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Stardate 20.033
Ascent out of Darkness ~ Armchair Philosophy |
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| The wearing of masks and pants |
As the pandemic unfolds, and like many places overseas, NZ has recently seen several sizeable protests around the country vilifying the Prime Minister and likening the government to Nazi Germany and such, claiming that their freedoms have been stolen and that the government is not listening to the will of the people. Of course the government is listening to the people, what these wankers mean is that the government isn't listening to them, it isn't listening to a moronic and dangerous minority.  And why should it? Don't governments have the responsibility to ignore the demands of those that would create more harm than good? It amazes me when people complain that their freedom to behave as they wish has been taken from them, that their human rights are being denied, when in fact humans are not born with any rights or freedoms at all. We can say we are born with the ability to feel love and joy and curiosity, and no one can take that away from us, but whatever rights and freedoms we might claim to have were given to us by our government in consultation with its citizens. That's why we now have so-called 'human rights' that people living centuries ago didn't have. If these 'human rights', like the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression etc were innate human rights, then people would always have had them, when clearly they are a very recent thing. They are not something humans naturally possess, simply by the fact of being human. I'd argue that they are something all humans are entitled to, but as important and valuable as these legal rights are in the modern world, they only exist as long as our government is willing to enact and protect them, and since they gave us these rights, they can take them away too if the situation calls for it. Human rights are not like laws of physics that can't be broken, society can and has changed what rights it considers humans should be entitled to. In centuries past when slavery was normal and widespread, any complaints that their freedom had been stolen fell on deaf ears, and not so long ago it was perfectly legal to kill a human for being an atheist or homosexual (in some countries it still is). Then many societies decided that this sort of behaviour was unjust, and we got our governments to enforce a new idea, that all humans have a right to freedom and to believe and act however they like as long as it doesn't harm others. We may call it a human right, but it's not something humans naturally possess, it is something humans are given, and then only some humans lucky enough to live in certain countries. With regards to this pandemic, maybe, from a Western legal perspective, some of our legal rights have been encroached upon. But rather than these freedom fighters talking of their innate human rights being stolen, they should be challenging the government over their right to temporarily change a law in order to combat a serious problem that threatens the country. Forget about the emotive phrase 'human rights', argue about whether the government is justified in implementing restrictions to fight a pandemic and protect its citizens. We have elected them to run the country, to make the hard decisions in difficult times, and if the restrictions they implement are reasonable and legal, then shut up and comply. If you are still unhappy, then vote them out at the next election. Don't gather with your deadbeat friends on some busy street and throw an almighty tantrum that, besides annoying and inconveniencing everyone, does nothing but create the possibility for a super-spreader event.
Many people argue that as humans they are free to act as they wish, that they're not slaves and don't have some master telling them what they can and can't do. Clearly this is wrong, since no one is as free as they believe, even in democratic countries. And since many of these protesters will likely be believers in God and followers of his laws, they are the least free people on the planet and should be accustomed to obeying 'silly' directives from on high. But even ignoring fantasy beings and their imaginary laws, as we atheists do, our governments still place a speed limit on how fast we can drive, on how old we must be to drink alcohol or engage in sex, on whether we can possess firearms or practice medicine without a licence, and in some US states married couples are not even allowed to have oral sex. Restaurants and bars won't let you in if you're smoking, and some places will exclude you if you're not wearing a tie or shoes, and there are untold other restrictions forced on us, so why aren't these freedom fighters that scream that their human rights are being stolen not protesting over these lost freedoms? Why are they happy to let their government dictate to them on matters of speed, alcohol, sex and a dining dress code and yet they fly into an indignant rage when asked to wear a mask, to social distance and to get a vaccination in order to save lives? Note that I said asked, not ordered, since these protests and refusals to comply began long before our government was forced to mandate them. Note also that these refusals to take steps to limit a problem are not like climate change deniers, who can argue that they don't see an obvious problem and so aren't willing to help by making any sacrifices. The wankers challenging these new health measures can see people dying all around them, can see hospitals struggling to cope and their economy suffering due to the spreading outbreak, and yet still they protest. Apparently pretending that nothing bad is happening and carrying on as we used to will quickly see things improve.
On the TV news I've seen angry people yelling, 'You can't make me wear a mask', as they try to enter a shop or venue, and it made me wonder if these same people would ever shout, 'You can't make me wear clothes'? Think about that for a moment. What's the difference between a mask and clothes? They're both a body covering that we're told to wear when out in public. Why blindly accept the clothes mandate, which is permanent and applies to ALL public places, and yet fight the mask mandate which is temporary and only applies to limited public places? No doubt you're thinking that it's obvious why we must wear clothes, even though the exact reason eludes you for the moment. If pushed many people will say that they just don't want to be exposed to naked bodies, and therefore we must all wear clothes so they don't feel uncomfortable. But that's as arrogant as me saying I don't want to see bald men, so all bald men must wear wigs or large hats so that I don't freak out. Others will say that their god demands we wear clothes, but these people are rebelling against authority, so why blindly obey a god they've never seen but not a government that can have them arrested? Clearly the wearing of clothes is not a matter of public safety, only one of prudishness. No one ends up in a hospital's intensive care ward on encountering innocent public nudity. And yet it is banned, the wearing of clothes in public is mandated. A law that provides no health benefits is accepted without argument, even though its enforcement means that a basic freedom has been stripped from us, and yet a law that does provide a real health benefit, the wearing of masks, is challenged and ignored by a moronic minority. This will likely be where the anti-mask movement will try to argue that masks are useless, they don't help save lives, but that assertion is irrelevant to the argument I'm making. It doesn't matter whether masks are effective or not, my question is why do these people submissively follow the government's clothes mandate but fight against the government's mask mandate, why do they not care that a major freedom has been permanently taken from them but are all upset and crybaby about a minor freedom being temporarily withdrawn? Recall that clothes have to be put on before you even step outside your front door, and must remain on all day, no matter the activity or location or whether there are other people about. Masks on the other hand only have to be put on when you enter selected locations, like a bar or restaurant or public transport. You don't have to wear one while walking in the park or while driving to work, and even in the bar and restaurant you can remove your mask to eat and drink. For all these examples of where you can remove your mask in public or not even wear one in the first place, there is not a single example where you can remove your clothes. And as I say, the intention is that as soon as the pandemic is brought under control then the mask mandate will disappear, and whether you continue to wear one in certain places will be a personal choice. The government clearly has no interest in continuing with the cost and hassle of masks a moment longer than is necessary. However, while we will soon (relatively speaking) regain the freedom of not having to wear masks, the government clearly has no intention of abolishing the mandate that we have to wear clothes. Unlike masks, that will never be a personal choice. That inconvenient fact is something the freedom fighters in the anti-mask movement must answer, why they fight for the right to choose when it comes to wearing a mask, even being willing to go to jail, but by their inaction meekly imply that they don't deserve the right to choose when it comes to wearing clothes. They need to explain the difference, why they should be able to choose one covering but not the other, and if they can't supply a convincing answer, then their argument is lost. Putting aside what the law demands, I happily wear either masks or clothes when I consider it sensible to do so, and I reject them when it's not. I wear masks when they might protect my health or that of those around me and clothes when they're needed to protect me from the elements, dangerous power tools or being arrested, and I leave them both off when they serve no rational purpose and the law permits, like in the hot tub with fully vaccinated friends. As regards the wider reaching clothes mandate, it seems the prudes of the world don't want to be exposed to naked bodies and therefore clothing mandates are forced on us all in order to appease them. In this they permit no avenue for personal choice or even argument, and no one, not even the anti-mask movement, feels that a freedom has been stolen. Apparently everyone is happy that we have mandates that dictate certain parts of the body must always be covered when out in public, and no one sees this as a freedom lost. But then along comes COVID-19 and being told to wear a new item of clothing, even though it's quite small, suddenly hits a nerve in some segments of the population. To help limit the spread of a life-threatening virus temporary mask laws are put in place, which makes a small-minded minority suddenly feel there is now good 'reason' to argue and fight. They don't mind being ordered to wear clothes, even in places where it is clearly ridiculous, like while swimming or in saunas, but are outraged if ordered to wear a mask in a place where its use could save a life. How can they justify arguing for the right to not wear a mask in public, yet at the same time not also argue for the right to not wear clothes in public? Of course they'll claim (falsely) that there is no health benefit offered by masks (except it seems when worn by surgeons), that they're quite superfluous and a hassle, and that clothes are quite a different matter. But there are also (truly) many examples of where clothes offer no benefit and are equally quite superfluous and a hassle (not to mention far more expensive than masks), therefore if we accept their argument then this has now put both masks and clothes on a level playing field. There is no real difference between them, they both concern a body covering that is not needed, confers no benefit, is annoying to wear, and is only worn because an authority tells us we must. By this argument neither the wearing of masks nor clothes confer any advantage nor do they create any risk if not worn, meaning whether one chooses to wear a mask or not would be no different to someone choosing to wear a fancy waistcoat to a party, and another person choosing not to. It's just a cosmetic thing, a matter of appearance and false confidence, so we should all be free to wear what we want in public. And this is their exact argument regarding masks, but if it works for masks, why doesn't it also work for clothes? Of course it does work for clothes, so why can't these people that are challenging the wearing of masks see the bigger picture, why are they fighting to free up only the bottom of the face and not the entire body? If they were capable of higher thought they'd not only be protesting by not wearing masks, they'd wouldn't be wearing any of the body coverings that the evil empire forces on them. Waving their signs in the nude, they'd be demanding that all their stolen freedoms were returned, not just one of them. Of course as brave and radical as they see themselves, marching down the streets and outside parliament to stand up for their rights, they are too gutless to remove more than one body covering. I do think our attitudes and laws regarding public nudity are childish and prudish and driven by religion, but that's not the point of this argument, I'm merely using the permanent and far-reaching clothes mandate that the anti-mask movement accepts without argument to highlight what hypocrites they are and how insignificant the temporary mask mandate is in comparison. If they want to restore long lost freedoms, then there are far bigger battles to fight. That these fuckwits would focus their wrath on something so minor and fleeting demonstrates that they have thought very little about the matter, that they are merely self-absorbed and quite ignorant of the real injustices in the world. I guess when the mask issue resolves itself they'll turn to sorting out other problems seriously impacting the world, like pizza delivery times. 
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 27 Nov, 2021 ~
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| Surveys are fun? — Yes or No? |
For the last few years I've been participating in an annual NZ university study called the 'New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study' that, as it says, examines the attitudes and values held by ordinary Kiwis. It's conducted by answering numerous questions in a survey they send out or that can be completed online.
(If you want to complete it click here.) This year they even included a few relevant questions on our attitude regarding the COVID-19 pandemic to reveal whether we think it's real or just a hoax and our view on the government's response. Overall I'm generally a fan of surveys, since we can't expect governments and relevant authorities to deliver appropriate services and to understand the mood of the country if they never actually ask our opinion on how we think things are going.
That said, over the years I've completed various other surveys that I thought (as a layperson) seemed to be well designed to elicit answers that actually revealed how I felt, while many other surveys left me feeling that they had been designed by amateurs and were therefore collecting answers that would be useless, or were cunningly designed to force specific answers from the participants, and thus generate a bogus survey result that they wanted to use to promote a specific view, often to sell a product or service. While I'm certainly no expert, this particular survey seems to largely ask the right questions, hence the reason I've kept participating, but there is a handful of questions that I have trouble answering every year. I can't help but think the way I interpret these questions is quite different to the way the questioner intended, which is bad since a well written question shouldn't be open to interpretation, especially since I don't get to ask the questioner what they mean. So do I answer using my interpretation, or give the answer I think they want me to give, or just ignore the question altogether, which the questioner might take to mean I'm too stupid to understand the question or too embarrassed or ashamed to answer? So here are some of the more troublesome questions (in my view) and my quibbles with them. What do you think? For every statement or question we are asked whether we 'Strongly Agree' or 'Strongly Disagree' or land somewhere on the five points in between. There are several pages of questions, and some questions are asked several times in a rephrased version, I'm guessing to ensure our answers are consistent and we're not just randomly ticking boxes. Before you read my take on the question, ask yourself what you think the question is asking, not just what your response is. Ideally the questioner, you, and me, should all be on the same page, we should all be thinking the same thing when we read a question. The questioner may say, No, no , no, that's not what I meant, but if I reach the wrong interpretation then the question has failed utterly and my answer will skew the results and conclusion of the survey. Survey designers know exactly what they're trying to ask, and they assume we will too, but often that is far from true. Often we view a question in a way that was never intended, and thus our answer will be quite misleading. For example, a question in some survey might be, Have you ever taken drugs? But do they mean legal drugs, such as over-the-counter and prescription drugs (which even includes alcohol, nicotine and caffeine), or illegal drugs like cannabis or cocaine? When my doctor asks he generally expects my answer will focus on any current medication, on any legal drugs I might be taking, but the police would be thinking illegal drugs. Worse still, since clarification can't be sought in a survey, hearing just yes/no answers never reveals to the designers that confusion reigns and their questions and our answers are not related. OK, first question: 'If I get sick, it is my own behaviour which determines how soon I get well again.'These questions all revolve how you define illness, health and being sick. If you're thinking that taking time off work will aid your recovery from the flu, that a good diet and sufficient exercise can keep you well and that vaccines will help control your health status, then yes, our behaviour can affect our health in a positive way. But if you define illness, health and being sick as being diagnosed with terminal cancer or Alzheimer's or being sick with Ebola, then your behaviour and healthy lifestyle and sense of control will have no major impact on how your illness progresses. That first view of illness means you 'Strongly Agree' with the statement, the second means you 'Strongly Disagree', and since I view illness as more than just the flu, I'd say I'm not in control of how my future health goes, but I suspect many people would go with the first response. Which view was the questioner thinking of? What about that last question though, 'I expect my health to get worse'? This was not a question aimed at someone who was already unwell and asking whether they thought they might recover, it was aimed at relatively healthy people. I am healthy but I still ticked 'Strongly Agree', as I don't know anyone that as they got older their health didn't get worse, albeit hopefully gradually. As they say, when you're at the top, the only way left to go is down. Looking at my parents, grandparents, friends, neighbours, famous actors and politicians, and of course me, no one gets healthier as they age. Yet I suspect many (most) will say they disagree with the above statement, which to me is as foolish as saying they don't expect to get older. The only way that above statement might be relevant would be if it was reworded as, 'I am currently unwell, and I expect my health to get worse'. Next survey question: 'Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticising religion, and ignoring the "normal way" things are supposed to be done.'For me this question is too ambiguous, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. I criticise religion, so anyone that also does that would be 'the best people in our country' in my view, plus if challenging our government means holding them to account, then that's also praiseworthy, as is 'ignoring the "normal way" things are supposed to be done', if (as it has been for centuries) the 'normal way' is persecuting homosexuals, keeping women pregnant and in the kitchen, attending church every Sunday, and believing in white supremacy. So I could 'Strongly Agree' with the above statement. However people that are currently challenging our government over their perceived loss of freedoms concerning vaccine mandates and pandemic lockdowns would also 'Strongly Agree' that their fellow supporters are 'Some of the best people in our country', whereas I view them as some of the most moronic and dangerous, so now, if that's who the question is thinking of, I feel that I must now 'Strongly Disagree'. Many religious fundamentalists would no doubt skip over the 'challenging our government' bit and focus more on the bit about 'criticising religion, and ignoring the "normal way" things are supposed to be done', and would 'Strongly Disagree' that we atheists who are doing the criticising are 'Some of the best people in our country', since we are destroying their traditional lifestyle. The statement we are asked to consider is too vague and offers too many focus points — government, religion and lifestyle — which one do you choose? Offering more than one focus point creates the situation where one point of focus might easily conflict with another, where you might agree that our best people are right to challenge our government but disagree that they are right to criticise religion, and yet your answer can only be 'agree' or 'disagree', it can't be both, meaning it can't reflect your true view. For another example, recently Christians agreed with people who challenged the government over removing the prayer to Jesus from the official opening of parliament, but at the same time disagreed with people who criticised religion and had brought about the removal of the prayer. So would these Christians choose 'agree' or 'disagree' in answering the above question, or would their conflicting views cause them to feel that they cancel each other out and lead them to select a 'neutral' answer, a point midway between agree and disagree? But choosing 'neutral' as an answer wouldn't reveal their conflicting views, it would only suggest that they didn't have an opinion one way or the other, which is far from the truth. Further into the survey a very similar question was asked: 'It is always better to trust the judgement of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people's minds.'This statement again confusingly talks of trust in two quite different entities, government and religion, which creates the possibility of conflicting answers, yet again it only allows one answer. When I think of the current pandemic and the anti-vaxxers creating doubt and the religious fundamentalists saying God will protect us, I 'Strongly Agree' that we should 'trust the judgement of the proper authorities in government', but I 'Strongly Disagree' that we should 'trust the judgement of the proper authorities in ... religion', but I'm not permitted to register both answers. Do I select 'Strongly Agree' and falsely imply that I trust the voices of religion (alongside those of government), do I select 'Strongly Disagree' and falsely indicate that I trust neither government nor religion, or do I take a middle option suggesting (again falsely) that I'm just not sure who to trust? It's a bit like asking a Christian or Muslim the following question: 'Do you believe the god of Christianity and Islam is real?' It's impossible to give a simple yes or no answer. But note also that when (considering recent events) the above statement mentions 'the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people's minds', I'm immediately tempted to think of anti-vaxxers and religious fundamentalists, however in recent debates over homosexuality, abortion and euthanasia, the religious fundamentalists would surely consider us atheists as being 'the noisy rabble-rousers ... trying to create doubt in people's minds'. So without knowing what issue the 'proper authorities' are trying to pass judgement on, and what their opponents are arguing, is it possible to honestly answer that question at all? Sometimes I support the government, other times their critics. For the above survey question to work it must at the very least be asked twice, once enquiring only about trust in government and once again enquiring only about trust in religion. 'I feel I am often discriminated against because of my religious/spiritual beliefs.'Why don't we atheists get asked if people attack our beliefs? Or am I meant to think that question includes atheists? Can my belief that religion is bullshit be thought of as my 'religious belief', and since I'm sometimes attacked for that belief, should I answer yes, that I am discriminated against? But it's not often, so I should probably disagree. Maybe. 'Women should be cherished and protected by men.'I'm not sure what they meant by those questions. Are they looking to see if we follow the Biblical and patriarchal notion that men have power over women and they come under our protection, or the sexist notion that helpless women can't look after themselves and need the protection of men? Of course the lives of a lot of men are improved if they have women in their lives that they cherish and adore, but shouldn't it work both ways, that women also deserve to have men in their lives that they cherish and adore, and also protect? And in these enlightened times, why can't men have men they adore, and women have women they adore? And what does having 'a woman whom he adores' mean exactly? Does it describe the motivations of a stalker? If I was to adore some sexy Hollywood actress from afar, would that count, would adoring a female friend or my sister count, or does this woman have to be someone I'm having sex with, and married to in the eyes of God? I'm guessing that some women will be offended by the statement, 'Women should be cherished and protected by men', seeing it as patronising (and depending on how it was intended it could well be), but I agree with it if it's taken as part of a larger statement, 'Men, women and children should be cherished and protected by everyone'. I cherish and protect women where I can, but it doesn't end there. So those questions just confuse me. 'Bad smells, messes, dead animals and rotten food absolutely disgust me.'That question confuses me even more. Who wouldn't 'Strongly Agree' with that statement? Humans have evolved to be disgusted by foul smells, dead animals and rotten food as an unconscious way of keeping us alive. No doubt there will be a handful of people who love those disgusting things, but I'm not sure what their answer tells us. Do the questioners really think there are signs that suggest that group is on the rise in NZ? Of course some may respond saying that it's obvious what the intent was behind the questions about adoring women and rotten food, and no doubt whoever formatted the questions would agree, but my understanding is that survey questions must be written in such a way that everyone, not just some or even most people, can clearly grasp the exact meaning of the question. There can't be any undetected confusion on the part of some participants or else their answers will skew the survey results, since they and the questioner are talking at cross purposes, meaning their answers will likely have nothing to do with the question actually being asked. It's like someone asking me, 'Have you ever had sex with a famous person?', and I reply, 'Yes, many times'. Of course they were enquiring about real sex, whereas I thought they were talking about sexual fantasies, because surely they realise that asking about real encounters with famous people, let alone steamy sexual encounters, would be a ridiculous question. For surveys to work, the questioner must make the question explicit and not leave any opening for the participant to misinterpret it. 'It would be good if groups could be equal.'In those statements about groups, let me say that the survey does not in any way identify what groups they might be referring to, such as ethnic groups, religious groups, political groups, sports groups, business groups, age groups, academic groups etc. I assume this is so they don't influence or bias our answer, but this then means that what they meant by 'groups' is solely left to the person taking the survey. My guess is that the questioner is perhaps thinking of ethnic or racial groups, but the participant is free to pick whatever group they want. If they want us to think ethnic or racial groups, then I'd 'Strongly Agree' that 'It would be good if groups could be equal', and that 'We should do what we can to equalise conditions for different groups'. For the same reasoning I'd 'Strongly Disagree' with the final two statements. But, if I took groups to mean religious groups, then I don't want to see equality, I'm happy to see some doing better than others and I love that inferior groups are kept ineffectual. Do we really want to work towards making religious groups like the Taliban or ISIS to be equal in power, wealth and influence to that other religious group, the Vatican? I don't want to see the arguments of scientific groups dumbed down to the level of religious arguments just to make the rival groups equal. I don't want to see the military might of groups of Americans made equal to groups of Iranians or North Koreans. I don't want the influence of the Ku Klux Klan or Neo-Nazi groups equalised to that of the Black Lives Matter groups. We can argue that all humans should be treated as equal because they are, simply put, all humans, but it makes no sense to claim that all religious groups or political groups or sports groups are equal, because obviously they're quite different and different things can't be equal. After all, multiple religions and political parties only exist because they believe different things, so it's quite ridiculous to pretend they're equal, that they all have the right answers, and that none have a better chance of success than any other. I'd also argue that everyone should 'Strongly Agree' with the final statement, that 'Inferior groups should stay in their place.' Note that if you take groups to mean racial groups then I believe you have been mislead, as least as far as the wording of the statement goes, because that statement is not saying that some races are naturally inferior and thus should be kept in their place on a lower rung of society. It never mentions race or ethnicity, only you are in a position to assume, without justification, that the questioner was probably thinking of racial groups. It's simply saying that groups that are inferior, whether those groups are political, religious, business groups or racial etc, then those inferior groups deserve, due to their proven inferiority, to remain at the bottom of the pile. If the statement said, 'Racial groups should stay in their allotted places', then you could rightly disagree, but it actually said that 'Inferior groups', groups that they have implied are inferior for a good reason, should stay in their place. They're not asking our opinion on whether a certain group should be deemed inferior, they're asking whether groups that have actually been found to be inferior deserve to remain below superior groups? And why shouldn't the answer be yes? Would you argue to promote an inferior group of lawyers or an inferior group of athletes up to the same level as world-class lawyers or athletes? Inferior groups shouldn't gain equality with other groups because they are by definition inferior. However I fear that many survey participants would 'Strongly Disagree' that 'Inferior groups should stay in their place' because they'll see the statement as suggestive of that old claim that blacks are inferior to whites. Was that what the questioner intended? 'People who hold opinions that are harmful or offensive to minority groups should be banned from expressing those views publicly.'This statement is also asking two different questions and expecting one answer to cover both. Expressing opinions that do calculable harm, like psychological bullying or those that encourage hate crimes or racial discrimination, should be banned, but expressing opinions that merely cause offence, like telling a religious believer that their god isn't real, shouldn't. Consider how the statement, 'People who possess toxic substances should be arrested' is different to the statement, 'People who possess toxic substances that are harmful to others should be arrested'. People, such as scientists and doctors, can and do possess toxic substances but they shouldn't be arrested since, because of how those toxic substances are stored and handled, they are not causing harm to others. However the second statement implies that the toxic substances this second group of people possesses is actually causing harm to others, so action needs to be taken. The mere existence of toxic substances is not the problem, the question is whether people are using them to cause harm to others, and it's the same with whatever 'opinions' that people hold, only if those opinions are causing harm to others should they be banned, and I mean real harm, causing real physical or psychological injury, not mere shock or offence or disgust. Elsewhere they ask a similar question to the one above, 'It is okay to try and silence people who express harmful views, even if such views are deemed "legal".'Again, I would agree with that statement under my interpretation that 'harmful views' are by definition causing genuine harm to people and we need to try and limit that harm, regardless of the current law. If the law is allowing people to be harmed then we need to push for a law change, and to try and suppress those harmful views in the interim. As an example, consider how in the US in the early to mid 20th century innocent blacks and homosexuals were often being beaten and murdered due to the harmful views of American society, where such views were deemed respectable, moral and "legal". Now they are viewed as reprehensible and illegal, and I believe that the people back then that fought against those injustices were right 'to try and silence people who express harmful views, even if such views are deemed "legal".' However I fear that many people today would disagree with the above statement, arguing that people have the legal right to free speech, have the right to express views some might disagree with, even harmful views, because they see harmful views and offensive views as one and the same. But if you're like me and see a very real difference, how do you answer yes for banning 'harmful opinions' and no for 'offensive opinions' when you can only tick one box? Banning offensive comments would effectively ban free speech and silence the world, since no matter how inoffensive you believe some comment to be, there will always be someone somewhere who will take offence. I believe that whoever doesn't hold the following opinions are ignorant morons — that there are no gods, that ghosts are illusions, that psychics are delusional, that alien abductees are mistaken, that homosexuality is not a choice, that alternative therapies are a con, the Donald Trump and his supporters are racist, sexist and ignorant, that nude beaches should be legal, that the Vatican supports a pedophile ring, that 'The Lord of the Ring' movies were crap and ... well, you get the picture. I've just offended millions of sensitive souls, but how many have I actually harmed? I'd argue that I may even have helped them by forcing them to face reality, so should those opinions of mine be banned? Especially considering that offence goes both ways, I could be offended by any criticism of my beliefs and values, such as some gleeful Christian telling me I'm wrong and I'm going to roast in Hell for all eternity. Along with all the unbaptised babies. Now that, I truly find offensive, that people who see themselves as decent human beings could wish such a horror on those who express an opinion that differs from theirs. Of course many people completing this survey might view the words 'harmful' and 'offensive' as essentially meaning the same thing, so would argue that my criticism is pedantic, but I would disagree, and the fact that we disagree over what we are being asked still makes the question problematic, since no matter who is right, some proportion of people will give a false answer since they have misinterpreted the question. Also, the above statement questions whether 'opinions that are harmful or offensive to minority groups should be banned', but why do only minority groups get consideration? This suggests that majority groups don't have harmful or offensive comments directed at them, and if they do, are apparently mature enough to deal with them. The statement should be, 'People who hold opinions that harm others should be banned from expressing those views publicly'. The terms 'offensive' and 'minority groups' should be deleted. 'Please rate your ability to speak Maori.'To answer that question the boxes one could tick went in 7 steps from 'Very poor' to 'Excellent'. The question was not 'Do you speak Maori?', since it was apparently assumed that of course we all speak Maori; what the questioner wants to know is how proficient we are. I speak no Maori, but I am forced to say, by ticking 'Very poor', that I do speak Maori to some degree. Thus the survey can't help but reach the conclusion that all NZers speak some Maori, which is quite false and misleading. Of course I know one or two Maori words, like haka means war dance, but it's pure nonsense to then suggest that knowing a couple of words means I speak Maori. I understood Arnold Schwarzenegger when in 'Terminator 2' he said 'Hasta la vista, baby', but I wouldn't for a moment suggest that knowing a few Spanish words (far, far more than I know in Maori) means I can speak Spanish, not even poorly. The reality is that we likely all know quite a few foreign words, more than we realise. French words like café, genre, lingerie and bon voyage; some Italian with casino and confetti; German words such as delicatessen and kindergarten; the words guerilla, patio and macho are Spanish, and karaoke, karate and tsunami are all Japanese words. But knowing all those foreign words doesn't mean we can put 'Multilingual' on our CVs, just as knowing half a dozen Maori words doesn't mean we speak Maori, albeit poorly. Other questions in the survey, about alcohol and cigarettes for example, always begin with 'Do you drink alcohol?' or 'Do you smoke?', and if yes, then ask how often etc. It's not assumed we all drink and smoke, since surveys should ask and not assume, so why the erroneous assumption that of course we do speak Maori, but how how well do we speak it? There are also no questions about whether people speak languages other than Maori, no curiosity as to how many Kiwis are bilingual or multilingual in languages other than English and Maori. In a survey about Kiwi attitudes, perhaps it should be asked why those asking the questions only care about Maori as a second language. Of course some may argue that Maori is an official language in NZ, alongside English, whereas the likes of Spanish, Cantonese and Japanese are not. But this argument fails since NZ Sign Language is also an official language in NZ, and the survey asks no questions about our proficiency in it. 'Rate your feelings of WARMTH to the following groups:'From memory you had to select a box from 0 to 10 (zero warmth to maximum warmth). Among the groups listed were Europeans, Maori, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Immigrants etc, which seems to be looking to see how comfortable people are with sharing NZ with other ethnicities. But two other groups in the list annoyed me, not because they were added, but because so many other similar groups were omitted. The first group was 'Muslims', did we like them? Trying to rate this group suffers the same problem as does rating Maori, Asians etc, in that I have socialised and worked with Muslims in Iran, Malaysia and NZ and would rate the encounters positively, but I've also met Muslims (and seen even more on the TV news) that made me feel very uncomfortable, so no feelings of warmth there. But I'm only allowed one answer. It's like asking me to rate Movies — as a group — as 'Terrible, Average or Amazing'. I can certainly rate individual movies that way, but not movies as a whole, and it's the same with Muslims, Europeans, Maori or Asians; there are many individuals in every group I really don't like, but equally there are many I really do like, and even more I'm ambivalent towards. So do my likes and dislikes cancel out, forcing me to tick a 'neutral' feeling of warmth, or should I tick that I'm very cold towards Muslims simply because I dislike Muslim terrorists? And after all, isn't that what people are curious about when we're asked our feelings towards Muslims these days? But wouldn't that imply that I don't like any Muslims, which certainly isn't the case? How can you take a group made up of very diverse individuals or elements and give them a single rating? I suspect most people would have viewed the Muslim question in relation to terrorism committed in recent decades by Muslim fundamentalists (often against other Muslims), since my second gripe with them asking about Muslims is that they don't ask how we feel about other religions, like Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mormons, Buddhists, Scientologists etc. Apparently only Islam is viewed as a possible threat, probably because other religions have largely given up their violent past. However I still wish they had asked how much warmth I feel towards Christians, especially when Catholic priests are regularly exposed as child rapists and the good Christians all flock to their defence. The reality is that we can feel hostility towards religious groups other than just Muslims, so the question should have been asked. The other group we were asked our feelings towards was 'Overweight people'. Again it's a valid question, since like racists and misogynists, some people don't like 'fat' people, so do we have a problem in NZ? But what about all the other groups that we're not asked about? Why aren't we asked about skinny or anorexic people, anti-vaxxers, Maori radicals, skinheads and Neo-Nazis, handicapped people, smokers, Flat Earth believers, nudists, climate change deniers, boy racers, tree huggers or even ugly people. Like, while I defend their right to have them, I personally hate tattoos and/or body piercings, so if offered as a question, and why not, I would rate my feelings towards that group of people as zero warmth. Especially the recent increase in Maori full facial tattoos, it's like a horror mask they can never take off. OK for Halloween perhaps, but you're fucked for the rest of the year. By only asking about 'Muslims' and 'Overweight people' the survey is indicating what groups they feel might make us uncomfortable (revealing their own fears perhaps), while ignoring the untold groups that might actually trouble the rest of us. 'Islam is a religion of peace.'When participants tick 'Strongly Disagree', I'm assuming that the questioner will take that to mean that said participants likely think Muslims in the community are devious, cold blooded terrorists intent on world domination. I did tick 'Strongly Disagree', but not for that reason. I definitely don't believe that most Muslims feel that way, any more than most Christians or Jews are intent on hunting down homosexuals, witches and atheists on their path to world domination. However Islam — the religion — and Muslims — the people who practice that religion — are two different things. Islam the religion is definitely not a religion of peace, it was not created with the purpose of bringing about world peace, anymore than Judaism or Christianity had that goal. Although many Muslims mistakenly claim that the word Islam actually means peace, that is bogus, it means 'submission', specifically submission to the will of God (Allah). Christianity is the same, Christians are those that have given their lives over to Jesus Christ, who have surrendered unconditionally to God's will. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all religions that run on a master/slave relationship, all true followers should do exactly what their God demands of them without question. Clearly contained within Islamic scripture is the belief that it is the will of Allah that Muslims should dominate the world, and that war against the infidels will bring that about. Surely having such a goal which Muslims are duty bound to carry out does not describe a religion of peace. However, most Muslims (thankfully) ignore this divine commandment and choose to focus on conflicting commandments that argue for peace and tolerance instead. So if the question is whether Islam is a religion of peace, the correct answer is no, it's a religion of war and domination. But if the question was poorly framed and was actually asking whether Muslims in my local community seek a peaceful life in NZ, then I believe the answer is yes, and they are prepared to ignore their god to achieve it. And the same can be said for Judaism and Christianity, both are religions that seek domination of the world for their God, at the expense of the rest of us, but their current adherents also happily ignore their god's demands, they make no attempt to drag non-believers like me to the village square to be stoned. But as I've said, when asked in the survey if 'Islam is a religion of peace' and I tick that I 'Strongly Disagree', I fear that my honest and factual answer will be misinterpreted as me being distrustful and fearful of Muslims in general. Maybe the question should have been something like, 'Muslims in NZ are peaceful and trustworthy', which differentiates modern Muslims from their ancient religion, and is a sentiment I can agree with. 'I am an ordinary person who is no better than others.'How does one honestly answer that question? Am I supposed to show humility, accept that as a human I am deserving of no more rights than any other person, that I don't have any special abilities that would require others to treat me as a god, and that I've done nothing so outstanding that would see people making statues of me? I accept that I am an ordinary person, nothing exceptional. However, I, like most everyone, am clearly better than others in some regards. I am better at tennis, maths, pistol shooting and quizzes on religion than all my friends, who are in turn better at many other things than I am. I'd also argue that morally I'm a better person than most religious people, since I don't persecute homosexuals or women or atheists and I don't worship a God and follow a religion that does. So yeah, definitely better than many others and proud of it. This makes me an ordinary person, who is better than others, at least in some things. Of course you may argue that the question is looking to see whether I arrogantly view myself as better than everyone in everything, but then why not ask, 'Do you think you're Superman?' I want to answer truthfully, that I am better than others in some respects, but I'm also an ordinary person, but it seems I'm not allowed to be both. I'm either an Average Joe that nobody ever notices or that annoying wanker who arrogantly thinks he's a demigod. 'In most ways my life is close to ideal.'I assume that this statement likely means something like, 'Overall I'm happy with my life', or 'In most ways I've achieved my goals in life', and I would therefore tick that I generally agree with that sentiment. But if I'm honest, that's not what the statement actually says, it asks if my life is 'close to ideal', where 'ideal' by definition means 'a conception of something in it's absolute perfection'. Therefore I must tick that I disagree, since the question doesn't ask if my life is going well and I'm generally happy with all the various elements of my life, but whether those elements are close to absolute perfection! And who could honesty say their life is close to absolute perfection in even one thing, like health or good looks or high-speed driving, let alone in most everything? If your life was close to ideal, close to absolute perfection, then you would have lived the near perfect childhood, have been gifted the near perfect body, have received the near perfect education, possess the near perfect house, career, sexual partner, family, fleet of cars and jets, sporting abilities, culinary skills, choice in movies, and ... on and on it would go. We have people in the world that do excel in one or even two things, like tennis or maths or international diplomacy, or are lucky to have the natural appearance of a supermodel or to have inherited huge wealth, but they can only say that one or two things in their life are close to ideal, not that their entire life is 'close to ideal'. They can say that they're blissfully happy with their life, that it's all they ever dreamed of, but they can't honestly say that it's perfect or close to ideal. It's like when something good happens and people say, 'Wow ... my life couldn't get any better'. I mean really ... they can't think of even one thing that might make it better still? A happy life and a perfect life are quite different things, the first is possible, the second isn't. It's said that only God can live a perfect life, and I'd argue that even that is impossible. Since I'm a bit of a nerd, maybe I'm over thinking these questions, being too literal, and glimpsing weird alternatives that the designer never considered anyone would see. But there's a lot of us nerds out there, and I suspect we are far more likely to fill out these sorts of surveys than most people, so is our nerdy take on survey questions distorting the conclusions? We may absolutely have grabbed the wrong end of the stick with regard to our answers, but if our unexpected answers are forming a reasonable proportion of completed surveys, then they need to be corrected and accounted for. Future surveys need to be written in such a way that even we nerds read the questions exactly as intended.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 13 Nov, 2021 ~
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| NZ has outbreak of anti-vaxxers |
So, I've had my double jab of the COVID-19 microchips, and apart from some minor radio interference when I walk too close to my TV, I haven't noticed any negative health effects that would make me regret getting vaccinated. Of course I'm not new to vaccines. My parents ensured I got all the available shots growing up, and I didn't grow an extra arm or become magnetic, nor did anyone else. Back then people weren't anti-vax since they had seen first hand the real harm caused by debilitating and fatal diseases that they had no protection against, and as soon as vaccines became available they gratefully accepted them. But the amazing success of vaccines means that young people today have been protected by past vaccination programs that have run efficiently in the background and they are now quite ignorant of the health risks they have been shielded from. They think they are healthy simply because they have a varied diet, do yoga twice a week and wear an expensive watch that measures their pulse, and that nasty diseases are found only in African villages or the slums of India, but just as levees and stopbanks keep out flood waters and border checks keep out undesirables, vaccines keep many diseases at bay. As well as my COVID-19 shots, this year I've also had booster jabs for hepatitis, tetanus and shingles, plus when I was an international jet setter I had numerous jabs for more exotic diseases. Modern medicine, I'm definitely a fan.
But clearly many are not enamoured by the marvels of modern medicine. They reported a survey on the TV news recently that said nearly a quarter of Kiwis are 'vaccine hesitant', or to put it in simpler terms, they're fucking morons! They're likely too busy on Facebook reading fake news, following some dimwitted celebrity on Twitter, or watching conspiracy theory videos on YouTube, and in all cases too ignorant to make intelligent, rational decisions. As our government belatedly starts to get serious concerning this pandemic, like finally mandating vaccinations for those working in border control and in the health and education sectors (but exempting the police for some strange reason) and planning the introduction of vaccine certificates, we have seen increased protests from those vehemently opposing vaccines, masks, social distancing, lockdowns and what they see as infringements to their pre-COVID freedoms, like the 'right', during a pandemic, to get blind drunk with 200 close friends, visit their drug dealer, get a bikini wax, crowd into a stadium to watch grown men chase a ball up and down a paddock like dogs chasing a stick, or most important of all, to go shopping. And not shopping for essentials, which is allowed, but shopping for meaningless crap. Plus we're starting to see legal cases challenging mandatory vaccinations, with nurses, midwives, border workers and teachers preferring to walk away from their career (and its salary) rather than get vaccinated. Of course some people quitting the health and education sectors has a silver lining, since do we really want ignorant morons promoting the belief that vaccines are harmful? On a personal note, even though masks are now mandatory in supermarkets and such, every time I go I see several people without masks and the various businesses do nothing, and almost as bad, numerous people with masks that fail to understand that the mask must cover the nose too, not just the mouth! Plus every time we've been in stay-at-home lockdowns and contained to our own bubbles, all four of my neighbours continually broke the rules by having numerous visitors. Our Prime Minister talks of 'the team of 5 million', but the reality is that many NZers aren't part of her team, and in fact many are part of an opposing team. It may be a small opposing team, but when it comes to infectious disease it's not about strength in numbers. While many, probably most, make a serious effort, it only takes one ignorant fuckwit to cause another outbreak. As anyone who has watched a zombie movie knows, it only takes one or two zombies to break out of the quarantine, usually unwittingly aided by the stupidity of someone saying the outbreak is just a hoax or is not as serious as the authorities say, and then all hell breaks loose and people, lots of people, die. Of course the hero and his girlfriend always survives, but that's Hollywood for you, you'd be stupid to believe that things will play out like that in real life. And yet many people are that stupid, they naively believe that even 'if' there is a deadly pandemic occurring right now, they will greatly improve their odds of surviving it by refusing vaccines, by not wearing masks, and by hugging as many strangers as they can. And by praying to their invisible god in large groups. In short, by living life in denial, by carrying on as if nothing has happened, by putting their hands over their ears and screaming 'La la la la' when anyone tries to make them face reality. As I write this the number of deaths caused by the rampaging COVID zombies has just passed five million. And they're just the deaths that have been officially recorded, Zeus knows how many have actually died due to the pandemic, and the numbers that have suffered and survived is far, far higher still. Like other historical epidemics and pandemics this one too will end, but there is no end in sight just yet. Around the world many people are suffering badly either directly or indirectly due to the pandemic, but in NZ the main form of horrible suffering experienced by most during lockdowns seems to be a craving for takeaway coffees, hamburgers, pizza or some fried chicken. How in the past did society ever cope when these fast foods were not available? In addition to untold deaths due to plagues, crop failures or marauding savages, did entire groups of travellers just die of starvation when it was discovered that the village they had arrived at didn't have a McDonalds, or in fact any Ye Olde Takeaway establishment? Now it seems that cheap fast food and bloody expensive coffee is what many people live on, indeed it seems they need it to live, and when they can't get it, like in Level 4 lockdown, boy do these wankers moan. Compelled to eat the subsistence food their great grandparents ate and to drink the instant coffees that one heard about in ancient history classes, you'd think they were being forced to eat roasted rats and drink their own urine. When you read about the sacrifices that people made in past centuries, the hardships they had to endure to survive in times of war and pestilence and natural disasters, it makes you realise that most people today are pathetic wimps and cry babies. They have no idea what true suffering actually entails or what it means to have some essential liberty removed. To them the free world is coming to an end if they can't go out and get a coffee or if they're asked to wear a mask. Many people today have become so selfish and lazy and pampered, they're like some ancient king demanding his favourite slippers be fetched and who then has a right royal conniption when they can't be found. Today it's not just one arrogant king making childish demands and threatening retribution, its thousands of plebs making childish demands, demanding ready access to their takeaway coffee, to their local alcohol establishments and to sports arenas. These ignorant plebs demand that they be able to congregate in large numbers, like locusts, even in times of a pandemic, and that they need take no precautions, like wearing a mask or keeping their distance, and they most certainly shouldn't be compelled to get vaccinated. They want nothing to do with a medical system they don't trust, unless of course they get sick, then they will demand every modern resource be employed to heal them. In the past I've always been amazed, and annoyed, when silly devout Christians insisted that God was watching over them and keeping them safe, and when believers in ridiculous alternative healing practices argued that their crystals or magnets or foot massages were far more effective at keeping them healthy than what doctors and hospitals offered, yet as soon as some affliction struck they raced straight past their church or local quack and into a hospital and begged to see a doctor. A real doctor with real medicine. It's no different now with COVID-19, the ignorant morons condemn modern medicine while embracing superstitious nonsense, but their tune quickly changes when they develop symptoms, staring at possible death quickly rips them out of their medieval mindset and into the real world. It's impossible of course, but it's a shame you can't separate out the anti-vaxxers, anti-mask and other conspiracy theorists from those that follow the scientific advice, and create two separate communities, where we each retreat to and live by the policies we think are best and see which works out. If someone in the anti-vaxx community gets sick then they need to turn to their local witch doctor, homeopath, chiropractor, Reiki healer or Jesus-loving priest for treatment, there is no phoning emergency services or sneaking over the border to use our medical facilities, the ones they don't trust. This separation experiment could be applied to so many disputes, like the anarchists that want to abolish governments and the 'defund the police' idea that many were promoting in the USA, where 'defunding' would of course mean that without funds the police force disappears. Those pushing that idea would live in a community with no police to call if a crime is committed, they'd need to deal with it themselves. Maybe resort to old-time vigilante groups, kangaroo courts, and razor wire and booby traps around their houses. The rest, those that accepted that a police force was a necessity, would live in a neighbouring community, and if it was performing poorly then they'd take steps to reform it, not to disband it. In NZ we have something similar, where we have a certain number of Maori wanting to live a traditional lifestyle, that insist that they shouldn't have to get a driver's licence or pay for a firearms or fishing licence since traditionally Maori never did. Which is true, but traditionally Maori never had cars to drive or aluminium boats with nylon nets and outboard motors to fish with or high powered rifles to hunt with. Now with COVID, vaccine rates for Maori are way behind the national average due to their mistrust of modern medicine. So we create two communities, one for Maori to live the traditional lifestyle of their ancestors where they are not subject to any of our modern Western laws and where they have nothing that was invented in the last 300 years, and another community for the rest of us NZers, which would be basically the same as NZ is now, full of modern technology and modern laws, just bereft of those Maori complaining about having to pay for Internet access. But alas, there is no easy way (at least no ethical way) we could create these divisions, we are stuck with anti-vaxxers turning up at hospitals demanding treatment for a disease they refused the vaccine for, stuck with people who scream 'defund the police' and then later dial 911 and demand the police come quickly because their house is being robbed, and stuck with people that argue against abortion and contraception because their God says every life is sacred, but then secretly use contraception anyway or sneak off and get an abortion when they suddenly find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy, and where the devout men have a quick wank every day not caring that with every ejaculation they are destroying not one, but millions of potential lives. We have the anarchists wanting to rid us of governments but not realising that much in society that they rely on to flourish is provided either directly by governments or indirectly by the stability that good governments provide. These fucking hypocrites and those that promote other silly beliefs like the Flat Earth, chemtrails, Atlantis, psychics, ghosts or alien abductions can all spout their nonsense while safe in the knowledge that if they're wrong, and the shit hits the fan, they can quickly demand and receive help from the very people and services they were criticising and fighting against. These wankers are like people that refuse to pay tax but still demand access to the highly desired services that our taxes pay for. The hypocrites who use Wi-Fi and 5G to post on Facebook and YouTube about how dangerous Wi-Fi and 5G is.
Because of all the fake news, disinformation and misinformation that has been circulating, for me this enforced social distancing is probably a good thing. My tolerance is at an all time low for the moronic anti-vaxxers, Christian fundamentalists, alternative healers, 5G conspiracy theorists and racist Trump supporters (yes, even in NZ we have ignorant Kiwis besotted by 'The Donald'). While I'd truly love to have a calm, intellectual discussion with these deluded souls, the reality is that they are likely incapable of calm and anything intellectual is almost certainly beyond them. Which is a shame since four books I've read of late are, 'Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement' (2020) by Jonathan M. Berman, 'Top 10 Vaccine Objections: Doubts and Conversations' (2020) by Alex Ramirez, 'COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories: QAnon, 5G, the New World Order and Other Viral Ideas' (2021) by John Bodner et al., and 'How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason' (2021) by Lee McIntyre. All are very informative and recommended.
And these anti-vaxxers say they do their own research, but skimming over the crap on FaceBook and YouTube is not research, it's like watching planes fly over your house to the nearby airport and convincing yourself that you're now a trained pilot. It just astounds me that someone can watch a home-made video on YouTube by a yoga instructor, failed actress or supermarket janitor and convince themselves that those uneducated fuckwits know more about viruses and vaccines than do epidemiologists and vaccinologists with years of advanced training and experience behind them. Clearly, thanks to the likes of the welfare state, evolution and the survival of the fittest is no longer weeding out the genes that deserve to go extinct. Lagging behind many other countries, NZ will shortly issue 'vaccine passports', although since you can already get fake exemption certificates, how successful they'll be only time will tell. They are necessary since the government seemed to think that everyone was honest and sensible and would do the right thing. Yeah right. That's like banks thinking that they don't need to lock their vaults. Those in charge have finally realised that some people will always break the law, that some people are just fucking stupid, and that telling an anti-vaxxer that they don't have to get a jab will in no way encourage them to actually get one. It's also not helping when many people that believe in vaccination, including politicians and the media, argue that no one should have to get a jab if they don't want to. And legally they can't be compelled (and generally I'm all for this), but surely if they want to work in a field where the best evidence says vaccines are what's required to offer the public the best protection, then either get a jab or work in some other field where vaccination isn't crucial. Imagine if pilots refused to get a commercial pilot's licence, or if surgeons or structural engineers refused to get the appropriate degrees, but they all still demanded that they be allowed to work as pilots, surgeons and engineers respectively. Everyone would complain and demand that anyone not suitably qualified to work in a certain field be dismissed immediately. We expect pilots, surgeons and engineers to work in a way that keeps us safe, and surely we expect the same from our health and border workers, that their work with potential COVID cases is not actually putting us at increased risk through their refusal to get vaccinated. Would we let them work on the frontline if they also refused to wear any personal protective equipment, like masks and gloves, or refused to stick to quarantine rules? I certainly hope not, but what's the difference between vaccines and PPE? Both are evidence-based steps we can take to limit a community outbreak, and anyone working to that end needs to be utilising the best tools available. If you refuse to get a pilot's licence, then don't apply to be a pilot, likewise if you're against vaccinations, a marvel of modern medicine, then don't apply to work in hospitals, schools or quarantine facilities where risk of virus infection is high, instead work from home selling healing crystals online. As for enforcing the 'vaccine passports', places like bars and supermarkets are complaining, insisting that they shouldn't have to police this policy, and that they can't, arguing that it would be too dangerous in many cases. And yet, try and enter a bar if you're under-aged or try ordering another drink if you're intoxicated and bar staff immediately start policing, they start demanding identification or insisting you leave, threatening to call over a big bouncer or the real police if you don't. Same with supermarkets, try walking out without paying or knocking over their fruit displays and they very quickly turn into the supermarket 'police'. Same with restaurants and the no smoking ban, years ago they argued that they could never police it, and yet they've managed to do so very easily. The reality is that no business wants to have to do anything that isn't making them money, and having to have staff check IDs or having to refuse entry to a customer because they won't follow the rules are dollars lost. Clearly many businesses are suffering financially during these lockdowns, but the problem is that most are arguing to reopen or to increase their allowed customer numbers not because they feel it is safe to do so, but simply because they are desperate to make some money. They are motivated by their personal financial needs, not by the public good, and many are willing to risk our safety to stay afloat. Some businesses would sell knifes to rapists and alcohol to children if they thought they could do so without the public finding out. Look at social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, they insist that they are just offering a service and have no responsibility or control over how people use it, completely ignoring all the fake news and racist, sexist, homophobic and body image rants that litter their sites and the harm that they cause. For far too many businesses it's all about making money, in good times and bad, so I'm afraid I'm always suspicious of whatever statements they make, wondering what their true motivations are. Is a product or service for the public good or simply for their good? Many countries are fighting to get back to 'normal', whereas I believe that's a mistake, since the old 'normal' is what caused the pandemic and our badly flawed response to it. We need to learn from our mistakes and create a new 21st century 'normal'. Just as we have to live with the threat of HIV and terrorists, we will likely have to live with COVID, although hopefully in a weakened form, but we have to live with it on our terms, which means a heightened awareness and new precautions. Just as today's safe sex requires a bit more work than the carefree sex of the 1960s, travel and social interactions in the near future will also require some changes in society, but it's worth it if it makes our lives safer and consequently happier. Every generation thinks their lifestyle is better than that of their parents and would never consider adopting the lifestyle that their parents considered 'normal', and yet in some sense that is what many people are currently fighting for, to retreat to a past 'normal' that gave us COVID-19 instead of building a new 'normal' that seeks to eliminate the flaws of the past. Even if COVID did burn out and become very rare, the real problem is that most people worldwide would wildly celebrate with mask burning parties and would quickly dismantle all the health departments and pandemic resources in their mad race to return to normal (using the recovered money to build new sports stadiums and dig new coal mines), when they should be keeping and improving on what we have, because without doubt there will be another pandemic caused by another pathogen that the public has never heard of, but of which virologists warned us about before leaders like Donald Trump fired them. Instead they'll hang a healing crystal around their neck, say a quick prayer to Jesus and drift off to sleep on their magnetic underlay, because for those whom rational thought is a struggle, the traditional treatments are far more comforting than these newfangled drugs, and science with phrases like mRNA vaccines is simply far too complex to understand. If a genuine fear of God and a dollop of leeches was good enough for their grandparents, it's good enough for them too. I used to be an optimist, I grew up with a positive and progressive vision of a future like that showcased in the TV show 'Star Trek', where harmful things like racism, sexism, religion, nationalism and superstition had been left in the past, and a united humanity had embraced science and reason and voyaged to the stars. But I'm fast becoming a pessimist as waves of ignorant morons try to drag society back to the Dark Ages, with a 'magical' smartphone in one hand, a Bible in the other, healing herbs in their pocket and a freshly done Brazilian wax in case they get hit by a bus (In my day mothers emphasised clean underwear, but apparently it's now moved beyond that). 
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 01 Nov, 2021 ~
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| Are you complicit in God's evil? |
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In our last post I stated that people who refuse to challenge the dangerous nonsense spouted by religious nutters are part of the problem, part of the reason the world is still mired in ancient superstition and the extreme harm it causes. And it's not just non-believers that recognise the dangerous nonsense pushed by religion, most believers recognise the harm their faith causes, and are worried and conflicted by it. But usually only in private. Catholics will privately condemn the priests who rape their children, but they'll continue going to mass and supporting their church. Muslims will condemn other Muslims who explode bombs in their children's schools, but they'll continue praying five times a day and proclaiming that Allah is great. Christians will condemn the persecution of homosexuals, often by other Christians, but they won't desert their god who is demanding that persecution. Untold believers from all religions are well aware of the troublesome commandments in their holy books and the problems they cause in community after community around the world, but they say nothing, they make no attempt to expose the flaws they see in the faith they follow. And if an atheist questions their silence, they'll often go on the defensive, unwilling to show any weakness and criticise God's word, arguing that there are surely good explanations for what some see as flaws.
Why are people too gutless to challenge religious nonsense, especially when it is clearly doing great harm? Are they afraid of angering a god that they've never seen, never even received a Xmas card from? Even with this latest terrorist attack in Auckland, our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern held a press conference with the Police Commissioner and essentially proclaimed that it had nothing to do with religion. The fault doesn't lie there. Here's what she said in describing the attack: 'It was carried out by an individual, not a faith, not a culture, not an ethnicity, but an individual person who was gripped by ideology that is not supported here, by anyone or any community, he alone carries the responsibility for these acts, let that be where the judgement falls.'WTF? A man who was described as a Muslim on a terror watch list attacks people while continually screaming 'God is great' in Arabic, the language of the Islamic Koran, not the language of the terrorist, and yet Ardern can't see a connection with any religious faith, let alone with Islam! Why mention he was a Muslim and that he was being followed by undercover police for receiving and spreading violent material from radical Muslim groups if his faith had no relevance to the attack? Why no mention of his favourite food or movie genre, which are presumably other interests he held that had no relevance to the attack? The police even acknowledged that his connection to these Islamic groups was the very reason he was being monitored, and yet Adern then assures us that his faith played no part in his terrorist act. The police also revealed that they had even asked Muslims at a local mosque if they might be prepared to talk with this man regarding his radical Islamic views. If this man's hateful ideology had nothing to do with Islam, why did the police feel that Muslims were the people best able to make him see flaws in his worldview? If it wasn't his Muslim faith that was the problem, why not get him to talk with a psychologist or a social worker or even someone from Sri Lanka, the country he grew up in and where his family still lives? Why think Muslims can best fix a problem that has nothing to do with the Muslim faith? We were also told that police will put extra patrols around all mosques. Again, why did they do that if the attack had nothing to do with Islam, Muslims and mosques? Why no extra patrols around churches or neighbourhoods where immigrants from Sri Lanka lived? What is causing this confusion around what is motivating people of faith? Clearly some Muslims have conflicting views of what their faith says, some arguing that their holy book allows and even promotes violence against non-believers, others arguing that their holy book is only about love, tolerance and peace, while most Muslims have views that lie somewhere between both those extremes. Christian and Jewish believers view their respective holy books in exactly the same way, most sitting somewhere in the middle, perfectly willing to condemn homosexuals, ban condoms and argue with evolutionists, but drawing the line at actual violence. The NZ Muslims that Ardern talks with may claim that 'their' faith is not one of violence, but surely she knows that no Muslim (or Jew or Christian) can show that their specific view of their god, that their faith, is any more valid than the next person's faith. Surely she knows that there is not just one Muslim faith, that Muslims have been fighting and killing each other for centuries over which of many Muslim faiths is actually the correct one? (Spoiler: They're all false.) To naively argue that the one and only true Muslim faith is the one that promotes peace is as ignorant as arguing that the Catholic faith is the one and only true Christian faith, and that all the Christians following Protestant dogma are not following a faith at all, not even a false religion, just a misguided ideology. Ardern may rightfully find the violent dogma of the radical Muslim groups like ISIS and the Taliban to be abhorrent, but their view of Islam, which is well supported by the Koran, is still a religious faith. You can't just say that any religion you like is a faith, and that those you don't like are merely an ideology. Whether they're seen as good or bad, silly or ... well, all religions are silly, but every religious belief is a faith because by definition they are held by faith, that is, the willingness to believe in something even when, not only is there no evidence to support it, there is actually good evidence and/or reasons that contradicts that belief. That's why we talk of religion and faith being quite separate from science and reason. Science is supported by evidence, religion by nothing more than hope. I agree that violent, intolerant, radical Islam is not a faith or culture that NZ as a country will ever support, but it's sheer folly to then argue that just because we won't accept it here, then it doesn't exist anywhere. The sad reality is that this evil faith does exist in many places around the world, we see it play out on the TV news on a regular basis. It's more obvious in certain places, like Afghanistan and Iraq, but it's also hiding in less obvious places, like France, Britain and NZ, which have all had local Muslims commit terror attacks on their own citizens. We can't just keep saying that these terrorist attacks have nothing to do with Islam so as not to embarrass or offend our local Muslim community, who say they are as shocked as we are. The Muslims in NZ may not identify with the radical views of the Muslim terrorists, but that is really no different to saying that the local Methodists do not identify with the radical views of the Catholics. Catholics persecute homosexuals and ban condoms and Methodists argue that this is cruel and inhumane and not what Jesus taught, just as some Muslims persecute heretics and infidels with suicide bombers and other Muslims argue that this is cruel and inhumane and not what Muhammad taught. The reality is that if you don't want to be embarrassed by having it pointed out that your religion, your faith or your god-based worldview, call it what you will, is full of claims and commandments that are offensive, unjust, barbaric, dogmatic and disgusting or simply irrational and clearly false, then choose a worldview that doesn't have all these flaws. If believers following your god are doing shameful acts and defending their actions with your god's own words, like killing infidels, persecuting homosexuals and women, and denying a rape victim an abortion or an abused wife a divorce, then it is quite reprehensible that you keep supporting the religion that allows these injustices to continue. If we can point to numerous commandments in your holy book where your god demands that you kill non-believers, or numerous commandments that subjugate women, or untold claims about science and history that are clearly nonsense (as the Jewish Tanakh, Christian Bible and Muslim Koran do on all counts), then you are defending a faith that is clearly untenable. If you follow a faith that makes a mockery of ethics, justice and factual reality, then you deserve to be challenged and you should feel embarrassed when you can't answer your critics and you should feel deeply ashamed that you still choose to maintain your faith against such overwhelmingly critical revelations. Like you no doubt, I've heard many Muslims and Christians take offence at some statement made about their religion and proclaim loudly that that's not what their faith teaches, arguing that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance or that Christianity embraces everyone equally, but those claims are utter bullshit. Other Muslims claim that their faith demands they slaughter infidels wherever they find them and that they fight to bring the world under Muslim control, and other Christians argue that their faith demands they persecute homosexuals and subjugate women, but these claims are also utter bullshit. Of course all those claims of peace and love, and of war and hate, are all in the respective holy book of the Muslims and Christians, but that doesn't mean that those views are clearly God's views. The reality is that, based on what the holy books say, God clearly didn't know what he was talking about, he was talking nonsense. Commandments that demand war clearly contradict commandments that demand peace, just as commandments dictating love contradict commandments dictating hate. You logically can't do both, it's impossible to go to war and live in peace. You can't be a warmonger and a pacifist, and you can't love your neighbour while at the same time hate him. Because it's claimed that all the demands in these holy books were made by God, none of the demands can be in error, but because they make impossible contradictory demands, then clearly the books are nonsense, written not by an infallible god but by many different fallible men who didn't realise or didn't care that they were writing nonsense. When a radical Muslim, Christian or Jew says his holy book really does demand he kill non-believers, subjugate women and persecute homosexuals, he's right, it does. He's not making it up or distorting some vaguely worded passage. God really does make these (in my view, abhorrent) demands of his followers. But likewise, more liberal Muslims, Christians and Jews can just as honestly claim that God promotes love, tolerance and peace, and again such passages can be found in the holy books. The reality is that when any Muslim, Christian or Jew claims, based on their personal reading of their holy book, to know what their god wants, they are cherry picking the commandments and statements that they like and approve of, and are rejecting those they don't like. They are in effect rewriting their holy book to produce an edited version that better reflects how they'd like their god to behave. They have a view of how they would like the world to be, and they cobble together various supporting passages from their holy book, while ignoring numerous others that don't fit, and they argue that this edited version clearly describes the way the world is, when in fact it is just the opposite, it is their desired world that dictates what their edited holy book should say. If they want a world of peaceful diversity then that's what they see written by God, if they want a world dominated by God's faithful servants, then God's barbaric commandments to that end are obvious. When you quiz a religious person on where they get their views from, be it on homosexuality or nudity or how old the Earth is, it may take some probing but eventually the answer always leads back to something written in their holy book, or at least something they think is written there. Ardern is correct that the perpetrator was certainly responsible for his act, and there is no suggestion that we might forgive him if we found out that someone encouraged him to carry out the attack. But to argue that he was not motivated by a faith, ie Islam, and by other radical Muslims, ie a culture, is a deceptive and fearful argument that I believe clearly fails, and is surely made so as not to offend or anger the Muslim community. It is obvious, and supported by the evidence from the police, that this man did not come up with some unique ideology by himself. He was deeply involved with radical Islam, such as ISIS, and this was the reason he was being watched. As he was slashing people he was screaming that the god of the Muslims is great, not something like 'Down with 5G' or 'Coronavirus is a hoax'. Clearly he felt that 'Allahu Akbar' would give meaning to his actions, yet Arden says he was not motivated by a faith or a culture. But if she went to countries or regions under control of ISIS or the Taliban or other radical Muslims, then she would quickly see that such a dangerous and intolerant faith and culture do actually exist and they can easily influence people in other countries, even NZ. We are fooling ourselves if we keep telling ourselves that these individuals are acting alone, and once they are arrested, then the threat disappears. He may have attacked alone, but he was not alone, he was motivated, encouraged and ill-informed by the actions and words of untold others of the same faith and culture. The world's not safe just because he was shot dead. The motivation for some of these sick individuals actually increases when one of their number is killed by infidels. To them he is a shining success, not a failure, since we infidels are now scared to go into supermarkets and terrified as to where the next attack might come from. Terrorism is all about creating fear in the population, not about killing people. Plus his death made him a martyr, meaning he's now in heaven raping the 72 virgins that God gave him as a reward. You and I might see dying as a negative thing, but martyrs see it as a huge positive. Silly Christians forever talk about the the much better life to come in heaven, but strangely none are willing to die early to get there, but radical Muslims are. Police can't scare a radical Muslim by threatening to shoot him. Again, Adern is right that the evil ideology exhibited by the attacker is not supported in NZ, at least not by the great majority of Kiwis, and that includes most NZ Muslims, but wrong that no one here supports it. Clearly one person in NZ supported it, and the police had to shoot him. Days after the attack it was revealed that the police were holding 100+ people in prison that held extreme and violent views based on an ideology or faith, and another 100+ were being monitored in the community, so again Ardern is wrong, and her government knows it, to argue that this attacker was a lone wolf, with no others in NZ that might feel the same way. And of course those radicals being held or monitored by the police are just the ones stupid enough to have done something to bring them to the attention of the cops. Zeus knows how many others are out there fuming away undetected, biding their time before they strike, as the Koran instructs them to do. Thankfully most religious people in NZ, be they Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever, don't support the violent and unjust demands made in their holy books, but by blindly holding onto their faith they reassure others that they are right to believe in an unseen god. And it is this core belief that God is real that ties all believers, from the most violent to the most peaceful, together. However the peaceful believers, the great majority, are what I view as lazy and insincere believers, and they are a huge part of the problem. Every time a Muslim detonates a suicide bomb, a Christian priest rapes an altar boy, a Jew shoots his Muslim neighbour, or a Hindu rapes a woman (1 rape is reported every 15 minutes in India), then all their fellow believers must take some responsibility for these atrocities, since they help keep the primitive, dangerous religious bullshit alive that encourages or permits such shameful acts against non-believers, women and children. But your typical believer is either too stupid to see that, or can but is too afraid and ashamed to admit it. These arrogant, lazy, greedy believers want the best of both worlds. They want the feel-good childish emotion of having a god to protect them, but they want nothing to do with any of the violent or inconvenient stuff. No way is that god going to stop them from doing the things they want to do. God to them is like an insurance policy, something that gathers dust in a drawer until they need it. If they want to work on the Sabbath, have premarital sex, get a tattoo, drink alcohol, eat shellfish, pluck their eyebrows, masturbate, eat pork or beef, read their horoscope, shave their beard, be friends with an atheist or believe that Eve and that talking snake weren't real, then they will, even though all these things are against the teachings of one or more of the above religions. All these prohibitions are in the holy books, along with the far more obscene demands from God, meaning that most followers conveniently and deliberately ignore them, childishly arguing that they were meant for another time or someone else. But even though they dismiss untold passages as being irrelevant in the modern world, they still religiously keep their holy book intact, insisting that it's sacred, some will even kill anyone who damages, disrespects or alters God's book. Because they refuse to delete the passages they don't like and don't follow, that means that others can still read them and, as God intended, take them seriously. When these more honest followers ask their follow believers if everything in their holy book is truly God's word and should be obeyed, they answer yes, even though, by ignoring many of God's demands, they clearly don't believe that. But they can't admit that, they can't argue that some passages are wrong or immoral or irrational since to do so would be to argue that God made lots of mistakes, and if the holy book is full of mistakes, then clearly it's not the word of God at all. And that would be blasphemy. Believers can't sensibly say that their holy book is riddled with errors and obscene demands and then still say they believe it's all true, so they ignore the errors and such and they lie to people that ask; they say yes it's truly God's word and change the subject. Let's remember that we're not talking about the likes of the 'Harry Potter' books or even science text books, books written by humans which can have errors and yet still be useful. But to stay as God's word, by its very nature a holy book must be error free, from the very beginning, meaning every statement or demand made by God or about God is true, even the truly vile ones. It's either all or nothing. If there is a single error or false passage then clearly it's not the work of God, since even a single error is impossible for a perfect god to make. I can make mistakes, but God can't make mistakes and still be God, that would be illogical. So when someone reads what seems to them to be an immoral, vile, obscene commandment from God, and untold followers of that God assure them that God doesn't make mistakes or issue ambiguous demands, then surely it's easy for a believer to accept that regardless of how they might feel, that is what God really meant and they should do what God demands. Especially when they're also informed about Hell and the punishment awaiting those that fail to follow God's demands. Of course this follower will likely also notice that most followers are ignoring many of God's demands, especially those that they find onerous, but a true believer would also reason that ignoring God's demands is obviously wrong and foolhardy, after all, it's not as though God won't know about their disobedience. The correct path is obviously to follow God's demands to the letter, not to pick and choose the safe and easy ones and ignore the dangerous and difficult ones. They'll reason that they're surrounded and supported by millions of people that believe as they do, that God is real and obedience to God's word is how he demands we serve him, and that he will reward the obedient. For those that only follow God's dictates when it suits them, surely this means they must displease him more often than they please him, behaviour which clearly will lead to some severe punishment down the road. Any true believer that genuinely accepts that God's word as written in their holy book is true would carry out every demand made by God, no matter how immoral it might seem to them, after all they are God's servants, not someone with their own autonomy. God decides what is immoral, not them. Any so-called believer that thinks they can pick and choose which of God's demands they will obey and God will be fine with that, are clearly people that deep down don't really believe that God is real, or certainly not the vicious, barbaric, sadistic god portrayed in their holy book. But clearly if you dismiss all the bad stuff written about God as fanciful nonsense written by primitive goat herders, then surely you must realise that all the good stuff written about God is also just as likely to be fanciful nonsense written by primitive goat herders. You can argue that no just and loving god would murder and rape and pillage like he does in their holy book, and demand his followers do likewise, so the bad stuff must be made up, but equally you can argue that God stating that the Earth is flat and rests on pillars, that humans were created from dust, that women must not speak in church, that you should love an enemy that is about to slaughter your family, that women must not pluck their eyebrows and no one should get a tattoo or eat shrimps is just plain wrong and ridiculous, so must also be made up by ignorant, superstitious nomads. Even if some of what is written in the Bible is true, eg the Egyptian civilisation was real, the difficulty is in explaining away all the many claims that clearly can't be true, and why God didn't know that. How can Christians, Muslims and Jews, generation after generation, keep giving their children their holy book, a book whose message they keep insisting is absolutely true, a book that contains some truly horrific and disgusting demands by their god, and then be surprised and appalled when some of their children actually take the message to heart, when some children grown to adulthood blindly trust the years of reinforcement by their family, friends and community and come away believing that their holy book is truly the word of God? They're told that it's not an old fairy story, not a flawed guide written by men, but the literal thoughts and demands of God, the all-powerful being that created them to serve him and who will punish them terribly if they ignore his commandments, and reward them greatly if they obey. How can believers give naďve, trusting and gullible young minds such a dangerous object and not realise that it could harm them or others if they use it as it was intended to be used, as a God-given guide to exactly how they must live their life if they wish to please their master and avoid unimaginable punishment? Surely it should be obvious that at least some new believers will believe that all the demands in their holy book are to be obeyed without question, and seriously, I'm surprised that all believers don't feel that way. But thankfully most are arrogant enough to argue that their God made some mistakes, and has since made some changes to many of the old commandments (although strangely those changes have not yet shown up in the actual book). But again, while most believers are hypocrites and are prepared argue with God (or at least with what his book says) and will flatly ignore many of his demands, surely it should be obvious that some believers will actually believe what they've been asked to believe, over and over again for years and years, that their holy book and the messages it contains are actually true? It just astounds me that some sincere true believers do exactly as their holy book and their God demands of them, and then all the other so-called believers throw up their hands in shock, horror and surprise that these dangerous fanatics are behaving as if their holy book is actually true. 'Fuck me!', they say, 'You weren't supposed to believe all of it, just the nice bits that mesh with our comfortable 21st century lifestyle'. To give children a weapon, a holy book listing atrocities they must commit to please their god, and then be shocked and appalled when a few go through with it, is just another example of how naďve and stupid religious believers are. As long as they keep doing this, and they clearly have no intention of stopping, then untold true believers will keep fucking up the world, everything from killing infidels and persecuting women to causing epidemics by refusing vaccines and hampering science by believing in magic. While thankfully only a few go on to commit the truly atrocious acts, the sincere belief of the great majority in a sky fairy is what allows a murderous few to sincerely believe they are doing the right thing, and who doesn't strive to do the right thing in life? Suicide bombers don't for a moment think they are doing something wrong and immoral, just the opposite, they believe they are one of the few people actually doing something good in the world. So good in fact, so desired by their god, that they are willing to die in the process. It's the majority of peaceful Muslims that are indirectly reassuring the radical Muslims that the Koran needs to be obeyed, so get a big knife and seek out the infidel. It's the majority of loving Catholics that are forcing celibacy on priests who then go on to sexually abuse children in their care. It's the ordinary Muslims, Christians and Jews that encourage persecution of women and homosexuals, terrify kids with talk of Hell, and condemn divorce, abortion, contraception and masturbation and challenge much of science, like evolution and cosmology. It's not just the radical, fanatical fundamentalists that cause death and suffering, although their acts are the most obvious, even the most liberal god believer is holding the world back and is slowing our progress to a more enlightened world. A few weeks ago Texas altered their law books to make legal abortion nearly impossible for women, all to fit in with demands God makes in the Bible, a book of fantasy. Untold women and their families will suffer, and some will die, simply because a group of superstitious fuckwits are afraid of an imaginary fairy that hates women. This backward move was only made possible due to there being strength in numbers. Get enough morons in positions of political power and supported by morons in the community, and you can once again force people to take the Bible seriously, like they did in the Dark Ages. Because we refuse to challenge the religious around us for fear of offending them, they, by their very public observance, continue to indirectly reassure the religious radicals that their holy book is true and God will reward them if they obey his commandments. We need to start forcing the religious around us to defend their silly beliefs (and fail spectacularly), or shut the fuck up. As long as billions of lazy, ignorant religious believers exist and continue to read their holy book to their gullible children morning, noon and night, then a small but dangerous proportion of them will turn into racist, sexist, homicidal fanatics, able to quote holy text word by word, and be utterly committed to being one of God's warriors. We need to break the cycle, and that begins by convincing your family, friends, neighbours and colleagues that their belief in invisible gods and demons has not only outlived its usefulness, it is, and always has been, quite false. We need to show them that they have already unknowingly rejected much of what these ancient gods demanded, and their lives are clearly all the better for it. So why not reject it all? They already enjoy food they shouldn't eat (according to their holy book), watch movies they shouldn't watch, believe in scientific theories and evidence over fairy tales, keep company with people that they shouldn't mix with, live in a society where women have been granted equality with men, where they can continue to socialise with others while menstruating, can pluck their eyebrows should they desire to, and get an abortion should they need to, where people can work on holy days, get tattoos, where both men and women can use contraception, get a divorce, have sex before marriage without getting stoned to death afterwards, and where everyone can masturbate guilt free to their hearts content. These are but a handful of advantages we take for granted in our modern secular society, and they are generally embraced and enjoyed by both religious believer and atheist alike, even though a true believer would have to reject all of them were he or she to obey God's commandments. But how many religious believers that you know could give up even two or three of those things, let alone every one of them, and live a life truly devoted to what God demands of them? As an outspoken atheist, how many of these believers would be prepared to drag me from my house to the town square and stone me to death, as their God demands? I suspect most, hopefully all, would shun such an act, and untold other barbaric acts that are nevertheless still in the holy books, but these days deliberately ignored. Feeling confident in their choice to eat forbidden foods and not perform murderous acts, clearly the lifestyle of modern religious believers is a million miles away from what it should really look like. Perhaps the only things religious in nature for many so-called believers is that they possess a holy book (it's around here somewhere), they occasionally attend a religious service, they tick the "Religious" box on the census, and for males, the tip of their penis has been mutilated. Some might go a little further and wear some religious symbol or attire, like a headscarf or cross, and will cry, 'Allah Akbar' or 'Praise the Lord' when the delivery boy arrives with their pizza. Some are a little more extreme and will openly condemn homosexuality, abortion, condoms, sex and nudity in movies, blasphemy and the teaching of evolution in science classes. That said, even this crowd, annoying as they are, stick with vocal displays, they don't resort to violence even though their god assures them they have his full support and encouragement to get down and dirty. So why don't they? Because these people are not completely stupid. As I've said, they realise that their lives are clearly all the better by choosing to live in a secular and scientific world, even though they might not be honest enough to describe it in those terms. At some level they grasp that were they to truly submit to the commandments of their god, then everything would turn to shit, likely resulting in their arrest and maybe even their death, and I'd like to believe that they also grasp that some of God's commandments are truly vile, simply quite wrong, and something they could never do to another human being. Simply put, they want their community, and God himself, to see them as devout believers, but it's all an act, they merely perform some inoffensive rituals that take little effort or commitment, and then, putting the religious façade aside, they live and enjoy life in a world where no god makes obscene or ridiculous demands of them. Your typical religious believer is a fucking hypocrite, and thank God they are, because if they took their religion seriously, if they really believed as they say they do, then most everyone you met would be out to harm you for offending their god, and the world would very quickly descend into chaos. Think of a worldwide zombie outbreak, only with mobs of blood-covered Christians, Muslims and Jews running towards you brandishing all manner of weapons, all screaming that their God is great, all intent on killing the infidel. And this is no impossible fantasy, since while historically there has never been a worldwide outbreak of religious zeal, there have been untold regional outbreaks of murderous and genocidal intent fuelled by religion. Just read the Bible or the Koran or any history book, they're all full of accounts of intolerant and bloodthirsty believers trying to dominate or exterminate those who believe in a different god. With 21st century technology, there now exists the potential to spark a worldwide conflagration. All it would take is for religious believers to cease being hypocrites and to adopt the ignorant, superstitious, intolerant mindset of a true religious believer from the Dark Ages, and let's be honest, some modern believers are already close. Take away their smartphone, dress them in some medieval garb and ask them about the problems of the world, and you would think you had gone back in time, as they deliver a fire and brimstone sermon on how the world has turned away from God, and we're being punished for it. I think what will save us from this fate, hopefully, is that modern religious believers, unlike those in the distant past, can see an alternative world without gods, one with amazing technologies and personal freedoms and pleasurable lifestyles, and they've realised that they can live in this alternative world and still wander around wearing a mask of religious belief. The mask doesn't do anything beyond hiding their true identity, but it does give them, at least in their own mind, the ability to live in both worlds, to present the image of a devout believer while at the same time enjoying all the benefits a godless world offers. Very few religious believers would ever give up this dual existence. If forced most would opt, reluctantly no doubt, to side with the secular world, since they have too much to lose and they know it. Only the most fanatical fundamentalists would opt for, or should I say lean towards, the supernatural world, since even they would still want to keep elements of the secular world, like their modern weapons, vehicles, smartphones, Hollywood movies, pornography collection, Western medicine etc. Even most of the radical fundamentalists are hypocrites, still willing to ignore commandments that are inconvenient to their lifestyle or that contradict the cause they have personally chosen. Remember that just as the decent and good religious believer must consciously ignore and dismiss all the commandments from his god telling him to do evil, the murderous and hateful religious believer must consciously ignore and dismiss all the commandments from his god telling him to do good. There is no such thing as a true religious believer, he can't exist, since in all holy books God makes contradictory demands (in different passages) of his followers, for example they must be both morally good and bad, which is impossible. It's like God insisting that each of his followers must be both young and old, or male and female, or a good cook and a bad cook, when clearly you can't be both, you can only be one or the other. For every religious believer, what they see as their religion is a construct of their mind, and how they view their god can be near identical or diametrically opposed to another believer that claims to follow the same religion. Each person has deliberately selected passages from their holy book, and rejected others, to create a god that best fits the world as they want it to be. If they abhor violence and sexual inequality, then the god they see in their holy book feels the same way, but if they feel they are being mistreated, neglected and ignored, then the god they see demands bloody vengence and retribution and promises to stand alongside them as they fight to cleanse the world of sinners. Both kinds of believers are delusional, both have created a falsehood, both beliefs should be challenged and debunked. But instead we tolerate the believer in a good god because they are seen as generally harmless, although annoying. We only battle the believer in an evil god because obviously they cause real harm in society. Unfortunately this tactic of tolerating and even supporting belief in good gods while condemning belief in evil gods suggests that gods actually exist, and that we shouldn't be debating their existence, but instead be convincing people to follow the good gods rather than the evil gods. Again, this is bullshit. We are causing this problem by keeping belief in gods alive, for as long as there is belief in gods, there will be a few that will follow the evil gods. This is simple human nature. There will always be murderers and rapists and sociopaths, and some of these deviants will always follow evil gods if they think they exist, and billions of people say they do. In a 2013 magazine interview U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia confirmed that he not only believed in God, but that, 'I even believe in the Devil', and that his considered view was that all Christians do. It's depressing that such a powerful, influential and highly educated person could believe such nonsense, but there you go. The power of childhood brainwashing. Society needs to start teaching the truth, that gods are no more real than fairies and leprechauns, but we can't do this if we keep tip toeing around delicate Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and other believers in "good" gods, since it's their false belief that grants existence to the evil gods. Christians tell us that Satan, aka the Devil, only exists because God does. Like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, apparently God also needs a nemesis. If we challenged, debunked and enlightened all the typical and ubiquitous believers of the world, if we replaced a silly belief in gods with a belief in the value of humanity, then most of the people that currently turn into violent radical fundamentalists would lose their core motivation. With billions no longer believing in gods, there would be no widespread support for the lie that there exists a powerful master issuing orders and demanding obedience. There would be no virgins waiting in heaven as a reward (so if they want to have sex, try living in the real world). There would be no heaven full stop, their death would be the end of their existence, not the beginning of a great adventure. There would be no fear of eternal torture for disobeying a sky fairy that isn't real. There would be no guilt in doing something they enjoy but were forbidden to do by an imaginary being. If a few religious fundamentalists remained, they would be as ineffectual on the world stage as believers in gremlins and chemtrails currently are. They would be a joke, and even if some still wanted to act out violently, they would be a minor threat to society, not the major threat they currently are. Of course humans don't need religion to do evil acts, but a huge amount of harm and suffering in the world, everything from the physical harm caused by suicide bombs and widespread persecution to terrifying children with threats of Hell and the unnecessary guilt people suffer when they masturbate, all this would disappear intermediately if religion was removed from the equation, if people simply asked themselves what does the evidence support and what then is the right thing to do, the ethical thing to do, and not worry about the views of a redneck tribal god that "lived" thousands of years ago alongside such gods as Zeus, Osiris and Baal. I'm assuming you'd challenge family, friends and colleagues were they to suddenly profess a belief in Santa Claus or evil trolls or even that their dead granny was haunting their garden shed, all silly beliefs that likely cause little harm, so if you're not already, why aren't you challenging those same people if they profess a belief in invisible gods, in angels with wings, demons with pitchforks, a prophet riding up to heaven on a flying horse or a dead carpenter rising from the dead to become a zombie? Deluded, dangerous fundamentalists are indirectly supported by more liberal but equally deluded believers, and annoyingly they're both indirectly supported by the silence of non-believers, many of whom are reluctant to make observations that might bruise fragile egos and cause offence. We're told not to question people's religious beliefs, that it's not polite, that we should respect and tolerate other views, even though these people, these adults, believe in a being as ridiculous as the Easter Bunny. Worse still, this unwillingness to engage with the faithful allows a primitive and ancient evil to continue to cause widespread harm in the modern world. These people of faith are God's evil henchmen, his vicious thugs, his mindless minions, his sadistic torturers, his suicidal stormtroopers, his devious spies and his obsequious servants, all working at varying levels to ensure God's master plan comes to fruition. Billions doing the bidding of a god they've never even seen, guided only by an ancient book, blindly brainwashing their own children so that humanity forever remains dependant on an unseen master. This needs to stop. All of us, both believer and non-believer, can identify human-caused atrocities and injustices that God's own words defend and inflame, so how can believers proudly continue to worship such a god, how can they blindly defend a being that holds such a clearly documented spiteful and malevolent view of humanity? And how can non-believers not feel angry enough to challenge them on their complicity, on their willing support of this monster and his evil plans for us all? We need to ask the tough questions, point out the bullshit, expose the harm, and in the process embarrass the believers, shame them into accepting what is blatantly obvious, that they have been lied to, fooled into believing primitive, superstitious nonsense that is not only holding humanity back, like a ball and chain around the ankles, it's causing great suffering as it does so. No more giving them a free pass or making excuses for them, these are people that believe in absolute nonsense that causes real harm, and will continue to cause real harm into the future unless the silly belief in gods goes the way of the dodo. I don't care if you're NZ's ex-Mormon Prime Minister, a conflicted agnostic or an easy going yoga instructor, it's time to take some responsibility for the untold problems that religion causes. It won't fix itself, so if you're not challenging anyone and everyone who claims that gods are real, then you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. Any unwillingness on your part to help people of faith see the evil that they, by their ignorance and gullibility, have inflicted on the world for millennia, only makes you a silent accomplice in creating some of the world's most serious problems. Are you that person, someone who recognises what harm these truly disturbing stories about God cause now and will continue to cause down the track, but says nothing, that would rather not get involved in the personal beliefs of others? Don't be that person. Speak up. Challenge the nonsense. Help the world recover. If we want terrorism and persecution that is clearly motivated by religion to stop, if we want people to see natural disasters as just that, a natural event, rather than supernatural punishment for some imaginary sin, if we want people to make the most of this life because there is no next life, if we want people to view others as fellow human beings and not simply as deluded followers of a false religion, if we want to direct human resources towards making the world a better place, rather than just waiting for God's plan to fix everything, then we need to start telling the truth and making others face up to that truth. There are no gods waiting in the wings, waiting for the signal to come in and fix things, waiting for just the right prayer. The likes of the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and untold other god-fearing civilisations would all agree, wait as long as you like, pray as hard as you can, the gods won't turn up.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 12 Sep, 2021 ~
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| A Muslim walks into a supermarket ... |
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So, a Muslim walks into a supermarket, and while that might sound like the start of a bad joke, it's all too real. It's the 3rd of Sep, 2021, in Auckland, NZ, and grabbing a large kitchen knife off a shelf this Muslim stabs six shoppers, three critically, all the while screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. As you likely know, that's Arabic for 'God is great', and it's the ubiquitous cry of Muslims worldwide, a cry that's good for any and all occasions, whether it's a joyous occasion like a wedding or an occasion of death and violence experienced either by their own family or their enemy.
Obviously only deluded Muslims utter the cry, 'Allahu Akbar', but when you think about the sentiment itself, 'God is great', then of course silly Christians also annoyingly express the same cry on occasions of both joy and disaster, with their pitiful screams of, 'Praise the Lord' and 'Thank you Jesus'. It's less obvious in Western countries, but Jews (eg 'Baruch Hashem' in Hebrew) and Hindus also express a similar sentiment and are often seen thanking their god or gods. When I hear Muslims and Christians praising their invisible sky fairy, I always think, You've got to be fucking kidding me! What the hell has your god done of late (or pretty much ever) that is great or praiseworthy? In that supermarket attack, how was the cause of the murderous Muslim helped by his god? Although several infidels were wounded, no one was killed, except the Muslim terrorist who was quickly shot by police, and his act has caused Islam to once again be a source of fear and distrust in the community, meaning the standing of innocent Muslims has suffered. In what conceivable way could the outcome of that incident be described as great for Muslims in general, or why might their god think the attack was great, or even a good idea? But again, it's not just Muslims that praise God when things take a turn for the worst, Christians also marvel at how wonderful their god is when the rest of us are seeing nothing but death, destruction and suffering. How can a Muslim witness innocent women being blown to death by a suicide bomb or a Christian hear of a child being raped repeatedly by a priest, and they both then say to anyone within earshot, Isn't God just great? We'd be lost without him. Look around the world. Surely religious nutters are not going to argue that the death and suffering from wars and from disasters like famines, storms and deadly earthquakes, or that little thing called the COVID-19 pandemic, are all great examples of God's work? And yet, no matter the disaster, there are indeed untold examples of god believers proclaiming just that, that God is doing great work. No seriously, really great work. But how does that argument make sense? Since these sources of misery and suffering have actually happened, it can't be argued that their god has done great work in preventing them, and as they are still happening unabated, it also can't be argued that their god has at least done great work in quickly putting an end to them and has limited the suffering. You know, once he heard about it on Facebook. So what is it about these horrible events that compel true believers to praise their god, to pat him on the back and encourage him to keep up the good work? You're doing great! Thumbs up emoji. Clearly, in the eyes of sane people, God is not doing great. He's not even doing a mediocre, lacklustre job. If God is real, then clearly he's either just sitting back and letting natural disasters and the vile side of human nature take its course, and having a good giggle at our expense, or he's actively working against us, deliberately creating disasters and animosity between humans that bring death and suffering, and again, having a good giggle. Having read the Bible, I think the second scenario is the most likely of the two. (Of course, having read the Bible, a really ancient book last updated in the 1st century CE, and having also received a basic 21st century science and history education, it's quite obvious that God isn't real. I mean seriously ... what's next, Superman?) But by setting reason and evidence aside, as true believers somehow easily do, they choose the magical holy books written centuries ago over modern knowledge. Regarding why things happen in the world, the religious nutter will generally choose one of two explanations that I've just mentioned. The first is that God created mankind with free will and the ability to create our own good and evil, and he's just hiding behind a cloud and watching what we do. We're just an experiment run by a sick and disturbed voyeur. He won't interfere even if we choose an unspeakable evil, but when we die he will gleefully torture the fuck out of those that did choose evil over good. But if you think about it, a god who isn't pulling our strings and who won't step in to help no matter what, is really no different to a god that doesn't exist. As far as we humans go, a hands-off god is effectively the same as no god. The other explanation is that God is definitely hands-on, he's the cause of everything that happens, and he needs specific things to happen to fulfil his plan, meaning that God creates both good and evil; creating wars, disease and serial killers as well as love, chocolate and beautiful sunsets. We are merely ignorant, indispensable pawns in his sick plan, our every action is under his complete control, and any thought that we may have that we make our own choices and destiny is an illusion. So clearly God is either a callous, uncaring, unsympathetic, worthless son of a bitch, or a mean, sadistic, vicious son of a bitch. Either way, no matter which version of god you choose to believe is watching you in the shower, only a psychopath or a deluded fool could ever call his actions great. I challenge these religious fools to point to events in the world that clearly reveal God's handiwork and that could also be called great. Of course some devout fools will claim that homosexuals contracting AIDS is great, that their enemy dying in an ambush is great, that an earthquake destroying a city that has abortion clinics is great, and that a tsunami drowning hundreds of people on a nude beach is great, but normal, compassionate people wouldn't view those events as being great or something to be celebrated the way religious people often do. Intelligent people would argue that rather than kill these people after the fact, an all-knowing, all-powerful god, all-loving god would simply not have made humans with attributes he didn't approve of. It just seems so stupid for God to deliberately create homosexuals when he hates homosexuality with a passion and then have to go around killing them off, when he could have just not created them in the first place. It's like me really hating the colour red and then deliberately painting my house red, and then having to pay someone to repaint it another colour. I'd have to be a raving lunatic. So is God a raving lunatic? Maybe, or maybe not, since it could also be argued that God deliberately creates all manner of things that he abhors and that will of course need to be destroyed simply because he loves torturing, killing and destroying. Look at Hell, he's designed it so that people never "die", meaning that the torture and killing and suffering will never end. Never. Clearly God loves the smell of burning human flesh in the morning. Of course there are some great things happening in the world. Just nothing with the fingerprint of God on it. We're nearly a quarter of the way through the 21st century and we're healthier and safer than we've ever been, women are recognised (by secular folk) as being equal to men, we have rovers driving around on Mars, we can communicate instantly with people on the opposite side of the planet, we have sequenced the human genome and eliminated smallpox, our knowledge of the world and how that translates into amazing technology is beyond anything people from past centuries could have imagined, and all these achievements are due to the efforts of humans. We can point to untold things and claim that humans are great, and yet there is not a single example that can be pointed to as being God's handiwork and be given the label 'great'. However the majority of people on the planet still live their lives suffering from a monumental delusion, believing that an invisible god and his behind-the-scenes manipulation of the world is great, and that even truly great things like smart phones, flush toilets and surgeons are all thanks to God, not hard working humans. They're still believing like they did in medieval times that an invisible being is watching them from up there ... umm ... somewhere. That's as screwed up as believing that Santa is the reason behind all those presents at Xmas. Jesus H. Fucking Christ, the world seriously needs to grow up. There's no doubt that all Muslims, Christians and Jews believe that their God is great (although like young children and their view of Santa Claus, they have no evidence to support their belief). They view their god as an invisible, eternal, all-powerful and all-knowing being, that he sees everything and loves his followers as a father loves his children, and that nothing happens in the world that he hasn't willed. So, believing that sort of unscientific and irrational nonsense, how do these ignorant god believers explain what has happened when the shit hits the fan, when terrorists strike and when "natural" disasters occur and innocent people die? Especially when more often than not the victims and the survivors all sincerely believed their god would protect them. How do they keep reconciling their foolish belief in what God will do and what God actually does do? Which is nothing! When Muslim terrorists scream 'God is great' and detonate their bomb in a crowded market, the obvious thing that doesn't happen is that God doesn't do anything to prevent the horrible deaths of untold men, women and children, who are more often than not also Muslims. Remember that if God is the magical being they claim he is, then clearly he could easily have stopped the atrocity, so logically if God is real, then the deaths occurred because God wanted the deaths to occur. No one can seriously claim that God is real and yet couldn't have stopped the deaths. In recent weeks alone in the USA, forest fires, floods and hurricanes have all claimed numerous lives and caused extreme destruction in many communities, so when the Christians that survived kneel amongst the remains of their destroyed homes and say, 'Thank you Jesus' (as they keep doing on the TV news), clearly they believe that God was involved, that he controlled the destruction and death that surrounds them. On the TV news the other night a father in Australia cried, 'Thank you God', when his 3-year-old autistic son was found safe and well after being missing for 3 days, yet the father didn't question what sort of loving God would allow a helpless child to get lost in the first place, or even create a child with autism that made him unable to communicate with his parents or the people looking for him. There were many people out searching for days, the people that actually found his son, yet he thanks God instead, the one person that was noticeable by his absence. When disasters strike and lives are lost, no demented Christian ever suggests that God was off playing inter-dimensional golf, that he was unaware of what was happening on the ground, and would have intervened earlier if only he had known. They're not thanking him for turning up right at the end and saving a few that were still hanging on. They're thanking him for sparing their lives or the lives of their loved ones while he slaughters their neighbours. Ditto with the Jews, they fully accept that God is the source of their misfortune, that are they are being punished for some transgression, and that they deserve it because God is great and knows what he's doing. The fact that these horrible events happen must mean one of two things, that either God is real and willed them to happen, and, let's be be frank, that makes him a real monster, or that God isn't real and these events are perfectly natural, not supernatural, and are caused by humans with free will or by physical events like earthquakes and tornadoes. Clearly the consequences of God being real is something religious people can't grasp. Let me explain. If we take the religious view, then that must mean that God is the source of all the misfortune in the world throughout all time (and the Old Testament, the holy book of the Jews and the origin dogma of both Christianity and Islam, confirms this, that God creates both good and evil — Isaiah 45:7). Every victim of a serial killer, every baby dying painfully of a nasty disease, every innocent civilian dying in a war, every witch and heretic tortured and burnt at the stake, every person killed in a natural disaster or lost at sea has died or suffered because God wanted them to. Every person who was bullied at school, who has had their life savings stolen, or was held as a slave, every rape or torture victim, including the children raped by God's priests, every person persecuted for their skin colour, sexuality, atheism or simply because they were a woman. Every person forced to live under a dictatorship or to suffer famine, poverty or disease or even tricked into watching 'The Lord of the Rings' movie trilogy, all these ills and untold others must be happening because they are part of God's master plan for the world. They are deliberate, there is nothing accidental or natural about them. To even suggest that some of this death and suffering happened without God's knowledge or that God was powerless to prevent it is blasphemous and would demonstrate an extreme ignorance of who God is and what he's capable of. The sad fact is that these horrible events have happened and keep happening, and not even the most delusional god believers can deny that reality. It's also a fact according to the god believers (but denied by rational thinkers), that God can and will stop anything from happening that he doesn't want to happen, because he's ... well, you know ... God. A being more powerful than Superman, more loving than Mary Poppins and wiser than Yoda. So again, because they keep happening, if God exists then clearly God wants them to happen. Surely that's obvious to even the most dimwitted person? (Don't answer that.) We can rationally defend the failures of individuals and governments and such because we know they're only fallible humans or backed by fallible humans that must depend on limited knowledge, intellects and resources, they're not god-like and therefore will often be swamped by natural disasters and taken unawares by the actions of humans with alternative agendas. The same can not be said for God. If he's real, then the way the world is, warts and all, is the way God wants it. If your friend is a dimwitted Trump supporter and anti-vaxxer, or your cousin is a depraved pedophile, or your colleague is a vile racist, don't blame their parents or fake news or even them, God created them deliberately to fulfil those roles. It's all part of his mysterious plan, and someone has to play the bad guys. Be thankful if you've landed a good role in God's obscene and violent tragedy. So, the terrorist attack in Auckland. If God is real (he's not, but if he was), then what message might this attack be sending us? Clearly it is that God is not on the side of the Muslims. Think about it. In 2019 a terrorist attacked two mosques in Christchurch, NZ, killing 51 people and injuring 40 more. I believe all the victims were Muslims, while the terrorist that survived had Christian leanings. Since then the NZ government and NZ Muslims have both tried to distance the attack from having anything to do with religion, claiming that it had more of a racist motive (and banning us from reading his manifesto), even though he only targeted Muslims, a few of which were of European descent and not obviously Muslim but still targeted. Clearly his assumption was that anyone in the mosque was a Muslim, regardless of their ethnicity. Again, he appeared to target a religion, not a race. But whatever, most NZers have accepted that Muslims living in NZ are normal, peaceful people just wanting to have a good life, and that we shouldn't fear a Muslim neighbour anymore than we fear a Christian or Hindu neighbour. So Kiwis embraced the innocent Muslims and not the warped views of the terrorist, meaning he didn't succeed in creating animosity between Muslims and other NZers. All was going well, unless you're a god who truly doesn't like Muslims. So what would a powerful god do to try and stir up some hatred in the community? Simple, he'd compel (ie brainwash) a Muslim to commit a terrorist attack (like God did with the Egyptian Pharaoh in the Bible), in a place where people are used to feeling safe, like a supermarket, and you have him use a weapon that is ubiquitous and essentially impossible to ban, like a kitchen knife. I mean seriously, would a Muslim god compel one of his devout followers to attack and merely wound the infidels, and then allow the police to kill the obedient Muslim? Is this all the help the Muslim god could offer, couldn't he have got him a gun at least? And wouldn't a Muslim god know that this cowardly attack would likely create bitter hostility towards Muslims where before there was growing tolerance and friendship? And would an all-powerful Muslim god have allowed a despised heretic to attack and kill 51 of his devout followers back in 2019? Of course not. Clearly these events would not have happened if the Muslims are correct, that their god is real and running the world. World events, if you're still a silly believer in gods, would surely suggest that whatever god is pulling the strings is a god with a beef against the Muslims. Just look at recent events in Afghanistan, Muslims slaughtering Muslims, and the US forces withdrawing and leaving it in essentially the same failed condition they found it, with the Taliban Muslims oppressing more liberal Muslims. And there are untold other examples over recent decades eg in Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Somalia and Indonesia, where Muslims suffer horrendously from everything from war and terrorist attacks to earthquakes and collapsing economies. If this is how the Muslim god looks out for his people, then who the fuck would want to be a Muslim? So clearly, if God is real, he doesn't answer to the name Allah. But before those pesky Christians start claiming that world events show without doubt that their god is running the show, let's first take a reality check. As I've already mentioned, in recent weeks in the USA numerous natural disasters have taken many lives and wreaked havoc, and since the US is one of the most religious countries in the world alongside the likes of Iran, most if not all the people that have suffered will have been Christians. And again let me mention the embarrassing US retreat from Afghanistan, where even their hasty exit resulted in the deaths of 13 US troops and 18 wounded, and let's not forget their equally flawed and fatal intervention in countries like Iraq, Somalia, Vietnam and Korea. I'm not arguing about whether the Americans, and their allies, where justified in their interventions, I'm merely highlighting that all these interventions ended badly, with huge losses, and that hardly seems like the expected outcome if you have an all-powerful god fighting on your side. And let's not forget ex-President Donald 'Grab 'em by the pussy' Trump. Is he really the best the Christian god could come up with to run God's country? Seriously? Any reasonable person should see Trump as a divine punishment, maybe inflicted by one of the Hindu gods, not as a godsend. But let's look further afield, since Christianity has the world's largest fanbase, and it's quite clear that many good, devout Christians in every nation suffer through no fault of their own from the likes of crime, disease, natural disasters, poverty, unemployment, persecution and reality TV, which is quite inexplicable if they are under God's divine protection. Even innocent Christian children seeking sanctuary in churches fall prey to predatory priests out to rape and abuse them. Last night, a book I was reading mentioned the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act enacted by the British following two terrorist bombings in pubs south of London which killed 5 and injured 64. This happened in 1974 and the terrorists were good Christians belonging to the IRA. It was all of part of the vicious and bloody conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants. Christians torturing and killing other Christians, and it still hasn't been fully resolved. Many people today will no doubt be surprised that terrorism and bombs killing innocent people was not something invented by Muslims on 9/11. Christians were terrorising other Christians long before Muslims got into the game, even both World Wars were mainly Christians fighting Christians, as were most wars in Europe in earlier centuries. And when you look at the natural disasters that have struck through the centuries, from the Black Death and smallpox to earthquakes and famines, Christians have fared just as badly as non-Christians. Even the current COVID-19 pandemic is showing no unexplained preference for non-Christians, it's infecting and killing Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, atheist and New Age witch equally. And that makes no sense if the Christian god is real and protecting those that believe in him. America especially should have breezed through the pandemic with nary a case, except maybe a few Muslims, Jews and Scientologists. Hell, even Trump, the moron that used his God and a church as a photo-op, was sent to hospital with COVID. In NZ's latest COVID outbreak the largest cluster of infected people by far is that of a Christian church gathering — the Assembly of God — meaning those suffering the most are Christians. And surely I don't need to argue that the Jews have fared badly throughout history, with repeated invasions by foreign powers and then persecution by Christians resulting in diasporas, pogroms, inquisitions, the Nazi holocaust and even today's ongoing antisemitism from both Christians and Muslims. Clearly if there's some god up there protecting some group, it's not the Jews he's looking out for. I could go on and on, providing untold examples of devout god believers apparently being fucked over by their god, while their heretic neighbour is escaping unscathed and even prospering in many cases. I'd also argue, all things being equal, that no matter what religion someone believed in, every group experiences roughly the same rates of fortune and misfortune. Disease, natural disasters, crime, failed relationships, lottery wins, and handsome good looks spread through groups of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and atheists randomly and relatively equally. There is no evidence whatsoever that any religious group suffers far less misfortune and experiences far more good fortune than any other group, when of course, if one of them truly was being protected by a powerful and loving god, then the evidence should be blatant and overwhelming. There is no religious group that you can look at anywhere in the world and argue that clearly they are under divine protection because they are doing so well, far better than they should reasonably be doing all things being equal. Yes, you can argue that Christians in America are doing better than Muslims in Somalia, but Christians in Somalia are doing no better, maybe even worse, than Muslims in Somalia, which shows it is the country you live in (with it's health system, politics, security system etc) that determines your well-being, not your religion. No religious group can (sensibly and rationally) argue that believing in their sky fairy grants them obvious benefits, benefits that can't be explained without invoking the supernatural. When some group is suffering as much as their heretic neighbour, and maybe even far worse, it just seems so childish for them to keep asserting that they are nevertheless being helped by a god. So, to return to these naďve and empty cries of 'God is great' and 'Praise the Lord', how great is a god that has clearly deserted them, that kills their family with a bomb or a virus, that destroys their community with an earthquake, that blesses them with children that turn out to be vile homosexuals, that lets the atheists have the carefree sex, that allows his priests to rape their children and then hides them from the police, that refuses to answer their prayers, that refuses to acknowledge that he is even listening to their prayers, that refuses to even give a sliver of evidence that he even exists. Sincerely telling people that 'God is great' is as foolish and worthless as saying 'Santa Claus is great' or 'Batman is great', and considering what vile, unjust and barbaric things have been attributed to God, it's as disgusting as saying 'Genocide is great' or 'Rape and torture is great'. Seriously, the claim that 'God is great', or even that God is real, is one of the most childish and disturbing things someone could say today. If actual children say it they have an excuse, being immature and ill-informed, but adults, even with only a modicum of education, are just displaying their stupidity. And non-believers who let these religious nutters away with this dangerous nonsense aren't helping. Sidestepping the issue doesn't solve anything, it only allows it to fester and erupt later on. How can people mature and become independent and responsible if they're allowed to believe that some invisible sky fairy will swoop down and save them should danger ever strike? Why do we keep allowing these deluded morons to believe such nonsense, when we'd quickly challenge them if they put their faith in Spiderman or the Norse god Thor? In order to counter harmful misinformation about COVID-19, there are currently several official campaigns being run to convince people that vaccines are safe and effective, so why are there not campaigns that reveal gods are not real, campaigns that might combat the clear harm that religions have been inflicting on society for millennia? Think about the ongoing persecution of homosexuals, women, people of colour, atheists, Jews, and the harmful prohibitions against abortion and contraception and even innocent and harmless nudity and masturbation, plus all the wars and conflicts where religion is the clear dividing line. Even for many climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers and believers in a Flat Earth, the source of their irrational and harmful opposition to scientific evidence can be placed squarely at religion's door. With many conspiracy theorists, their belief in God is usually thought incidental, and quite irrelevant to the debate about climate or vaccines, when in fact their unshakeable trust in God is what makes them dismiss science out of hand. If the nonsense in their holy book is right, then science, whatever it says and no matter how right it seems, must be wrong. When someone around us says that 'God is great', or 'Praise the Lord', or 'Thank you Jesus', perhaps we should shout equally loudly, 'Zeus is great', or 'Praise the good fairies and elves', or 'Thank you Pinocchio'. Maybe they'd realise we were making fun of them for sincerely thanking imaginary beings from works of fantasy, and shut the fuck up in the future. Or ... unlikely ... but maybe they'd try and defend their silly belief, giving us the opportunity to expose its many flaws and drag them back to reality. Either way we should speak up. What if aliens were secretly watching us, considering whether we were worthy for membership in the Galactic Council, what sort of impression would they get on hearing ignorant, superstitious peasants expressing such nonsense? They'd probably quickly zip off, thinking, 'Let's see what they're like in another thousand years'. Let me finish by giving five factual examples (of untold examples) I've seen on the TV news of moronic religious believers making the most stupid statements possible: (1) In a Middle Eastern country a man sees an artillery shell has struck his house killing his wife and three young children, and he falls to his knees shouting, 'Allaha Akbar' over and over (God is great).Think about those examples for a moment. A father loses his family in an explosion and declares that, obviously, God must be great for this to have happened. Two young parents are killed and their baby tossed into a field, still alive but only to suffer and later die, and the townspeople feel that clearly God was responsible for those events, and praise his actions. A town is badly damaged and some of its citizens killed, and the survivors thank Jesus for his involvement in the death and destruction that surrounds them. A man survives a skydiving accident because God deliberately uses his instructor as a cushion or air bag, killing him in the process. Apparently God didn't know how to fix his parachute and sacrificing the instructor was the only option left open to him. In none of those examples does a single person question why God had decided these people had to die. And finally, a woman credits a drop in COVID-19 alert levels as being the handiwork of God. He couldn't prevent the pandemic, or save any of the 4.6 million people that have died to date, but suddenly our alert levels change and the only reasonable explanation this woman can reach is that her god secretly manipulated the government's actions. And she praised him for his interference, but again no questioning of why so many people have had to die. It's just so embarrassing and frustrating that the great majority of people on this planet can witness untold horrific events, and rather than be appalled and angered that their invisible god allowed them to happen, they immediately thank and praise him for once again showing them how great the world is. Oh, how empty their lives would be without all this death, destruction and suffering. It's just so depressing that so many people can be so stupid, so deluded, unable to see the forest for the trees. And it's not just the origins behind traumatic events that utterly confuse them, even something as simple as sitting down for a meal finds them continually mistaken as to the meal's origins. Completely ignoring the obvious, the people who worked hard to grow, harvest, process, purchase, prepare and bring the food to their table, they instead bow their god-filled heads and thank an imaginary sky fairy. Stupid, stupid, stupid people, and the world is absolutely full of them. What hope do we have of making the world a better place when people can see loved ones killed or a meal appear on their table, and their only response is ... thanks God.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 07 Sep, 2021 ~
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| Young Americans turn to atheism |
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As we come to the end of what has been a crap year for much of the world, and still remains so for far too many, finally we get a piece of good news from the USA. Well, two pieces if you count the welcome defeat and approaching removal of Donald Trump as president. But the other news I'm referring to is the fact that many young Americans are giving up on God, giving up on that childish belief in an invisible fairy that lives, so it is said, way, way out there in space, far beyond the reach of our most powerful telescopes. Of course it's claimed he did visit Earth in the dim, distant past, but being invisible, even then no one actually saw him. A burning bush that wasn't consumed and could talk (no, seriously) was apparently the closest people ever got to experiencing the presence of God in real life. And while you may giggle at the naiveté of anyone to believe a story about a talking bush, since these gullible fools already believed in a talking snake and a talking donkey, and a wealth of other nonsense besides, adding a talking bush to the mix does nothing to make a really silly story any sillier. Once you accept the bullshit that God is real, and the Bible is his fact-checked story, then you've crossed the threshold from sane, rational, well-informed person to totally screwed-up fuckwit that will believe almost anything, well ... anything except the truth of course.
So yes, it was encouraging to read this article, 'The Most Common Religious Identity For Young Americans Is 'None'. The study looked at Americans aged 18 to 29, and in brief, the report noted that, 'For years, researchers have watched as an increasing number of young American adults chose not to identify with a specific religious tradition ...One of the researchers, Daniel Cox, explained that, 'The growth of young "nones" is slowly reshaping America's religious landscape', changing the view people have of God and morality, and this was due in part to 'the increased social connection Americans have with nonreligious people. "In fact, young people are more likely to know an atheist than an evangelical Christian," Cox said'. So meeting an atheist can be an important moment in someone's life, one that might cause them to rethink some of their core beliefs. Because when people start socialising and working with atheists they quickly realise that, contrary to what the Church has taught for centuries, most are just normal, decent people trying to lead good lives. We atheists are not immoral, we're not evil, we're not thinking that since there is no god to judge us or punish us, then we can rape and pillage to our heart's content. In fact people soon grasp that we atheists do good because we want to, not because some god told us we had to ... or else! You won't find atheists sexually abusing children in the backroom of the church or attacking people because of their (god-given) sexuality or going to war because we find your delusional belief in a powerful god threatening. Throughout history (and still ongoing today) you can find untold wars, conflicts and atrocities where belief in some god contributed to a huge loss of life and unspeakable suffering, and yet nowhere can you find wars and atrocities ignited and fuelled by atheism.
So yes, young American adults hanging out with atheists can't help but learn that people can indeed be good and decent without the need of some god to teach us right from wrong, that issues such as homosexuality, abortion and female equality can be better resolved without seeking advice from an old book written by misogynistic goat herders, and that pandemics can be better survived by listening to scientists rather than dropping to your knees and praying to an absent God. But this sort of raises a chicken and egg problem. If young Americans are running into atheists far more than they used to, where are they coming from in a country that is one of the most religious on the planet? What has given rise to more atheists suddenly being visible in American society, atheists which young Americans might bump into and become friends with? Has America been invaded by shape-shifting aliens from Mars with an atheist agenda? No. Of course there have always been atheists in America, human ones, just not very many compared to the god believers and most were forced to fly under the radar. Remember that it was George H. W. Bush (US President 1989-93) who when asked if he'd 'recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists', replied, 'No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God'. Identifying yourself as an atheist in the US can be as ill-advised as identifying yourself as a pedophile or terrorist or serial killer in NZ. But again, atheists are active in the US, just without the fanfare. In addition to a high proportion of scientists being atheists, I believe those helping to create many of the latest movies and TV shows are atheists, and in these entertaining stories God is often completely ignored or seen as irrelevant, or worse still for God, those that believe in him are shown in a bad light, as either woefully ignorant, blindly immoral, or just a little bit simple. When the hero or heroine saves the day it will be due to their bravery or their scientific knowledge or their love of humanity, or maybe even with help from magic or aliens, but when was the last time you saw God swoop in to put things right (and no, Thor, the Norse god of Thunder, doesn't count)? Young Americans (and Kiwis and Iranians) are seeing less and less of God in their daily lives, whether it's in their favourite movies, books and Internet sites or at school or in interactions with their friends and acquaintances, whom they're far more likely to meet up with at the local café rather than at the local church. When the TV news (or most likely a Hollywood blockbuster) reveals some amazing new fact about how the world works, it will be explained by a scientist and not a priest, with no mention of gods. Likewise popular movies and books show sex before marriage, masturbation, contraception, homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, feminism, interracial relationships, blasphemy and the wearing of clothes made from two different fabrics as now being perfectly moral and acceptable, and in complete opposition to what is taught in the Bible (and Koran and Torah). So first came the wave of atheistic messages from science, history and philosophy, lessons that revealed that the real explanations for our universe and civilisations don't involve any gods, and that ethically, ancient religious views that promote the likes of slavery, racism, witch-burning and the persecution of homosexuals are abhorrent. Then came books, movies and TV shows that pushed these atheistic views to a much wider audience. Of course their purpose wasn't to promote atheism per se, but merely to tell stories based on reality, not fantasy. Gods are now simply left out in the same way that fairies, leprechauns and goblins eventually disappeared from popular stories. So initially young Americans weren't meeting atheists, they were merely being exposed to these god-free ideas from science classes and movies and were being forced to reexamine their inherited worldview that had a treasured place for God. Some of these young Americans, the more intelligent ones, then saw the light and embraced atheism. This then turns into a form of positive feedback, where these new atheists interact with their friends and family, helping even more people to see reason and come over from the dark side. Soon an increasing number of young Americans are atheists or know an atheist. There is hope for America. And it's not just America either, this increased visibility and acceptance of atheists in society is happening worldwide, and atheists everywhere need to do what we can to promote the cause and bring about a more rational and humane future. Unlike the latest COVID-19 surge, this is a good surge, one that requires booster shots, not a vaccine.
He's right, but even though Miles has a poor reason for becoming an atheist, the reality is that he is an atheist that keeps sincerely stating that God doesn't exist, and viewers can't help but come away liking Miles and approving wholeheartedly of his actions. Viewers will describe Miles as an atheist that's a nice guy who does good deeds. Ignoring the fact that the show doesn't really argue for atheism, it does show an atheist and atheism in a very positive light by simply continuing to show an outspoken atheist helping to improve the lives of those around him. The characters in the show (Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists etc) and the viewers of the show must admit that this atheist is a nice guy that is making lives better. So even though it's just feel-good Hollywood fakery, this show at least portrays atheists as caring and decent people, and this new attitude must influence young American TV viewers and challenge the negative religious view of atheists they likely got from their parents and society. It's an American TV show that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago, where the atheist was almost always the fool or the villain. Of course, as welcome as this change among young Americans is, there are still millions of ignorant, bigoted, racist, sexist, arrogant and deeply devout Americans with a huge input into how the USA treats its own citizens and acts on the world stage. The state of atheism today is a bit like modern medicine, we've made great strides in comparison to what the world believed centuries ago, but as the current pandemic shows, we still have a long way to go before we can even seek a truce with the enemy, let alone declare a victory. We atheists, whether in the USA or Iran or NZ, all have a part to play in ensuring that this wave of disbelief continues to grow, not just in the USA, but around the world. Speak out when people thank God instead of cooks, surgeons and rescue workers; point out the hypocrisy when religious people rush to a hospital rather than a church; demand evidence when people say they know Jesus (or Allah) is watching over them or that the universe had a creator and man walked with dinosaurs. When disasters happen, politely inquire from religious people what part God played, or didn't play, and how they know that. Demonstrate that we atheists are good and decent people, and that of the many thousands of gods different cultures have proposed are real, we just believe in one less god than they do, and when called upon, we are prepared to offer real assistance and not just 'thoughts and prayers'. Wear your atheism proudly, become better informed, explain that there are well-supported scientific explanations for how the universe works, and far better ethical ideas on how we should behave than those found in old holy scrolls, show that we don't need to still believe that gods are pulling the strings. We can all contribute to the knowledge wave, you can be that atheist that a religious person knows that convinces them to look at the world in a new light.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 31 Dec, 2020 ~
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| Looking foolish on the world stage |
Over the past century we've learnt a great deal about how the world works. As a species we've matured somewhat, and have made good progress in some areas, but in others, not so much. The other day Norman sent me these comments:
'Something that really gets up my left nostril, or both for that matter, are these ever-increasing 'Blessings' by Maori that appears to be dragging society at large back to the Maori Dark-Ages, and everyone is supposed to turn off their brains and respect this stupid racial nonsense. Intelligent progress in our country is so hamstrung by this sort of tripe, a natural ally of the Pakeha religion they so easily swallow when they are so anti-Pakeha with most other things'.I was thinking the same thing recently when I saw yet another Maori blessing on the TV news, this one for the lives lost due to the 2019 White Island volcanic eruption. So what's brought this change about? When I was growing up we had the bloody Christian priests blessing everything left, right and centre, from offering prayers at the opening of the local library to sprinkling their magic water at accident scenes. And no matter the topic of debate in society, from nuclear weapons and homosexuality to abortion and movie censorship, a Christian priest was always considered an important voice, if not the most important voice, sitting right next to the scientist during discussions on TV. But now that we've seen the light of reason and finally driven the god botherers from the public scene, somehow the bloody Maori priests have now swooped in and taken over their vacated role. We've foolishly allowed one superstition to be replaced by another, all in the name of political correctness and political fear. Of course the Christian mumbo jumbo observed many decades ago was due to far more people in the community being devout believers and naively believing in the need for their god's blessing, but not any longer. (Well, unless you live in one of those 'One nation under God' countries, like the USA or Iran.) Now the majority in most NZ communities would not support some Christian priest being involved with public events, and I think most Christians now feel unwilling to even reveal that they believe in God, they fear that they will be ridiculed because Christianity no longer gets (nor deserves) the respect it used to. And they are right to hide their belief in their invisible sky fairy. Everything from scientific discoveries pushing God into the shadows to the exposure of widespread sexual, physical and emotional abuse by the churches has shown Christianity to be totally irrelevant and insidiously harmful; it's silly stories not only don't explain our world, childish belief in those old myths prevented us from understanding, experiencing and enjoying the world as it really is. If they don't want to be ridiculed or condemned, today's believing Christians have good reason to walk around as if they're atheists. 
The retreat of Christianity left a vacuum, one that should have been filled with reason and science and compassion for all humans. But now, when disasters strike, when lives are lost, instead of the worthless 'thoughts and prayers' that Christians lamely offer, Maori have grabbed the limelight and in place of Christian mumbo jumbo we have Maori mumbo jumbo. Instead of worthless Christian prayers we have worthless Maori prayers, instead of ignorant Christian priests we have ignorant Maori priests. So what brought us to this embarrassing state of affairs? It's not as though mass dementia has set in, nor has community belief shifted from the Christian god to the Maori gods, in fact belief in gods of any description has been dropping consistently for years. Our 2018 census revealed that almost half of NZers (49%) ticked the box 'No religion', meaning that as gods go, the largest group in NZ is made up of those for whom religion isn't worth mentioning. So why are Maori priests front and centre at so many public events, why are ceremonies held up while some wailing Maori prayers are delivered, and why are visiting foreign dignitaries confronted by a threatening war dance performed by scantily clad (and often overweight) natives waving spears? We're a secular nation that values science and reason, one that is currently receiving praise from around the world for our stance with COVID-19, simply because we chose to listen to scientific advice rather than try to pray the pandemic away. So it's just so embarrassing to see scientists and politicians on some podium describing how they are going to respond to some other event, such as the volcanic eruption on White Island, or climate change or a fatal boating accident, and then some Maori priests are invited up to pray for help. As if we have little confidence in what the experts say, and more in what some deluded gumboot wearing fool says about angry spirits. We got rid of the Christian priests from public events because as a society we no longer believed in their superstitious nonsense, so why have we replaced them with Maori priests and their equally ignorant and superstitious nonsense? Clearly it's not because we all now believe in the Maori gods and the effectiveness of the prayers to these imaginary gods. No, the willingness of government and public officials to pretend to believe in bullshit is apparently all down to political correctness. Christians no longer have the clout to influence public affairs, in fact recent revelations about their behaviour, especially towards children, has made them a real embarrassment, not someone you'd want to invite to your event. But as an ethnic minority and one of the parties to the Treaty of Waitangi, NZ's founding document, Maori are afforded special privileges by guilt-ridden officials to keep their ancient traditions centre stage at the exclusion of all others. And often these public occasions are events that have nothing to do with Maori per se, at least nothing more than most other people in the community. An earthquake strikes or a volcano erupts or a mosque is attacked by an Australian white supremacist and NZers die, and for some reason it is Maori that are called upon, or feel that it is their responsibility, to publicly front up and offer prayers, perform hakas and sometimes even place a tapu or 'spiritual restriction' on some specific area, which the authorities sometimes enforce with real restrictions on access. Not because of any physical danger, but out of deference to the spiritual elements, something there is no evidence for. A new police station is to open and Maori priests must first bless it. A planned highway is to run through land where Maori believe a taniwha lives, so the authorities change the route at great expense to avoid provoking it. FYI, a taniwha is a dangerous supernatural creature, something like a large serpent or dragon. Only invisible. And need I say it, imaginary. I have no problem with NZers of English ancestry keeping Morris dancing alive, of those with Chinese ancestry keeping their culinary traditions alive, of those with German, Indian or Iranian ancestry keeping the language of their grandparents alive, or of those with Dutch ancestry wearing wooden clogs and growing tulips if they so choose. But these activities must be a private affair, they must not be forced on the rest of us, we must not be subjected to Morris dancing when parliament opens, told to wear clogs at ANZAC memorials, compelled to listen to speeches in Mandarin when a politician opens a new highway or forced to sit through long prayers to Allah when the Queen visits. And of course I have no problem with NZers of Maori ancestry keeping the likes of greenstone carving alive. Or even, as silly as it is, retaining belief in their gods and supernatural beasts. But again, it should be a private affair, we shouldn't have to sit through a bloody Maori haka when we watch Kiwi athletes compete at the Olympics. But ... unfortunately ... we do, it seems that today there is no occasion, from a funeral to your pizza being delivered, where an impromptu war dance isn't appropriate and welcomed. So that's my problem, where the silly beliefs of one group of NZers are being forced onto the rest of us. They're not being kept as a private affair. It's not just a matter of having to sit through their nonsense, like sitting through a Catholic funeral, these performances are delivered sincerely and we're expected to believe them, and just like Christianity and Islam, some will come to believe what they hear. And politicians, government departments, many businesses and the media are all playing along, inviting Maori to their events to offer prayers and spiritual advice, and reporting on that advice as if it actually made sense. For example, in this news article a Maori spiritual leader claims that the eruption of the White Island volcano, known to Maori as Whakaari, was a warning from the spiritual world, stating that, 'she's our ancestor ... things are going to be restored in terms of the spiritual domain, the connection to the environment ... Whakaari is speaking out to us'.Why the hell are our politicians, business leaders and media even giving these superstitious fuckwits the time of day? As regards the current COVID-19 pandemic, the same people are telling us all that we must listen to the science. Not the deluded priests, not the nutty conspiracy theorists, not even the leader of the free world, President Donald Trump. No, it's the scientists that we must listen to and heed their advice. When I think about it, I haven't seen a single Maori priest or Maori healer being asked for their view on how to best combat COVID-19, or even seen a Maori haka performed to help build up herd immunity. At all the official briefings not once was a Maori priest brought in to offer a prayer or quizzed about what supernatural entity we might have angered to bring on this pandemic. The only Maori I've seen discussing the outbreak were doing so from the scientific or humanitarian angle. Actually no, I do now recall a Maori by the name of Billy Te Kahika Jr., a Christian who denied the science and went down the religious and conspiracy theory paths. He started a (now failed) political party called 'The New Zealand Public Party'. But here's the thing, the media and the government both condemned him as a nutcase, and again reiterated that people must listen to reason and science, not to wacky claims for which there is no evidence. Even though Billy Te Kahika Jr. is Maori, and saying nothing that was anymore delusional than what other Maori were saying at non-COVID events, they refused to give him a platform to air his silly beliefs. And they were right not to, but why the double standard? Why do these politicians, business leaders and media give Maori bullshit the short shrift when it comes to dealing with COVID-19, but invite the wankers to participate at other events, like seeking the supernatural blessing of a hospital being opened or putting spiritual protection around a crime scene or seeking the explanation for a volcanic eruption? Why aren't our leaders taking their own advice and listening to the science? Listening to reason? On the world stage we look good when it comes to COVID-19 because we consulted only with scientists and told the priests to go home and self isolate. Yet we make ourselves look foolish and backward on other important matters when we give the scientists and the Maori priests equal time to offer their evidence and their prayers respectively. We get engineers to design a building then ask Maori priests to pray it stays up. Worse still, almost all of our politicians, business leaders and media are hypocrites, since they don't believe in the Maori mumbo jumbo, they know it's utter bullshit, they're just playing along to keep superstitious Maori happy, meaning Maori are being played like little children to gain their votes, their business and their support. The Treaty of Waitangi was, ideally, a promise that Maori would gain equal rights alongside other New Zealand citizens, that both Maori and Europeans would together form a government to manage the affairs of the country for the good of everyone, regardless of ethnicity. It was not a plan to govern by presenting opposing worldviews, originally the Maori gods versus the European god, and now the Maori gods versus European science, and let the people decide. Today at least it should be a plan to present the worldview that has the best supporting evidence behind it. If your view of why volcanoes erupt or how best to keep buildings safe is batshit crazy, like we need to appease invisible gods, then it should never be given some legitimacy by presenting it alongside evidence-based views at official events. We expect the authorities to provide us with reliable information, not delude us with superstitious nonsense. In real world situations, in matters of fact, we should only expect to hear from accredited experts, the microphone should never be handed over to the likes of a Catholic priest, a Scientologist, a homeopath, a member of the Flat Earth Society, a Muslim imam, a Hindu fakir or someone who wants to talk about when aliens abducted him, and how they suggested we should handle events like this. So why, why, why do we let Maori priests and spiritual leaders offer their childish advice alongside a vulcanologist or structural engineer, as if their silly talk of gods and curses have any place in the modern world. We laugh at reports of other superstitious natives from around the world, from Malaysia to the USA, that blame natural disasters on gods and angry spirits or drop to their knees and thank Jesus for pushing that tornado towards their neighbours and away from them. It took ages, but in NZ we finally denied the Christians a seat at the grown-ups' table, realising that real world events required real solutions, not worthless prayers aimed at a long-dead carpenter accompanied by the liberal sprinkling of magic water. But then Maori priests asked if they could take the seats vacated by the deluded Christians, and against all reason, some idiot said yes. And now, beamed worldwide in news reports, we have the totally embarrassing examples of Maori witchdoctors blessing all manner of things, begging with imaginary gods to go easy on us. Because, you know, that's how we Kiwis think the world works. It's all about placating gods that are easily angered by us thoughtless humans. And not Jewish gods, Egyptian gods or Greek gods, but Maori gods. If Jesus was real he'd be turning in his grave right now.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 22 Dec, 2020 ~
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| Fictional movies about true events |
Are you one of those pitiful Royal watchers following the Netflix series 'The Crown', a series centred around the reign of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and currently in it's 6th season? Not me, I'd rather stare blankly out the window than feign interest in the decadent lives of some ill-deserving fuckwits on the other side of the planet.  However it seems I'm in the minority since apparently a lot of people are desperate to learn exactly what those spoilt brats got up to behind palace doors. But here's the rub, since when did TV shows or movies that claim to be relating a story based on real people and real events ever tell the true story? Umm ... never!
This is a pet gripe of mine (and not just 'The Crown', but all TV shows and movies of this ilk), where producers, directors and script writers, almost without fail, feel they must add events that never happened, dialogue that was never uttered and even characters that never existed, while at the same time omitting events, dialogue and characters that actually were part of the true story. Their general feeling seems to be that the real events were almost never exciting enough, the real dialogue never witty enough and the real characters never good looking enough. They know that most people watch movies and TV shows for entertainment and as a form of escapism, and so not unsurprisingly no one wants to watch scenes of real life, even if they do show the Queen driving her Land Rover, Princess Diana visiting a children's hospital or Prince Charles talking to his plants. Famous as they are, that's just so boring. The reality is that the behaviour of real people, even famous people, is seldom exciting or interesting enough to make into a movie and hold the interest of an audience. Yes, occasionally real people do exciting things, like fight in wars or have wild sex or ride roller coasters, and occasionally they say witty things or make profound statements, and occasionally we see some real people that, without the aid of digital editing or a push-up bra, truly do look goddesslike. But does that describe the royal family? Let's be honest here, during her long life, what exciting things has the Queen done? Played fetch with her corgis? What witty thing has Prince Charles ever said, or what profound statement has Prince Philip made? And if we set aside the likes of Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle who have been brought into the traditional royal circle from the outside, no one in the royal family would ever make the cover of a magazine on their looks alone. So the royals are not exciting people, not witty or insightful people, not all that good looking and are doing nothing that benefits society. In other words, apart from their obscene wealth and arrogant air of superiority brought about by their privileged position, as regards their daily routines, wit, intellect and appearance, their lives are normal and often boring, just like the rest of us, with perhaps just the odd thrill now and then. And as such, their lives wouldn't make great TV viewing, or even mediocre viewing. So what do you do if you're in the entertainment business and you want to make a TV series or movie about some real noteworthy event, but discover that the stories that caused that event and the people involved were quite boring overall? Well ... you lie. You fabricate a fiction. You invent exciting stories and witty and beautiful people to give the real-life boring bits more appeal to your viewers. If several crucial actions were performed by different real-life characters, this might be too complicated for your dim-witted audience to follow, so it's often easier to combine all these actions into one character, either a real character or one invented for the purpose. If the actual order of some events seem a little disjointed or too widely separated in time, then you change the timeline to improve the flow. If there's a villain in the story, then he or she is made more devious, more complex, than they likely were, and if there's a final battle, be it on a real battlefield or in a courtroom, it's made far more exciting and memorable than it was in reality. If there was little romance or suspense in the true story, then you invent some. If you want people to watch your TV show or movie that claims to be based on a true story and real events, then the reality is that you can't tell the actual true story or show the events as they really happened. You have to tell some lies, maybe just a few, maybe a lot. Most likely a lot. The Netflix series 'The Crown' has recently been criticised for doing just that, weaving fictional stories around the real royal family. Peter Morgan, the show's creator, defended the inaccuracies in the series by explaining that the show was an 'act of creative imagination' and that 'When you're really only focused on research, the drama suffers'. Or to put it another way, when your research into what really happened reveals a boring story played out by boring people, then you have to use your creative imagination to make stuff up, exciting stuff that people will want to watch. Otherwise the story suffers, people lose interest and change channels, and money is lost. Back in season 4 Morgan had said that, 'We do our very, very best to get it right, but sometimes I have to conflate [incidents] ... You sometimes have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth'.Those are just weasel words to hide the fact that you're fudging the truth. That's like me saying that Adolf Hitler died in 1945 when he was attacked by a zombie horde while out skinny dipping. I have forsaken accuracy on how he died, but not the overall truth, since it is true Hitler was a real person who died in 1945. However, by adding zombies as the cause of Hitler's demise, you'd have to be a fool to say that I had done my 'very, very best to get it right'. Admittedly, I don't believe Morgan has added any zombies (or ghosts, ninjas or aliens) to 'The Crown', but I still must question how creative these Hollywood types really are if they can't devise a way of narrating a real event without adding elements that weren't actually there. (And for the purpose of this essay, by 'Hollywood' I mean the entire worldwide industry creating these sorts of misleading productions.) Morgan was forced to make his latest admission of inaccuracies when UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said he was complaining to Netflix, noting that, 'It's a beautifully produced work of fiction, so as with other TV productions, Netflix should be very clear at the beginning it is just that. ... Without this, I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events may mistake fiction for fact'.This was followed by comments from Helena Bonham Carter, an actress on the show, stating that there was an important distinction between 'our version' and the 'real version', writing that, 'It is dramatized. I do feel very strongly, because I think we have a moral responsibility to say, "Hang on, guys, this is not ... it's not a drama-doc, we're making a drama." So they are two different entities'.Earl Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, also called for a disclaimer, saying, 'I think it would help 'The Crown' an enormous amount if, at the beginning of each episode, it stated that, 'This isn't true but it is based around some real events'.Netflix responded saying, 'We have always presented The Crown as a drama, and we have every confidence our members understand it's a work of fiction that's broadly based on historical events. As a result, we have no plans — and see no need — to add a disclaimer'.I'd say the belief held by Netflix that the public clearly 'understand it's a work of fiction' is quite misplaced. I'd argue that the public are not watching 'The Crown' because it's truly a great drama with fascinating characters and unexpected plot twists, they're watching as voyeurs, as peeping toms, as gossips, people desperate to get all the sordid details concerning what really happened behind palace doors to people they feel they have a real-world connection with (even thought they don't). They seriously do believe they are being told the true story, juicy tidbits and all. They're suckers. Just another gullible group falling for what could be called a form of fake news. If people would only think about it for a moment, they would realise that much of what is shown on 'The Crown' must be made up by the script writers. The conversations which make up most of the show must be pure fiction since they happened in private behind closed doors, and since the royal family works hard at keeping their lives inside the palace private, the script writers have no actual record (and certainly no reliable record) of conversations on which to base their TV series. With no idea of what was actually said during a particular conversation, in fact not even knowing if that conversation or argument actually took place, they're forced to simply make stuff up, to invent entertaining fiction to fill a huge bubble of ignorance around what actually might have transpired behind the scenes. Let me relate a similar example that reveals how gullible people can be. This one's much older than Hollywood, although they have since covered it. There are many passages in the Bible where it states what Jesus was doing, saying and thinking even though Jesus was alone; there were no witnesses to later tell this story. Since Jesus never related his thoughts and actions to anyone else later on, how could the Bible writers have described that scene? Clearly those episodes must have been invented by the writers to make up for missing parts of the larger story they wished to tell. They must be fictional. Regardless of how you view the rest of the Bible, those parts must be pure fantasy. And yet for two thousand years untold Christians have read those stories of what Jesus did when no one was watching, and none of them have suddenly realised that ... wait a minute ... that can't be right! It's impossible for the writers to write about something they couldn't possibly know. And it's the same with these docudramas, no matter how obvious the writers make it, most people never suddenly go ... wait a minute ... that can't be right! Like reading the Bible, they shallow it all hook, line and sinker. Why do I care? Well, personally I don't care about the reputation of the royals, not at all, but I do care about the truth. If during this year's Xmas lunch I must sit through someone regaling me about royal shenanigans then I want their view to at least be based on facts, not on some fictionalized TV show that they mistook as factual. If I'm going to be informed about real world events then I expect to be given factual information. Surely that's not unreasonable? No doubt many will reply, 'It's just a TV show, you shouldn't take it so seriously'. I quite agree, if you are talking about the likes of 'Game of Thrones' or 'The Daffy Duck Show', but clearly a show like 'The Crown' is an entirely different matter. The public is expected to take it seriously. This is not a show about Princess Leia of 'Star Wars', this is about Princess Diana of Windsor. One is a real-world princess, the other isn't. Everyone goes into this show with the belief that it's about real people and real events, and that it offers a look at what behind-the-scenes dramas fuelled those events. And the show does nothing to dispel that belief, that the lives of the royals will be laid bare. What they don't tell you is that much has been fictionalized to make it more entertaining. And that's what I hate. I hate being lied to, I hate being duped. And not just by 'The Crown', I'm pissed at all the fucking shows and movies that lie to me about history.
Recently I watched 'The Revenant', a movie staring Leonardo DiCaprio. It was based on the true story of trapper Hugh Glass who was mauled by a grizzly bear in the wilds of South Dakota in 1823 and left for dead by his companions. If you're curious, the movie title means, 'one who has returned, as if from the dead'. And yes, the movie is the tale of how Glass beat the odds and crawled over 200 miles back to civilisation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning movies that construct outrageous fictions to make them more entertaining, in fact I'm a great fan of such movies, and I certainly don't criticise them for their many inaccuracies. I have no problem with what's called the willing suspension of disbelief, the ability to set aside reality and critical thinking and watch a piece of entertaining fiction for the pure sake of enjoyment. I love movies like 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and TV shows like 'South Park' because they don't pretend to be anything but fictional entertainment, they don't pretend to be educating me about real events. I don't feel cheated. I don't come away thinking that what I saw actually happened, and thus I don't later make a fool of myself by naively talking about fictional events as if they were real. But on the other hand, when I watch a movie supposedly based on the life of a real person and that story features elements of both a documentary and a drama, what the industry calls a docudrama, I usually get the sense that I am being educated about real events, that they want me to come away thinking I've learnt some history, that I'm now better informed. And the thing is, on some of the better docudramas you will have learnt some historical facts, but you will also have been fed numerous falsehoods, fictions and fabrications. The problem is that you'll have no idea what was true, what was partially true and what was quite false. As I said, I care about the truth, so when I impart some information to someone who trusts me to convey the truth, then I need to be confident that what I'm asserting is actually true. But having watched many of those docudramas, I come away still quite ignorant as to what the truth actually is. So whether I had hoped to simply become better informed myself or perhaps wanted to answer a query posed by a friend, I'll have wasted my time and achieved nothing since while I accept some bits were quite possibly true, other bits were certainly false, and no effort was made to inform the viewer which was which. These docudramas serve no noble purpose, they only muddy the waters and spread misinformation about real events. Instead of making us better informed about important aspects of history, they merely mix some truths in with some lies and leave us with a soup of uncertainty.
Of course I accept that even a good docudrama will contain inaccuracies since there is much historians don't know and will never know. For example, the dialogue of many lost conversations will have to be fabricated to allow the story to unfold. But these added elements should never alter important aspects of the story that we do have reliable accounts of. These fictionalized additions should be so minor and inconsequential that the viewer hardly even notices them, by which I mean the bits of the story that the viewer remembers should be the truthful bits, the accurate bits that make the story important and historic, not the fake bits that were merely added to move the story from A to B. But often the fake bits were added not to subtly move the story along, but to make the characters more interesting and the story more exciting. And, sadly, over the years I've found that the witty dialogue or some act of courage or sacrifice that the viewer remembers most from these docudramas is often the very thing that never actually happened in real life. The things that viewers loved, or hated, about the characters are often the very things they never did, sometimes the characters themselves never even existed. 'In interviews around the release of HBO's "Chernobyl," screenwriter and show creator Mazin insisted that his mini-series would stick to the facts. "I defer to the less dramatic version of things," Mazin said, adding, "you don't want to cross a line into the sensational."And in this article — 'What HBO's "Chernobyl" Got Right, and What It Got Terribly Wrong' — Masha Gessen writes that, 'In "Chernobyl" ... the creators imagine confrontation where it was unthinkable — and, in doing so, cross the line from conjuring a fiction to creating a lie.'That's the same problem I have with these movies and TV shows, that getting our history (and science) lessons from a medium made primarily to entertain is foolish to say the least. And yet the general public believes Hollywood is doing society a great service by relating important events from history, not realising they're being fed a fictionalized version of history. Many people believe we can learn important lessons from history, and they're right, but at the same time very few people will ever bother to read a factual account of an historic event, so apparently the next best thing is to get Hollywood to make an entertaining movie. Why read the book when we can just wait for the movie? Take any event from history you think is interesting, add some action and suspense, some humour, maybe some romance, give the main characters nice teeth and attractive bodies (and remove their body hair if it's a woman), and no matter what past era your drama is set in, give the heroes some 21st century values so that the audience can relate to them, for example, make them appear more tolerant of feminism or homosexuality or racial minorities than they likely would have been. Make those changes and you'll have made a fiction that people will watch, and believe, and most importantly, pay for. I don't believe Hollywood and its minions feel at all guilty about misleading the public, because they likely don't feel that they are. I suspect that they tell themselves that clearly their movie or TV show is a fictionalized version (because they knowingly made it that way), and that it should surely be obvious to everyone, that no one is going to come away thinking they've watched a truly factual documentary. These producers and script writers have read the factual accounts of the historical event they're interested in, and are thus fully aware of every element of their movie or show where they have invented a new character, altered a real character, imagined some new dialogue, changed the timeline, omitted some real events and inserted some fictional ones, maybe even altered the ending. Watching the final product they know all too well how it differs from what really happened. But here's where I think these producers delude themselves somewhat, they convince themselves that their audience will also immediately grasp that the on-screen version differs from the version in the history books, that history has obviously been fictionalized for the purpose of entertainment. And yet the audience, unlike the producers and script writers, never read the factual accounts and weren't present when some script writer wondered if their docudrama might be made more entertaining if they added a witty sidekick or dressed 'Braveheart's William Wallace in a kilt or had Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and Mark Antony indulge in a threesome. I suspect the people making these docudramas assume that the viewing public is far smarter than most of us are, that we're apparently quite knowledgeable about the historical event they're filming and/or familiar with movie techniques employed to move a story along and thus we'll quickly recognise the fake bits they introduced to spice things up. Just as many doctors, lawyers, economists and scientists naively assume we will understand them when they give us a technical report to read, those making these docudramas also believe we know everything they do, when obviously we don't. If they're going to tell us about a true event, but will be adding some false bits along the way, then they need to point them out, and not just assume we'll notice them ourselves. Even people working on these shows can get confused. Take the term docudrama. Note above where Netflix describes 'The Crown' as a drama, and actress Helena Bonham Carter also explains that she is staring in a drama, not a 'drama-doc' (aka a docudrama), but that explanation only works if the audience knows what a drama-doc is in relation to a drama, and can readily tell the difference when they see them on their screens without labels. I was confused over Carter's explanation, thinking that 'The Crown' is surely a drama documentary, and not a drama as she maintains. According to this definition, a drama documentary is 'a television programme whose story is based on an event or situation that really happened, even though it is not intended to be accurate in every detail'. To me that defines 'The Crown' (and 'Chernobyl') perfectly. These shows are based on real people and events and recreations of these events are shown unfolding on-screen. They go to extraordinary lengths to get the fashions, buildings, interior decorations, vehicles etc correct for the era, and often hire actors that not only resemble the real characters but can match their mannerisms and accents etc. For events that we have real video or photographs, they use their actors and props to reproduce the scene as accurately as possible. For events where dialogue or specific actions are unknown and only the outcome is known, scenes are invented that reveal how those events might have unfolded, meaning that some elements of the story are likely not accurate. On the other hand, my dictionary defines a drama as, 'A serious narrative work or program for television, radio, or the cinema'. Fictional shows like 'Downton Abbey', 'Grey's Anatomy', 'House of Cards' and 'Game of Thrones' are all dramas. To be labelled a drama, there's obviously no requirement that any of those shows be a 'programme whose story is based on an event or situation that really happened', so in my mind 'The Crown', clearly based as it is on real events, is a drama documentary, and not a mere drama. Both actress Helena Bonham Carter and Netflix are wrong about what sort of show they've made, and if someone working in the industry is confused, what hope has the general public got of getting the definition right? But she's correct in her view that the public is being mislead into thinking that 'The Crown' is conscientiously relating real events accurately, and whatever label you put on the TV series, the public needs to be made aware that it is fiction cunningly woven around some real events. Since the producers will never flash true or false labels across the various scenes, viewers can never know which scenes, which conversations, which arguments, which indiscretions, which actions and even which characters were actually real and which were invented solely to entertain and titillate. And the unfortunate reality is that TV shows and movies that promote themselves with the claim 'Based on a true story' or 'Based on real events' are almost always chock full of inaccuracies or outright lies, all with the aim of making the story more entertaining and thus more profitable. So what might you gain from watching a docudrama? If you treat it as fictional you may be entertained, which is good. But if you treat it as largely factual, or even somewhat factual, what have you really gained, what information might you have gleaned that you can repeat with any confidence? Consider this example. If a new acquaintance of mine said they were going to reveal ten things about their life growing up, and that some statements would be true and some would be false, but they wouldn't disclose which was which, then I'd tell them not to bother saying anything. What would be the point of listening to a story about 'true' events when I've already been assured some of it will be a lie, and I have no clear way of determining the lies from the truth? Would you waste your time with friends, colleagues, teachers, lawyers, doctors etc who were always mixing lies into their 'truthful' conversations? Unless you're a moron, I'm going to assume you'd insist on hearing the complete truth or nothing at all. When it comes to entertainment I'm prepared to listen to stories that are pure fiction and those that mix facts with lies (recently I happily watched the movie 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'), but when it comes to real world matters, only the truth will suffice. How could you believe yourself well-informed about some issue when all you have been given is a list of statements, and the knowledge that some of those statements, perhaps many, are false, with no hints as to which. Any comment you later make on the subject could be true or false, since you have no idea how reliable that original list of statements is. When you speak on the subject there is a good chance you will be misleading people, since without doubt some of your beliefs are false. And you know that, you just don't know which ones they are. So would you even risk pontificating on the subject, knowing that you'll be spreading falsehoods some of the time, or would you just keep quiet, thinking that if you can't honestly tell the truth, and can't avoid the risk of being exposed as dishonest or at least a gullible fool, then it's better to say nothing? Would you really want to be seen as the person that believes Abraham Lincoln hunted vampires before he became president of the US, or less dramatically, believes that the royals said and did things they didn't?
Personally, I'd say that if you want to inform the world about a real event from history, then make a factual documentary, not a semi-factual movie. But Hollywood argues (with considerable justification) that since serious documentaries don't gratuitously add heroes, shootouts, nudity, car chases, sex scenes, suspenseful drama and witty one-liners, then most of the public will never watch them. It's like someone saying, 'If you're thinking of offering me a drink and it hasn't got alcohol in it, then don't bother'. Your typical moviegoer insists on movie elements that take them out of the real world, if only briefly, and yet a true documentary must remain rooted in the real world. Thus they won't bother watching them, preferring instead to watch movies where the stories from history have been tweaked, improved and supercharged. I come away from these movies with the inkling that something important probably happened in the past, I'm just a little fuzzy on the details. Thank Zeus there isn't going to be a test! But most people feel they could now pass such a test, that they have been well informed about some past event. They may have dozed through history classes at school, but thankfully Hollywood has brought them up to speed. But of course they haven't, Hollywood has only made them dumber. It's made them think they know something that they don't. Rather than lie to us, why don't they ditch their attempt at history lessons, leave that to the documentary makers, and stick with what they're good at — the excitement, the adventure, the romance, the mystery, the humour, the heroic characters and the devious villains of fictional stories — tell us great stories where they aren't even slightly constrained by feeling they should stick to some annoying real-world details, and leave the lies and falsehoods to the fraudsters, conspiracy theorists and con artists. Of which we have no shortage. Compared to movies, the audience for documentaries is small, certainly, but at least it's an honest profession. If knowledge of history is valuable, then it should be in the hands of those who respect it, not those who will corrupt it for personal gain. If Hollywood's version of history is merely snippets of truth wrapped in a multitude of lies, then we are being harmed, our heads are filled not with real history but with fantasies. Look at the people that believe characters like King Arthur, Robin Hood and Jesus Christ are real people from history, or that Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry and Isaac Newton was hit on the head by an apple. In the distant future will people believe that James Bond was a real spy working for British Intelligence, that the movies were based on real events, in the same way that many people now insist that the stories told on 'The X-Files' were based on real FBI cases? Of course Hollywood isn't going to suddenly stop making misleading movies about historic events because ... well ... there's no money in doing that, in the same way that tobacco companies won't stop selling cigarettes even though they also know they cause harm. All we can do is try and encourage people to give them up. Point out that movies and TV shows based on real events are fictionalized accounts, which means much of what they're watching is made up, invented, fabricated and fantasised in order to make it entertaining. Watch it if you must, but don't confuse your movie with the real events and the real people, you're comparing apples with oranges. Don't fool yourself that it's educational, that you're learning some important history while snacking on your popcorn. For me, I consider movies and TV shows that are based on true stories a waste of my time and I normally avoid them, but if for some reason I do watch them, then it's with the clear view that the on-screen stories are likely as fictional as 'The Bourne Identity' or 'Bridget Jones's Diary', remembering that one could argue that both those movies were also inspired by real events. Currently the the spread of 'alternative facts' and fake news is a growing problem, large swathes of society are being hoodwinked by morons on social media into believing all manner of nonsense. We have the deluded and the devious opposing vaccines and promoting belief in a flat Earth right up to President Trump's infantile outbursts on Twitter. Due to technology, the wide reach and impact of these fictions is new, but Hollywood has been offering up 'alternative facts' in the form of movies about historical events since before I was born. We don't just need to open people's eyes to the insidious fictions on social media, and convince them to reject them, we need them to realise that Hollywood's glitzy creations can not be trusted to reliably inform us either, not about history or science or ethics ... or anything really. If you want to learn something real about history, science, ethics or even zombies, then read a factual book, don't naively expect an entertainment industry to fill in for those classes you slept through in school.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 13 Dec, 2020 ~
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| Should we kill granny? |
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For those Facebook and Twitter aficionados who never read beyond the first paragraph, who believe arguments for anything from climate change to the non-existence of God should be explainable in 160 characters or less, whose attention span is already waning, let me categorically state that in answer to the title of this post, no, you most definitely should not kill granny. Or anyone.
'This referendum will ask the public to vote on whether the End of Life Choice Act 2019 should come into force, giving people with a terminal illness the option of requesting assisted dying.'The 2019 Act talks about an 'End of Life Choice' and 'the option of requesting assisted dying', but nowhere does it mention the more correct phrase: voluntary euthanasia, or even just euthanasia, terms that are used worldwide to discuss this topic. Apparently the political party that began work on this referendum (the ACT Party) was forced to remove any reference to euthanasia to gain the needed political support for the referendum to go ahead. For or against, most people have heard of euthanasia, meaning having euthanasia in the title would immediately signal what the referendum was asking. By inventing a new phrase — 'End of Life Choice' — this euphemism will only serve to confuse voters, not inform them. I can't help but suspect political machinations on the part of some that don't want this Act to come into force, that they are trying to manipulate the vote by the way the referendum is presented. In the past when family and friends have discussed euthanasia with me, I have had to emphasise that the only thing that is being considered is voluntary euthanasia, not euthanasia in a wider sense. This point is crucial to the whole debate, so let me repeat what I've previously written. There are two types of euthanasia: active or positive euthanasia is where a person is painlessly put to death, and passive or negative euthanasia is where the artificial means keeping a terminally ill person alive are withdrawn, such as ventilators or feeding tubes, with the knowledge that this will cause the person's death — the infamous 'pulling the plug'. Neither active nor passive euthanasia require the permission of the person involved. Active euthanasia is illegal nearly everywhere, whereas passive euthanasia happens often. This is a relatively new thing, since before the rise of modern medical technology most people did die at home, only now are family members and doctors forced to pull the plug to let nature take its course. Also a type of active euthanasia occurs in our hospitals and rest homes every day where doctors prescribe powerful drugs that they know will shorten a patient's life. However as long as the drug is given primarily to reduce pain and suffering, even though its secondary effect is to slowly kill, then this is perfectly legal, and I would argue, ethical. It's called 'double effect', where relieving pain has the 'unfortunate' effect of also being lethal. But these people are dying earlier than what God intended or a natural death would cause, so it is euthanasia, albeit slow acting euthanasia. However voluntary euthanasia is different in one important point, it is not family members or doctors deciding to end a person's life, the request to be put painlessly to death must come from the person who wants to die. If the dying person doesn't want their death hastened by drugs, then regardless of what family members or doctors think would be best, euthanasia is off the table. The person dies naturally, end of story. To reiterate, with active and passive euthanasia the decision is made by others, whereas with voluntary euthanasia the patient must make the decision. And it is most definitely voluntary euthanasia that the 'End of Life Choice' referendum is talking about, even though it neglects to definitively say so. This important voluntary aspect is something that many people mistakenly overlook or deliberately obscure when they express their opposition to voluntary euthanasia. They argue that some faceless doctor or estranged relative will decide to euthanize granny as she sleeps, simply to free up a hospital bed or release their inheritance or even to sincerely put a stop to what they consider must surely be unbearable suffering on the part of the patient. But this is a lie. This will never happen and it is ignorant or devious to argue that it will. During their main news hour, TV3 have just broadcast two segments ('Because It Matters') over successive nights with the purpose of educating viewers about the upcoming 'End of Life Choice' referendum. The first segment featured Shirley Seales who explained why she would be voting 'Yes' in the referendum. Shirley is the mother of the late Lecretia Seales, a pro-euthanasia campaigner who died horribly of a brain tumour aged 42 after being denied the right to die peacefully in a 2015 High Court battle. The second segment featured a woman suffering from terminal brain cancer, Vicky Walsh, who explained why she would be voting 'No'. She informed us that when she was initially diagnosed she tried to commit suicide but failed, and would have likely taken the voluntary euthanasia option had it been available, that she believed people should have the choice of assisted dying, that she was definitely pro choice, saying, 'I had always been of the opinion that my body, my choice, it's nothing to do with you'. But after her failed suicide, her view changed, radically, and she now says that, 'I don't believe that anyone should deliberately end someone else's life'. As I've already explained, this belief that Vicky expresses is absolutely bogus; if the Act comes into force no one will have the power to end someone else's life. People will only be able to end their own life. While that clearly false and misleading statement was just Vicky's view, since the segment was produced to educate voters about the debate, the Newshub journalist Patrick Gower should have informed viewers that what she said was incorrect and explained what the Act really said, yet he said nothing. But even though the detail of her statement is wrong, think about what she's saying here in general terms, that no one should be able to force their personal belief or wishes onto someone else, and yet by trying to refuse people the option of voluntary euthanasia she is attempting to do just that. She is saying no one should have control over the life (or death) of someone else, and yet she is voting to ensure that doctors and politicians and distant relatives will retain control of how my life and your life will end. She is a hypocrite. All the people that will vote 'No' are effectively saying that they want to make sure that we can't have what they don't like. In the first segment Shirley Seales summed up this selfish attitude very well: 'If there are people that think that part of life is suffering at the end, then they can choose not to avail themselves of it [voluntary euthanasia]'. Or look at it this way. As I've said before, homosexuality is now legal in NZ, but that doesn't mean you now have to try it for yourself. Do these naysayers not understand what the words voluntary and choice mean? As the bumper sticker goes: Against Abortion? Then don't have one! Again, let me repeat for the naysayers out there that no one will be able to force voluntary euthanasia onto anyone, including you and your loved ones. And if you're vehemently opposed to it, then surely you have the willpower to resist ever asking for it? Right? So if you feel safe, if you know you'll never be tempted, then your opposition must solely be an arrogant and selfish desire to control the lives of others. Why, like some 18th century slave owner, do you think you have this right?
Past polls have shown that the majority of people these days are in favour of legalising voluntary euthanasia. In NZ maybe around 70%, so I'm quietly confident that the Act will come into force if intelligent and informed people actually bother to vote. We can be sure the naysayers will be lining up to cast their vote. But even 'when' it comes into force, I only see it as a positive first step, the Act can still be improved, and needs to be improved. For example, let's look at the hoops one needs to jump through to be accepted for voluntary euthanasia: 'Who would be eligible for assisted dying?That six criteria must all be met means that some truly desperate people will be excluded. For example, let's say Patient A meets all 6 criteria and their request for voluntary euthanasia is agreed to. Their life expectancy is 4 months. They experience unbearable suffering of say, pain level 8 (of level 0-10 with 10 being the worst). Their physical decline is significant and ongoing. Now consider Patient B. His request is declined because he doesn't meet one of the criteria. Maybe their life expectancy is 24 months, greater than the allowed 6 months. But does that make sense? Let's say all the other criteria match those of Patient A. The Act is saying that it's inhumane and cruel to force Patient A to suffer for 4 months, and yet insists that Patient B must suffer for 24 months, six times longer! Or maybe Patient B has a pain level at 10, much greater than that experienced by Patient A, but his illness is not terminal, so he fails that criteria. Again, the Act is saying it's unreasonable to expect Patient A to suffer in pain for 4 months, but it has no problem with Patient B having to suffer with a higher pain level for years, maybe decades. Is that logical, or fair? Or what about the criteria that insists Patient B's physical decline must be both significant and ongoing? Again he is experiencing level 10 unbearable suffering, but because a further physical decline isn't happening, just terrible chronic pain, or maybe a decline is happening but it's not considered significant (whatever that means), then his request will be denied. Again, the Act is saying it's unreasonable to expect Patient A to suffer in pain for 4 months, but it has no problem with Patient B having to suffer with a higher pain level for years, maybe decades. I'd argue that most people would opt for voluntary euthanasia because they 'experience unbearable suffering that cannot be eased', and yet the Act argues that if unbearable suffering is going to extend for over six months, then it seems to become suddenly unimportant. If unbearable suffering isn't going to kill you, it merely makes you wish you were dead, then the Act turns you away. Let's say you've become a quadriplegic, you're blind and almost deaf, you're in continual pain, and you spend every day doing ... well ... nothing, but hey, at least you're not getting any worse. You could have decades of this to look forward to. Your unbearable suffering is a combination of pain and mind numbing boredom, but it doesn't count since your condition, as miserable as it is, isn't getting worse. And think about what 'unbearable suffering' actually means. Unbearable means impossible to tolerate, and the fact that you're still suffering, and not already dead, means you are tolerating the pain, you are bearing the suffering so clearly it can't be unbearable. So if lawyers or pedantic doctors are involved, then again you would fail one of the essential criteria. And here's another problem. Do you know that device that doctors use to measure pain and suffering? No? Right, because there is no such device. But the Act says that, 'The person's doctor and an independent doctor must agree that the person meets all the criteria', meaning both doctors must reach agreement on what the level of pain and suffering experienced by the patient actually is, when clearly only the patient can truly know this. People have differing pain thresholds, differing views of suffering. What might be a mere annoyance for one person might be sheer torture for another. How can a doctor ever claim to truly judge someone's level of suffering? I broke my leg skiing many years ago and while awaiting surgery the doctors gave me three doses of pain killer which did little to alleviate the pain (when one should have been plenty). After the surgery the nurses kept trying to give pain killers, telling me that I should be in pain, even though I now felt no pain whatsoever. My point is that my pain experiences were quite contrary to what the doctors expected, so in a voluntary euthanasia interview, would they believe my description of what I was suffering or go with what their training suggested I should be able to bear? The Act also says that, 'If, at any time, the doctor or nurse practitioner thinks a person is being pressured about their decision, they must stop the process'. If it's two doctors that must evaluate the request, why is a nurse practitioner able to throw a spanner in the works? Does the doctor's receptionist get to voice her opinion too? Another problem with the Act as it stands: 'Administering the lethal dose of medicationLet's imagine someone whose request has been approved. They easily met all the criteria, they're suffering terribly and it's only going to get worse. Their life expectancy is no more than 6 months, and they are going to end their life in one months time, sparing themselves 5 months of suffering. But then on the very day they are to take the medication, as they are driven to their appointment their illness, say a growing brain tumour, causes their reasoning ability and memory to degrade (and it will). When asked about their wish for voluntary euthanasia they are now confused. Unable to clearly request the medication, or pass another interview, the legally agreed voluntary euthanasia is taken away from them. But would this be justified and ethical? The request was made and approved when they were mentally able, they continued to assert this was their wish as they waited and were on their way to take the medication. Why shouldn't the request be honoured? Think of a patient in hospital who gives their written permission for an operation, and is then anaesthetised just prior to surgery. They don't keep waking him up during surgery to ensure he still wants the operation to continue. Once given, the request for surgery is binding, and it should also be binding for voluntary euthanasia to continue. The surgeons have no reason to believe their patient would have suddenly changed his mind, and nor do the doctors administering the fatal medication. They had already agreed that their patient most definitely did not wish to suffer for another 5 months, but if his illness incapacitates him mentally or puts him in a coma, they go back on their word and force him to suffer for another 5 months, and because of his confused state or coma he is now in no condition to complain. If you write a legal Last Will & Testament when you are quite sane but then develop dementia a month before your death, the lawyers don't tear up your Will simply because just prior to your death you now say you want to leave all your assets to Donald Duck and his three nephews. They stick with the request you made when you were lucid, and rightly ignore your demands once dementia sets in. Why doesn't the same apply for a voluntary euthanasia request that was granted when you were sane, why does the demented mind get the final say, why does it override all the legal documents? And that is not likely to be some rare occurrence. The sad reality is that fatal illnesses sometimes progress differently and far more quickly than doctors predict, and this will result in some people that have been granted voluntary euthanasia being denied access at the final hurdle. Since voluntary euthanasia is only granted to those with less than 6 months to live, this means they are very near death and their body and/or their brain is shutting down. They may get 6 months, but they may only last a month. However the Act doesn't automatically guarantee them what they signed up for, the Act insists their brain must be fully functional and able to understand and issue the final command to the doctor when the time of their assisted death arrives. But if something, say a brain tumour or stroke or suddenly lapsing into a coma prevents the person from issuing that final command, which is very likely to happen, then the planned voluntary euthanasia is quickly withdrawn as if it had never existed. And the person who put his trust in the doctors and authorities is left staring at the ceiling and suffering unbearably for several more months until, lying in his own feces and covered in bed sores, he finally starves to death, as God planned. I also want to mention one further failure of the Act: 'Can advance directives allow for assisted dying?Advance directives (also called Living Wills) are becoming more popular and many lawyers and doctors recommend everyone considers making one (in addition to their normal Will and nominating an Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) who is someone you trust to make decisions about your health should you become incapacitated). Unfortunately advance directives are not (yet) legally binding like a Will. However, if you go on to suffer dementia or go into a coma due to some unexpected accident or illness, and family and doctors start arguing over what level of treatment you would have wanted, an advance directive can help everyone, including lawyers, know your wishes if the worst were to happen. They may still ignore them, but if they exist there is at least a chance someone will fight for you when you can't. So many people might now be thinking that once the Act and voluntary euthanasia becomes legal, then a clear request for assisted dying in their advance directive might carry some weight, but no. Even though your advance directive might clearly state that you do not want to suffer unbearably for months and even years in a coma, and your doctor, lawyer and family are all well aware of your wishes and support them, the End of Life Choice Act will ignore your directive and wheel you into a corner to suffer unbearably until your name comes up on God's list. Even if your 'Welfare guardians' or EPA repeat your wish for voluntary euthanasia, note that doctors will ignore them too. (And not just as far as voluntary euthanasia goes, but as regards any life-saving treatments that they think might save your life. The most important power that many people think EPA's have is actually the one they don't have. As EPA you may have been instructed to, say, refuse resuscitation in the case of a severe heart attack, but doctors can legally ignore you. Another example of other people believing they control your life, not you.) The Act demands that you must be mentally competent to request voluntary euthanasia (and carry it out) and yet for many people the very time when voluntary euthanasia is needed most is just after they cease being mentally competent. The law says that it cannot take any notice of clear and strict instructions someone made when they were lucid (which is just the opposite to how they treat your Will), and will instead wait to see if the terminally ill patient recovers from their dementia or persistent vegetative state. Yeah right, as if that is likely to happen. The End of Life Choice Act needs to be amended to allow for an advance directive to take over if a person, with no hope of recovery, is suffering unbearably and then suddenly becomes mentally incompetent before the agreed upon voluntary euthanasia can take place. This is not about other people deciding to terminate the lives of people that had made no such request when they were able, this is merely about following through on a request that was clearly and knowingly made before they lost their clarity of thought. Opponents would likely argue that we don't know for sure what the person might decide to do if they did became lucid again, but clearly if they recovered their original intellect, then they would demand that the voluntary euthanasia procedure goes ahead posthaste. That's what recovery means, going back to where they were, to thinking the way they previously thought. If they instead said they now wanted to suffer as that was God's will, then we know that they are in fact still batshit crazy. Regarding this criteria of mental competency, the Act states that the person requesting voluntary euthanasia must be 'competent to make an informed decision about assisted dying', and if two doctors, and maybe a psychiatrist, denies the request on the grounds that the person is not mentally competent, they 'must explain the reasons for their opinion to the person'. But they've just decided that the person is not mentally competent when it comes to their thoughts around assisted dying, how do they expect this mentally incompetent person to understand their reasons for declining the request? I guess a lawyer will argue that the Act merely states that they must explain their reasons, there is no requirement that the person has to understand their explanation. I'm sure there are many other elements of the Act that lawyers, doctors and annoying family members could find to disagree over, and of course disagreement means that a request for voluntary euthanasia is put on hold or declined altogether. And someone continues to suffer while others fight over who controls their body, their life and their death. Let me remind you that whether this Act comes into force or not, many people will still find themselves suffering unbearably and some will still decide to die at a time of their own choosing. Essentially voluntary euthanasia is just another word for suicide, and we can never remove that option. If they decide to end their suffering, all we can control is whether it is done peacefully or violently. Vote 'Yes' for a peaceful death surrounded by loved ones, vote 'No' for finding your loved one dead next to a shotgun in a blood-spattered kitchen. UPDATE: 15 Aug 2020. This morning I walked past a colourful billboard that said:
Curious, I looked at their website, where they begin by listing eight reasons to try and convince people to vote No in the referendum. I'll quickly explain what I see as flaws in their reasoning. The first reason states: '#1. There is NO reliable safeguard to prevent someone being pressured into euthanasia or assisted suicide (one doctor is simply required to 'do their best' to detect pressure, and they can only speak to people that the patient lets them speak to)'Clearly there are safeguards, although of course with processes like this no one can ever guarantee that on rare occasions a mistake might not slip through, just as there will likely be far many more occasions where pressure is suspected when there was none and requests are declined. This argument is like saying there is NO reliable safeguard (meaning it's not impossible) to prevent someone being found guilty in a court trial when they were in fact innocent, or vice versa, so therefore the risk of holding trials to determine guilt is too high. Should we dissolve the justice system simply because it's not prefect? As I've said, the uncertainty actually works in the opponents favour, since the safeguards, erring on the side of caution, will likely deny many genuine and desperate requests because of some doubt on the doctor's part, whereas it's difficult to see how someone that has made an unwilling request under pressure would exhibit no reservations or reluctance when interviewed by two doctors. A simple no or hint of indecision would stop the process in its tracks. The argument is also wrong and misleading when it says that only 'one doctor is simply required to 'do their best' to detect pressure', when the Act clearly states that, 'The opinions of 2 doctors are required about whether the person is eligible', and a psychiatrist after that if they can't agree. Furthermore, how can these people expect doctors to do more than 'their best'? It's impossible for anyone to do more than their best, it's as stupid as people saying they expect an effort of 110% when you can only ever give a maximum of 100%. '#2. NO independent witness is required at any point in the process - even at the time the lethal dose is injected/taken'This is the arrogant and selfish argument that you are not in control of you own body, your own life and your own death, that some 'independent witness', probably some busybody from the Church, should be watching over your shoulder as you make important health decisions and be ready to step in if the choice you make is not the choice they would make. '#3. There is NO protection against secret euthanasia or assisted suicide (family do not have to be consulted, or even informed)'Again, voluntary euthanasia is the personal business of the person requesting it, not the business of the family or friends or the Church. That's like someone moaning that there is NO protection in law against secret masturbation, that family do not have to be consulted, or even informed! '#4. There is NO requirement to ensure that the person is mentally competent on the day the lethal dose is injected/taken'The person must by necessity be reasonably mentally competent or else they wouldn't be able to consent to taking the medication, which the Act requires. However, as I argued in our post, mental competence at this stage is not something that should be guiding the process. The person was mentally competent when they made the request and it was approved, so that should be all that's important. Just like in the case of a person's will, their mental competency when they die should have no bearing on legal documents made when they were sane. '#5. There is NO protection for terminally ill people who are also depressed or mentally ill'False. The Act states that to be eligible 'A person must be competent to make an informed decision about assisted dying' and lists criteria which requires the person to be able to request, understand, retain, consider and explain the information concerning voluntary euthanasia. By 'competent' the Act clearly means the person must be mentally competent, and if they are then they are not mentally incompetent, or to put it another way, not mentally ill. '#6. There is NO required cooling-off period before the lethal dose is prescribed'The people that will have opted for voluntary euthanasia will by definition be suffering unbearably. They won't want to wait through a cooling-off period, they would want the lethal dose yesterday. Imagine an emergency, like a fire, a violent attack or a cardiac arrest. You quickly ring the emergency services requesting immediate help, and they said they would log your request and ring you back after a required 12 hour cooling-off period to see if you still wanted help. Would you accept that as reasonable? The only reason these wankers would argue for a cooling-off period is so they could put pressure on the person to cancel their voluntary euthanasia request, even though they condemned this ploy in their reason '#1. There is NO reliable safeguard to prevent someone being pressured into euthanasia or assisted suicide'. I guess it's OK when the pressure is going in the other direction. '#7. There is NO protection against medical errors about the course of an illness or how long a person has left to live'That's just silly. There is no certainty with any medical prognosis, and the ONLY way anyone could ensure a prognosis was 100% accurate — say someone was given around six months to live — would be to deny voluntary euthanasia to everyone and see if the person did die within the prediction window (and most do). But by then it's too late, they don't need voluntary euthanasia now, and even if the prognosis was accurate, you can't prove it would be accurate for the next case, so again you would have to wait. Of course there are very rare cases where someone beats the odds and lives longer, and their rarity is why we hear of them, but this wait-and-see attitude would require untold people to suffer needlessly and then to still die horribly as the doctors predicted. This argument is basically saying that doctors don't know what they're talking about when they diagnose terminal illnesses and how they will progress, when clearly they do. The opponents want to argue that doctors can't have 100% certainty and rather than risk making the wrong call, we should leave the time of our death to someone that does have all the facts. God I presume. Just ignore the unbearable suffering that happens in the interim. '#8. More than 200 lawyers and over 1600 doctors have publicly denounced this Act as bad law'That's irrelevant since they don't tell us how many lawyers and doctors support the Act. The ones they mention could be a tiny minority. I'm sure I could argue that more than 200 lawyers and over 1600 doctors have publicly denounced evolution. All that would mean is that they're likely being influenced by their church and not reason and evidence, and that blind obedience to their God trumps empathy and compassion for their fellow humans. Furthermore, that statement merely says that some lawyers and doctors view the Act as 'bad law', that there are legal concerns, it does not say they disagree with the idea of voluntary euthanasia itself, with a few tweaks they may be willing to support it. I've argued that the Act as it is currently written has shortcomings, but I'll still be voting for it as it's better than nothing, and we can make improvements in the future. After scrolling past those eight reasons, the website then immediately shows a picture of a woman in a wheelchair and says, 'We need to VOTE NO to #DefendNZ from the End of Life Choice Act, assisted suicide, and euthanasia'. There seems to be this mistaken belief that the End of Life Choice Act — voluntary euthanasia — will target people with disabilities, people in wheelchairs or that are blind or deaf or have a bad limp. These '#DefendNZ' folk say on their website that to be eligible for the End of Life Choice Act 'a person would need to have a life-limiting condition as well as a physical disability ... ', which is not true, a 'physical disability' is not a necessary criteria. They go on to say that,'The eligibility criteria could still include some disabilities, some degenerative conditions and some chronic conditions ... ', which could cause some people with disabilities to believe that the Act is going to target them, that they'll be getting leaflets in the mail. Again and again these opponents to the Act obscure the fact that the Act is talking about voluntary euthanasia, about personal choice and is providing an option or choice for those that want to take advantage of it. It's quite worrying to see disabled people tearfully argue in the media that they're going to be targeted if the Act comes into force, that their lives are valuable and they deserve the same rights as able bodied people. And of course they do. These people are either deliberately lying or have been deceived by opponents to the Act. Note that in the quote above they confuse the issue by talking about 'assisted suicide and euthanasia' as if they're two different things, and they imply that they are. Elsewhere on their website they state that, 'The End of Life Choice Act uses "assisted dying" to refer to both euthanasia and assisted suicide.They deviously and misleadingly want people to think that the Act will allow two types of death. It doesn't. They imply that assisted suicide will allow patients to intentionally end their own life (that's true), but they also imply that euthanasia, something quite different to assisted suicide, will allow a medical practitioner to intentionally end the patient's life. Euthanasia will remain illegal when the Act comes into force. Of the above statements where they deviously try to confuse people about the Act, the only statement that comes close to describing what the Act allows is this one: 'It is assisted suicide when a patient intentionally ends their own life with help from at least one other person', where that other person must be a medical practitioner acting on the patient's freely given and legally approved request. That other person cannot be just some 'other person'. It may be that the medical practitioner administers the medication if the patient is physically unable to, but only at the patient's request and this assistance is allowed under the phrase, 'with help from at least one other person'. The bogus idea that they want to form in the reader's mind is that there will be cases where the medical practitioner makes the decision to end a life, not the patient. This is quite untrue. The '#DefendNZ' website pretends that the Act will bring in two possibilities around how our life might end, one that you might choose and one that others might choose for you. They state that, 'At the end of your life you do not need to defend yourself against the option of euthanasia or assisted suicide. Not against other people, not against yourself'. Again, no one has to worry about suddenly finding themselves lumbered with 'euthanasia or assisted suicide' or need defend themselves from 'other people', no one has to fear a medical practitioner will suddenly give them a lethal injection instead of a vitamin shot. Medical practitioners are prohibited by the Act from even mentioning voluntary euthanasia to patients. To opt for voluntary euthanasia a person must make the request themselves, and then convince two doctors that they are sincere. While waiting for the day the medication is delivered they must continue to convince the doctor that they still want to go ahead, and when finally offered the medication they must again affirm that they are taking it freely. It's absolute nonsense that a mentally competent person would jump through all these hoops and then scream at the last minute, 'Oh ... I didn't know I had choice'. This is why they continually talk about euthanasia and assisted suicide, rather than using the correct and more informative term, voluntary euthanasia. They don't want you realising that you have a choice, they want you to believe that medical practitioners and family members will be pressuring you to end your life, and that you need to think about defending yourself from these devious bastards.Euthanasia refers to a patient being administered a lethal drug by a medical practitioner. If opponents to the Act believe that if the Act came into force they would somehow feel compelled to request to kill themselves and lie to the doctors, not once saying that they had reservations, that they were doing it unwillingly (in which case the process would be immediately denied), then they must be the most weak-willed people on the planet. I simply can't image that these outspoken opponents to the Act wouldn't shout and scream if anyone tried to pressure them into ending their life, and this vocal protest would of course prevent them from ever being considered for voluntary euthanasia. Clearly they have nothing to fear from the Act. They will never avail themselves of voluntary euthanasia, nor will they ever have it forced upon them, their opposition is solely to stop others from exercising their free choice and requesting voluntary euthanasia for themselves. Their opposition is to control the life and death of others, as if they were gods, or at least working for one. Then on the Stuff website, I came across an article on the End of Life Choice Act, where it notes that, 'Grey Power Association health advocate Eleanor Kietzmann had been working as a registered nurse for 40 years and found the idea of assisted dying "abhorrent". She opposed euthanasia on many grounds, but mainly as a health professional she believed it was wrong to take someone's life. "It's contrary to the Hippocratic oath where doctors first do no harm," she said. "These people's tasks are to alleviate suffering and help save lives. They should never be asked to take lives." She also believed dying was a natural process and not one that should be interrupted.'She finds 'the idea of assisted dying "abhorrent"', and she is entitled to her opinion. I find the idea that doctors and nurses and priests act more humanely towards suffering animals than they do towards suffering humans to be abhorrent. So let's agree to disagree. But like most opponents to the Act, she seems to forget what the word 'choice' means. She is not being required to do something she disagrees with. Kietzmann said 'she believed it was wrong to take someone's life'. Again, this is not euthanasia that we're talking about, where doctors decide 'to take someone's life'. This is not someone taking someone else's life, this is someone taking their OWN life. All a doctor is doing is handing them the medication when requested. People need to stop implying that the doctor is deciding 'to take someone's life' (and that you or your unwell granny could be next!). Kietzmann said it is the doctor's task to 'alleviate suffering and help save lives. They should never be asked to take lives'. But the sad reality is that people will only seek voluntary euthanasia when the doctors can't alleviate suffering and when they acknowledge that they cannot save a person's life. No one would seek voluntary euthanasia if the doctor had alleviated their suffering, and their life had been saved. Plus, if the doctor could manage either of those things then the request would legally have to be denied. Kietzmann then finishes by saying that she 'believed dying was a natural process and not one that should be interrupted'. What a hypocrite; she's stating a belief that doesn't match her behaviour as a nurse. As such she should know that modern medical practice is all about interrupting the natural dying process. Just look at the current COVID-19 pandemic where severely ill patients are rushed first into hospital, and then into intensive care and onto ventilators. None are allowed to die naturally as they would have throughout most of history and before doctors and nurses found ways of interrupting the natural dying process. The public, including Kietzmann, now insists they try everything they can to beat nature. And in my view, voluntary euthanasia is just one more way of beating an uncaring and indifferent natural world, one that says some deaths should be drawn out and involve unbearable suffering. Like antibiotics, vaccines and x-rays currently do, in the future the option of voluntary euthanasia will be seen as yet another advance that improved the quality of our lives, and of our deaths.
For more on this topic, we have two older related posts: 'Euthanasia and the morality police' and 'Euthanasia surveys and Christians' (which continues the discussion in the comments that follow). UPDATE: Nov 2020. YAY!! Reason and compassion have prevailed, as we expected they would. The End of Life Choice Act referendum has passed with 65.1% voting in favour of the Act, voting to allow voluntary euthanasia / assisted dying. Only 33.7% voted against, so clearly an overwhelming majority of Kiwis have moved beyond the superstitious bullshit that we should let some invisible god decide how much pain we should suffer as we die. However for those suffering now, unfortunately it will still be a year before the service offered by the Act becomes legally accessible, in Nov 2021.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 12 Aug, 2020 ~
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| When scientists sense spooky stuff |
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We've all heard someone talk about a mysterious event that they experienced, one they can't explain in natural terms, and where they quickly, or reluctantly, suggest that something spooky was at work, that a god or a ghost or some other supernatural thing might have been the cause. Personally I normally roll my eyes and question the quality of our education system when this happens. But what about when scientists start relating their spooky experiences, intelligent people that are highly educated and trained to think critically? People that spend their careers explaining how weird events have quite natural causes, even though on the surface they can often appear mysterious. Why do some scientists occasionally stumble and then pick themselves up, only to be speaking nonsense, suggesting explanations that usually come from the mouths of priests and psychic mediums and ghost hunters? We expect gullible, ill-informed people to embrace silly beliefs, but why do scientists occasionally lose their way and start supporting medieval nonsense?
This interesting line of thought was prompted when Peter wrote and asked the following: I wonder if you ever heard of and your opinion of a story that the quite famous Marcelo Gleiser told in one of his books and on his site. (Added below)Like Peter, I too have been confounded over the years by such people, especially scientists who readily debunk all manner of silly beliefs, but who then suddenly tell a personal story about something that mystifies them, and losing all their critical skills, they revert back to some ignorant medieval peasant and proclaim that maybe spooky things were afoot. These people will often highlight that nobody has an answer to the event they're talking about, it is utterly mysterious, which would be true since by definition a mystery is something that baffles us and hasn't been explained. But then they contradict themselves (and their scientific training) by suggesting that maybe they do have an explanation, that maybe the supernatural realm exists and its effects impact on the natural world. They have no evidence for this hypothesis, and the mountains of robust evidence they do have regarding how the world works argues against it, so what is it that can turn scientifically minded people into superstitious morons? We can understand ignorant peasants embracing ancient stories of gods, demons, ghosts, witches and curses, but why do knowledgable and normally skeptical people suddenly lose their way and suggest we should at least consider some bullshit nonsense that didn't even make sense when we were living in caves? Rather than suggesting some spooky explanation for which there is clearly no evidence, they should be prepared to admit that currently we simply don't know what the explanation is. There is nothing shameful in admitting that we don't know the answer, whereas simply making up answers, any answer no matter how silly, is nothing to be proud of and not at all helpful. Certainly if pushed they could acknowledge that some god has been suggested as a possible explanation, but equally they could say that fairies or Santa Claus on a drunken night on the town could be possible explanations. Any fool with an imagination can come up with explanations, the trick is to come up with an explanation that is rational and can be scientifically verified. Spooky explanations are often pushed to explain mysteries, especially by people who are poorly educated and ill-informed, and perhaps they need to be included on the complete list of possible explanations, but way, way down at the very bottom. There is no good reason that effectively argues that these spooky explanations should leap frog all the other far more plausible explanations on the list and become number one, become the explanation that is most likely to be true. People should be confident enough to admit that they simply don't know the answer to some mystery, and not feel the need to fill that knowledge gap with nonsense. But some people do occasionally fall off the wagon, and start suggesting supernatural activity rather than debunking it, so what might explain this unexpected behaviour? My best guess would be the insidious and widespread use of childhood brainwashing. As they grow up, most children worldwide are immersed in the supernatural beliefs of their family and their community, and young children have evolved to believe pretty much anything they're told, no matter how ridiculous it might sound to an informed adult. In later years, as children age, as reasoning faculties improve and knowledge of the world increases, some childhood beliefs are easily dismissed as nothing more than entertaining nonsense, like belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and evil trolls. One reason that these specific beliefs are eventually rejected is because when children begin to doubt the stories they were told and challenge the adults telling them, the adults quite quickly admit that they're not true. And that's all adults, not just adults that are skeptics or scientists. So their growing knowledge about how the world really works combines with the adult admission of lying, and belief in the Tooth Fairy and trolls vanishes completely from their minds. But of course supernatural stories told to children don't just involve fairies and trolls, they also include gods and demons and ghosts and evil curses. And young children believe in them as strongly as they believe in Santa. They absolutely believe the stories that their parents and their wider community tell them, that, for example, if they misbehave then a god will punish them, perhaps immediately or perhaps when they die, and Santa will punish them at Xmas time. The major difference between the god stories and the Santa stories is that when they later begin to doubt the stories and challenge the adults to tell the truth, while adults will readily admit that the Santa stories are not true, they will continue to argue that the god stories are definitely true. They do not waver on this, and their outward behaviour such as daily prayers and attending religious rituals and fighting to have their god beliefs influence how society functions show that they do sincerely believe in their god stories. And it's not just isolated adults refusing to ditch their god stories, worldwide most adults and most communities reinforce each other's belief in gods, demons, ghosts and curses. Clearly this sincere and widespread behaviour can confuse and worry those questioning the god stories. After all, why would billions of people over thousands of years waste enormous amounts of time and money and sometimes even lose their lives to maintain a belief that wasn't true? Surely so many people couldn't be so wrong for so long? (Spoiler alert: Yes, they can.) For most of history knowledge of how the world actually worked was lacking, so it's not surprising that historically most people jumped to supernatural explanations since that was all they had. They didn't have any scientific explanations to consider instead. Superstition and ignorance fed off each other. Only in more modern times have people been given a real alternative, the chance to apply critical thinking and scientific evidence to explain why things happen. Does an event have a natural cause or a supernatural one? Armed with this relatively new and very reliable way of looking at the world, most scientists and informed laypeople now subscribe natural causes to ALL events. Even for certain events that science hasn't yet fully explained, such as the origin of life or human consciousness or that "ghost" your cousin says she saw, the general consensus is that when and if an explanation is found, it will be natural. It must be remembered that not once has a single supernatural belief ever been shown to be true and the natural explanation false, while untold supernatural beliefs and claims made in holy books have been shown to be utterly bogus. Science has an amazingly impressive record of success while supernatural beliefs have a worse than pitiful record. An incalculable tally of successes for science compares with an embarrassing zero for the supernatural beliefs that have been shown to be true. It's understandable why many people even today are still enslaved by supernatural beliefs, since many are ill-informed and continue to fall back on their childhood brainwashing for answers. When confronted with something weird and unusual, they'll explain it by recalling some old story about gods and demons from their holy book, or they'll ask their priest, or they'll book a session with a psychic medium, or they'll simply drop to their knees and pray for guidance from some imaginary deity. What they won't do is consult a scientific expert or read a science book or even quiz their more skeptical friends for alternative explanations that don't involve spooky stuff from the supernatural realm. Every story I've heard of secular folk recounting some weird incident that they can't explain, leaving the door open for spooky explanations, that spooky explanation always involves a belief they were immersed in as a child. You don't hear of a person with a Christian upbringing suggesting a supernatural cause from the Muslim religion, eg jinns. Whether it's fairies, leprechauns, trolls, gremlins and ghosts or telepathy, telekinesis and psychic mediums or even alien abduction, the weird explanations that people suggest are almost always sourced from their childhood brainwashing. When they struggle to find a quick explanation to some mystery, silly beliefs from their childhood surface and start nagging them, and what better way to explain a mystery than by wrapping it in a deeper mystery. But since scientists and laypeople with an acceptance of the scientific view of the world are not so ill-informed, and since they are happy to dismiss and even demonstrate that untold supernatural beliefs are nothing but superstitious nonsense, why do some of them come out with an account of some weird event that they too are reluctant to ascribe a natural cause to? Why the sudden loss of confidence? Why do they leave the door slightly ajar for a supernatural explanation to sneak in? Why do their critical thinking skills desert them for this one special event, usually an event that they experienced personally? As I've said, my guess would be that their childhood brainwashing is still having an effect, it's suppressing their better judgement. Supernatural stories were so invasive in their upbringing that they cannot be purged completely. Like the antibodies that remain unnoticed in our bodies after a disease has passed, and like diseases such as malaria that can cause relapses years later, notions of gods, demons, ghosts and curses can remain long after people thought they had dismissed them. I've met many people that had a strong religious upbringing and have now rejected supernatural beliefs, but every now and then you see doubt surface, they question some behaviour and wonder: But what if I'm wrong, what if God is real and watching me? This nagging worry always seems to be there below the surface, and occasionally some incident causes them to re-evaluate the validity of those childhood stories. As Gleiser said, we will all encounter a weird event at some time in our life that we can't explain, and these events, because they were personal, will often affect us emotionally far more than simply hearing the same story experienced by someone else. And once a scientifically-minded person has dismissed all the likely natural causes, what else is left to grasp at? For many it's the supernatural explanation. People often fall for the either-or fallacy, the view that if one explanation is shown to be wrong then the alternative explanation must be right, by default. A well known example is the Christian belief that if evolution was shown to be false, then that means that their God must have created the variety of life we see around us. The answer to life is either evolution or God. Of course the problem with this way of thinking is to assume that there are only two options (when in fact there are many), and that the failure of one sees the success of the other. There are of course other options that Christians fail to acknowledge. If evolution by natural causes was false, the creator of life could have been one of the Hindu gods, or one of the Aztec gods, or far more likely than any god, it was advanced aliens that created life on Earth. Just as dismissing evolution doesn't automatically take you to the Christian God, dismissing all the likely natural causes for some weird event doesn't automatically take you to a supernatural cause. Scientists like Gleiser occasionally make this mistake of thinking that if they dismiss all the natural causes then that only leaves supernatural causes. Wrong. All we can potentially dismiss is the natural causes that we know of, and to the level we understand them. There could be untold natural causes that we currently have no knowledge of that caused some weird event. The most we can say about unexplained events is that we can't explain them, that we don't currently know their cause. We have no justification whatsoever to say that because we can't explain something then obviously we should start thinking about supernatural answers. That's as ridiculous as saying that because a child can't explain how the toys got under the Xmas tree then they are justified in believing in Santa Claus. Just because something is a mystery today, that doesn't mean it will remain so tomorrow, and even if something does remain a mystery, that doesn't mean it must have a connection to the supernatural. It just means that it is too difficult for us to explain. Children can't explain how TVs work, but they would be foolish to insist that they were the work of gods. And Marcelo Gleiser himself makes this point in his book, writing that, 'To state that something can't ever be known about a topic is a very dangerous position to take, as the history of science itself has shown. What may look now as "beyond material phenomena" may turn out to have a perfectly materialistic explanation in the future.'That statement and many others by Gleiser in his book suggests that he is critical of those that jump to a supernatural explanation simply because science is (currently) at a loss to explain it. But then his story about the curse placed on their house by their cook, and the following statement, suggests that his view of the supernatural is not so clear cut: 'The truth is, I was a very mystical teenager, in awe of the mysterious. I still feel this awe, even though my youthful mysticism has now grown into a deep spiritual connection with Nature.'He described his tale about the curse as, 'events that apparently challenge the laws of nature, that evoke the supernatural' and then asked, 'What are these events — and what are they trying to tell us, if anything?' Gleiser, in my view, makes a confusing argument. He rightly explains why a lack of explanation today is no reason to argue one will never be found, but then he seems to argue that perhaps we shouldn't be so quick as to dismiss the supernatural explanation in the case he experienced years ago as a superstitious teenager. With his scientific education, he should know better, as should numerous other scientists that stumble back into supernatural waters, like Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Michael Shermer and Carl Sagan, scientists that all promoted the natural world but still refused to dismiss the supernatural world outright. Einstein and Sagan both grew up in Jewish families, while Darwin and Shermer grew up in very religious Christian families, with Shermer even working as a fundamentalist evangelist before he saw the light and became a renown skeptic. Many scientists promote the natural world and dismiss supernatural views and yet they can't compel themselves to make a complete break. Occasionally a question or stance or incident will arise that sees them reject all their scientific training and critical thinking and sees them hold out an olive branch to some supernatural belief. If we look at Gleiser, he recalls a weird event from his youth and he suggests a black magic curse as a possible cause. Why not gods or demons or poltergeists as most people would opt for? Because as Gleiser explained, his father was a superstitious man and their community was immersed in examples of this black magic, their own cook was a practitioner. This was one of the main supernatural beliefs that surrounded Gleiser as a child, perhaps more so than God, and thus this is the belief that Gleiser grasped when he was at a loss to assign a natural cause. This shows that when some people feel let down by science they embrace a powerful belief from their childhood. They don't by default embrace God, they simply latch onto a powerful childhood superstition, one that they believed as a child, and in Gleiser's case it was a belief in evil curses. Gleiser simply can't break free completely of his childhood brainwashing. Every now and then it resurfaces and makes him say something silly. We don't get to tell our brains what we want to believe, our brains tell us what we believe, and we simply inform the world. New information can certainly make us change our mind about some things, but I suspect that some core beliefs, laid down when we were very young and impressionable, are very difficult if not nearly impossible to change later in life. For example, an emotional fear of God instilled as a child is not easily vanquished by reason. Argument after argument can be presented, but emotion will simply keep screaming, But what if you're wrong? Remember the horrors awaiting in Hell for blasphemers. The Greek philosopher Aristotle is quoted as saying, 'Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man' (a belief later co-opted by the Catholic Church to spread Christianity), which argued how important early childhood influences are to the development of the adult that follows. There are untold cognitive biases that affect how we think and influence what beliefs we hold, and I suspect that childhood brainwashing in supernatural beliefs, and continual reinforcement from family and the community as an adult, serve to keep these silly beliefs simmering away in some deep recess of our brains, even if we think we have long outgrown them. Occasionally some comment people make or stance they take will reveal that these silly beliefs are still influencing them, even if they try and pretend otherwise. Gleiser's story about an incident in his past where he raises the possibility of evil curses is but one example. Another example of childhood superstitions unconsiously influencing us is the NDE. People of all beliefs, such as Christians, Muslims, Hindus and atheists, have reported what is termed a Near Death Experience (NDE), where they describe what they experience when they have "died" momentarily before coming back to life, say with a heart attack or during surgery. Christians report meeting Jesus or God or their deceased loved ones in Heaven, before being told it's not yet their time. But the weird thing is that Muslims never encounter Jesus or experience the Christian version of Heaven, neither do Hindus or atheists. People of different beliefs experience visions that mesh with their imagined view of what death will be like. Of course if there was a god waiting for us when we died, then everyone, no matter their belief, should see the same god, even the atheist. The fact that everyone sees a different afterlife, an afterlife based on the stories they were told as children, again supports the argument that childhood brainwashing remains with us into adulthood, and when our critical faculties stumble for whatever reason, these superstitious ideas will quickly take control of our thoughts. Yet another example of childhood superstitions returning to haunt adults is where scientists and like-minded folk live a secular life and claim to reject belief in the supernatural realm and gods, and yet they refuse to call themselves atheists. Clearly they are still being subtly influenced by their childhood fears, that maybe there is a god that will punish them horribly if they deny his existence outright. Their fears force them to play it safe. Marcelo Gleiser, as well as Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Michael Shermer and Carl Sagan are all such scientists. If you read their work, they all essentially argue that the supernatural realm isn't real, that gods aren't real, but they all refuse to call themselves atheists, someone who lacks a believe in gods. They all want to argue that we can't be sure about God. Marcelo Gleiser writes in his book, 'I am a professed agnostic. Atheism — even though probably correct in its core assumption — is too dogmatic in its absolute rejection of God.'Gleiser argues that agnosticism is the intellectually honest stance to hold, but I'm reasonably sure he and scientists like him wouldn't argue in public that we should be agnostic about the existence of Santa Claus or even the Greek god Zeus, even though the argument for the existence of God is no different to that for Santa and Zeus, in that, to use Gleiser's rationale for agnosticism, we 'cannot absolutely rule either out'. That Gleiser shows no agnosticism towards the existence of Santa and Zeus is revealing. There are thousands of gods that Gleiser could claim to be agnostic about, but he's not, he only expresses uncertainly about one god, the very god he was told stories of as a child. Those stories rattling around in his head, as silly as they are, continue to influence and unsettle him. While no doubt happy to dismiss the Muslim god Allah and the Hindu god Shiva and the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, Gleiser won't risk offending his childhood god by putting him on the shelf with Zeus, Allah and the Easter Bunny. Gleiser's childhood brainwashing is still running the show. If agnosticism makes intellectual sense, that if we can't have absolute proof of the existence of something, then we should simply assert that it may or may not exist, we can never know one way or the other. But since we can never have absolute proof of the existence of anything, and most people agree on this point, then that means that logically we must be agnostic about everything, not just God. But notice that people are generally only agnostic about the existence of God, not about Santa Claus or stars or woodpeckers or even something like love or free will. And when I say God, I mean they are only agnostic about the existence of their God, they aren't at all agnostic about the gods other people talk about, they're quite certain that they don't exist, even though that argument doesn't make rational sense. No matter what religion people align with, the agnosticism argument apparently only works for their god, whoever that might be, which is just further evidence that childish thoughts are holding the reins. So where does this leave us? It's true that we can't prove that fairies and trolls and evil curses aren't real, anymore than we can prove that viruses and stars are real, there is always the possibility, albeit very, very unlikely, that fairies are real and stars aren't. But that is no reason to adopt agnosticism, to wander around in a fog of uncertainty, since that way leads to certain failure and a wasted life. Since we can never have absolute knowledge, of anything, not even of our own existence, then the only rational way to live, if we are indeed alive, is to allocate probabilities to what we think is real and get on with living our lives as best we can. Using reason and scientific evidence we can reach a consensus on what is likely real and what likely isn't. We can say that based on what we know, then Santa Claus and fairies likely don't exist, in fact they are so unlikely that we can simply say they don't exist, we don't waste time being dicks and insisting that they have a reality factor of, say, 0.000000000000000001, where one is true and zero is false. Rocks on the other hand may have been given a reality factor of, say, 0.999999999999999999. So expect to see rocks, don't expect to see fairies. In conversations down at the pub, don't beat around the bush, simply say rocks are real and fairies aren't. And that's the way most people converse. While we could acknowledge that we can't prove absolutely that evil trolls aren't real, we all accept that the evidence suggests that trolls are so unlikely as to be nigh on impossible, so let's not sit on the fence, let's have the courage to say they aren't real. So when it comes to stories of gods, ghostly souls, miracles and fiery places of eternal torture, does the available evidence suggest they are likely real, or just primitive, superstitious myths, and likely just a fantasy? Clearly the evidence argues for fantasy, that the likelihood of gods and the supernatural realm being real is no better than for Santa and his hidden base at the North Pole. Even Gleiser says he sees no 'reason to believe in God', so why do these scientists not have the courage to stand behind the conclusion the evidence clearly reveals? Why do they leave a light burning for the supernatural realm, like a child missing his teddy bear? Because their childhood brainwashing won't let them forget that they used to believe in other possibilities, it holds them captive and is so ingrained that no manner of evidence can sway them. On some deep level they apparently yearn for a magical world that doesn't exist, that never existed, but that they find too difficult or too painful to let go of completely. Luckily I have no such trouble since I had no childhood brainwashing, at least not of a supernatural nature, so I can as easily dismiss gods as I can Santa Claus. I can easily align my worldview with what makes sense, not with what makes some ignorant priest happy or fearful, and not with some supernatural explanation that by every measure seems impossible. That said, I can recall examples of where my brain tried to tempt me with misleading childhood memories. I have seen UFOs on three separate occasions, and each time my brain very quickly jumped to the alien spaceship explanation. Luckily I managed to fight it and I sought more mundane explanations, which I eventually found. As a kid I grew up on sci-fi comics and TV shows like 'Star Trek' and 'Lost in Space', so I was primed to see aliens in the sky, not gods. While I don't believe aliens are visiting us, or that it's even likely, I couldn't stop my mind from flashing back to my childhood fascination with space travel and screaming ALIENS! I'm convinced that as an adult had I not been suitably informed about science and critical thinking, I would now be regaling people with my encounters with several alien spacecraft. Unable to find a natural cause for my sightings, I would have happily settled on aliens as the explanation, especially after the third sighting. I can't help but see a connection here with emotional childhood experiences. I can't stop my mind from thinking aliens, and I constantly need to fight that explanation, and those with emotional childhood experiences that featured the supernatural can't help but see gods, demons and lost souls. The difference is the emotional involvement. I'd view a possible alien spaceship sighting as fascinating, whereas people might view a possible supernatural event as evidence that the scary stories they heard as children, of torture in Hell and of evil curses, as suggesting there really could be something out there to be genuinely terrified of. Or that the spirit of their dead Aunt Beryl is trying to make contact and talk about what colour to paint the kitchen. So I take little notice of these stories of spooky events, even when told by scientists, since their brain is leading them astray. They have lost their objectivity due to it being an emotionally personal experience, they are being mislead by their childhood brainwashing, and if they were instead told that story by a stranger, they would likely dismiss the supernatural explanation without hesitation, listing all the more plausible natural explanations.
Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 27 Apr, 2020 ~
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Last Updated Nov 2021 |
We've been made to wear clothes all our lives, as were our parents and grandparents, and no one is even the slightest bit concerned that we're denied that freedom of choice. So why the double standard, why all the fuss when a further item is added to the list? Surely a government mandate insisting that you wear a mask over your nose and mouth is no different to one insisting that we all wear pants over our genitalia and women wear a bra over their nipples. How is forcing people to wear one form of covering — a mask — violating their freedom and yet the other form of covering — a bikini top and shorts — isn't? These people readily accept (and would likely vocally defend) the government forcing people to cover our bodies, even though nudity doesn't harm or kill anyone, but they vociferously oppose a similar mandate to cover part of their face, even though masks can save lives.
Of course the very people that need to have the debate and learn some facts about the world are the ones that shun vaccination, masks and social distancing, the very ones that sensible people like me will avoid like the plague. Even if we could safely engage, the people most needing educated are sadly the ones least able or willing to have a rational conversation. They're the ones that say they're waiting for more evidence concerning the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, even though over 7 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide. The world's population is only 7.9 billion, but this apparently is still not a large enough study group for them to make an informed decision. They say they're waiting for more information about what a coronavirus is and how vaccines work, yet they refuse to read any reputable book that would educate them, preferring instead to read brief posts on Facebook and tweets on Twitter that often do nothing but confuse the matter and misinform the reader, often deliberately. If the complicated details about viruses and vaccines could be explained on Twitter then we wouldn't need universities to train our epidemiologists. Yet I've lost count of the number of people who have challenged me to convince them that some view they hold, from vaccines cause autism and Jesus healed their granny to aliens built the pyramids and quantum physics creates free will, but they insist I have to do it in one or two minutes, because that's all the time they have before their attention span wanders and they feel the urge to drift off and watch cat videos. They all say they want to learn more so that they can make an informed choice, but none are prepared to put in the effort. Morons treat information like it's fast food, if you can't deliver it to them very quickly while they fidget impatiently on the couch, then they'll quickly lose interest, and worse still, they'll probably insist that you present your abbreviated argument stripped of all nerdy explanations, no confusing them with talk of evidence and facts and such. They'd probably be happier if we spoke to them using glove puppets, but likely still wouldn't understand or believe anything we say. Seriously, on the TV news last night health workers trying to convince the vaccine hesitant to get vaccinated said they can't use words like vaccination, vaccine, immunisation, virus or even needle or jab because people find these terms too intimidating and/or confusing, so they must talk to them like they're dealing with scared little children, using words you'd hear in a kindergarten, distracting them with music and bribing them with the promise of treats like free pizza and concert tickets. It's like trying to dupe a dog into taking its worming tablet.
And the latest image that best represents the dangerous and irrational relationship that far too many Americans have with their imaginary god is the embarrassing photo op that Donald Trump created of him holding a Bible outside a church, after he had ordered the police to use stun grenades and tear gas to drive away peaceful and largely young protestors. Even though it is their constitutional right to protest. Apparently the US president didn't know that, or that young Americans can vote. Trump thought it more important to pretend to engage with conservative, god-fearing Americans than to address the legitimate concerns of Americans condemning racial injustice. So how can young Americans not begin to question their country's blind faith in God when their President implies that God is on his side, not on the side of justice? Recall that God condemns not only women, homosexuals, non-believers and those who eat shellfish or get a tattoo, he also condemns those of African descent to servitude and maltreatment (Google 'The curse of Ham'). Not only are young Americans hanging out with atheists, they're hanging out with black atheists, Asian atheists and Latino atheists, and realising most of what they know of God and the Bible can be ignored, and for the betterment of society, should be ignored.
To give an example of how I feel American attitudes towards God are changing due to the work of some in the entertainment industry, an American TV series I saw advertised on local TV a year ago was called 'God Friended Me'. It's a comedy-drama about Miles, a young American atheist running an Internet blog on atheism who suddenly discovers that God has added him as a friend on Facebook. He doesn't believe it's really God of course, and suspects a powerful computer hacker, since this "God" can apparently make use of the Internet, intelligence agency databases and security cameras etc to accurately describe what's happening in the world and what's likely to happen in the future, and using this knowledge, asks Miles to help people in his community that are having problems. The idea that the main character is an outspoken atheist who kept telling people that God didn't exist intrigued me, and I wondered how the script writers would handle it. Unfortunately, as a show that offered intelligent arguments for why gods don't exist, it was a huge disappointment, as none were ever made, and Miles the atheist apparently knew very little about science or philosophy or Biblical contradictions, even though it was kind of implied that he had read up on those topics. Apparently Miles became an atheist simply because his mother was killed by a drunk driver when he was a kid, and God did nothing to prevent it. Since God is supposed to be all good and would surely have intervened, the reason he didn't, according to Miles, is because he doesn't exist. As the American author, blogger, and atheist activist Hemant Mehta wrote, the TV series is 'not a bad show', but that sort of argument 'bears no resemblance to why so many atheists today don't believe in God'.
However, beyond those basic facts, pretty much everything else shown in the movie is utterly bogus. Even the details of the grizzly attack were changed to make Glass more of a hero. Almost every incident that made the viewer root for Glass and feel animosity towards his companions was invented for the movie. Many characters were added that never existed. Even the ending was a lie. Beyond the fact that Glass did survive a bear attack, everything else that made the movie memorable was a lie. By using the trapper's real name, the real names of his companions and the real time and place of the attack, the movie producers clearly want viewers to believe that this is the real story of Glass's attack and survival. But it's not. Beyond those basic details, Glass himself wouldn't recognise any of it. So if the movie is basically one huge fantasy, and considering that most of us would never have even heard of Hugh Glass anyway, why didn't they just use fictional names if their characters were going to do fictional things? By all means say in the credits that the movie was inspired by the Hugh Glass story, but why try and pretend that the movie was the real Hugh Glass story? Like the movies 'Braveheart', 'Titanic' and 'Pearl Harbor', or the Kiwi movies 'Out of the Blue' and 'The World's Fastest Indian' (which I criticised here — 
For example, in the 2019 HBO miniseries called 'Chernobyl' about the 1986 nuclear disaster, one of the main protagonists is Ulana Khomyuk, a nuclear physicist from Minsk. It is she who first suspects there has been a nuclear accident at Chernobyl and sets off to get answers. The only problem is, if you had hoped to be informed by the miniseries, and learn the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, this female scientist never actually existed. She was a pure invention by the script writers. When the series was broadcast last year I remember an acquaintance telling me about it, about how interesting he found it, and some of the shocking things he learnt. Unfortunately, a little research on my part found that the people and events he found most memorable or shocking were the very parts of the TV story that were invented to make the story more exciting and entertaining. They were fiction, and yet he's now convinced he is well informed about what actually happened. Certainly he knows some facts about the accident, probably more than most people, but some of his 'facts' are actually false, and he doesn't know which are which. Nor, sadly, was he interested in finding out. He was happy with the HBO version of history. If you're curious, in this article — 
Two interesting books I've read on this topic have been, 'Reel History: The World According to the Movies' (2015) by Alex von Tunzelmann and 'Reel V. Real: How Hollywood Turns Fact into Fiction' (2003) by Frank Sanello, which both look at movies that attempt to teach some history to the masses, explaining what they got right and what they got wrong. Also on the 
OK, for the rest of our readers, let me explain about granny. In September NZ goes to the polls to elect a new government, or I suspect, re-elect the existing one. Tacked on to our voting papers will be a referendum called the 'End of Life Choice'. The government 
And ditto with these primitive and superstitious gestures towards their sky fairy that many exhibit on the sports field, it offends me whenever I see it, such as from that obnoxious wanker Israel Folau (pictured). They don't even have the intelligence to realise that even if their god were real, it would still be futile. It made some sense in the bad old days when every tribe (eg the Hebrews and the Canaanites) thought they had their own god, and thus you were begging your god to help you against a different god, but how does it make sense today when those in the other sports team that are also praying (and are also Christians) are begging support from the same god? How do they think that God can support them both without contradiction? Or why do they even think that God, with all of space and time at his command, would be wasting his time watching a schoolboys' pathetic rugby game? Geez, grow up people, you're not as important as you think you are!
