Saturday, December 12, 2009
Passing thought
I should be used to it by now, but I'm constantly astounded that so many people are not bored with what is simple, and not suspicious of what is simple.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Evolution
Some anti-evolutionists just happen not to believe in it, and though I happen not to agree, I'm not going to impugn their reason or sanity, as some seem to do. They're just listening too much to the wrong people I think. In the case of the really vehement anti-evolutionists, though, it seems to come out of a near-frantic desire not to be made uncomfortable by having one's simple sense of reality, taught to them when they were kids, messed with.
Nothing in evolution says not to believe God created everything. We don't know why our hearts keep beating. We have no idea why life struggles to reproduce itself, and keep itself going. God is a perfectly viable explanation for all that.
Evolution just means organisms gradually change in response to the environment. How on Earth could you STOP evolution from happening? The poorly adapted die off, the well adapted survive. Of course. If the Bible says it all started 6000 years ago, why couldn't it be millions? Why couldn't some human have written it down wrongly? Not because God said it would be sacrilege to think so-- I don't think he's supposed to be telling us that. It's really because people's mommies and daddies and preachers told them so when they were kids, and people's whole lives and selves (and security) rest on their basic assumptions.
Maybe it's not so much the particular belief, but a matter of it being threatening to have core beliefs questioned, whatever they happen to be. I often hear people saying they can't question this or that, because their parents brought them up not to.
Nothing in evolution says not to believe God created everything. We don't know why our hearts keep beating. We have no idea why life struggles to reproduce itself, and keep itself going. God is a perfectly viable explanation for all that.
Evolution just means organisms gradually change in response to the environment. How on Earth could you STOP evolution from happening? The poorly adapted die off, the well adapted survive. Of course. If the Bible says it all started 6000 years ago, why couldn't it be millions? Why couldn't some human have written it down wrongly? Not because God said it would be sacrilege to think so-- I don't think he's supposed to be telling us that. It's really because people's mommies and daddies and preachers told them so when they were kids, and people's whole lives and selves (and security) rest on their basic assumptions.
Maybe it's not so much the particular belief, but a matter of it being threatening to have core beliefs questioned, whatever they happen to be. I often hear people saying they can't question this or that, because their parents brought them up not to.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Life Bytes (doesn't it?)
Nothing is completely sexual, not even sex, and nothing is completely non-sexual.
A little disorientation is good for the soul.
Never argue with the propriety police. They'll just give you a ticket.
We're passive, spoiled consumers who demand to be entertained instantly, or we cry foul.
The genders are complementary but not "opposite", and are at least as much alike as they are different. Those people who create in themselves a sort of exaggerated, extreme, hightened, cliche version of their gender come off as a bit ridiculous to me, and not awfully human.
Life is a long journey on foot through a dream. If you wake up so much that you can't perceive the dream, you're a sad figure who thinks he knows exactly where he is, but is actually no place, except perhaps existing as a stone statue in a dream landscape he can't see.
Light, chipper people are fine, as long as they don't allow themselves to become optimism nazis, and try to make others feel responsible for feeling unhappy in unhappy circumstances. The idea that we are only as unhappy as we believe ourselves to be is an idea that appeals to unchallenged people, who don't realize how fortunate they are.
A little disorientation is good for the soul.
Never argue with the propriety police. They'll just give you a ticket.
We're passive, spoiled consumers who demand to be entertained instantly, or we cry foul.
The genders are complementary but not "opposite", and are at least as much alike as they are different. Those people who create in themselves a sort of exaggerated, extreme, hightened, cliche version of their gender come off as a bit ridiculous to me, and not awfully human.
Life is a long journey on foot through a dream. If you wake up so much that you can't perceive the dream, you're a sad figure who thinks he knows exactly where he is, but is actually no place, except perhaps existing as a stone statue in a dream landscape he can't see.
Light, chipper people are fine, as long as they don't allow themselves to become optimism nazis, and try to make others feel responsible for feeling unhappy in unhappy circumstances. The idea that we are only as unhappy as we believe ourselves to be is an idea that appeals to unchallenged people, who don't realize how fortunate they are.
Beauty Pageants
At best beauty pageants are unbearably corny, at worst bizarrely sexist. If this kind of display is about celebrating womanhood itself, how could that not be insulting? As a man, I don't think Chippendales dancers or weightlifters represent what I should be. I'd pick writers or something.
If the pageants are more realistically considered to be about just a tiny subset of women who like devoting a big part of their lives to competing over who looks cutest in a bathing suit, well, that's a fringe element isn't it? Maybe they should be treated as such, sort of like people who collect odd objects (like road maps in my case) and have conventions, rather than having their competitions mass-televised.
They don't celebrate female beauty in all forms, just a sort of outdated corny contradictory image of peaches-and-cream wholesomeness jammed together with semi-exhibitionism... now did I just describe a very common, old-fashioned sort of having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too male fantasy about women from generations past, or didn't I?
We have fashion shows for fashion, where there's actual creativity at work.... and strangely enough, I think things such as Miss Nude America are healthier than regular Miss America, relatively. Any sexism is out in the open, not hiding in the shadows like a stalker.... this kind of thing is unpretentious, more fun, and more honest. I'm not saying it's not twisted, but it's more honest twistedness... perhaps what Hawkeye on MASH would call "honest weirdoism".
If the pageants are more realistically considered to be about just a tiny subset of women who like devoting a big part of their lives to competing over who looks cutest in a bathing suit, well, that's a fringe element isn't it? Maybe they should be treated as such, sort of like people who collect odd objects (like road maps in my case) and have conventions, rather than having their competitions mass-televised.
They don't celebrate female beauty in all forms, just a sort of outdated corny contradictory image of peaches-and-cream wholesomeness jammed together with semi-exhibitionism... now did I just describe a very common, old-fashioned sort of having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too male fantasy about women from generations past, or didn't I?
We have fashion shows for fashion, where there's actual creativity at work.... and strangely enough, I think things such as Miss Nude America are healthier than regular Miss America, relatively. Any sexism is out in the open, not hiding in the shadows like a stalker.... this kind of thing is unpretentious, more fun, and more honest. I'm not saying it's not twisted, but it's more honest twistedness... perhaps what Hawkeye on MASH would call "honest weirdoism".
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