Christian tropers, join together!

"But the Seth Mac Farlanes and Ricky Gervaises of the world like to use than inequity to justify being bullies."

Yeah, folks like them are reactionary edgelords who think that being offensive and being funny are one and the same. Similar to how the Youtube atheist/skeptic/"rationalist" community that was built on mocking Christianity (creationists in particular, who to be fair are quite easy to dunk on) moved to mocking social justice and feminism and became a breeding ground for the same right wing bullshit that plagues Christian churches.

Turns out assholes are assholes no matter whether or not they have religious beliefs.

Here you all are being relevant and I was about to make a rant about something kind of old. I'll put it in a note thing at the end.

So yeah, I agree that, from personal observation, a lot of the more outwardly Christian characters are depicted as being both extremely vocal about it and being extremely fundamentalist in their views. And it's done in a very generalist way that shows that a lot of people know squatting donkeys about the views of anyone else. Unfortunately, this trend might not start going away until other very vocal Christians who are very good at being entertaining start being even more outwardly against that kind of nuttiness from their own.

As far as where such ignorance lies in terms of corresponding views, it seems that while anti-theism can span the whole political spectrum just like any faith (most of the time), it seems that the farther along the extremes of the political spectrum one goes, the arguments become stupider, more annoying, more wordy, and more self-important in a sort-of collectivist way. It can seem to come from one end of the spectrum more often than not, but youtube and twitter can make it hard to judge the true prevalence of any given set of views given how easy they make it to have a sizeable audience willing to give likes in favor of them.

It's the sort of destructive idiocy that Jesus/God knew would come from his opponents... and followers. Ain't that right, Simon the ear mutilator?

...

^{Here's that less-than-relevant rant.} I like safe, happy tunes and catchy, clean rhythms. I like cloying, sappy, glurgy things. They do not offend me and they neutrally excite me, and I'm more than okay with that. — I like optimism. I like thinking better of people. I like idealism. I distinguish between idealism and naivete. I don't mind naiveness most of the time. I'm not fond of cynicism, even if talk like the sort of bitter, sardonic butt-wipe that I don't like. I think being a cynic doesn't preclude being also naive. — And this here thing that I'm going to whine about is a thing that perfectly marries blindness to reality and severe bitterness towards it while being okay as a tune. — As a song, Imagine is bad. As a message, it's worse. As music... its catchy enough. — A song with that title is demanding me to dumb down my imagination in orer to unquestioningly accept its hackneyed ideas. Some have said that "it makes people think" about its message. 'Kay. But here's the problem with that flacid defense: almost literally anything makes people think, and those thinkies ain't always going in the direction the messenger wants it to go. So I've thought about what Imagine demands that I imagine so that obviously I'd just submit to its brilliance. And I think it's a failure of intellect, observation, and imagination. It is easy to imagine the things it wants me to imagine, and as someone who has no worship for the thing of effort itself, I gotta say, please make me imagine something that takes less effort for my thinking to shoot down. — Yet here I am getting all irritated about it, so that's something it suceeded at I guess. Because that cloying catchy tune is, unfortunately, the medium for the sort of stupid message that absolutely gets my rowdy goat. — So in that sense, Imagine is pretty much the secularist equivalent of a generic, below mediocre, Christian pop song. — And that's what I'm saying about this song mostly on its own, separated from its writer. — And I'm a month late to this party, but I'm thankful that Lent kept this from being added onto the things that irritate for as long as it could. As for why I'm posting it here in a literally Christian thread, it's largely because the lyrics are sort of relevant. — Now pardon me, I'm going to go on not imagining that there is a heaven, because it's a reality that I have to live with. I can't even imagine what God looks like, so in turn I can't imagine what heaven's like. And also I'm going to drown out that song with Christian metal and lukewarm Christian pop. — You know what? I'm adding that as a demerit against Imagine. It makes me seek out lukewarm Christian pop, because if something is going to be as idiotic and bland as that, then at least I can have it sort of pander to me. Also I'm going to condition the word "imagine" with Imagine Dragons and that one Spongebob episode, because that had actual imagination behind it and it's also better at stoking the imagination. — Also, whether or not I imagine that heaven and hell are or aren't there, I think that means little to what I observe of what the world and the people in it are like or will be. We'd still be idiots, now and tomorrow. — And now imagine is starting to be less of a word thing. I also hold that against you, Imagine.

Yeah there is a certain sort of reactionary atheist who grew up I assume in Christian Churches and there disagreement seems to be the lack of science focus and focus on religious belief they really seem to like everything else. About the Conservatism.

I do think there is a tendency to go evangelical means fundamentalist but I'm not sure of the specific contexts.

I think Evengelical churches seemingly going fundamentalist more often is simply a matter of optics.

Evangelical churces are seen as several different organizations that happen to have a similar ideology, while the Catholic Church happens to be a singular large organization.

Except it is an organization that spans the whole world, so each individual Catholic church can be just as varied in being progressive or conservative as any given Evangelical one, but because they all answer to the Vatican it creates this illusion of stability and rigidness whene none truly exists.

Speaking of the Catholic Church, I hope Pope Francis is protected and okay because he is an 80 something year old man who is nearing his 90's.

I also don't like "Imagine." Or John Lennon/The Beatles in general. Sometimes I like when the needle drops in a movie that's set in the sixties, but it's not something I'd listen to on my own.

You bring up an interesting point, though. We may not be able to imagine what God looks like, but what do you imagine when you hear the word "God?"

Me, I imagine Rod Serling.

I'm gonna be boring and say Morgan Freeman.

He has a resembling of Morgan Freeman for me too. And maybe a bit of Alanis Morissette.

I imagine James Earl Jones’s voice with no visible body for whatever reason.

I don't think Imagine is as deep as some music critics give it credit for but I don't think it is really bad. It is a pretty optimistic song about Imaging a world without petty differences that keep us from peace and helping each other out. Now I don't see religion as one of those petty differences. I just don't see why it is getting special frustration now, especially with all the "Image everyone was Christian and the world was good" and "God is watching us from a distance so everything is fine" and some Atheists might be overplaying it as a reaction to the million and one songs of the type I described up there. Is it just overplay?

I've already pointed out how it goes far past just being very optimistic and into delusion, and I think a song that's as a whole essentially the communist manifesto set to an ear worm wouldn't agree about religion isn't a small difference. As for whether or not it's overplayed, I don't think it really sees that much radio play, but based on what I've looked up, it gets enough play at some special events that it's become sort of a guilty grievance for those who are tired of it.

It's true though that equally mediocre and ignorant Christian songs are so much more prevalent that entire radio stations can be dedicated to them. But I think that might be part of what makes the difference in perception between the two.

It's the general knowledge of countless songs of less than stellar quality tied to a religion whose image is also less than clean compared to one song that's far more relevant in popular conscience made by an alumni of a world-renowned band who may as well have been elevated to a secular saint. The former is easily forgotten and brushed off, but the later is something that others won't allow you to forget or ignore when it does come on.

As for what I imagine when I hear "God", well there was that voice of the burning shrub from The Prince of Egypt, but most of the time there's just kind of any voice asking, "What are you doing?"

Edited by Ikiniks on Apr 27th 2020 at 3:57:56 PM

I'm not sure I agree. I don't think your writing on it was very descriptive in why you find it's message "delusional" other than the fact that it is vague and pretentious,(critique's I concur with you on), and I read it over twice to be sure. Would you mind explaining? Now the Communist Manifesto in song form is interesting, care to elaborate on that? I don't think it is deep enough or fleshed out enough to have anything but the vague underpinnings of a socialist message.

I do wanna ask something about Christian media to any Christian writers in this thread. As far as any of you know, has there ever been a good fictional Christian movie about what an Atheist or LGBT person is like? I've only seen the David A.R White movie"Me Again" which I find to be pretty dreadful, and Second Glance which is just really kinda lame. Like a lot of pureflix material it just leaves me wanting.

EDIT: I couldn't fix the formatting on this post till I get to a computer, sorry about that.

Edited by Wildcard on Apr 28th 2020 at 8:46:46 AM

To answer your question about why Imagine's getting a lot of hate, I imagine it's because of those recent viral videos where celebrities tried to sing it to cheer people up and fell flat because of some of the lyrics in this time where people are dying, like "What if there's no Heaven?"

Not exactly what people want to hear while the Pile Rider is outside, having the time of his life, isn't it?

Well, it's Christian-ish, but there's The Dresden Files and everybody's favorite "Knight of Maybe" Sanya.

Other than that, I have nothing, sorry.

Edited by HailMuffins on Apr 27th 2020 at 2:24:00 PM

Not a single one of you imagine God as George Burns. The times, they are a-changing.

....Simpsons God.

I can't get past the sexism of the main character in Dresden Files as a woman. I think I'd be ok with it with any other narrator but a deliberately obnoxious narrator is still you know obnoxious.

I don't think Imagine is a bad song, just you know kind of out of touch to sing something like that during a pandemic (I think people right now would prefer, or at least I would, most socialist messaging to be about providing financial aid for people right now etc, not imagine if there was no possessions).

Edited by phantom1 on Apr 29th 2020 at 2:04:54 AM

Fair criticism.

But I'm out of ideas.

I mean there's the book Silence, which is really good but requires a strong stomach.

I'd be okay with the song if they did it to drum up support to some charity, but not even that, it's a bunch of rich people pretending they're doing anything meaningful and that them not being able to eat caviar on the weekends is comparable to people at risk of being thrown out of their homes because they can't go to work.

The sheer arrogance and lack of self-awareness is just baffling.

Edited by HailMuffins on Apr 29th 2020 at 6:11:16 AM

, The Rap Critic and Professor Yedoye from Get In The Robot have both made that criticism (the later on a twitter post).

Y'know, philosophy has moved far past the nineteenth century.

...

It acts like it, but it's still wallowing in that haze of questions and middle-school-level debate tactics that breeds the sort of atmosphere that convinces people that anti-intellectualism is preferable to that noise.

But if the internet wants to refuse to outgrow Nietzsche and shove his quotes down my throat like a fundy screams Leviticus this Leviticus that, then I can say that it's never sufficiently responded to Kierkegaard.

I was bothered by a Nietzsche quote and then I looked into the appeal of the guy. And I got my answer. It's almost-complete horse-crap couched in confrontational language that seeks to stroke the pseudo-intellectual nether-regions in the same way that honesty wants to do with factuality. Like Marx, anything that is truly its own contribution is verifiable trash, and anything that actually is true was better recognized and articualted by those that came before them.

In Noochie's case, that thing that came before is dear old Soren. The former didn't know crap about the later, but they arrived at similar ideas. To a point. According to some rudimentary research I did, it seems that if properly understood, then Kirkguard can make for a good rebuttal of Nitsy's edgelord tripe.

Here then is the first problem: Z-Neet channeled his pretentious brain drippings into easily regurgitatable texts that the generic internet commenter can copy-paste into any semi-relevant comment-thing. Like Marx. His writings were the vague and wordy stuff that fake-psychic predictions are made of. That makes it easy to say that, when one claims that his writings were used as a basis for some of the worst things that happened in the next few centuries, then he's just "being misunderstood".

Sounds kinda familiar, eh?

But there's nothing to misunderstand. He's human, only human, and just human with no allusions to being connected to a higher power in any way. It is plainly visible that he's an imbecile.

Here is the second problem: Mr. Severe Graveyard was also wordy and pretentious, but for all that he was about the individual, he didn't seem to have made that many snappy quotes that invited rage and fights. As far as I know. No, his best quotes aren't so twitter friendly, even when he offers far better thought fodder. Searching his name on tumblr was kinda helpful though.

So here I am, denied a path to further my petty wrath because that which I seek is better than me. And I say this is how I know that God does respond to my BS. That or I'm to develop my own snappy comebacks while undertaking the task of going through DanishName's works.

God help me, for I've found the inspiration I didn't know I had and it's gonna suuuuuuuuck.

Edited by Ikiniks on Apr 29th 2020 at 10:19:03 AM

Why the attempted take down of philosophy?

Edited by Wildcard on Apr 30th 2020 at 1:47:09 PM

I think this fits better on the philosophy thread, m8.

I think Nietzsche is a relevant topic, given that he was a hardcore anti-Christian. Not that I have much to contribute, since I've never read him.

Kind of confusing how we got on the topic, also I haven't read him. Interestingly "imagine no possessions" is kind of in with anti-materialism, so if there wasn't the "imagine no heaven" line it could be read as that.

Not to go to bat for John Lennon but maybe "Imagine there's no Heaven" just means "Imagine if we did nice things for the sake of it and not because we expect a reward."

It really doesn't matter what John Lennon meant, the context we live in changes the meNing of those words