I am an atheist; meaning, I don't believe there is any form of higher power dictating my life. I don't believe that there is a God. I don't believe that there is a heaven, nor do I believe there is a hell. I believe that what we have here is what there is, and there is nothing more. Yes, it's sometimes a depressing thought, but the idea of living for the rest of my life is just as unpleasant to me. I mean, what would I do? I'd be eternally bored. That would suck.
The most vocal atheists I know tend to bash on religion quite a bit, a concept that I'm not entirely comfortable with. I don't hate religion. It has it's place in the world, just not personally in my life. Do I think that religion is the basis for a lot of humanity's conflicts? Yeah, I suppose so. But I don't think those problems stemmed from the people that truly believed in the religion they claimed to believe in, if that makes sense. No? Okay, let me give an example to clarify:
From my understanding, the basis, the very core of ALL Christianity is that of love, understanding and tolerance. And this pretty much rings true for all religion as well. That's the point that it's supposed to be getting across. Now, look at most churches and Christian sects hating homosexuals and denying them the right to get married. Not exactly loving and tolerant is it?
One of the qualms I've heard is that religious people are doing the right thing, but for the wrong reason. They are doing what's morally right and good for everybody, not because they want to, but because if they don't, they won't get into Heaven or they will end up in Hell. To that issue I say, so what? If they are doing the good thing, but for selfish reasons, what's the issue? They are still doing the good deed, who cares to what their personal motivation is? The person who is volunteering at a soup kitchen because they want to help is doing the same thing as the person who is volunteering at a soup kitchen to get into heaven. And I'm sure the first person has their own selfish reasons for volunteering, even if it's just for the good feeling that you get when you know you've helped someone.
I don't think it's their responsibility to validate their beliefs to us any more than it's our responsibility to validate our beliefs to them. I think that we should just really leave each other alone unless we are hindering on each other's rights. I mean, when an issue like gay marriage is brought to light by religious people who find it wrong, then yeah, it's our responsibilty to say "No, just because it's against your beliefs doesn't mean it should hinder someone else with different beliefs."
I don't think either side wins when they try to convert or change the other side's viewpoints. That just ends up in a pissing match. I think we REALLY need to pick our battles. Nobody that tries to talk to and convert me will change my mind, any more than a person who is devoutly religious will have their mind changed by me if I start prattling on about evolution and string theory.
At some point we have to take a step back and realize the irony of the fact that a good portion of why we dislike religious people is that they want to convert us; yet, we as a group also try to convert them. Can't we leave each other the fuck alone? Really, when I get to the root of it, unless they are bugging me, I really don't think it's my job to bug them. If we leave each other alone, I think everybody would be happier.
Thursday 22 November 2012
Tuesday 20 November 2012
Sexuality
Women are exploited in video games and the media in general, because frankly, sex sells. Why put an average-busted Laura Croft in Tomb Raider when you can make her have boobs as big as her head? Why not get Kate Upton to eat a burger in the least practical (but sexy) way in Carl’s Junior Commercials? Why just make nuns attack Agent 47 in the Hitman Absolution trailer when you can have scantily-clad sexy nuns do it? Look at any given female comic-book hero and tell me that women look like that. You can't. And I’m not even going to begin to talk about what is wrong with Team Ninja’s idea of boob physics (here’s a hint, they don’t move that way). I don’t think the problem so much needs to be the toning back of sexualisation of women (though a little bit couldn’t hurt), as much as I think that we need to balance it a little with the sexualisation of men as well. If you are going to be catering to one side of the sexual spectrum, you might as well cater to the other side as well. Many gay men and women will thank the media for it in the long run.
And just a note to women: don't get all huffy if a man finds you sexually attractive. That doesn't mean they see you as a piece of meat. There will be men like that, but don't be so sexist and degrading to the male half of our species and just ASSUME they want you nothing more than for your body. You're lying if you say that you've never stared at a guy you thought was attractive. You're lying if you claim to have never liked a person based on pure looks. Just realize that both sides do it, and get over yourselves. That being said, if some guy slaps you on the ass when you don't know him, I think you're fully within your rights to tell him off. Use your judgement when talking to men, and don't just assume that all men are frat-boys. Cause they aren't. Moreover, be able to admit to yourself that you, as a human, are a sexual being and at some point or another have objectified a man. Be mature enough to do that.
Sexuality is not a thing to be FEARED. It's a thing that really should be just accepted about ourselves. Everybody is a bit different, and as far as I see it, as long as it doesn't involve living creatures incapable of consenting (children, animals, etc) or hurting someone else, I don't see the problem with it. I don't see an issue with furries (people who dress up as animals while having sex), or people who have foot fetishes. I don't understand it, but I can't explain why I like what I like either, so why should I judge them?
I think we all need to calm down, and just take a deep breath regarding people's sexual identity. What people do in their own bedrooms is their own business. I won't dictate what you find sexually attractive, at least do the same for me.
And just a note to women: don't get all huffy if a man finds you sexually attractive. That doesn't mean they see you as a piece of meat. There will be men like that, but don't be so sexist and degrading to the male half of our species and just ASSUME they want you nothing more than for your body. You're lying if you say that you've never stared at a guy you thought was attractive. You're lying if you claim to have never liked a person based on pure looks. Just realize that both sides do it, and get over yourselves. That being said, if some guy slaps you on the ass when you don't know him, I think you're fully within your rights to tell him off. Use your judgement when talking to men, and don't just assume that all men are frat-boys. Cause they aren't. Moreover, be able to admit to yourself that you, as a human, are a sexual being and at some point or another have objectified a man. Be mature enough to do that.
Sexuality is not a thing to be FEARED. It's a thing that really should be just accepted about ourselves. Everybody is a bit different, and as far as I see it, as long as it doesn't involve living creatures incapable of consenting (children, animals, etc) or hurting someone else, I don't see the problem with it. I don't see an issue with furries (people who dress up as animals while having sex), or people who have foot fetishes. I don't understand it, but I can't explain why I like what I like either, so why should I judge them?
I think we all need to calm down, and just take a deep breath regarding people's sexual identity. What people do in their own bedrooms is their own business. I won't dictate what you find sexually attractive, at least do the same for me.
Monday 19 November 2012
The R-Word
Now, understand that everything I say now is my biased, uncensored opinion. I'm not going to link to any sites supporting what I say. It's just an opinion. I'm human, my biases exist, I can fight it only so far. That's my disclaimer. That's it. That's all.
Now, in highschool, we had a presentation that took up half of the our day. It was the basic sexuality, standard sex-ed type deal..They took us around from classroom to classroom to get the same information of how to be properly "safe" while having sex, the basic mechanics of it, and to not let peer pressure affect your decisions on sex one way or the other. Now, one presentation in particular stands out to me: only one after 5 hours of being lead by the nose (says something about how much I particularly cared about the entire ordeal, doesn't it?). The only presentation I remember is the one where we had an "emergency rape responder" talking about the procedure that she goes through when someone reports to the police that they've been raped. Throughout this entire lectrure, she was talking to the girls in the room, not the men.
The things she covered, to my memory, included: How to avoid being raped, to not blame yourself if you are raped, how you should seek help if you've been raped, the gathering of evidence, and how your family and friends are the most important support system after the fact.
Now, I don't have an issue with any of these, I think knowing all of these things can be vital to any woman. What I have an issue with? The fact that she never talked to the male audience in the room.
We focus quite a bit as a society on the women, and how they avoid becoming victims, I don't think we focus enough on the men on how to not become the offender of these crimes. I mean, I am a woman, so maybe there is a special conference I don't know about that sits the male half of our population down, and explains how being a rapist is wrong, but I doubt it sincerely. How to go about having this conversation? I don't know. I do however, think we need to consider making it a conversation to have though. I think it's important and beneficial to both sides.
What I define as rape is the forceful penetration of another human being without consent. That's probably very close to what the dictionary's definition is. I think there is also another conversation that needs to happen too, for both genders. I think we really need to look at what we define as consent.
It's socially acceptable to take a drunk person home and have sex with them. It's okay, because they are consenting. I don't know if a person who's mental capabilities aren't fully there agreeing to follow through should be considered consent. I also don't think that having someone who was coerced or harassed into having sex should really be considered consent either. In my mind, consent is when two people, who are fully-functional to their mental capabilities mutually agree to having any sexual relations with another person. And I think both genders are equally responsible to upholding a moral standard where the "walk of shame" doesn't happen merely because the other person was stumbling, half-blind drunk.
I don't know, maybe we are still taking the conversations of rape, and sexual identity as a little too taboo than is beneficial to our society. I don't see any instances of sexual oppression that will end well. When you start oppressing your own sexuality, that's when the deformities, and the unhealthy fetishes start forming like mold.
Now, in highschool, we had a presentation that took up half of the our day. It was the basic sexuality, standard sex-ed type deal..They took us around from classroom to classroom to get the same information of how to be properly "safe" while having sex, the basic mechanics of it, and to not let peer pressure affect your decisions on sex one way or the other. Now, one presentation in particular stands out to me: only one after 5 hours of being lead by the nose (says something about how much I particularly cared about the entire ordeal, doesn't it?). The only presentation I remember is the one where we had an "emergency rape responder" talking about the procedure that she goes through when someone reports to the police that they've been raped. Throughout this entire lectrure, she was talking to the girls in the room, not the men.
The things she covered, to my memory, included: How to avoid being raped, to not blame yourself if you are raped, how you should seek help if you've been raped, the gathering of evidence, and how your family and friends are the most important support system after the fact.
Now, I don't have an issue with any of these, I think knowing all of these things can be vital to any woman. What I have an issue with? The fact that she never talked to the male audience in the room.
We focus quite a bit as a society on the women, and how they avoid becoming victims, I don't think we focus enough on the men on how to not become the offender of these crimes. I mean, I am a woman, so maybe there is a special conference I don't know about that sits the male half of our population down, and explains how being a rapist is wrong, but I doubt it sincerely. How to go about having this conversation? I don't know. I do however, think we need to consider making it a conversation to have though. I think it's important and beneficial to both sides.
What I define as rape is the forceful penetration of another human being without consent. That's probably very close to what the dictionary's definition is. I think there is also another conversation that needs to happen too, for both genders. I think we really need to look at what we define as consent.
It's socially acceptable to take a drunk person home and have sex with them. It's okay, because they are consenting. I don't know if a person who's mental capabilities aren't fully there agreeing to follow through should be considered consent. I also don't think that having someone who was coerced or harassed into having sex should really be considered consent either. In my mind, consent is when two people, who are fully-functional to their mental capabilities mutually agree to having any sexual relations with another person. And I think both genders are equally responsible to upholding a moral standard where the "walk of shame" doesn't happen merely because the other person was stumbling, half-blind drunk.
I don't know, maybe we are still taking the conversations of rape, and sexual identity as a little too taboo than is beneficial to our society. I don't see any instances of sexual oppression that will end well. When you start oppressing your own sexuality, that's when the deformities, and the unhealthy fetishes start forming like mold.
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Things I Dislike About The Amazing Athiest- Part 1
There are many people who would claim to outright hate TheAmazingAthiest (one of the loudest atheist YouTubers), and that is their right. I don't hate him. I really don't. Sometimes I do agree with him, mostly on religious viewpoints. But there is one topic that he feels the need to talk about that never fails to get my eye twitching: Feminism.
I know, I know, hating him for his lack of feminist views has been done to death, but stay with me for a bit here. I don't disagree with his viewpoints of radical feminists. Quite frankly, they scare the living shit out of me too. It's the fact that there seems to be no middle ground feminists he pays attention to that bothers me.
His video "Failure of Feminism" has quite a few points that make me irritated, to say the very least. To me, there was one quote in particular that made me really irritated with the video: "...they believe in something called the patriarchy...this is integral, this is the key, this is the cornerstone of all feminist theory. And it's completely bogus. It's wrong..."
Now, he is entitled to his opinion, that is his right. But I'm entitled to say: I disagree and find your opinion out-dated, over-exaggerated, and misinformed.
Now, by the wikipedia definition you gave, there is no patriarchy. But I believe that the definition is a little outdated. When the feminists are referring to the patriarchy, they are referring to the fact that current society benefits men (most of the time) over women. They are not claiming that women are still completely submissive to men, as was implied.
I'm now going to directly talk about the examples he has given in the inequality of men over women. I really do think that TheAmazingAthiest (or TJ) is what people would identify as a Men's Right Activist (seems a little oxymoronic, but lets roll with it). I'm going to now go through the issues, in order, that he brought up.
1. "...domestic violence against men is nearly as common as domestic violence against women..." Now, the first part of that statement, that it happens nearly as often, is wrong. "22.1 percent of surveyed women, compared with 7.4 percent of surveyed men, reported they were physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, or date in their lifetime" (http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/183781.htm) More than double the women than men are assaulted or on the victim's end of domestic violence. That is not "nearly as common", that is less than half as common.
2. "Men are not treated anywhere near fairly when it comes to child custody..." I will concede that an unfair amount of the time, a mother will gain custody over a child over the father. It's not entirely fair, but there are reasons behind this. Women are more nurturing than men. It's our nature, it's our instincts. It's how we are raised in society. We are supposed to be connected to our emotions and feelings more than men. And in cases of dealing with a small child, these are integral to their development. Put a baby in a room with a group of men and women, more often than not, the people coddling and cooing at the baby will be women, not men. Moreover, as indifferent many are to this point, women do gain an emotional connection to their children. They carry them around for 9 months, it kind of just comes with the territory.
3."...when it comes to who has to make child support payments..." Child support is given to the party that earns less, more often than not, it's the female half of the dynamic. Women still only earn 77 cents to the male dollar on average (http://www.aauw.org/GraduatetoaPayGap/upload/GradtoPayGap_AAUW_embargoed.pdf). So logically speaking, women will usually be the party earning less, leaving men to be the one usually paying child support. Ironic that one of the things feminists focus on has side-effects on men's rights issues.
4."...when it comes to reproductive rights." I almost didn't want to comment on this one, but I will state that certain politicians want to regulate whether or not women should have the right to an abortion. Seems like a major betrayer of reproductive rights to me.
5. "...but male genital mutilation? That's still standard operating procedure throughout the US...If you live in America, you live in a nation where it's just standard procedure to chop off a piece of a boys' penis when he is born. Don't say that is is just a piece of skin. So is your eyelid, you wouldn't want that chopped off... Why don't you let people decide to get rid of it as adults?" First of all, comparing the foreskin of a penis to an eyelid is ludicrous at best. Look at their purposes before comparing the two. Without an eyelid, you'd go blind due to your eyes drying out. I don't think there is anything that handicapping about circumcision. And as for letting people decide as adults, you are forgetting the major part of humanity that makes us human and illogical: we make decisions based on emotions. I can nearly guarantee you that if circumcision was deemed one of the healthiest decisions a man could make, there would still be a good portion of men who would not do it, due to purely emotional reasons. Sometimes we get attached to parts of ourselves that are unnecessary just because it's familiar. It happens all the time with people and their hair. Essentially a useless feature of mankind now, yet people are so attached to it, that they will pay people thousands of dollars in their lifetime to get it cut right.
6. "Women are sentenced to 40% less prison time than men for equivalent crimes." Honestly, I concede this point to TJ, as I haven't found anything to state otherwise, nor can I think of a compelling argument as to why this is. I agree that's not fair, and that that should be addressed within our legal system.
7. "...it's only men that can be signed up for the selective services in the United States. We can be drafted." This is probably due to the fact that woman, as a gender are biologically weaker than men, and more susceptible to emotional disorders after war (mainly PTSD) than men are. If the government are going to send people off to fight for them, they are logically going to want to send the stronger half of a nation so that there is less soldiers dying, and less costs of dealing with trauma after the fact.
8. "Why would we... pour way more money into women's cancer research than men's cancer research?" While it is true that Breast Cancer research gets way more funding than Prostate Cancer, you have to keep in mind that men can also contract breast cancer. It's less often, but not unheard of. So it's not like it doesn't benefit both genders. I do agree that we should give just as much money to men's cancer research, but it's not like men aren't benefiting from monetary donations to breast cancer research either.
Now, do I think that there are some double standards between the two genders? Yes. And I will concede that a majority of our issues come from gender roles. We do have to break these gender roles in order to move forward as a society.
I am a feminist. Not a radical one, mind you. But I am one. I believe that a majority of the time, women get the short end of the stick. I believe that some of our issues do outweigh the issues that a male would have. Declaring myself a feminist is not a ludicrous or heinous idea. I think it's something to be proud of and to be able to announce with that pride.
Next post I will probably ramble about some of the issues that should probably be dealt with from the side of feminists before we get all huffy about men's rights. It'll probably take awhile, as I will have to fight the urge to get on my soapbox, but it'll eventually come.
TJ, TheAmazingAthiest, if you ever happen to read this, understand that I do respect you, and on many points, I do agree with your ideologies, this is just not one of them. I fought the urge to name-call, as doing that achieves nothing, and I hope you'll logically look at my arguments and maybe even have some back. I critique because I was raised to believe that if you see something, and don't actively disagree with it, then you are silently agreeing
I know, I know, hating him for his lack of feminist views has been done to death, but stay with me for a bit here. I don't disagree with his viewpoints of radical feminists. Quite frankly, they scare the living shit out of me too. It's the fact that there seems to be no middle ground feminists he pays attention to that bothers me.
His video "Failure of Feminism" has quite a few points that make me irritated, to say the very least. To me, there was one quote in particular that made me really irritated with the video: "...they believe in something called the patriarchy...this is integral, this is the key, this is the cornerstone of all feminist theory. And it's completely bogus. It's wrong..."
Now, he is entitled to his opinion, that is his right. But I'm entitled to say: I disagree and find your opinion out-dated, over-exaggerated, and misinformed.
Now, by the wikipedia definition you gave, there is no patriarchy. But I believe that the definition is a little outdated. When the feminists are referring to the patriarchy, they are referring to the fact that current society benefits men (most of the time) over women. They are not claiming that women are still completely submissive to men, as was implied.
I'm now going to directly talk about the examples he has given in the inequality of men over women. I really do think that TheAmazingAthiest (or TJ) is what people would identify as a Men's Right Activist (seems a little oxymoronic, but lets roll with it). I'm going to now go through the issues, in order, that he brought up.
1. "...domestic violence against men is nearly as common as domestic violence against women..." Now, the first part of that statement, that it happens nearly as often, is wrong. "22.1 percent of surveyed women, compared with 7.4 percent of surveyed men, reported they were physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, or date in their lifetime" (http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/183781.htm) More than double the women than men are assaulted or on the victim's end of domestic violence. That is not "nearly as common", that is less than half as common.
2. "Men are not treated anywhere near fairly when it comes to child custody..." I will concede that an unfair amount of the time, a mother will gain custody over a child over the father. It's not entirely fair, but there are reasons behind this. Women are more nurturing than men. It's our nature, it's our instincts. It's how we are raised in society. We are supposed to be connected to our emotions and feelings more than men. And in cases of dealing with a small child, these are integral to their development. Put a baby in a room with a group of men and women, more often than not, the people coddling and cooing at the baby will be women, not men. Moreover, as indifferent many are to this point, women do gain an emotional connection to their children. They carry them around for 9 months, it kind of just comes with the territory.
3."...when it comes to who has to make child support payments..." Child support is given to the party that earns less, more often than not, it's the female half of the dynamic. Women still only earn 77 cents to the male dollar on average (http://www.aauw.org/GraduatetoaPayGap/upload/GradtoPayGap_AAUW_embargoed.pdf). So logically speaking, women will usually be the party earning less, leaving men to be the one usually paying child support. Ironic that one of the things feminists focus on has side-effects on men's rights issues.
4."...when it comes to reproductive rights." I almost didn't want to comment on this one, but I will state that certain politicians want to regulate whether or not women should have the right to an abortion. Seems like a major betrayer of reproductive rights to me.
5. "...but male genital mutilation? That's still standard operating procedure throughout the US...If you live in America, you live in a nation where it's just standard procedure to chop off a piece of a boys' penis when he is born. Don't say that is is just a piece of skin. So is your eyelid, you wouldn't want that chopped off... Why don't you let people decide to get rid of it as adults?" First of all, comparing the foreskin of a penis to an eyelid is ludicrous at best. Look at their purposes before comparing the two. Without an eyelid, you'd go blind due to your eyes drying out. I don't think there is anything that handicapping about circumcision. And as for letting people decide as adults, you are forgetting the major part of humanity that makes us human and illogical: we make decisions based on emotions. I can nearly guarantee you that if circumcision was deemed one of the healthiest decisions a man could make, there would still be a good portion of men who would not do it, due to purely emotional reasons. Sometimes we get attached to parts of ourselves that are unnecessary just because it's familiar. It happens all the time with people and their hair. Essentially a useless feature of mankind now, yet people are so attached to it, that they will pay people thousands of dollars in their lifetime to get it cut right.
6. "Women are sentenced to 40% less prison time than men for equivalent crimes." Honestly, I concede this point to TJ, as I haven't found anything to state otherwise, nor can I think of a compelling argument as to why this is. I agree that's not fair, and that that should be addressed within our legal system.
7. "...it's only men that can be signed up for the selective services in the United States. We can be drafted." This is probably due to the fact that woman, as a gender are biologically weaker than men, and more susceptible to emotional disorders after war (mainly PTSD) than men are. If the government are going to send people off to fight for them, they are logically going to want to send the stronger half of a nation so that there is less soldiers dying, and less costs of dealing with trauma after the fact.
8. "Why would we... pour way more money into women's cancer research than men's cancer research?" While it is true that Breast Cancer research gets way more funding than Prostate Cancer, you have to keep in mind that men can also contract breast cancer. It's less often, but not unheard of. So it's not like it doesn't benefit both genders. I do agree that we should give just as much money to men's cancer research, but it's not like men aren't benefiting from monetary donations to breast cancer research either.
Now, do I think that there are some double standards between the two genders? Yes. And I will concede that a majority of our issues come from gender roles. We do have to break these gender roles in order to move forward as a society.
I am a feminist. Not a radical one, mind you. But I am one. I believe that a majority of the time, women get the short end of the stick. I believe that some of our issues do outweigh the issues that a male would have. Declaring myself a feminist is not a ludicrous or heinous idea. I think it's something to be proud of and to be able to announce with that pride.
Next post I will probably ramble about some of the issues that should probably be dealt with from the side of feminists before we get all huffy about men's rights. It'll probably take awhile, as I will have to fight the urge to get on my soapbox, but it'll eventually come.
TJ, TheAmazingAthiest, if you ever happen to read this, understand that I do respect you, and on many points, I do agree with your ideologies, this is just not one of them. I fought the urge to name-call, as doing that achieves nothing, and I hope you'll logically look at my arguments and maybe even have some back. I critique because I was raised to believe that if you see something, and don't actively disagree with it, then you are silently agreeing
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