Regarding your comments about Twitter and Elon, the "free speech absolutist" is making sure you see the "free speech" HE likes. The rest is available, but not pushed.
I've been happily going through life saying I'm agnostic or not religious until about 10 years ago. People used to just nod their heads and let it go for the most part. Not so much these days. Now I say I'm athiest just to shut people up. Saying I'm agnostic must say to these people I'm easy to convert or something. Saying I'm athiest seems to frighten them into walking away. When they do manage to corner me and ask the inevitable question "aren't you afraid of not going to heaven?" I always say it would be arrogant of me to presume to know what happens after we die based on a book some dude wrote thousands of years ago to control the masses. And that if there was a god and it wanted us to know that information it would have already given us that knowledge. Then I tell them they're in a cult and run away 🤣
I'm not sure which came first regarding sensationalism and the news; but it's been going on so long that it's just a circle jerk of influence at this point.
I heard about the water crisis in Atlanta the day that it happened. I saw it on YouTube, even though I do not live in the South, and I do not subscribe to a news channel. Maybe the algorithm isn't to blame...
Great rant. I was raised Free Methodist and have been digging myself out of those beliefs my entire adulthood. Raised my own kid outside the church and instead preached "think for yourself, believe in science, everyone deserves to love whomever they wish regardless of gender, etc.". She's a great young adult and makes me proud. None of that churchy judginess or guilt. Whew!
I think of myself as an agnostic but I'm still willing to be surprised.
I was raised Catholic and I can still remember Mass in Latin, processions, satin robes, incense, etc. Like a lot of recovering Catholics whom I met in college, I liked the show-biz element more than anything else.
And then came all the reforms and after that, the damn guitars showed up. Folk Mass. People tormenting stringed instruments in the service of the Great Beard. Yeesh. (Yes, I'm a music snob.)
Suddenly, Catholicism was ... beige.
Catholicism was supposedly like being in the Marines -- yes, it was tough and yes, there were a lot of inexplicable rules plus a multitude of ways of being sent to hell -- but you were SPECIAL and you were going to get the Skybox seats when you went to heaven because Catholics were BETTER THAN ALL THE OTHER RELIGIONS. (PS: I think all religions believe their particular take on God is the only correct one. Hence -- wars of religion.)
And suddenly, audience participation became The New Thing. The priest would ask a particular favor from the Great Beard and the congregation was supposed to say "Lord Hear Our Prayer."
Well, I'm sorry, but that sounded too much like a damn pep rally. And I despised pep rallies. I thought that the reason that the other basketball teams routinely flattened OUR team was because they were better players And taller. I did not believe that chanting school-spirit-themed jingles in a crowded gymnasium was going to influence the outcome one bit. Shouting louder would not work either. When I said this to people, they'd say "where's your school spirit?" "I don't have any. I'm here because I can't get out until I graduate."
Oh well. no one likes a rational teenaged girl. Luckily, I enjoyed solitude.
What ultimately offended me about Catholicism was all the scare tactics, such as don't eat meat on Friday because if you die on Saturday, you will be breaded and deep-fried in hell like the haddock you were supposed to eat.
Then -- all of a sudden, the Vatican banished most of the rules. (Except birth control -- you were still expected to have babies and hate sex.) To me, it was like being traumatized by someone in a costume -- and after you were reduced into a pile of blubbering jelly, the person took the mask off, laughed at you, and said "Ha-ha -- just kidding!" Which guaranteed future enrichment of the psychiatrist who was paid to listen while you described your hideous Catholic childhood.
What really got me though -- and this was when I was eight or nine -- was when the nuns who taught catechism said that all Protestants were going to hell. Period.
My father -- one of the most upright people I've ever known -- was Protestant. He did not think he needed a priest or a minister to tell him how to behave. To him, being good was just common sense. And he did not attend any church. (He was devoutly rational.)
That got me thinking about heaven. What about my Protestant friends? What about my PETS? If I got into heaven but my father was left out -- how could I enjoy being with the angels? Was being in heaven somehow -- elitist? Even -- selfish?
I pondered this a good bit -- and then I had my Huck Finn moment. I decided that if God and those snobby angels didn't think my daddy was good enough for heaven -- THEN I JUST WOULDN'T GO! They could BEG me all they wanted. "Please, we are inviting you into eternal bliss, come through the gate." "Where's my father?" "Ummmm...." "Where's my dog?" "Well...." "Forget it! I ain't coming through! Here are my demands -- all my friends, all my family, all my pets from my ENTIRE LIFE, my favorite authors, Oscar Wilde ... unless they're allowed in, you can just do without ME!"
When I do go to a church, I often wish I felt the same way that I do when I'm walking in the woods. I guess you could call me a born-again Druid.
Corey, you are wondrously patient with these screeds and I salute you -- with gratitude. I hope the concert is wonderful and I love you back.
(Seems weird to have these invisible friends, but that's the Internet.)
I don't know what the algorithm thinks of me -- I like to watch videos of men digging up old bottles in Alabama dump sites.
Agnostic here. Only because I think saying I know for a fact there’s no God or gods is just as ridiculous and arrogant as saying you know for a fact there are. I will say, however, that in this very moment (always subject to change) I do not believe any God or gods exist. But, if we want to get all existential, metaphysical, or just generally woo-woo about things, I do believe there is more to existence than the three dimensions we humans can perceive and interact with. What is beyond those three dimensions? No. Fucking. Clue. But if the greatest minds humanity has produced in the last thousand-ish years haven’t figured it out, I’m pretty sure a group of nomadic goat-herders didn’t stumble upon The Truth several thousand years ago, either.
Side note: I LOVE talking about this kind of stuff as long as it’s with other people who will admit they don’t know what’s going on any more than I do and won’t start beating me with their holy text of choice, whether that’s a Bible, Qua’ran, or A Brief History of Time.
I grew up in a very conservative Christian home and started deconstructing after I went to college, though it really wasn't a hard sell considering my dad used god and the bible to do some pretty horrible things to me. Have there been moments since then where I question that maaayyybe there's a god or higher power? No.
I know that I cannot know if a god exists, but if one does exist they don't give a shit about what's going on in the universe, let alone here on Earth. The cosmological consensus seems to be that a god was/is not necessary for the formation of the universe. There's some super cool science shit going on right now at NASA and other places where we are really starting to learn a lot more about how the universe came to be and how it works.
A story about Atlanta needing to boil their water just came across my PBS social media feed
Regarding your comments about Twitter and Elon, the "free speech absolutist" is making sure you see the "free speech" HE likes. The rest is available, but not pushed.
Probably there are so many water main breaks down here so often it's not if your water will be cut off but when.
IN-FER-STRUK-CHUR!
Agnostic raised Mormon here.
I've been happily going through life saying I'm agnostic or not religious until about 10 years ago. People used to just nod their heads and let it go for the most part. Not so much these days. Now I say I'm athiest just to shut people up. Saying I'm agnostic must say to these people I'm easy to convert or something. Saying I'm athiest seems to frighten them into walking away. When they do manage to corner me and ask the inevitable question "aren't you afraid of not going to heaven?" I always say it would be arrogant of me to presume to know what happens after we die based on a book some dude wrote thousands of years ago to control the masses. And that if there was a god and it wanted us to know that information it would have already given us that knowledge. Then I tell them they're in a cult and run away 🤣
I'm not sure which came first regarding sensationalism and the news; but it's been going on so long that it's just a circle jerk of influence at this point.
I heard about the water crisis in Atlanta the day that it happened. I saw it on YouTube, even though I do not live in the South, and I do not subscribe to a news channel. Maybe the algorithm isn't to blame...
Great rant. I was raised Free Methodist and have been digging myself out of those beliefs my entire adulthood. Raised my own kid outside the church and instead preached "think for yourself, believe in science, everyone deserves to love whomever they wish regardless of gender, etc.". She's a great young adult and makes me proud. None of that churchy judginess or guilt. Whew!
I think of myself as an agnostic but I'm still willing to be surprised.
I was raised Catholic and I can still remember Mass in Latin, processions, satin robes, incense, etc. Like a lot of recovering Catholics whom I met in college, I liked the show-biz element more than anything else.
And then came all the reforms and after that, the damn guitars showed up. Folk Mass. People tormenting stringed instruments in the service of the Great Beard. Yeesh. (Yes, I'm a music snob.)
Suddenly, Catholicism was ... beige.
Catholicism was supposedly like being in the Marines -- yes, it was tough and yes, there were a lot of inexplicable rules plus a multitude of ways of being sent to hell -- but you were SPECIAL and you were going to get the Skybox seats when you went to heaven because Catholics were BETTER THAN ALL THE OTHER RELIGIONS. (PS: I think all religions believe their particular take on God is the only correct one. Hence -- wars of religion.)
And suddenly, audience participation became The New Thing. The priest would ask a particular favor from the Great Beard and the congregation was supposed to say "Lord Hear Our Prayer."
Well, I'm sorry, but that sounded too much like a damn pep rally. And I despised pep rallies. I thought that the reason that the other basketball teams routinely flattened OUR team was because they were better players And taller. I did not believe that chanting school-spirit-themed jingles in a crowded gymnasium was going to influence the outcome one bit. Shouting louder would not work either. When I said this to people, they'd say "where's your school spirit?" "I don't have any. I'm here because I can't get out until I graduate."
Oh well. no one likes a rational teenaged girl. Luckily, I enjoyed solitude.
What ultimately offended me about Catholicism was all the scare tactics, such as don't eat meat on Friday because if you die on Saturday, you will be breaded and deep-fried in hell like the haddock you were supposed to eat.
Then -- all of a sudden, the Vatican banished most of the rules. (Except birth control -- you were still expected to have babies and hate sex.) To me, it was like being traumatized by someone in a costume -- and after you were reduced into a pile of blubbering jelly, the person took the mask off, laughed at you, and said "Ha-ha -- just kidding!" Which guaranteed future enrichment of the psychiatrist who was paid to listen while you described your hideous Catholic childhood.
What really got me though -- and this was when I was eight or nine -- was when the nuns who taught catechism said that all Protestants were going to hell. Period.
My father -- one of the most upright people I've ever known -- was Protestant. He did not think he needed a priest or a minister to tell him how to behave. To him, being good was just common sense. And he did not attend any church. (He was devoutly rational.)
That got me thinking about heaven. What about my Protestant friends? What about my PETS? If I got into heaven but my father was left out -- how could I enjoy being with the angels? Was being in heaven somehow -- elitist? Even -- selfish?
I pondered this a good bit -- and then I had my Huck Finn moment. I decided that if God and those snobby angels didn't think my daddy was good enough for heaven -- THEN I JUST WOULDN'T GO! They could BEG me all they wanted. "Please, we are inviting you into eternal bliss, come through the gate." "Where's my father?" "Ummmm...." "Where's my dog?" "Well...." "Forget it! I ain't coming through! Here are my demands -- all my friends, all my family, all my pets from my ENTIRE LIFE, my favorite authors, Oscar Wilde ... unless they're allowed in, you can just do without ME!"
When I do go to a church, I often wish I felt the same way that I do when I'm walking in the woods. I guess you could call me a born-again Druid.
Corey, you are wondrously patient with these screeds and I salute you -- with gratitude. I hope the concert is wonderful and I love you back.
(Seems weird to have these invisible friends, but that's the Internet.)
I don't know what the algorithm thinks of me -- I like to watch videos of men digging up old bottles in Alabama dump sites.
Agnostic here. Only because I think saying I know for a fact there’s no God or gods is just as ridiculous and arrogant as saying you know for a fact there are. I will say, however, that in this very moment (always subject to change) I do not believe any God or gods exist. But, if we want to get all existential, metaphysical, or just generally woo-woo about things, I do believe there is more to existence than the three dimensions we humans can perceive and interact with. What is beyond those three dimensions? No. Fucking. Clue. But if the greatest minds humanity has produced in the last thousand-ish years haven’t figured it out, I’m pretty sure a group of nomadic goat-herders didn’t stumble upon The Truth several thousand years ago, either.
Side note: I LOVE talking about this kind of stuff as long as it’s with other people who will admit they don’t know what’s going on any more than I do and won’t start beating me with their holy text of choice, whether that’s a Bible, Qua’ran, or A Brief History of Time.
I grew up in a very conservative Christian home and started deconstructing after I went to college, though it really wasn't a hard sell considering my dad used god and the bible to do some pretty horrible things to me. Have there been moments since then where I question that maaayyybe there's a god or higher power? No.
I know that I cannot know if a god exists, but if one does exist they don't give a shit about what's going on in the universe, let alone here on Earth. The cosmological consensus seems to be that a god was/is not necessary for the formation of the universe. There's some super cool science shit going on right now at NASA and other places where we are really starting to learn a lot more about how the universe came to be and how it works.
I like to use Science Daily (https://www.sciencedaily.com) to see what new research is being done.
I hope you enjoyed the concert!
I didn't believe in God until I saw that glorious blonde beard! Skeeeewwwww!
Great stuff, Corey.
Here's a link to The Egg by Andy Weir
https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
Pontificate on Brother Corey…✌️💙😎