Splendid Elles

It’s probably one of the darkest truths I can admit to… I use to be a conservative. Back in my youthful days of elementary and middle school, I listened to people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and I ate up everything they said. I challenged my teachers on everything they said that I thought sounded too Liberal.

Most fearful of all, I have to admit that I had unquestioning faith in George W. Bush. I honestly never dared to criticise a single thing Bush ever said. Imagine being a bipedal version of the sheep in Animal Farm. I must have sounded like… “Conservatives good… Liberals bad… Conservatives good… Liberals bad… Bush is always right.”

Scary?

So now imagine how very refreshing disillusionment must feel. My disillusionment didn’t quite come as a sudden rush, but it feels like I’ve been taking a very deep breath of fresh air for the past three years.

It was around 7th grade that I began to think about philosophy. It was around 8th grade that I began to question everything, and developed a passion for what is true. That’s about the time when I decided that I no longer considered myself Conservative. I’d begun to be a freethinker, but I was still recovering from my past of listening to the likes of Sean Hannity. I still winced at liberal remarks unthinkingly when I first heard them, though when I thought about it, I agreed with them.

I think that one of the things that made my transition slowest was that I had a passionate objectivist, social darwinist, anti-socialism, anti-communism “friend”. But, I’d begun to wonder how it was possible for a person who thought that selfishness was the highest virtue to have friends. It became apparent to me that it was not. Now, I’m free from her paranoid ramblings about how Obama is a socialist, and how we found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I finally began to taste disillusionment.

Shortly after deciding that she was wrong afterall, I began reading The Audacity of Hope. I think that the reason why is now that I could see above the smoke-screen erected by my anti-socialist “friend”, I found that I could relate to Obama. He supports science, for one thing. The fact that he’s not an evolution denier puts him ahead of the majority of the people in this country. His father was an Atheist, so it feels like he can sympathize with us more. A lot of Atheists have been disputing whether or not he’s really an in-the-closet Atheist who really just talks about faith to get elected… I think that that’s just wishful thinking because we’ve gone for so long without having presidential races decided based on faith.

But to be entirely truthful, the reason why I had a sudden interest in Obama was because he was accused of being an ‘elitist’ so many times. He’s seen as out-of-touch by many because he uses words like “arugula” where the common man is familiar with “beer” (see the cover of Newsweek). People don’t feel like he shares the same past times as them, like bowling.

I think… I think that he is a victim of anti-intellectualism. I think that people are suspicious, hostile to him because… he’s different.

It’s because of my perception of this lack of acceptance that I feel that I can relate to him.

The parts that I’ve read of his book so far do make me want to believe in him. It would be nice if I could believe that he’s an honest politician (which I believe in about as much as I believe in the Yeti). But I don’t want to have faith in him.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve been avoiding endorsing politicans for so long. It feels like I have to have faith that they are the least bit honest. That part within me which causes me to want him to win, I feel, is based far more in pathos than in logos… and that worries me a bit.

So… I will end this musing, hoping that it will not be seen as exactly an endorsement but just as a musing. Expect my review of his book when you see it.

We went into Iraq for Weapons of Mass Destruction to bring freedom and democracy. Well, it has finally been achieved!!!

That is… if you ignore the honour killings…

Like a 17-year-old girl who was beaten to death by her own father for the wretched crime of being in love with a British soldier! The horror.

“You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws.“

-Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police

The feminist within me is kicking and screaming and wanting to throw dung hysterically.

The only reason why I wasn’t actively expressing my annoyance at the Iraq war before was because I agreed in part with Christopher Hitchens, and I was hoping that we might actually bring a bit of democracy to that country even after we’d invaded it for the wrong reasons. I was hoping some good might come out of it.

But, alas, we’ve kicked out one oppressive government and allowed the creation of a theocracy. Epic fail.

I’m pretty sure I’m straight. I dunno if that can change as you go through puberty… But anyway, I have several gay friends, two of whom came out last semester, and they are good people. They do not deserve to be treated the way they do.

Whenever a kid at school says “dude… that’s so gay!” I like to ask them if they mean “full of mirth”.

My friends, this video is not full of mirth.

Just felt like that needed to be shared.

When I wake up in the morning, my brain is like Spirit or Opportunity landing on Mars. Once the airbags of sleep deflate, my brain has to slowly, and mechanically unpack itself. Gears grind and motors run as panels open, things unfold, communications are attempted with the control center…

And so a few days ago, as my brain was going through this slow proccess, I stared blankly at a wall and listened passively to the television that was on in mum’s room which happened to have the morning news. I vaguely remember hearing something about Clinton and Obama, and I vaguely remember hearing about other stuff… But I am ashamed to admit that what I remember most from that morning broadcast was that… Brittany Spears was in the hospital again. Suddenly, I straightened my back and perked up.

Why was this on my local news? Haven’t they got better things to report on other than the personal problems of fallen pop stars?

I don’t even know if her name is spelled with an E… or two T’s… and I don’t care. I don’t want to know that she’s losing her mind, and I don’t see why anybody else would.

It’s not that I don’t care. Well, like I said, I don’t want to know, but I do feel an extreme, profound pity for Ms. Spears. I am embarassed to say that I know what I’m about to say, but she’s obviously had a viscious break up with this Kevin Federline guy (I’m proud to say that I don’t know what he’s done to become so famous), she’s lost her popularity, she’s lost her kids… and she’s losing her mind.

I don’t actively seek this information. I just know it because our society is so obsessed with celebrities, that even intellectual news organizations like NPR mentioned it (though in their defense, that’s because they were talking about a ballet that opened up in London about her life).

If this were happening to me, the least I would want would be some privacy. If I couldn’t have that I would want some sympathy… but we don’t even give that to her. Oh no…

Brittany Spears’ very name is a joke in itself now.

So why can’t we lay the hell off her personal problems? Why do we even give a damn?

Is it just this whole idea of hierarchy? I’m up here, Brittany’s down at the bottom, so that I can feel better about my shortcomings. All that Brittany Spears should really be known for is her music, but we know her for going mad… and I think, that to quite a great extent, it’s our fault that she’s losing her mind. Us and our oh-so-high expectations and constant attempts to erode away her privacy. Fame just wears people out.

But still… why?

Brittany is just a pop star… a fallen pop star… who has had some bad issues with her personal life.

Celebrity news isn’t.

Er… not really. But I think he has realised that there are Atheists in this country since he gave that ever so popular faith speech in which he called secularism a religion.

See, I ditched two periods of school and I went to see him speak today. Not that I really support him, I just wanted to go see him speak because the election is this year, I’m interested in who will be the next leader of the United States, and I want to know who the greater of whatever evils the Republican side and/or the Democrat side will turn out so that I know who I should vehemently campaign against.

So, I piled into an SUV with three other students, and we drove to Freeway Ford where he was holding his political rally.

The mother of one of the students, who was driving us, commented on how Obama and Clinton had gotten an entire auditorium at University of Denver, but Romney had to have his rally in a car dealership. She put forward the theory that the University of Denver was too Liberal to let Romney speak there, but it became clear when Romney began his speech by thanking the owner of the car dealership and talking about how he drives a Ford. It’s a conservative thing to drive American-made cars as opposed to imports, in case you haven’t already noticed.

But, I said I was going to comment on Romney’s interestingly secular(ish) aspects of his speech, so I’m going to cut some of the stuff about the economy which he seems to believe is very important, and just focus on a few sentences which I found interesting.

Of course, my heart sank a little when I saw a sign reading “Mitt is focused on the family”. In case you didn’t get the allusion, there’s a Fundamentalist Christian organisation in Colorado Springs called “Focus on the Family” which lobbies against abortion, and for all sorts of fun, fun, fun Evangelical values.

Indeed, family values did pop up in Mitt Romney’s speech. For the record, I’m not quoting him verbatim here, but he went off on a chain about how the American people are what make this country great, and how the American people must have great family values and…

“We need to teach our kids that if they want to have kids of their own, they need to get married first!”

My heart sank a little lower. I don’t think that he meant that he thought preventing pre-marital sex was the foundation of family values, which were the foundation of the country (though he seems to think that family values are part of the foundation of the country along with the economy), but he seemed to think that preventing pre-marital sex was very important. This begs the question…

Why do politicians care about the sex lives of teenagers?

Furthermore, aren’t families values about more than making your kids uphold 5,000 year old (or 2,000 year old… or in the case of the Book of Mormon 150 year old) religious values?

Right then, now that I’ve gotten the extremely unsecular thing that ticked me off out of the way… on to the stuff that kind of makes Romney secular… kind of.

He’s definitely going for the evangelical vote… likes to talk about values a lot. He shared an anecdote about how when he went down to Memphis, Tennessee, he saw some T-shirts that said “Yankee Governor… Southern Values”. He said that he asked the wearers of the T-shirts what was meant by southern values. I’ve got a cold and my brain has been moving so slow that I can’t remember a single one of them, but as you can imagine, the first southern value I could think of was faith in God. Tennessee is in Bible Belt after all… couldn’t help it. Curiously, he must have listed nine values, but faith was not one of them. One can only wonder if he didn’t purposefully omit it…

Earlier on in the speech (alright, yeah, this is not in chronological order…), he said another very curious thing.

Again, I’m not quoting verbatim here, but…

“The people in this country believe in something. For some people that’s faith. For those who don’t have faith, that’s their ethnicity or their communities…”

Again, I don’t really support Mitt Romney, but I was very surprised to hear him say that. When the secularists got outraged by his faith speech, I think he learned a lesson, and for once, politicians seem to be acknowledging that there are non-believers in this country.

Granted, I didn’t pay much attention to how secular presidential candidates were in the past, and I haven’t heard in full any of the other candidate’s speeches, but after hearing all the Republicans and Democrats take so many opportunities to talk about their faith, it was a (refreshing) surprise to hear one mention that there are people who don’t have faith.

So, I justify the following statement.

Atheism in America=Epic Win

Alright… So I do owe the Chinese government… If it weren’t for them, they would have let my mum realize her dream of becoming a diplomat, and she wouldn’t have gone to Washington to fulfill the destiny they chose for her of becoming a teacher. If she had had the freedom to choose what she wanted to be, she wouldn’t have met my dad, and my mum wouldn’t have had me and I wouldn’t be here. The Chinese government also gave me an Atheist mum. I am extraordinarily thankful to not have a fundie for a parent (most of my friends do), though her Chinese pride also causes her to believe that acupuncture works just because it’s old (bloodletting is also an old practice, eh).

So I owe my existence and Atheist mum to the Chinese government… of course, I ultimately owe my existence to virtually anything you can think of, I suppose.

But because of the Chinese government, I am unable to access my blog from here in China for my two week vacation. They have some weird kind of firewall that blocks foreign news sources and blogs. My mum’s explanation was that foreign news sources can’t see the story from all sides (?) and are biased.

So, she basically confirmed that they’re afraid of Chinese people reading stuff that badmouths them, and that’s why they’ve blocked all the blogging websites and foreign news sources. So how is it that I’m badmouthing them on my blog when it’s blocked from China?

The answer is, I’m not. I’m e-mailing this post to Homo economicus as soon as I’m done typing it up, and he’s going to post it for me (and maybe he can add the scarlet A letter while he’s at it since I’m too naive to figure it out on my own, hint hint). Haha. I feel good about circumventing the system…

At least I think that they’re not totalitarian enough to find out that I’m doing it and arrest me… But, I honestly am not afraid of that. If I can be arrested for being censored, than it’s something worth standing up against. But don’t worry, it’s not going to happen to me.

I just want to say that though the Chinese government hasn’t been all bad to me (though I owe my existence to them because they limited my mum’s freedom, though she doesn’t feel that way), if they had nothing to hide (they do have something to hide), all this inconvenience and censorship would not have been necessary. So, I’ll chalk this up as my first experience of actual totalitarianism, add a few dozen points to the Chinese government on the scale of evil, and go back to helping my grandmother move out of her apartment here on Hua Hai road.

One of the most hilarious things I’ve seen recently on the internet is the controversy (if you could call it that) surrounding the fact that Richard Dawkins sings Christmas carols! Le gasp! The horror!

I can understand the confusion from the press, but most amusing is how pissed some people are about it. It’s as if they want to send the Atheist Inquisition after him and sentence him to 200 lashes.

Well, when I heard that he sang Christmas carols and called himself a ‘cultural Christian’, I’ll admit to a bit of surprise. But, it made sense… to me, at least. When I was younger, my parents exposed me to a few Christmas traditions. They gave me presents, we occasionally set up a plastic Christmas tree, but mostly we’d just use the time off from school and work to travel. We never felt obligated to celebrate the holiday, but I enjoyed it. I mean, free toys were the coolest thing ever at my age.

When people asked me if my family celebrated Christmas, though, it was about as awkward as being asked what religion I was, since I’d have to end up saying I was Atheist both ways. I told them the truth, that we traveled mostly, occasionally set up a tree, gave presents to friends… but surprisingly, it was my religious friends who got mad at me. One of my (now ex-)Catholic friends started whining about how the holiday was not about presents, but about Jesus.

It seems to have changed. Now it’s a minority of Atheists that are getting pissed at the Atheists who celebrate Christmas.

Well, I might’ve sort of supported those Atheists earlier on, but when I went around saying “Happy Holiday” it was not because of political correctness, it was because it’s a Pastafarian holiday. But, today I came to the conclusion that it’s OK to say you’re celebrating Christmas. The Christmas I celebrate is a secular Christmas. Some people may start saying that that’s an oxymoron, but even theologists think that Jesus wasn’t actually born in December, but that the Christians celebrated it during that time. Something about the Winter Solstice making it easier for them to blend in with the Pagans, but I don’t remember and I don’t want to misinform…

But the point is, it’s OK to celebrate Christmas. It’s OK to participate in those traditions. Why? It’s OK to have fun for no , or a meaningless reason.

Christmas traditions can be fun. I like looking at the pretty lights. I like getting presents from friends. I like making presents for my friends, and giving them to them. I like food.

So, while I was eating breakfast this morning, I came to that conclusion, left my food at the table, sat down at the piano, and started playing Christmas carols and bellowing the lyrics as loudly as possible. My mum must have thought that I was acting quite mad. But isn’t singing a song about the night Jesus was born about the same as singing some of the Potter Puppet Pals songs? You don’t have to take the lyrics seriously, and I can’t really think of an example when you need to take lyrics you’re singing seriously.

Then, I went downstairs, dragged up the plastic Christmas tree we hadn’t set up for two or three years, and decorated it. I wrestled a bit with the tangled up tinsel and lights, wrapped them around, then started hanging ornaments on spare branches.

And I had quite a lot of fun.

So why should theists get all the fun of the season? The answer is they shouldn’t. Atheists have every right to practice whatever traditions they want, not matter what the origins are (most Christmas traditions have secular origins anyway), just as Christians have the right to practice traditions that have Pagan origins.

And Hell, if Dawkins wants to sing Christmas carols (as long as he doesn’t have the singing voice of Sanjaya), and Hitchens wants to set up a tree, and if I want to do both, we should be allowed to. And if some people don’t want to, more power to them. I hate some aspects of Christmas myself.

So, to all ye faithless and faithful, have a Happy Holiday/Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever.

I just don’t get it. How is it that with every tragedy that occurs some conspiracy nut is lurking in the shadows, ready to spring from them and shift the blame as far away from the actual cause as possible? It happens so often that perhaps there’s alien or government involvement here? Or perhaps not.

Here’s my theory on conspiracy theories… Sometimes it is just a deluded/gullible person who wants to feel smart about themselves, so they gather a bunch of circumstantial “evidence” and speculations, take advantage of people who already mistrust authority (not that it’s a bad thing to mistrust authority, but an authority who tells you to mistrust a specific authority is probably not trustworthy either), and voila! Blame is shifted, and the government did it.

Or maybe sometimes they just have a motive to discredit somebody. 9/11 deniers often ask me if I’m a Republican (I’m not) as soon as I start arguing against them. My theory is they just waste all their time pouring over out of context quotes because they want to discredit Bush (as if he needed further discrediting).

Today, I had the displeasure of stumbling upon the following articles on the internet:

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7691068
http://www.uncommondescent.com/philosophy/2889/

First of all, note that Uncommon Descent seems to be basing its case against Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett (I really need to get around to reading one of his books) based on that single sentence: “All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.“

Has this guy read a single book by Richard Dawkins or Dan Dennett? Furthermore, has he read the entire rant? For your convenience, I’m posting the rest of it here.

“Well all you people out there can just kiss my ass and die. From now on I don’t give a @#%$ about what all you mutha fuckers have to say, unless I respect you which is highly unlikely, but for those of you who do happen to know me and know that I respect you, may peace be with you and don’t be in my line of fire, for the rest of you, you all better @#%$ hide in your houses because I’m coming for EVERYONE soon, and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth, and I WILL shoot to kill and I WILL @#%$ KILL EVERYTHING! No I am not crazy, crazy is just a word, to me it has no meaning, everyone is different, but most of you @#%$ heads out there in society, going to your everyday @#%$ jobs and doing your everyday routine shitty things, I say @#%$ you and die, if you got a problem with my thoughts, come to me and I’ll kill you, because……..God damnit, DEAD PEOPLE DON’T ARGUE! My belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law. If you don’t like it, you die. If I don’t like you or I don’t like what you want me to do, then you die. If I do something incorrect, oh @#%$ well, you die. Dead people can’t do many things, like argue, whine, @#%$, complain, name, rat out, criticize, or even @#%$ talk. So that’s the only way to solve arguments with all you fuckheads out there, I just kill. God I can’t wait till I can kill you people, I’ll just go to some downtown area in some big city and blow up and shoot everything I can.

You break my back but you won’t break me…..all is black but I still see…shut me down, knock me to the floor…..shoot me up, @#%$ me like a whore….trapped under ice, comfortably cold, I’ve gone as low as you can go….. feel no remorse, no sorrow or shame……time’s gonna wash away all pain I made a God out of blood not superiority I killed the king of deceit and now I sleep in anarchy”

His tone reminds me so much of Dawkins’ eloquent, intelligent prose! But wait… did he mention Christianity causing most of the problems in the world further in his rant? Er… Um… No.

The fact of the matter is, like most shooters (Columbine, Virginia Tech) he was mad at society, and his hate was not directed at Christians alone. And even if he were, for cryin’ out loud, Dawkins and Dennett aren’t the only people pissed at Christianity. It’s not exactly a new trend… their popularity kind of got diminished by the crusades, and people were speaking out against them before that too. Not that I agree that Christianity is to be blamed for all, or even most of the problems in the world. Dawkins himself has said repeatedly that he does not think that religion is the root of all evil, as the accusation came up quite a bit with his documentary (again, I really need to read some of Dennett’s work).

Next, note the first comment on the Denver Post article which blames the left and Moveon.org for filling him with hate. Read the following comments, and I think they do an adequate job of debunking it.

Sometimes people just snap. Sometimes somebody’s at fault. Sometimes somebody’s not. This guy obviously had an abusive past with a deluded fundie mum, but I’m just not going to start blaming fundies for the shooting. I have plenty of other things to be pissed at them for, and those things did not directly result in this shooting. Sometimes, you just have to accept that stuff happens.

For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, when a tragedy like this occurs, how dare they dishonor those lost by shifting the blame elsewhere for their own purposes. When this happens, we are supposed to comfort those who have lost loved ones, share our condolences, and move on. Otherwise, these people need to go away.

First off…

The Infidel Challenge, started by Thrawn…

“Today is National AIDS Day, apparently, and to celebrate I have decided to issue a challenge to all non-Muslims. The challenge is this: create a horribly drawn image of Islam’s prophet Mohammad, and display it in a public area. Yes, the Internet counts.”

http://rdthrawn.wordpress.com/2007/12/01/are-you-atheist-enough-for-the-infidel-challenge/

Well, Thrawn… I’m Atheist enough.

Now, I as well would also like to announce the Teddy Bear Challenge. All that it entails is naming a teddy bear Mohammad, and saying so publicly. Yes, the internet counts. Include a picture if you like.

The point of this? No, I’m not obsessive over insulting Islam. I have a few Muslim friends… but if I want to insult Islam, it’s my right to insult Islam. If that teacher who was jailed had the intention of insulting Islam, it should be her right to insult Islam. The point of this is not to insult Islam… it’s insulting the ignunce that accompanies religiosity. In theory, if you aren’t too blinded by your faith, you shouldn’t take offense to this.

I have named a teddy bear Mohammad.

EDIT: If you don’t own a teddy bear you can go out and buy one, or name some other random stuffed animal Mohammad.