect system for protecting claims that turn out to be false.
Evidence seems the only way to differentiate between faith claims, because all claims are true by faith. Faith “proves” anything and everything. Only evidence that scales with the claims (more extraordinary evidence needed for more extraordinary claims) can differentiate between them.
As you said in The Fallacy of Faith above, “How many theists have you talked to that could communicate in a rational, evidence-based way about their beliefs? “
I was just having that discussion with someone today who said that people had no control over what they believed. While that might be true, you believe what you have been convinced of and you can become convinced for bad reasons, you absolutely do have control over your own epistemology. You control how you choose to look at the world. You can choose to follow the evidence and care if your beliefs factually reflect the real world, or you can choose to embrace faith and believe whatever strokes your emotional boat. That is a choice.
They said “well, not everyone is as educated or intelligent as you are.” Whose fault is that? Saying “I’m too stupid to know better” isn’t a good excuse. Get smarter. Get educated. Learn about the real world. If you have access to the Internet, you have no excuses. It’s all there, you just have to look at it. I have no clue what the next exchange will be, but it’s sad how many people are just looking for excuses to be idiots. We need to hold people to higher standards and not let them sink into stupidity. It’s really pathetic how many people are willing to do that.
re: you absolutely do have control over your own epistemology. ✔💯%❗
re: I’m too stupid to know better” isn’t a good excuse. Get smarter. Get educated. ✔💯%❗
re: it’s sad how many people are just looking for excuses to be idiots. ✔💯%❗
People are afraid and weak and superstitious. There’s not much to us and the world is really hard hitting but the less reality based your map of the world is, the harder it’s gonna be on you to make good decisions.
Being a critical thinker starts with resisting the urge to be a pleaser -very hard for many, especially women. We know intellectually that confronting an issue is the only way to resolve it. But any resolution will disrupt the status quo. Given the choice between conflict and change on the one hand, and inertia on the other, the ostrich position can seem very attractive short term.
Overall, people are about twice as likely to seek information that supports their own point of view as they are to consider an opposing idea. Because it takes less brain power to believe than to doubt, we are, when tired or distracted, gullible. Because we are all biased, and biases are quick and effortless, exhaustion makes us favor the information we know and are comfortable with.
We’re too tired to do the heavier lifting of examining new or contradictory information, so we fall back on our biases, the opinions and the people we already trust. -Not good long term.
The problem is the people, not the reality and it’s time we stopped catering to people’s stupidity and started calling them out on it. It’s the only coherent way forward. I’m going to write another post in the next day or so that’s going to piss people off because it’s not catering to their fee-fees. Too bad. People need to have a brain. I get a lot of people saying “but people can’t do that!” Sure they can! Won’t isn’t the same thing as can’t. Refusal to deal with the world as it demonstrably is, that’s a choice, not a requirement. We’re never going to get anywhere if we keep going with people’s fee-fees and stop caring about the facts, yet that’s how the political extremes both operate. Both sides want to pander to the stupidest members of society because it gets them political and social power.
Can we say enough is enough please?
re: Both sides want to pander to the stupidest members of society because it gets them political and social power.✔💯%❗
Society gets the behaviors it rewards. As long as society rewards these behaviors -no lasting change.
The things that get rewarded get done. This may sound simplistic, but only a small percentage of societies apply it.
re: TRANSFORMERS AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING
re: “Don’t tell me you haven’t understood this for yourself. It’s not about having the most rationally defensible position that you can, based on the best evidence you have available. It’s about lying to people for power. ”
It’s about lying to people for power.✔💯%❗
-Just like religion. BUT, people must love the lies because they will give power and money to those that lie to them. Society gets the behaviors it rewards.
re: “More than 20% of Gen-Z now identifies as LGBT-LMNOP. Why? Because it gains them social acceptance.”✔💯%❗
Res ipsa loquitur! “The thing speaks for itself.” Society gets the behaviors it rewards. Society rewards negligence/no personal responsibility, it gets negligence/no personal responsibility.
re: “. . .trans people, non-binary people, gay people, they all get treated like they’re special in leftist social circles.”
Again, society gets the behaviors it rewards. As long as society rewards these behaviors -no lasting change.
The things that get rewarded get done.
We know why it’s done. That doesn’t mean it ought to be done that way. It only works that way because people are easily manipulated and stupid. Maybe it’s time we, as a species, knocked that off.
✔True. People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.