Yes, I find it quite arrogant, and prideful (sin) to go around scoffing at being just another species of animals on this planet. That we are "holy" beings, made in the image of a god... yeah, pretty prideful indeed.
Thoughts on why they like it so much? I find it to be much the same as people who are having emotional troubles, and thinking "if only I had a girlfriend/boyfriend, THEN I would be happy!!! Because I cannot possibly be happy, secure, content, on my own!!" I often times hear phrases like, "I would be completely lost without God!! I need him in my every day life!!!"
I used to think about about girlfriends, cars, distractions, etc. in that manner. I was looking for all my happiness from external sources. Never content with myself, not able to find that security, confidence, satisfaction from within (those things can only ever truly come from within. When other people and things have to do it for you, it's just a false sense of happiness, essentially a bandaid to what is not resolved). It's just so obvious that such people need some good old fashioned therapy, some "personal searching" (not searching for a religion, no.. But that inner source of happiness and fulfillment). I was much like that. I needed everything from anywhere but myself. And I was miserable even when I was able to find all those bandaids to my deeper issues. But in time, with much therapy, hard and uncomfortable self-examination and improvement, I finally found that I am the only one that can make me happy/secure/fulfilled/etc. Only me. It's as that saying goes, "no one can love you until you love yourself." Just the same with fulfilment and happiness. Others can only share that with you, but cannot provide it for you.
And I'm doing quite well, now that I finally made that imperative realization. No one else can make you happy. They can only help you do it for yourself :-)
Unfortunately, religion considers that to be such a terrible and evil thing, to actually live an emotionally healthy life. Perhaps because that's the greatest threat to religious belief? No more personal wounds, no more need for desperation? It literally promotes and idolizes emotional disasters that cause so many people so much pain in their lives. It almost killed me a few times (depression/pain... Leads to wanting out).... So sorry, but there is nothing to be idolized about that kind of unhealthy emotional/mental state. Nothing whatsoever. And religion tends to offer those band-aids to the same wounds that it either causes in us, or were there to begin with. Either way, it only gets worse, the more we depend on passing off all responsibility and outsourcing our happiness. We become less and less able to provide that for ourselves. And yes, we all certainly can, barring mental illness. Even so, however, the answer to that is every less so "religion," and much more so "psychiatry."
It's sure ironic, that if you go to a qualified therapist/counsellor, the very crucial advice they will give you, is almost completely contradictory to what religion tells you to strive for. In fact, what religion glorifies as "the perfect state of mind," a therapist would rather end moving the next appointment up, if this is the state of a client/patient. This is no way to live, or at least, no way that anyone should want to live.
If we need a belief in deities to make us happy, content, secure, fulfilled, then that's a very clear warning sign that we need to address those issues. This is not healthy, and while I have absolute compassion for those that suffer from what I myself once did, such destructive emotional and mental states are not to be idolized, strived for, let alone put up on a marble pedestal.
It's maddening, that our society on average promotes what is so harmful to people... And is sold as the complete opposite.
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12 Jun 2012
Religion as a cure to unhappiness.....??
Recently I made a more concise comment on a post about how it is actually more arrogant to believe in religious ideologies, than it is to just accept that we are yet another animal species on this infinitesimally small planet of ours. My comment was as follows:
10 Jun 2012
Outcome of the Ontario Catholic School System, and Bill 13
In a previous posting (2 posts ago), I had talked about the proposed changes to Ontario anti-bullying laws, which directly affected the Catholic Church's ability to censor and side-line Gay-Straight Alliances.
(you may also wish to read the post after that one, but before this one)
I'm happy to say that Bill 13 passed on June 5th, which is great news. But of course we can still hear plenty of griping, whining, and victim playing, which is so ironic when the same group playing victim, regularly victimizes others. But that's nothing I had not been counting on. To not be above the law, is to be made into seconds-class citizens with no religious rights or freedoms. Oddly, I think that it was about protecting a person's right to worship, rather than their right to harm others, but oh well.
Of course, now there are accusations that this entire fiasco was just Liberal attempt to reopen the debate on the public funding of the Catholic "separate schools," at least as far as the Conservatives are concerned, which by the way, was the only party to oppose this bill.
I had also been intending to write about the challenge from the Centre for Inquiry's Justin Trottier to defund the Ontario Catholic "separate schools" that was sparked by this aggressive resistance to human rights on the part of the Catholic Church. While this was the causing factor, the CFI's chairperson Kevin Smith also laid out numerous additional factors at play here, which are not at all compatible with a school system the is being publicly funded, paid for by all tax-payers. I for one would not be very please if I was an Ontario tax-payer. I tend not to financially support hatred and bigotry, let alone undermining our progress, moving backward into the past. Charge appropriate tuition, and have a bake-sale like most other private religious schools. For that matter, perhaps the wealthy Catholic Church could pay for their own proselytizing and abuse.
Here is the news item on CFI Canada's website. Which also links to the actual media advisory at the top of the page.
While we can count on not seing such a change to government and education any time soon, I remain somewhat hopeful for the more distant future. From a few more articles I've looked over, one of them is reporting that a poll shows nearly half of Ontario citizens not in support of this funding. I believe the other half would likely be a mixture of those who actually agree with the Catholic Church's madness, as well as those who do not really understand the issues and legalities, and are thus ignorantly passive in the entire matter. The same ones that would likely label myself intolerant of religion, simply for valuing secular society, and the equality of all religious beliefs, including the lack of any belief. Like I said, many just don't understand, and add to the problem by indiscriminately condemning anyone that has a strong stance, regardless of what that stance may be.
And would you look at this bit of positive irony...
A few notable sections of a quite uplifting article:
Of course, I would have to say that if they do not accept the bigotry, hatred, and so on, perhaps they should give their heads another shake, then think about why they are in that church. Yes, likely because while they do not accept such things, they still feel that the Catholic Church is the way to God and the salvation of Christ.
Indeed there are Catholics, even organized groups of Catholics, that not only do not participate in bigotry, but the proudly, and very publicly stand up against the bigotry. I really have nothing but respect for them. You believe in completely unproven supernatural claims? Well at least you still value what is fair, just, and right, in this reality!! That's worth a lot in my books!
And of course, we just can't do without the vicious, bigoted hateful disgust of the very confused Pro-Life movement. Worry about banning a woman's right to medical decisions, in favour of an underdeveloped fetus, and of course, if we are talking about gays, well we don't even need to turn fetuses into self-aware people in order to strip their rights away, do we??
A RADICAL AGENDA (Superb Example of Irony & Hypocrisy)
Yeah, those damned radical agendas... Remember what happened when they told us in school not to bully those of other ethnicities?? We can't make that mistake again, I tell you what!!!!
The only radical agenda that I'm seeing here, is that of hatred and intolerance.
And from the first paragraph in the above quote, the hypocrisy is just so stunning, in the phrase, "...on the grounds that it adversely impacts their faith and morals."
This is bigotry. Hate. It is the discrimination and hatred of a certain group. Not one bit different than racism, anti-semitism, and sexism. In fact, sexism is rampant in Christianity (religion) as well. God hates women, so the loving Christians should too. Risk a woman's life, force her to complete a pregnancy, because the soul of the underdeveloped fetus is more important. And the sexism goes FAR beyond just that one example. These are their "morals."
Instead of calling them "morals," how about we go back to the traditional term for these things? Hatred and bigotry??? Why in this universe, are we tolerating this hatred, and labeling religious bigots as "good people," when they are so clearly NOT!???!?
Bigotry is not the thing to be tip-toeing around, hoping we don't make the bigots whine about their religious rights to abuse other human beings!!!!!!
How many more gay students for example, must DIE before we will as a society stand up to what is simply unacceptable?? 100? 10,000? 1,000,000?? You tell me, because I would have thought no more...
(you may also wish to read the post after that one, but before this one)
I'm happy to say that Bill 13 passed on June 5th, which is great news. But of course we can still hear plenty of griping, whining, and victim playing, which is so ironic when the same group playing victim, regularly victimizes others. But that's nothing I had not been counting on. To not be above the law, is to be made into seconds-class citizens with no religious rights or freedoms. Oddly, I think that it was about protecting a person's right to worship, rather than their right to harm others, but oh well.
Of course, now there are accusations that this entire fiasco was just Liberal attempt to reopen the debate on the public funding of the Catholic "separate schools," at least as far as the Conservatives are concerned, which by the way, was the only party to oppose this bill.
The Conservatives say McGuinty used the anti-bullying bill to intentionally trigger a debate over the funding of Catholic schools that they believe Ontarians do not want to have.The above quotation was taken from this article, published on June 5th, 2012.
I had also been intending to write about the challenge from the Centre for Inquiry's Justin Trottier to defund the Ontario Catholic "separate schools" that was sparked by this aggressive resistance to human rights on the part of the Catholic Church. While this was the causing factor, the CFI's chairperson Kevin Smith also laid out numerous additional factors at play here, which are not at all compatible with a school system the is being publicly funded, paid for by all tax-payers. I for one would not be very please if I was an Ontario tax-payer. I tend not to financially support hatred and bigotry, let alone undermining our progress, moving backward into the past. Charge appropriate tuition, and have a bake-sale like most other private religious schools. For that matter, perhaps the wealthy Catholic Church could pay for their own proselytizing and abuse.
Here is the news item on CFI Canada's website. Which also links to the actual media advisory at the top of the page.
While we can count on not seing such a change to government and education any time soon, I remain somewhat hopeful for the more distant future. From a few more articles I've looked over, one of them is reporting that a poll shows nearly half of Ontario citizens not in support of this funding. I believe the other half would likely be a mixture of those who actually agree with the Catholic Church's madness, as well as those who do not really understand the issues and legalities, and are thus ignorantly passive in the entire matter. The same ones that would likely label myself intolerant of religion, simply for valuing secular society, and the equality of all religious beliefs, including the lack of any belief. Like I said, many just don't understand, and add to the problem by indiscriminately condemning anyone that has a strong stance, regardless of what that stance may be.
And would you look at this bit of positive irony...
A few notable sections of a quite uplifting article:
Kevin O’Dwyer, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, said his 43,000 members welcome the legislation, which passed third and final reading on Tuesday, because it allows schools to protect students from homophobia and other forms of discrimination.And this is not to be unexpected either. In fact, polls have on numerous occasions demonstrated that the majority of Catholic believers in fact support either gay marriage, or gay civil unions. This really is a ridiculous situation we have here, where it is only the clergy and more extremist members of the Church, that even believe in all this hatred and bigotry. While I would still say that most Catholics have a ways to go on tolerance and especially understanding, they are indeed most willing, and have already come so far.
Of course, I would have to say that if they do not accept the bigotry, hatred, and so on, perhaps they should give their heads another shake, then think about why they are in that church. Yes, likely because while they do not accept such things, they still feel that the Catholic Church is the way to God and the salvation of Christ.
Indeed there are Catholics, even organized groups of Catholics, that not only do not participate in bigotry, but the proudly, and very publicly stand up against the bigotry. I really have nothing but respect for them. You believe in completely unproven supernatural claims? Well at least you still value what is fair, just, and right, in this reality!! That's worth a lot in my books!
And of course, we just can't do without the vicious, bigoted hateful disgust of the very confused Pro-Life movement. Worry about banning a woman's right to medical decisions, in favour of an underdeveloped fetus, and of course, if we are talking about gays, well we don't even need to turn fetuses into self-aware people in order to strip their rights away, do we??
Campaign Life Coalition, a national pro-life group, is calling on church leaders and Catholic school boards to invoke Section 93 of the Constitution Act and reject the legislation on the grounds that it adversely impacts their faith and morals.
“This legislation now puts a radical homosexual agenda in every publicly funded, Catholic and public school across Ontario, under the guise of ‘bullying prevention,’ ” Campaign Life says in a statement.
A RADICAL AGENDA (Superb Example of Irony & Hypocrisy)
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| Click to Enlarge |
The only radical agenda that I'm seeing here, is that of hatred and intolerance.
And from the first paragraph in the above quote, the hypocrisy is just so stunning, in the phrase, "...on the grounds that it adversely impacts their faith and morals."
- If your faith is not compatible with the fair and just treatment of others, then your faith does not deserve consideration here.
- Morals? A serial rapist could say the same thing. That laws against rape are "adversely impacting my morals, being that I think it's wrong to ask for sex." Just as with faith, if your "morals" are not compatible with the fair and just treatment of others, then they are not to be considered.
The audacity of these dangerously hateful people is just astounding. To literally claim that it is "a matter of my morals" to harm others, simply for being who they are... Morals can be chosen on an individual level, but only to the point that your personal morals do not affect others in a negative way.
To the bigots: If you are not gay, then guess what?? You won't become gay by being exposed to this horrible thing call tolerance and acceptance!! Contrary to uneducated and delusional homophobic bigots such as yourself, that think it's a choice because of scripture and your lies, that you can get therapy to be straight again (which does not work, unless you consider suicide to be a cure), you don't just chose your sexual orientation. So get over your personal shortcomings and character-flaws, irrational phobias and paranoid delusions.... And, well, once you do that I frankly don't care what you do.
And that's what most of this boils down to. They are offensively, dishonestly, and willfully ignorant to the fact that sexual orientation is just something that makes a person who he/she is. Just the same as having brown hair as opposed to red hair. If we start up a club called the "Brown and Red Hair Alliance," there is absolutely no threat to those who have brown hair, suddenly realizing that their hair is beginning to turn red. This has been proven, time and time again, that sexual orientation is biological, not conscious. Yet, they simply wish to keep fighting the truth, because lo and behold, ancient mythical scriptures condemn it. Just as it orders non-virgin brides and adulteresses to be stoned, for rape victims to either be stoned or marry her rapist depending on whether she belongs to another man or not.... Yes, clearly the source of truth and morality... If people are foolish enough to buy into that, well I won't stop them. But I'm afraid we have this thing called society, and that society thing has something called laws and rational morality. If they cannot accept that, well then I see a very serious problem. They may believe what they will, deny reality all they wish, but only until it harms others. Yes, I am being intolerant... Of intolerance, discrimination, and hate, or what they call "faith and morals."
To the bigots: If you are not gay, then guess what?? You won't become gay by being exposed to this horrible thing call tolerance and acceptance!! Contrary to uneducated and delusional homophobic bigots such as yourself, that think it's a choice because of scripture and your lies, that you can get therapy to be straight again (which does not work, unless you consider suicide to be a cure), you don't just chose your sexual orientation. So get over your personal shortcomings and character-flaws, irrational phobias and paranoid delusions.... And, well, once you do that I frankly don't care what you do.
And that's what most of this boils down to. They are offensively, dishonestly, and willfully ignorant to the fact that sexual orientation is just something that makes a person who he/she is. Just the same as having brown hair as opposed to red hair. If we start up a club called the "Brown and Red Hair Alliance," there is absolutely no threat to those who have brown hair, suddenly realizing that their hair is beginning to turn red. This has been proven, time and time again, that sexual orientation is biological, not conscious. Yet, they simply wish to keep fighting the truth, because lo and behold, ancient mythical scriptures condemn it. Just as it orders non-virgin brides and adulteresses to be stoned, for rape victims to either be stoned or marry her rapist depending on whether she belongs to another man or not.... Yes, clearly the source of truth and morality... If people are foolish enough to buy into that, well I won't stop them. But I'm afraid we have this thing called society, and that society thing has something called laws and rational morality. If they cannot accept that, well then I see a very serious problem. They may believe what they will, deny reality all they wish, but only until it harms others. Yes, I am being intolerant... Of intolerance, discrimination, and hate, or what they call "faith and morals."
This is bigotry. Hate. It is the discrimination and hatred of a certain group. Not one bit different than racism, anti-semitism, and sexism. In fact, sexism is rampant in Christianity (religion) as well. God hates women, so the loving Christians should too. Risk a woman's life, force her to complete a pregnancy, because the soul of the underdeveloped fetus is more important. And the sexism goes FAR beyond just that one example. These are their "morals."
Instead of calling them "morals," how about we go back to the traditional term for these things? Hatred and bigotry??? Why in this universe, are we tolerating this hatred, and labeling religious bigots as "good people," when they are so clearly NOT!???!?
Bigotry is not the thing to be tip-toeing around, hoping we don't make the bigots whine about their religious rights to abuse other human beings!!!!!!
How many more gay students for example, must DIE before we will as a society stand up to what is simply unacceptable?? 100? 10,000? 1,000,000?? You tell me, because I would have thought no more...
3 Jun 2012
The religious right to harm others
In recent Canadian news, story of the Ontario Catholic school system, who up until this point, has not permitted student-clubs in those schools, to be labelled "Gay-Straight-Alliances." There has been a recent amendment proposed, which seeks to allow for this.
The first article we'll look at, entitled "Church rejects Ontario’s gay-straight club decision, accuses government of ‘micromanagement’," is the source of my [word-for-word] quotations below. The first of which being some alarming news from Cardinal Thomas Collins.
"The Ontario Liberals are engaging in unnecessary government “micromanagement” and disregarding the Catholic Church’s own ability to tackle bullying, Cardinal Thomas Collins, head of the Ontario Assembly of Catholic Bishops, said Monday.Well, isn't that nice. The Catholic Church thinks it is completely able to manage the bullying of gay students. I wonder how that would work out.
I have also written more about this bold attitude, and it can be found in the next post after this one.
“If the point is that there is something unacceptable about those Catholic principles, then I find that troubling and wonder whether caricatures of the Catholic faith are in play,” he said.I think the answer to that inferred question would be up to him. But yes, I too find it quite troubling, that this seems a matter of Catholic principles, not an incidental problem, such as drug use in schools. And just previously, he was wondering why it shouldn't be up to them to handle the problem however you see fit? The very same problem that is directly related to the core principals of the Catholic Church?? This guy can't be serious, can he?
Cardinal Collins, also the head of the Archdiocese of Toronto, said organizations’ names have specific meaning, and so what a group is named may determine the group’s activity.Yes, what a group is named, can influence the group's activity. I think that's the entire point of this in the first place. To allow them to work on equality and working together to fight homophobia, no matter what your sexual orientation may be. Of course, I do get the impression that he is inferring that there will be gay sex in this club. My experience around superstitiously motivated homophobia makes this seem somewhat likely, but let's not read between the lines too much.
“If someone asks you to join the Liberal, Conservative or New Democratic Party, you rightly expect something different from each. So the key issue is not just the name itself, but the content connected with the name, with the ‘brand.’”
I must admit, I'm not really sure what he's trying to say with his example from politics, however. Yes, different political platforms have different content. I suppose then that the notion of gay and straight students being allies, is not something that will be receiving this Cardinal's vote. At least, this is what I'm getting from all this beating around the bush...
He said he is puzzled as to “why a piece of provincial legislation is being used to micromanage the naming of student clubs” and “why Catholics are not free to design their own methods to fight bullying?”Well now you're getting to the hearth of the matter. Might it have something to do with the $7,000,000,000 that goes to the Ontario Catholic private school system annually? Perhaps he is not aware that if they want to manage their own school system completely redundantly, perhaps a private status would be the way to go. Privatization of schools is usually the thing to look at if "micromanagement" is not welcome? And again with the "why can't we manage the bullying that our own doctrine condones?"
Well, I suppose we have time for one more admission that
“GSAs are externally developed and they don’t reflect the unique values our Catholic schools are based on,” he said.‘‘Our concern is on focusing on Catholic values and the safety of all students and ensure they are protected. In our view the word [gay] is distraction. We want to focus on the safety of the students.”And I must say, I completely agree with his evaluation of Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs). They are developed externally? Well I would have to think so, considering what I know of the Catholic Church in relation to the LGBT community. Just the same as the notion of transubstantiation wasn't exactly developed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Yes, the concern is so blatantly toward focusing on Catholic values, rather than those of a modern society. I can at least appreciate that clear admission that this is not about micro-management, nor is it about the name of a group, but simply the fact that the good Cardinal is alarmed that his schools might soon have to accept gay individuals for who they are, as the relics of primitive superstition and bigotry are far too slowly eroded by the elements of the 21st century.
Here is another interesting article of the discourse between the Catholic Church and the Progressive Liberals, or more to the point, Cardinal Thomas Collins, and Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Some good points are made, such as how the government is the authority on schooling (when publicly funded), rather than the church. But of course, our dear Cardinal Collins seems to have no ethical concerns when it comes to dishonesty and twisting issues around to suit him, as usual.
Please note that there have been two followup entries concerning this matter:
Skepti-Kel.
11 Mar 2012
The Creation Adventure Team...
Let's just start this blog off on a lighter note, shall we?
It's also to give us some understanding of exactly why
people are so concerned with promoting critical thinking,
acceptance of science, logical reasoning, and so on...
I'm not kidding, this is one of the more humorous ones I've seen, and that's pretty difficult to do.
Let's start with the original video, shall we? You should be sitting down for this... Remember, straw-man fallacies flowing all over the place, as well as repeating things so many times that vulnerable children believer it, is a pretty good way to "save" them. The more ignorant, the better off.
"GRIDDI HI-TONGA TONGA TONGA!!!"
--Looks like so much fun.....
Sorry about that. I know it was painful. I assure you, this is not a joke. Well it is, but not intended to be one ;-)
I'm going to just leave it at that for now.. It's late, and I figured that it was long overdue to get at least something into this blog.
P.S
I find Advil to be the best with tension headaches.
Even fairly effective with those ones right behind your eyes...
It's also to give us some understanding of exactly why
people are so concerned with promoting critical thinking,
acceptance of science, logical reasoning, and so on...
I'm not kidding, this is one of the more humorous ones I've seen, and that's pretty difficult to do.
Let's start with the original video, shall we? You should be sitting down for this... Remember, straw-man fallacies flowing all over the place, as well as repeating things so many times that vulnerable children believer it, is a pretty good way to "save" them. The more ignorant, the better off.
"GRIDDI HI-TONGA TONGA TONGA!!!"
--Looks like so much fun.....
Sorry about that. I know it was painful. I assure you, this is not a joke. Well it is, but not intended to be one ;-)
I'm going to just leave it at that for now.. It's late, and I figured that it was long overdue to get at least something into this blog.
P.S
I find Advil to be the best with tension headaches.
Even fairly effective with those ones right behind your eyes...
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