Sunday, July 3, 2016

Relationship questions

What would it like to be as an dyed in wool atheist to date or even have a significant relationship with a deeply fundamentalist christian. Would it have to be that there are off topic things that are never mentioned like religion. Would there be terse conversations about religion such that in the end of it, there would have to be a conversion or a breakup? I know there are different ways that many couples can and do go about navigating this dangerous and charged topic, but in the end after many years of life together, what is the net result? I'm curious to know whether it would have been worth it for them to have pursued and preserved this relationship.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

General MacArthur was a dick with a boner for victory

General MacArthur was a dick with a boner for victory. This is a claim I am making about one of the greatest icons in the history of modern day, and through about a page of writing it will become clear that there is sufficient reason to take this claim seriously.

I have little fault with the generals early life, mainly because his early life was a quite one. He did benefit unfairly from his fathers military history and his mother's heavy handled nepotistic advocacy but that was unavoidable on his part. His actions in world war one certainly proved that he had a very good military acumen and deserved to be in a leadership position. But his late life is full of alot of dismissive shallow thinking and mistakes that undeniably caused harm and made the world a worse place.

In regard with his campaign against Japan, Why did he urge the Philippines to fight and not to surrender on the onset of the war?was his mind already on the end of ww2 and he was thinking of depleting Japanese troop numbers or did he really believe he was getting reinforcements? Did the struggles of the Philippines help in the war? Did he abandon his brilliant island hopping technique to come back because of his wife,his pride,bribes, or was it his idea of help? Are the rumours of him filming his Beach landing twice to get a good shot true?

He also tried to take advantage of the Korean war to invade Russia. Why else would he ignore his orders to restrict the fighting above the meridian to south korean forces. Why did he push the invasion forces so far up into North Korea so fast? Since North Korea  is directly land linked with Russia, he must have assumed that if he could bulldoze his war through China, he would be able to invade into the borders of Russia without a hitch. China made punitive attacks to try and send messages but these were resolutely ignored by MacArthur. Finally China was forced to attack in order to drive away the american forces. I blame him for the genesis of dictatorship in North Korea. The Chinese at this stage would have traded literally anything to ensure their security.

He tried to combat communism in any way possible and coined what is the keystone to the hardcore right to this day which is McCarthyism. The art of proclaiming, accusing and declaring without any real regard to evidence. He did not care for any real proof to throw around accusations, or wait for investigation to force litigation. He only cared for complete victory aganist any percieved threat, minor or major. A textbook example of the present day Republican mantra of McCarthyism. Look at what the Republican party has descended to, a platform for flapping lips and  demagoguery.No one bothers to think critically or look for solutions, all there is is a mantra that begun with MacArthur and continued on by Reagan down to today's Republican party.

These three reasons sufficiently prove that even though he might have been a good general in ww1, his action in his later life made the world a worse place and proved him to be a dick with a boner for victory.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Moral Absolutism

I want to talk about relative morality and how it applies or does not apply to religious doctrine. Religion is based around absolute morality, The concept of some stuff being absolutely evil and not to be performed under any circumstance. I have nothing against Moral universalism, there could be a universal scale of ethics in which one action is demonstrably worse than the other, However moral absolutism is complete hogwash, even though an action can be categorized as immoral in almost all cases. There will always be a situation that can hypothetically exist  that the action can be constituted as moral.

This is more of a show stopper for absolutist religion than it seems. For example assuming the christian god exists and you are a christian(assuming you are one), you go to school one day and happen to meet the Antichrist. What if the Antichrist told you to get his number? This is about as obvious a moral absolute in the christian faith as there can be. You should not get the Antichrist to brand you with his number! I doubt there are many Christians who would argue that point. Most Christians would not get his number in such a situation. Even if the Antichrist told you to get his number and that if you refuse it would be at the peril of your life. If you are a christian, the choice to refuse his number is dictated to you within the bible as an absolute.

What if the antichrist told you to get his number and that if you refuse it would be at the peril not of your own life, but that of the lives of a class of innocent children? This is the spawn of the literal devil(assuming he exists) so of course he is going to play dirty. Is the moral absolutism dictated to you by religion oblivious to the lives and plight of a class of innocent children. Would you doom these children to death for your assurance to heaven. What if it went further than that, what if by taking the antichrist’s symbol, you somehow prevent the symbol from being offered to the class of innocent children. Would the absolutism dictated to you by the holy scriptures mandate you to take the symbol and save the children from eternal punishment or not to take the symbol but remain righteous? Would you take it to save the children or not take it to save yourself?


 

Now all is highly hypothetical and most likely not possible to Christians and even to me.I don't believe their god exists and they don't believe that their god is such a malicious god and would put them in that situation. But i can construct a less hypothetical situation more closer to our current reality that bears the same weight and has a realer chance of happening. What if some Muslim terrorists told you to denounce your god at the cost of a class of innocent children. You have to remember,according to christian fiction, if you denounce jesus in front of whatever or whoever in mortal realm, He said in his scriptures that he would denounce you on judgement day in the immortal realm. According to the moral absolutism practiced today by Christians, there does not exist an argument that says it is OK to save those innocent children by denouncing god. I believe many a christian out there would let innocent children die for their belief in god. Even if god and heaven existed, is this right? are they being moral for performing this action? Can their reverence to their god excuse them from deaths of the innocent children?

No,i don't think that moral absolutism exists and can exist in the real world. There will always be a situation that can not be defined by any clear cut rules written beforehand. It is up to the individual to use the Moral universalistic senses within ourselves to ask, Is this moral or immoral? is this right or wrong? and this has to be done without quoting the holy ‘rulebooks’.


P.S: Christianity twists itself in knots with the issue of moral absolutism. Is contraception immoral or moral? by preventing a obviously bad situation easily(Microcephaly), is it a sin?
Why is it not possible to throw away these stifling rules and dogmas that bind one to such stiff thinking and just use your innate moral sense and  not a black and white unrealistic rule to know if it is right or wrong. Think outside the box or in this case outside the book!
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/4594/contraception_congo_nuns_choosing_the_lesser_evil_and_conflict_of_commandments.aspx