I disagree, it absolutely was directed at me and he did quote me (he just didn't use the 'quote' button this time), please read it again...
chingalera said:
(a sate of permanent willful ignorance) it's 'state' and maybe, check a fucking mirror??
Totally directed at me in a snide attempt to disrespectfully deride me for a typing mistake he assumed I made and for being permanently willfully ignorant. That's his MO, derision and disrespect peppered with abusive overuse of a thesaurus. His argument style is mindless repetition of insults and complaint and derision of every topic and group and most individuals with no self awareness whatsoever. He repeatedly makes the same mistaken assumptions, even when corrected, because they support his insanity and give him a straw man to fight. He viciously attacks 'A or B' arguments that come from his own mind and not from the one's he attacks. I'm done with it. I can only remind him of the facts and my positions so many times before it's tiring in the extreme and my fault for doing it to myself.
I would say the pastor is an asshat because he made his own insane assumptions based on willful misunderstanding and is convincing others to think the same kind of BS...it has little to do with religion in the final analysis for me, it's about making up BS and getting others to believe it as fact, usually to get them to act as one wants them to. The religious don't have a monopoly on this behavior, it is also not reserved for religious goals, but religions and the religious are all too well practiced at it.

@newtboy Chingy's initial statement was not directed at you personally, I can maybe see why you thought it might but you were mistaken. (he didn't quote or reference you at any stage)

What he was trying to say was that the issue here is not specific to Christianity (or for that matter any other religion) but rather with the mindless repetition of inherited arguments and belief systems (i.e. people not truly thinking for themselves or being able to operate outside of the box they have built for themselves).

Atheists etc. are frequently guilty of the same thing; he was simply suggesting that it's unproductive to reduce the problem to paradigm A. vs paradigm B. when in truth its the very act of limiting ones perception and consciousness to one particular paradigm that causes the problem.

In other words the Pastor is an asshat not because he is a Christian but rather because he is only capable of understanding the world via the adopted assumptions of others. A fault which can be levelled at virtually any system of understanding when practised by those who have not yet understood the entirely relativistic nature of such systems.

This is why he referred to the inevitable banter as "boring and tired". For most it becomes simply "Christianity bad atheism good" (or visa versa or whatever). The truth of the matter is far more complex and moreover is universal to all participants.


@chingalera You are far too clever for your own good sometimes! I'd say something about "staring unto the abyss..." but I know full well you already understand this inescapable compromise when "fighting monsters".

Tread softly though brother, even the best of us are always a mere stumble from falling back unto the darkness we seek to banish...

It's ok, you can admit it -- YOU WANT US TO SPEND ALL OUR DAMN MONEY AND BE MINDLESS SLAVES.

(I also posted this reply on his profile not realising in case that causes any confusion)

My 1st post in that thread was intended purely to inform. Most people I meet who own dogs are painfully unaware of what I was describing and consequently foster futile behaviour and negative emotional outbursts around things their dogs do (the idea that everyone in that thread already knows about this is laughable). This is far from the biggest ill in the world but it's there and I saw an opportunity to present an alternative view of events in the hope that perhaps someone somewhere might learn something (or at least consider an idea rather than just mindlessly following social tradition). Where I learned that idea is irrelevant, it stands or falls on its own merits.

Your response garnered hostility because it was indistinguishable from saying "your spoiling our fun by trying to suggest that the animal might actually be terrified and confused and our fun is more important than someone/thing suffering". You didn't try to challenge what I said, you simply indicated some level of disdain for the fact I was even trying to say something intelligent, or because I didn't mindlessly jump on the "look at the terrified dog" bandwaggon like the rest.

Your damm right it was an emotional response, the attitude you displayed from my POV causes untold suffering throughout the world (and I don't just mean dogs which in the grand scheme of things is relatively harmless). If you read my reply again you'll see that at no point did I suggest you were disagreeing with me, I was insulting you precisely because you didn't even try, you just tried to indite me for trying to raise the level of the conversation. It was that and that alone that garnered my hostility, I'm happy to be proven wrong or even for people to switch off and ignore me but to give me flack just for trying I have little patience for.

You have clearly misunderstood my whole argument against you, if I were to take my own advice then I would either challenge your point (which I did) or accept that I didn't understand enough to try and counter intelligently.

What you did was insult me for just trying to make an intelligent argument. That is where the " little gem of "Fuck You"" came from.

Also it's no good getting on a high horse about me being "over sensitive" when you took the time to jump onto my profile and unleash a boatload of bile yourself. That argument would only have worked if you said it to yourself and got on with your life. But you didn't, you felt you had to give me a piece of your mind just like I did.
I'm not going to call you over sensitive, I'm just going to call you human because that's what you are, just like me ;-).

Edit: for the record that Bill Hicks quote refers to precisely the kind of anti-intellectualism I'm accusing you of. It was because an audience member objected to Bill trying to raise an idea above the trivial self interested level that they felt had been threatened. Or to put it another way Bill had spoiled their fun by trying to make an intelligent point rather than just wallowing in their own unconsidered ignorance. As far as I'm concerned it was entirely appropriate.

@artician- the really hard part while trying not to burn-out on humanity is suffering apathy and mindless subservience in a time when knowledge and information is on-tap and available to non-members of the "club." -Clear light IS a motherfucker and most people are too weak to process information and respond accordingly.

Same old, same old. The few will always control the many and destroy the weak.

The emperor wears no clothes not only that, he sucks cock by choice and is still breathing the same air as us.

Unless you eradicate the queen the ants leave a clean slate for the next infestation.

No more metaphor, anyone with an opinion on geopolitics, or religion seeking to argue premise within the confines of these faulty estates are masturbating in public at this chapter in earth history as the cunts will succeed. Best to get as far from the blast zone as possible screams the expat inside my head.

I loved the movie. I didn't expect a thought provoking experience. I didn't expect Inception or the original Matrix, I expected giant robots punching monsters in the face and mindless fun, and it delivered that in spades. Yeah, dumb stuff in the movie, but it was so full of win, like he says, I can't wait for the sequel... If they don't approve his At the Mountains of Madness movie, I would at least hope they go for a live action Neon Genesis Evangelion... I'd do a live action version of the 4 Rebuild of Rebuild of Evangelion films, so 4 live action movies that catch most of the story...

yeah the problem with those don't talk to the cop videos is that they rely on a ton on anecdotal evidence and many of the situations he presents presume the person is guilty from the get go. It's told from a lawyer's perspective and is extremely cynical. Sure if you want to reduce everything to raw statistics and are concerned ONLY with covering your own ass, sure, don't talk to the cops then.

but if you actually believe in being a productive, helpful member of society, that can think beyond your own personal wants and desires, then answering a simple "have you been drinking tonight" question isn't going to hurt. Yes, for those that haven't figured it out, I'm calling anyone who agrees with the guy in this video selfish.

TLDR, there is a time and place to exercise your rights, while he was well within is rights, it doesn't exempt him from criticism of being a total and complete self-serving grade A douchebag.

just because you have a right to do/not do something, doesn't mean you automatically conform to that. kinda makes you a mindless slave at that point if you're doing something simply because it's within your rights.

There are a lot of things I *can* do, but I choose not to do them.

I think you guys aren't giving him the credit he deserves really. No one ever said that any one particular piece of art from an artist decides whether or not they have something valid to say, and in the interests of swaying you over towards thinking that he's up to his hype, check out his work on the west bank wall and possibly the simpson's sofa-intro-thingy that he did.

I think it's great as you could probably tell. If he was mindlessly scribbling or just putting foul language up then i could understand anyone's concern, but they're at least well considered and put together. And at least he's trying to make a difference with what he says. Moar subversion!

Try comparing the number of bombs detonated recently in christian countries by muslims - a handful; to the number detonated in muslim countries by christians, another peaceful religion - millions.

There are so many rational reasons to hate muslims, it's a shame the primary source of anti-islamic sentiment has to be mindless bigotry and ignorance like yours.

This was great.

Like, really fucking fantastic.

And he's right, of course. What sort of person goes into politics? And, even more importantly, what sort of person goes on to succeed in politics?

Well, in my experience, they are either psychopaths, religious or ideological zealots, or a volatile mixture of all of the above.

These people don't want others to have a choice, because in their world, you are either the the one who has all the power, or you are one of pathetic bastards who've got nothing to show but the imprint of your master's boot on your neck.

And what they've managed to do, by baiting the masses with paranoic fear, mindless hatred, and the shared delusion of their country's intrinsic greatness, is to create a sort of political cartel - a playground for the exceedingly rich, the utterly ruthless, and the ceaselessly greedy - that will insure their power and their authority and their capital even if the people they've spent the last 70 years stepping on should learn to see past their lies and finally try to pry the boots of their masters off their necks.

It's going to be interesting to see how it all pans out.

"The sexiest thing... is being really smart"

*MINDLESS SCREAMS*

That audience was just freaking horrible. Oh, and to all those absolute morons who kept screaming how much they loved him at the very top of their lungs - you say you love him, so why can't you just shut the fucking fuck up when the guy's talking?

HARRUMPH!

I assume it's exactly the fact that such a "special" relationship with politicians and regulators exists that's the problem and moreover that these are exactly the sort of thing market controls are needed to prevent (even if the existing ones have largely been co-opted to serve the Plutocrats).

If you want to define "free-market"as completely free and unregulated then yes this is not a free market, however what regulation we do have is by this stage so ineffectual and corrupt that basically all the problems with a true "free-market" have already very much manifested.
That said I think I'm actually agreeing with you here, we might even say we have the worst of both worlds where the colossally rich have the market "freedom" do do what they like but can also co-opt socialist regulation to both defend themselves and aggressively suppress and exploit potential threats from the lower end of the economy.

The argument I guess is because SevenFingers is using the term "free-market" in a much more pejorative sense here than yourself. To him I'm guessing it simply means largely unopposed Plutocracy i.e. the misused existing regulation etc. is a product of an unregulated market running amok and corrupting every institution it can get its hands on.

If this is indeed the case then you only have a problem with incompatible semantics (meaning is use).
The real argument you guy's should be having is whether moving towards a Randian "true free-market" would make this situation any better or worse. Personally I can't see how this would make things anything other than worse for the vast majority of us.
In my head a true free market would basically be akin to just giving up and putting Weyland Yutani in charge, because sooner or later that's what you'd get. Atlas Shrugged made me sick to my stomach!

I propose the solution lies in replacing our existing systems of government and regulation with something both stronger and more importantly 100% transparent. In the age of the internet we could make political corruption virtually impossible and the old capitalist vs collectivist paradigm is becoming old, tired & increasingly irrelevant.

Time for a higher synthesis and a new dialectic cycle.
The thesis was anarcho-capitalism,
The antithesis was Totalitarian socialism
The synthesis is Meritocratic socio-capitalism!

(M) for the Movement
(M) for Meritocracy
(M) for Mindlessly repeated slogans!

The authoriuty for the nsa warrentless wiretapping was given by executive order,,by bush...in 2001. 12 fucking years ago. The patriot act was signed by bush 41 days after 9/11...The ACLU sued over these policies in 2003. Michael moore devoted 10 minutes of his movie to it in 2004. It was WIDELY REPORTED in 2005 that the nsa was monitoring domestic phone calls and collecting and reading email and phone records. 9 fucking years ago..The nsa has been building billion dollar data centers, they are not fucking invisible buildings that only wonder woman can see. NONE OF THIS HAS EVER BEEN A FUCKING SECRET. Obama and congress just reauthorized all these OLD FUCKING BILLS. It took 12 fucking years for the mindless fox news fucking morons to catch up to what liberals have been saying since at least 2004. here is the ny times, from two thousnd..fucking..five.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

There are also sects of Buddhism that advocate torture, execution and public humiliation (The former Tibetan ruling class springing firmly to mind). Sadly it seems even the most peaceful of philosophies can still be trumped by psychotic self righteousness & mindless tradition .

I'm not aware of any specific Sufi sects having executed or tortured people for blasphemy, adultery etc. but I fear such groups likely exist somewhere if one were to go looking for them.

In general I have a healthy degree of respect for "Sufism" because it follows the same kind of esoteric approach to religion/spirituality/knowledge as it's western (Gnostic) and far eastern (Tao, Hindu*, Buddhist etc.) counterparts.

Very roughly "Esoteric religion" is based around looking inwards for knowledge and lends itself naturally to scientific enquiry, considered ethics, critical thinking etc.
When they speak of a higher power it is almost always in terms of something fundamentally connected to and embodied by yourself.
They almost never suggest one need feel threatened by divine judgement, or that some should be privileged over others (*hence the Hindu caste system being not being truly esoteric)

"Exoteric religion" (most of Islam, Judaism, Christianity etc.) is by contrast based around looking outside oneself for knowledge. Truth is revealed by outside agents, divinity and true power always lie outside of oneself. etc. etc. (I'm sure I don't need to further elucidate the negative qualities of such belief systems )


In truth all of the major denominations appear to have at least some some esoteric and exoteric variations even if most fall mostly into one or the other. There are bad Buddhists & Gnostics and there are good Muslims and Christians the only difference really is whether or not they are genuinely applying their own minds and judgement, or hopelessly enslaved to another's.
Or in "someone" else's terms Logos and Mythos.

Back on topic: Bill Maher is Mythos masquerading as Logos.

The "silent" war has been a huge success already-

Distracting and dumbing-down an entire nation while toxifying them with food, advertising, punditry, sports diversion, terrorist paranoia, mindless, vapid dialogue of current events designed to disrupt critical thinking and instill a systemic helplessness to recoil or rebel....It's going to take meta-programming on a global scale to correct this fuck-up, or perhaps simply worldwide natural catastrophe or alien invasion. We could start by executing politicians on national television, that'd be the fastest quick-fix...after a speedy series of mock trials of course-