#Do We Have Faith in Humankind? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weirdly-specific-but-ok · 4 months

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why i love aziraphale and why i find his character so heartbreaking

So I made a post on why I relate to Crowley and I adore him, obviously. I think a few you misunderstood what I meant there, though (which is understandable, I was a bit incoherent but that is inevitable on this blog). I wasn't saying Aziraphale didn't care about Crowley or was horrible to him, rather the opposite.

What I was saying was maybe Crowley felt unloved against his better judgement, because he knows he is loved by Aziraphale, but maybe everything he has been through has started to chip away at that knowledge. It's happened to me, I'm sure it's happened to a few of you. You are assured that you are loved, you can see them doing things for you, but you feel unloved. Maybe because of the other people who don't love you. Maybe because... you don't love yourself.

But I definitely wasn't putting down Aziraphale, who is a beautiful character. I adore him. I love how every single second, all his emotions are on his face. That's actually how I realised they'd switched bodies--in heaven, 'Aziraphale' had a cool, dismissive look on his face. That could only be Crowley, I knew, because Crowley is a bit better (not a lot, not around Azi of course) at masking his emotions.

That's what's so beautiful about Azi, we can just see how much he feels, how much he adores Crowley, how much hope he had, how much faith in Heaven, how much determination to do the right thing. How determined he is to keep Crowley safe, to make Crowley smile and laugh, and how much it kills him every time he has to push Crowley away for both of their sakes, or he thinks he has to. You both want to protect that optimism and faith, and also shake him and tell him the truth. But how do we know better than him, a 6000 year old angel? There's so much that we don't know, that may have happened behind the scenes, that's orchestrating his decisions.

Some of you are certain that there is more, that he doesn't still believe that what Heaven offers is genuine, because how could he? I'm also sure that there is more, but can I also offer an alternate idea? Even if there wasn't more, maybe he isn't to blame if he did continue to believe in Heaven's goodness.

We've been in toxic relationships. With friends, partners, family. I know how hard it is to accept that something you love is not worthy of that love. Something you admired is something flawed. Something you would do anything to keep is something you need to push away.

The worst of all, of course, is that time, somewhere in our childhood or teens or adulthood, when a lot of us realise our parent or parents are not heroes. That we don't agree with them. That they were wrong about a lot of things. Because they taught us everything, they were our guides, how could they be wrong? And if we can't believe in them, then what are we supposed to believe in?

Maybe Aziraphale is going through that journey, over all those millennia. Some of us are forced to realise it before we even turn ten, some of us haven't realised it yet, some of us may not ever or may not need to.

Maybe Aziraphale is just a child of God, realising that Heaven, his technical family, is not the Good that not only they but the entire world believes them to be. Everyone says Heaven is good, including a lot of Hell, including a lot of humankind, it's just given. What is Heavenly is good. And Aziraphale wants to be good.

But he's going through that painful journey of realising that good may not be what he was taught, that good comes in many shades and tints and hues. And we can see him do it, we can see him defy Heaven and God, for Crowley or for humans or for himself. He's doing it, and we need to see how it isn't easy for him. Having your entire system of belief deconstructed is painful and awful. And if you were wrong once, how do you know you won't be the next time?

It's hard enough for Crowley, torn between whether he was unworthy or whether Heaven was wrong. Imagine the tumult that Aziraphale goes through, because if Heaven accepts him and Heaven isn't always good, does that mean Aziraphale has been doing it all wrong all his life?

He's going through something that we all go through, and is every bit as relatable as Crowley is. I love them both so much. I'm so glad that there's a third season, to see how that arc closes, to see if maybe they find the answers we're all looking for.

@adverbian and @howmanyholesinswisscheese, I hope this helps? Again, I haven't watched season 2 yet and have a horrible memory since I've been watching season 1 heavily medicated, so this is just from what I know and can tell and headcanon, perhaps.

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bestworstcase · 6 months

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what do you make of ozma’s motivations given that he initially rejects the god of light’s offer and only takes it once he knows it’s the only way he can see salem again, but then once they’re actually reunited he places the mission from the god of light above being with her? did he aways have that much faith? is it just that salem’s faith was broken so completely that she’s the only one who can see the gods clearly?

ozma's like. fundamental dilemma in TLF is whether or not to trust salem. as much as he dearly wants to be with her… "salem lives, but the woman you hold dear in your memories is gone. heed this warning: where you seek comfort, you will only find pain."

think about what must have run through his mind when he heard the god of light say that to him. he's just learnt that the god of darkness did something so bad that all of humankind was wiped out, and that the brothers have chosen to depart. but light also tells him that humanity will return, diminished, and that he wants to send ozma back into the world to prepare for a day of judgment. "if your kind is unchanged, if you demand our blessings while still fighting among yourselves, then man will be found irredeemable and your world will be wiped from existence."

light doesn't say it in so many words, but the implication that Humans Fucked Up is crystal clear. if your kind is unchanged, you will be found irredeemable and destroyed.

then he tells ozma that salem is still alive, but unrecognizable as the woman he once loved, and that she will hurt him if he seeks her out.

what light's implying here in essence is that salem provoked the god of darkness, causing the "tragedy" that led to the brothers' departure. (and that is what happened, as far as he's concerned.) ozma picks up on that implication, but what he hears is "the woman you love is damned, but there is still a chance for redemption."

after all, why else would the god of light ask him to do this? at this point ozma has no reason to doubt what light tells him, and light presents himself as a benevolent authority hopeful that humanity can redeem itself.

"i'll do it!"—he wants to save her.

notably, ozma does in fact heed the warning for quite some time; he travels for years, hearing whispers of a dangerous witch wherever he goes, before deciding he "need[s] to see what she had become."

but then he sees her again, and… she's herself. physically she has changed, sure, but he recognizes her; she recognizes him. she still loves him. she's overjoyed to see him again—she even still remembers what he said to her on the day they met, and echoes it back to him with tears in her eyes.

so like ???

is it over? has whatever curse or madness befell her broken now they’re together again? or… was the god of light wrong…?

she tells him her story, but there are pieces missing. the gods are to blame for ending the world, she says. it is impossible to miss how much she hates the brothers.

what did she do?

"though time passed and all seemed well, ozma's conversation with the god of light still lingered in his mind. he had found happiness, but humanity seemed more divided than ever before." <- he begins to worry that maybe it's not that salem will hurt him; maybe by choosing to stay with her now, he's jeopardizing the chance for redemption.

but he isn't willing to leave her because, of course, he wants to save her. so he cautiously tests the waters by commenting on how divided humanity is.

and her answer seems really promising! "are you surprised? this world is quite literally godless. these humans have no one to guide them. perhaps that's all they need."

that… actually sounds very much like she thinks the brothers' absence is the source of the strife and suffering, just as the god of light told him it would be. and it catches ozma off guard, because he didn't expect that from her. so he asks what she means.

"we could become the gods of this world; our powers surpass all others. our souls transcend death. we could mold these lands into whatever we want…" <- okay, that's more in line with what he might have expected based on her opinion of the brothers, and it's not great. but then she warms to the idea:

"what you want! create the paradise—" watch how ozma's face changes as she says this. his expression softens. he smiles. he's hearing that—blasphemy notwithstanding—salem really wants to support him in this. that's the part she's enthused about. what you want.

and then she finishes the thought: "–the old gods could not."

it isn't just that she hates the brothers; salem envisions a paradise without them. she doesn’t think this world is damned at all; as far as she's concerned, the brothers' absence is a cause for hope.

(and what does that mean for her?)

this:

is not a "you convinced me" face. this is an "i can fix her" face.

the problem of course is that he can't. salem hates the brothers because when she prayed to them they forced her to watch her lover burn to death in her arms twice over and then sentenced her to eternal suffering to punish her for lashing out. she hates them because she is the sole survivor of their genocide. no matter how long ozma goes along with her, no matter how long he lets her believe that this is what he wants, he's never going to be able to coax her out of that hatred.

which doesn't stop him from trying.

he's able to keep the deception going as long as they're building a following, and establishing a prosperous new kingdom, and having children together. but he told her he wanted to unite the world—end all division and bring everyone together under one creed. salem is, er, right to point out that the only way to do that is by conquest.

and that's the point where ozma has to admit to his ulterior motives, because salem was not kidding when she said she would do this for him. so he pumps the brakes and tells her everything, still hoping to somehow do the impossible and save her.

"don't you see? none of that matters anymore! why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could replace them with what they could never be?"

[obligatory note: i think she means "replace the gods" here, as a reiteration of her extremely longstanding ambition of doing exactly that; the goal of her rebellion was for humans to "destroy their old masters" and "claim the powers of their creators for themselves," she tells ozma "we could be the gods of this world" and that they can "create the paradise the old gods could not" like this has always been what she's about.]

cue ozma:

he really does think about it.

i think this is the point where he faced the reality that he had to choose between joining salem in rebellion or sacrificing her for the world's sake. and… he wants to take her hand, he wants to stay with her, but the consequence of hiding this from her for so long is he's never actually thought about her utter rejection of the gods in a substantive way; he's warped their whole relationship through the lens of that hatred being a problem he needs to solve. it's not that he had faith in the god of light so much as it is he never had faith in her.

if it were ten or fifteen years ago and she was asking him to forget the mandate and stay with her in their cottage, it would still be frightening to take the hand she offered him, to trust that she is right to blame the gods and say these humans do not need redemption.

but now? when he's sunk so much time inching down the road to war in the name of saving her from those ideas, and he has to not only trust that she's right about the brothers but also that she'll be willing to turn away from the tyrannical path they've walked down together? he's done nothing but play along all these years in the ever-fainter hope that one day she'll be more amenable to the mandate; he has no idea how she'll react if he pushes back, and he thinks of her as damned.

so… he can't, in the end. when she confronts him with the choice he falls down the path of least resistance to conclude that he can't save her and that he'll bring the world to ruin if he keeps trying. so he leaves.

and then he's locked into that choice because they murdered each other and killed their kids and destroyed their kingdom about it and even if he could admit the desire to himself how can he possibly make amends for doing that to her? any apology or gesture of reconciliation he made, she has no reason to trust and every reason to see another attempt to deceive her again. the mandate is really all he has left, so he clings to it even as he gradually distorts it more and more into this existential struggle between himself and her.

#and then salem's desperately trying to make him STOP.#look how you've diminished. how you've lessened yourself. and for what? these children? this ruined world? why do you keep coming back!?#it's for her. still.#holding onto her the only way he can think of #but salem doesn't believe that he ever loved her at all—i think that is pretty evident from how she acts around him now—so she's at a loss #anyway im sad.

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sapphorror · 5 months

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so I don't necessarily have anything to *say* about it just yet but I find this moment very interesting because if there's one thing that's always been very central to Dib's characterization it's that he, like Zim, is driven primarily by ego—and more to the point, his sense of heroism is ultimately constructed in much the same way Zim's role as an invader is. It's a shallow fantasy he's crafted for himself to make living more bearable, and I would think that the opportunity to be hailed as an entire planet's chosen savior would be exactly the kind of thing he'd seize on. It's EXACTLY how he sees himself, or at least, how he wants to see himself.

And the really interesting thing is that we actually DO see exactly this happen later on in the same story, when he finally wins and it maybe just a little bit goes to his head. He's genuinely well-intentioned, and he wants to teach the Plim to rise up and save themselves rather than rely solely on him, but that's just it—his ultimate end goal as Defender of the Earth has always been to expose the truth and make people realize how blind they've been, but now that he's opened their eyes they can go forth and seize their own destiny, which just happens to look a lot like all the things Dib personally cares about. Perhaps ironically, his desired role is less hero than prophet, and maybe that's why he finds it so hard to swallow the notion of starring in someone else's pre-made narrative.

(And there's something to be said here, about how Zim, for all his unrepentant Zim-ness, might've actually gotten one thing a little bit right when he told Dib the Plim weren't suited to self-actualization—that they didn't want it. To Zim's view, of course, this only makes them exploitable and we're right back to him being horrible again, but I think there is something worth considering about the Plim's autonomy and that, faced with all the evidence and every means with which to save themselves, they still asked—literally asked—Dib to do it for them. Which begs the question—is Dib's continued insistence on developing the Plim's independence itself a kind of subjugation? How about his fixation on showing humankind something they so obviously don't want to see?)

... But you know the really funny part?

Dib ultimately rejects yet another heroic title that isn't to his liking, albeit much less surprisingly this time. Lesson unlearned.

Take this all with a grain of salt—I'm thinking out loud here and quite literally didn't expect to say any of this, but it's an aspect of Dib's character that interests me, and it was actually really unexpected and exciting to read a piece of canon material going into it. I think I'd like it if there'd been more emphasis on Dib's initial motives being largely the same as Zim's in essence—that is to say, feeding his ego and spiting the nemesis—since his ultimate epiphany is that all this time wasted on a petty popularity contest could've been spent actually, you know, being a hero, but the message still comes across and the core of the story being told is really solid. I'm going to be obsessed for weeks.

Also, Plab is everything to me. And I really do think it says something that the single faithful outlier among the Plim still thought Dib could maybe afford to cool it on the reclaiming-their-individuality bit. That's honestly more telling to me than the opinion of any crowd.

#invader zim #dib #meta #my meta #iz posting #did not go into this intending to make a point but here we are #anyway i adore dib for many of the same reasons i adore vriska serket #which is a comparison i know ill be crucified for (they hated jesus because he spoke the truth)#and looking back i can really see that dib was probably the genesis of my fixation on selfishly-motivated heroes #also its not too late for me to put plab into the resisty au im writing #i dont CARE how unwieldy this thing already is HES MAKING AN APPEARANCE #saph reads

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nanomooselet · 3 months

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Little but Fierce VII

Update: Okay, computer had the fear of me put into it and the pictures have been added.

I confess to some confusion over complaints Legato's significance was reduced in Stampede. We're still not even halfway through the story. The '98 adaptation hinged almost entirely upon Legato, and the manga had him as Vash's greatest ideological opponent. He's the best argument Knives made for wiping out humanity: a human who'd been so cruelly abused he viewed all who failed to help him as complicit and deserving of death.

In my opinion, Legato's had his turn in the spotlight, since with Knives not confined to a lightbulb he can be a direct and present threat in a way he couldn't be before. Now it's time for someone else to play the foil.

Meryl's learned everything she needs to learn and seen all she needs to see. It's time for her final exam. First up, Zazie.

Only nominally allied with Knives, Zazie occupies the role Meryl herself seeks: observer, witness, knower of the truth, bestower of judgement. They extend the privilege of that role to Meryl - she is a representative for humanity as Zazie speaks for the Worms. Having already discussed Zazie's interest in Meryl at some length, I'll move on, and pause only to note that it testifies how far Meryl's come that Zazie doesn't completely freak her the hell out.

She passes the test: along with being ignorant of the fate of Earth, she believes that humankind can and must change. Luida showed her a means to do so. It may not be enough for Zazie to fully trust humanity, but it's a reason not to fully trust Knives. The conversation will continue.

Second, Dr. Conrad.

He's a foil more for Roberto. The extreme end of the cynical mindset that Roberto tends to espouse - that cruelty is only to be expected on a world this cruel and cannot be changed. But where Roberto advises remaining uninvolved, Dr. Conrad finds it justification for cruelty in turn.

This test, too, Meryl passes; Roberto, inspired by her determination and conviction, successfully overcomes his own cynicism and mistrust, as well as over a century of accrued rationalisations, and manages to shake Conrad's faith, his judgement cutting him to the quick. It's a relatively subdued form of defeat, but, well, neither of these men are going to be engaging in high-powered gun fights. And so we move on to the final test...

Ah, she'll do nicely.

Yes, I understand dislike for the alteration to Elendira's backstory in Stampede (albeit I do wonder whether it relates to whatever Nightow had in mind for her in Maximum, even if I can't explain what makes me think it does. Just that I do). Otherwise I wouldn't have written what I did speculating how she'll develop beyond it. However, just as with Milly's absence and Roberto's presence, I think I see the way she serves Meryl's development into the woman she becomes.

Just as Vash will have to face and defeat his shadow in his brother before he can truly claim his identity, Meryl must face her own in Elendira. Small, femme, viewed as a child (to her annoyance) but a physically developed adult, accompanied everywhere by an older teacher who assumes responsibility for her. And a lot of the other implications and symbolism surrounding El are... I believe the technical term is "yikes".

It's easy to tell that in Meryl, Vash sees Rem - dark-haired, compassionate, strong sense of responsibility. She isn't Rem, because no one can be (arguably Rem herself couldn't live up to what she became to him, which is not her fault). But in Meryl Rem's spirit survives, just as in the rest of humanity; the living reason he follows his ideals, and a reason to live.

What may be a little harder to realise is that Knives is also inspired by a feminine figure elevated near to sainthood in his eyes. But it isn't Rem he believes himself inspired by, except in the sense that he loathes her.

It's Tesla. Where Vash is determined to take on the responsibility that his mother entrusted to him, Knives wants the power both to take vengeance for and to protect his sister.

It's important that he never actually knew Tesla, nor is she capable of conveying her wishes to him, just like the dependent Plants. He only assumes she must have been helpless and weak before human brutality, just as Vash is weak, and his brethren. So it's up to Knives, the big brother, to remove that weakness - he is, after all, their representative. Their blade.

And thus he allowed the creation of Elendira. Not exactly a human, but not entirely a Plant. Childishly vindictive, impulsively violent, filled with a deep loathing of humanity, needing nothing and no one - just like Knives himself wishes to be, and thus what Knives wants to believe would be true of Tesla. She would surely approve of all he's done for her. And she's absolutely loyal to him, and rejects Vash. Knives is her lord. She is proud to serve only him.

Here we have someone who refuses Meryl's judgement of her, the assumption of superiority it carries. Who are you to pity me? She also doesn't care to be disciplined by her teacher. Dr. Conrad tells her to stop and she shouts that he be silent and continues advancing.

On top of that… there's a sense of creepy, creepy suggestiveness around El. When she bursts out of the tank, she's nude, and unconcerned with being so. She is no less a threat in this state than she would be clothed. It reminds me of Knives during Fifth Moon in the original manga. Along with the way she behaved in other scenes, like when speaking with Rollo; she, uh, licks the tip of her finger. I'm not imagining the lasciviousness in that gesture, am I?

Meryl's demonstrated that she's intimidated by this aspect of adulthood. That Elendira looks so young just makes it more disturbing. (And I deeply respect that Orange didn't go for titillating, which anime has a bad habit of doing with similar characters. Elendira isn't there to excite us. She's terrifying. It's like ep 11 being SA but stripped of anything resembling sex, leaving only the victim's terror, suffering and despair.)

This is something Meryl can't face on her own. She needs one more example of teamwork… and Roberto, ever-willing to teach, manages to anticipate and protect her long enough to see one arrive.

Big brother comes to the rescue of little sister.

Wolfwood defeats Elendira because he knows better than to hesitate. He knows that one cannot judge by appearances - he's the younger of the two! Elendira was around before Rollo; Wolfwood came after him. But physically he's older, and stronger, and willing to exert that strength to defeat her. And Elendira's got the same weakness as Knives - her confidence can't withstand even a single attempt to hit back. She falls apart like a little kid, wailing as in much surprise and outrage as in pain. Did you just shoot me?!

Meryl suffers a much more devastating blow when she realises Roberto is dying. But she survives it. And Roberto proves one final time why he was the best teacher for her. Because he doesn't blame her. He could easily have left the same scar in her that Knives left in Vash - you cannot judge, because this is all your fault.

But he doesn't. He tells her this isn't her fault. He tells her she can choose. He tells her to follow her heart. Choose your own path and walk it with confidence. And he gives her the weapon that becomes her name, along with the name itself.

Meryl Stryfe.

She's the only one she has left to rely on now. And she's ready.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VIII

Part IX

#meta: little but fierce #trigun stampede #trigun meta #meryl stryfe #sorry it's a little bare bones. stupid computer #edit: OKAY it has pictures now #ever think about how elendira has red lipstick and nails and a pink dress (i.e. derivation of red)#and how her bangs are longer on the right side #and how she fires her nails like bullets #and how much tesla looks like vash #and how much is wrong with knives's horrible trash brain #because i do ALL the time

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crazycatsiren · 9 months

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Seriously you do not need to defend your faith. These people that act like a god literally did x, because some version of a myth describes them doing it are blatantly ignorant of what mythology is. Let alone of how mythology was viewed specifically in ancient Hellas.

This addiction to literalism is seriously damaging. People trying to cancel gods and worshipers based on a view of mythology that would get you laughed out of a high school Greek/Latin course, let alone a full-on academic or scholarly discussion on the relation between myth and worship.

Pay no heed to them. Honour your gods as you desire. The ignorant and incurious can say what they want, but the world and its history will not lessen its complexity just because they want it.

The mind boggling part to me is that in the same breath these people will argue the Bible is not to be taken literally when in fact, what is the Bible if not yet another set of myths? Like, the Bible is literally Christian mythology, and people seem to have no problem with not interpreting its stories literally because they were written by mortals.

So we're quick to point out that the God of Abraham wiping out all of humankind in one go and sparing only one family is pure fiction, yet we somehow can't wrap our minds around Zeus's sex life being written up as stories and local lores.

Make it make sense.

#answers mother witch

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nothorses · 1 year

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As an atheist who frequently despairs at the way progressive tumblr talks about us, I've loved reading your recent posts on the subject. You've articulated some stuff that bugged me but I could never quite describe, like how people think of atheism as some broken remnant of christianity rather than a valid worldview on its own.

But there's one thing you've emphasized repeatedly that I just don't think I can agree with: the idea that other people being confidently convinced of their beliefs means that we should act less confident of ours. Yes, I recognize that most religious people are at least as confident in their faiths as I am in my non-belief. But people are confidently wrong all the time, about all kinds of stuff. When anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, climate change deniers, homeopaths, astrologers, or psychics are confidently wrong, we don't take it as a reminder to humble ourselves in the face of disagreement, especially when it comes time to make decisions based on the facts at issue. Sure, we usually don't preach about it to strangers, maybe we decide it's not worth losing a relationship over, maybe we don't bring it up at thanksgiving, but we don't throw our hands up and declare it a tie because both sides wrote down an answer.

Like, let's be clear, this is a question of fact, just like any pseudoscience or conspiracy theory. The supernatural does not exist. Humankind has spent the entirety of our species' history looking for it, we would all desperately like for any of it to be real, and if there was anything there to find, we would've found something by now.

So why does the fact that a lot of people are confidently wrong about that mean that the ones who aren't have to act less confident than everyone else?

It's not that we need to be "less confident" in our beliefs; I have seen people argue that you can't prove a negative or whatever, there's stuff we don't understand yet, so we can't actually claim atheism is Definitely Correct. and like. I fundamentally disagree with that, actually. it's not something I want to get in arguments on tumblr about (can you fucking imagine) but I think the logical conclusion of "you can't prove a negative" is not "therefore, anything you can't prove isn't true is equally as valid". it's that demanding people to prove a negative is unreasonable, and the onus of proof in fact falls on the people claiming a positive.

this is also how things work when someone on tumblr claims I'm a sex freak who hates women and is also a TERF: it's not my responsibility to prove that whatever unhinged accusations some rando on the internet comes up with aren't true. it's their responsibility to prove that they are.

but here's the thing: it's not about who's right, here. that doesn't actually matter.

there are two things you need to consider here:

1. How likely this person is to listen to you

2. Whether the thing they believe actually has a notable impact on anyone else.

Anti-vaxxers believe something that directly and adversely impacts other people. Climate change deniers also do. Flat-earthers conceivably could be harmless, but the roots and execution of that ideology lead to a lot of harmful, antisemitic conspiracy theories that do harm to real life people.

But like, I don't care if Cindy from class thinks astrology is real. I don't actually have to worry about that unless she starts trying to discriminate against people based on their star signs (looking at you, white queer 20-somethings looking for roommates in Seattle).

I don't care if my mom thinks teatree oil is gonna help her... idk, whatever she thinks teatree oil does. She also takes the meds she needs and sees a doctor about stuff, and the addition of teatree oil isn't hurting her. I worry even less about adult strangers making medical decisions for themselves; that's their business, and their choice. I'll take issue with it if they deprive anyone else of necessary medical care on that basis.

#1 is harder to consider, I think. A lot of us want it to be the case that others will listen to us, and a lot of us want to believe that if our arguments are good enough and we're good enough at it, we can get through to anyone.

That's a fantasy. A very silly, very egotistical fantasy likely to drive you to frustration, and ultimately to isolation. The fact of the matter is that it's rarely about you; people decide to listen or not, and there's nothing you can do about it if they decide not to listen. Pushing the issue doesn't change that.

When people accuse me of unhinged shit on tumblr, I don't take it upon myself to prove a negative. I might address those claims in some way, and remind people to get proof of the positive first, but only if it gets to be enough of an issue that I feel I need to. Ultimately, I know the people making those claims don't care, and aren't listening; the only reason I address them at all is if they have an adverse impact on me or others.

People who believe in things we don't believe exist... well, first, they often do believe they have proof. That's just not a basis you're gonna win an argument about that on. And, also, they have no intention of listening to you- and that's fine. As long as their beliefs aren't causing them to hurt others, nobody needs to worry about it. And if they do, we can worry about the impact and the things directly relating to it instead of trying to convince every religious person with flaws to just stop being religious.

Some atheists are assholes because of what they believe. That's not a fact we can ignore, either.

At the end of the day, the goal is just to share space with others. We don't need everyone to agree with us, we don't need everyone to believe the same things, and it's a good idea, in fact, to look at those other beliefs/religions/etc. and see value in them- the value they add to the lives of those who are a part of them, and the value they add to others' through those people.

At a certain point, it doesn't matter if something is Objectively True. Oftentimes we don't know, or can't know- but that doesn't matter either. The obsession with objective truth is very much a white Western one, and it's done a lot of harm to people- entire cultures, even.

You can't be an econ major looking at this through the lens of hard numbers; you need to factor in human life, compassion, and context. It's not about who's right; it's about being a good person.

#atheism

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basicsofislam · 5 months

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ISLAM 101: THE HOLY QUR’AN: Part 7

Why is the Qur’an in Arabic?; How can the Qur’an have a universal nature if it was revealed in Arabic?

The guidance from God comes through the Prophets and the Messengers; they brought with them the Book from God in the language of their people. The fact that the Qur’an was revealed in Arabic is clearly referred to in the following verses:

Alif. Lam. Ra. These are the Revelations of the Book clear in itself and clearly showing the truth. We send it down as a Qur'an (discourse) in Arabic so that you may reflect (on both its meaning and wording) and understand. (Yusuf 12:1-2)

We have sent no Messenger save with the tongue of his people, that he might make (the Message) clear to them. Then God leads whomever He wills astray, and He guides whomever He wills. He is the All-Glorious with irresistible might, the All-Wise. (Ibrahim 14:4)

This (Qur’an) is indeed the Book of the Lord of the worlds being sent down by Him (in parts). The Trustworthy Spirit brings it down on your heart, so that you may be one of the warners (entrusted with the Divine Revelation), in clear Arabic tongue. (Shu’ara 26:192-195)

The divine reason why God sent Messengers from among human beings and why He revealed His Books to them was to guide His servants to the right path via the same Messengers and Books.

God sent every Messenger to communicate in the language of his people.

Prophet Moses and Prophet Jesus, peace be upon them, appeared among the Jews, the Books sent to them were revealed in Hebrew. In the same way, God’s Messenger appeared among the Arabs as the last link of the chain of Prophets and was sent with God’s final Revelation to all humanity, which was in Arabic.

The Divine reason why the Qur’an was revealed in Arabic is that the people, to whom the Qur’an was initially addressed, would better understand God’s commands and prohibitions. If the Prophet had been sent revelations in different languages then his people would have been confused and would not have understood anything; they would have demanded an explanation.

Accordingly, one of the purposes of the Qur’an being revealed in Arabic is that the Arab community was expected to understand the perfection of the Qur’an which was clear evidence to its being a divine Revelation. It was revealed to the Prophet in his own language and therefore, they could not hide behind any excuses for not being able to understand the Book.

The fact that the Glorious Qur’an is in Arabic does not mean that it was revealed only for the Arabs. In the following verse, God Almighty calls on people to reflect on the fact that He never sent any Messenger but in the language of that Messenger’s people so that the message would be clear to them:

“We have sent no Messenger save with the tongue of his people, that he might make (the Message) clear to them. ” (Ibrahim 14:4).

This verse does not mean that the Message brought by Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, is not binding for all to whom it is conveyed.

God says in the Qur’an:

“We have not sent you but to all humankind as a bearer of glad tidings (of prosperity for faith and righteousness) and a warner (against the consequences of misguidance). But most of humankind do not know (this, nor do they appreciate what a great blessing it is for them)” (Seaba 34:28).

God’s Messenger said,

“Every prophet was sent to their people in their respective language. God Almighty has sent me to both the red-skinned and the dark-skinned from among His creatures.’’

In another tradition, he says:

“I have been granted five things which were granted to no one before me: God made me victorious with awe (He caused awe among my enemies) for a distance of one month’s journey. The earth has been made for me (and for my followers) as a place for the offering of prayers and as a thing for purification (to perform tayammum); therefore anyone of my community can perform the prayers wherever they are at the time of prayer. The gains of war have been made lawful to me yet it was not lawful to anyone else before me. I have been given the right of intercession (on the Day of Resurrection). Every Prophet was sent to his nation alone, but I have been sent to all of humanity.’’

It is quite clear that even a Book with a universal nature must perforce use of the words of one of the many languages in the world so that people can understand teachings of the Book and convey its messages to other people, especially to those who are not conversant with the original language.

This is the only way by which the Divine Message can become universally widespread.

The verse,

“We send it down as a Qur'an (discourse) in Arabic so that you may reflect (on both its meaning and wording) and understand” (Yusuf 12:1)

implies that the Revelation is sent in the language of the Arabs. The addressees of the Prophet at the time were unable to make any excuses or to say that they could not understand whether the message was true or not, as they did not understand the language.

The words, subject, style and language of the Qur’an are all clear and it cannot be alleged that it was written by the Prophet himself or by any other Arabic speaking person.

God did not send any Prophet to people with a message that was in a different language. He sent them all Revelations in the language of their communities. This is Sunnatullah, or practice of God.

Indeed, the fact that God sent every Messenger with a Book to their respective communities in their own languages so that the Prophets could easily communicate the religion to these communities and so that these communities could understand God’s commands and transmit them to others is one of God’s blessings. It is in this way that Almighty God made it easier for them to find and reach the truth.

Thus, all Messengers were sent with a Book in the language of their people so that they would be able to explain the message for which they were responsible. They were also reminded that those who know something have a duty to inform others and those who are present must inform those who are absent.

The mission of Prophets is to declare their Prophethood to their communities and to invite them to faith in God, whether they were sent to only a particular community or to other communities, or whether this is, as in the case of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, all of humanity and the jinn.

Such a duty is best fulfilled in the language that the community most easily understands. As in the verse,

“And (O Messenger) warn your nearest kinsfolk” (Shuara 26:214),

God’s Messenger is ordered to warn first his kith and kin. Starting from his close relatives, the Prophet delivers the divine Message to all of his community and, during the course of such a delivery, those who know Arabic can render the Message into the languages of other communities and thus convey the Message to them.

People with knowledge of more than one language thus have the honor of being messengers of the Messenger and heirs of the Prophet. In order to enjoy the same honor, other individuals also learn Arabic and the Message is conveyed widely from one language to another and from one community to another.

It should be noted that there must be other divine reasons for the revelation of the Qur’an in Arabic; some of these we can know, while others we cannot. One of these reasons may be that Arabic could be the most appropriate language in the human realm for Divine discourse. In the Qur’an, God Almighty described it as the “Arabic Qur’an,” thus making the Arabic language the vessel for His miraculous Book.

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girlactionfigure · 10 months

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Opinion: I was the most senior Islamic leader to visit Auschwitz. Here’s what I know about peace

Sheikh Mohammed Al-Issa

Ours was the most senior Islamic delegation to visit the site during its sorrowful history.

Passing through the infamous gates was a visceral, emotionally-arresting experience that managed to both transport me back in time and sharpen my mind on the future. For it was here that 1.1 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, were murdered during the Holocaust. And it was here that I reaffirmed my commitment to fight intolerance and hate in all its forms.

This visit was our moral obligation and an overdue sign of solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters, with whom we must tackle the many injustices and enmities there are in the world.

Indeed, all the world’s major faiths — Christian, Judaic, Hindu, Buddhist and Hindu — have at their core a commitment to peace and justice that starts with recognition of the struggles of our fellow travelers.

Now, on the cusp of the 78-year anniversary of the liberation of Majdanek (22-23 July, 1944), which was the first of the Nazi camps to be freed by the Allies, we must ask ourselves: does the truth of the Holocaust continue to set hearts and minds, once blinded by ignorance, fear and prejudice, free?

The honest answer is that while Muslim understanding of the Holocaust is important to bringing lasting peace to the Holy Lands, Holocaust ignorance and denial remains a worrisome trend that only worsens with the passage of time.

Trivializing the Holocaust, we know too well, opens pathways to denial and to antisemitism, which still persists in the world, for sure. But it is a cross-cultural, cross-ethnic, cross-national, cross-religion phenomena.

One poll, conducted earlier this year by the American Jewish Committee, found that only 53% of Americans over the age of 18 answered correctly that approximately six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, while 20% explicitly said they were not sure. In the poll, 2% said that less than one million were killed, 13% chose approximately three million, and 11% said more than 12 million.

The truth can set us free. And the truth of the Holocaust must continue to open our eyes to the horrors humankind is capable of inflicting — and help guide us to the truth of our common humanity and our shared destiny.

But we must live, practice, and teach this truth every day, to keep the shadow of lies and ignorance from again overtaking our world.

We can do this primarily through education and interfaith dialogue. There are ever more interfaith clubs and organizations sprouting across communities and college campuses, including the new Interfaith Research Lab at Columbia University, which I helped inaugurate with Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Rabbi Arthur Schneier.

We can also work to build bridges of peace between the diverse peoples of the world, and be a force for a new, faith-driven diplomacy that compliments the traditional efforts of governments to achieve peace.

This idea is already bearing fruit. Last year, The Muslim World League, together with Christian, Jewish, Shinto and other partners, took part in the G20 Summit of Nations in Bali, Indonesia as the “R20” (the Religion 20), an engagement group aiming to leverage the power of world religions to tackle pressing global challenges.

And just last month, we hosted a high-level interfaith summit of religious leaders and diplomats at United Nations Headquarters in New York, aimed at soothing over growing tensions between east and west.

These are not naïve exercises. Two historical facts are worth remembering. First, it was the Soviet Red Army – which was then allied with America and the West – that liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as Majdanek, in the 1940s.

Second, while the overwhelming number of victims of Nazi barbarity were Jews, among the murdered at Auschwitz were dozens of Muslims. The lessons here are clear. The clash of peoples is not inevitable. Good can defeat evil. And hate is an all-consuming pyre.

We all rise or fall together. And as we remember the liberation of Majdanek, that is the truth that shall set us free.

Opinion by Dr. Sheikh Mohammed Al-Issa

H/T Imam of Peace

#Auschwitz-Birkenau #Shoah #Arabs #Jews

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soracities · 2 months

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Stig Dagerman, "Do We Have Faith in Humankind?" (trans. Lo Dagerman & Max Levy) [ID'd]

#q #quotes #links #typography #stig dagerman #do we have faith in humankind #my eyes adjust to the dark but my heart never #m #x

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jay-avian · 7 months

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Finding True Inspiration

So I read this book for one of my creative writing classes called Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (I highly recommend for anyone wanting advice on writing) and I came across a chapter that was really helpful in terms of truly being inspired to write your pieces. The chapter starts out by saying:

"If you find that you start a number of stories or pieces that you don't ever bother finishing, that you lose interest or faith in them along the way, it may be that there is nothing at their center about which you care passionately."

I firstly felt very called out by this fact. But then I kept reading, and I understood. In this essay, I will try and explain what it means to write morally without being preachy.

Essentially what Lamott is saying is that everyone has some truth they must share, some core concepts in which you believe passionately and whole-heartedly. It is these concepts that drive a story. She's not of course saying to have some overall moral or message to your story. But characters in a book are in fact human, or at least have humanoid consciouses. Because of this, they are beautifully and wonderfully complex, just as humanity is.

You may want to write your stories because you got a cool worldbuilding idea or you want to use a cool character concept. You may want to include some really cool quotes you thought of in the shower or at 3am in bed. But as you write, "...what seems to happen almost organically is that you end up wanting your characters to act out the drama of humankind. Much of this drama does not involve witticisms and shimmer. Yet this drama is best couched in moral terms; the purpose of most great writing seems to be to reveal in an ethical light who we are." We inevitably make our characters into ourselves and those around us. As unrealistic as the world we throw them in may be, good characters should always provide a sense of grounding for the reader and a good foundation for the writer.

Why do we like the books that we do? What makes us drawn to certain characters? A good story is driven by good characters, this is a lesson I'm sure we've all been taught at some point in class or on the internet. But why is this? It is, in fact, because those characters are driven by much of the same things we are, "...they internalize some decency in the world... They let us see that there is in fact some sort of moral compass still at work here, and that we, too, could travel by this compass if we so choose." The plot only leads our characters together. And though they may find themselves lost, their compass still knows the way, unfaltering.

In my classes, we are taught the difference between "literary" works vs genre works. Literary works have some sort of lesson of life within them, while genre is very plot heavy and typically is predictable. I began resenting this esteemed view of literary and nonfiction is much better than genre, it means so much more. But of course, there are quite a number of genre works that can be considered literary: Lord of the Rings, Frankenstein, The Narnia Chronicles, Beowulf, to name a few notable ones. Some of the "classics" as they're called do have the intention of teaching some moral lesson. But this moral message doesn't have to always be a lesson; it's something you must care about passionately. We know that we live in a world of greedy dragons, we don't need reminders of this. Instead, tell us how we should live, how we should care. "A moral position is not a slogan, or wishful thinking. It doesn't come from outside or above. It begins inside the heart of a character and grows from there." Don't just write about the truth, write about your truth. Only then can you be truly attached to your writing. Only then can your readers be as in love with your story as you are.

(p.s. - I wrote this instead of actually writing an essay for school)

#writing advice #creative writing #writing tips #writing resources #writing motivation #writing community #writers of tumblr #anne lamott #bird by bird #tumblr essay

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weirdly-specific-but-ok · 4 months

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good omens mascot here: why i relate to crowley

Okay I know I've only watched the first season and there's a lot I don't know about season two But. I have a lot of feelings about Crowley and I'm trying to figure out why and this is what I've got. I'm sure at least some of you relate to some of these. I'm using he/him for him this post.

One. He's so disillusioned with almost everything (I say almost on purpose). Heaven? He lost faith in heaven when he fell, maybe before he fell, maybe he fell because he lost faith in it. He's so frustrated with Aziraphale's belief in the goodness of heaven, but he still respects that belief and even admires Aziraphale for it, only really showing how upset he is when Aziraphale lets that blind faith guide decisions. Crowley always says things that imply being an angel is a good trait, but that facade breaks when Aziraphale is fucking up, because he doesn't want Aziraphale to get hurt or this world to end. As for hell? He certainly doesn't have faith in hell, and doesn't belong in it. Mankind? Nope, he frequently points out how flawed and cruel humans are. Himself? Crowley doesn't have faith in himself, really, either.

And I relate to that feeling of... losing faith in all the things that are supposed to be Right and Good, like society and family, parents and friends, lovers and yourself, government and laws.

Two. I said almost, and that's because Aziraphale. He has such relentless faith in the fact that they are friends, they are best friends, they are lovers. 6000 years, and he keeps reading beneath the lines, continues to stand by Azi even when Aziraphale reminds him that he is a demon, that they are on opposing sides, that Aziraphale does not like him, that they are not friends, that Aziraphale couldn't care less about him. Crowley knows Aziraphale doesn't mean it, just like we know. And we're so used to seeing romances where one character says something they don't mean and the rift goes on forever and we get frustrated because idiots, he didn't mean it. But Crowley knows Aziraphale doesn't mean it. He doesn't stop saying they are best friends. That they are more. He calls out Aziraphale on his bullshit and points out that Aziraphale does love him. And he does it without pushing, just lines dropped over millennia, a reminder to Aziraphale that Crowley feels the same, that he knows, he understands. It's such a relentless, powerful optimism from a demon who has lost faith in everything else.

And I know how that feels, to believe in a love so strongly that you can take blow after blow to that belief and have it remain unshattered. To give gentle reminders that you see through the lies, and that you are there and you know they didn't want to hurt you.

Three. Another caveat, though. How much can that belief withstand? Yes, Crowley knows that Aziraphale is his lover and best friend. But how many doubts have crept in over those thousands of years? When Aziraphale said he didn't like Crowley, and the demon replied with you do, how much of it was posturing? When Crowley has been cast out from heaven and persecuted by hell, found no friends in humankind, it must have shattered his sense of self-worth. He calls Aziraphale his only friend, his best friend. Imagine your only friend repeatedly insisting you aren't friends. Yes, you know it is because to be friends is to put both of you in danger, that Aziraphale does not mean it and has shown time and again that he loves Crowley and that's why he's lying to protect him, but still. It must hurt. It must chip away at logic and rationality, bit by bit.

And I know how that feels, too, to begin to doubt that you are loved, because that objective knowledge that yes, you are loved gets broken and eroded by so many instances of being hurt, dismissed, ignored, betrayed.

Four. No one seems to be putting Crowley first. Not heaven, certainly, heaven threw him out millennia ago. As for hell, Satan and the demons only tolerate him, willing to kill him as soon as he betrays the slightest hint of goodness. Humans are too fleeting, gone before you can blink, and they have never paid any regard to the individual over the 'greater good', certainly not to a lonely demon who can't get close to them because they die too soon. And Aziraphale chooses heaven, chooses being good over Crowley every single time. Some of the time, he is right. But imagine being Crowley. Given the choice between salvation and Aziraphale, happiness and Aziraphale, anything and Aziraphale, he would choose Aziraphale. And he has to watch, time and again, as Aziraphale chooses other things over him, finally pulling back from the kiss and choosing the heaven he doesn't even like over what Crowley offers him. Crowley, as far as he can see, is no one's first choice, no one's first priority. It may not be true. But it does feel like that.

And that feeling is so real, to know that the people you would die for would not do the same for you. The people you put first wouldn't put you first. That you are giving knowing that you cannot take. It may be real, or it may not be, but the fact is it often looks that way to me and Crowley and a lot of us, and that hurts.

These aren't all, of course, there's the relentless questioning, the needing to be good, the needing to be bad, the horrible urges and battling them, the kinder impulses and figuring out how to fit them into an awful world, the consequences for being good, whether they are worth it, just everything about Crowley. But the four above I wanted to elaborate on.

I'm fucked, I love a fictional character again. Again, I might be wrong about a lot of things, so there's that. Aren't we all.

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bestworstcase · 4 months

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first paragraph of 'the shallow sea':

Long ago, before the fish had scales, before the birds had feathers, and before the turtles had shells, when our god still walked and crawled and slithered the earth, there were only Humans and animals. (And Grimm. There have always been Grimm. There will always be Grimm. But those creatures don’t figure in this story, so just put them out of your mind, if you can.)

last paragraph:

From that moment on, there have been animals, Humans, and Faunus. And the descendants of the Humans who turned away from our god’s great gift have always carried envy in their hearts. To this day, they resent us for reminding them of what they are not and what they never can be.

"only humans and animals (and grimm, but never mind them)" -> two more rhetorical "interruptions" bringing up the grimm specifically to instruct the listener not to think about them -> "now there are animals, humans, and faunus"

omitting the grimm from this paragraph—after the recurring references to them—is. an interesting thing to do given the parallelism of "humans and animals (and grimm)" / "animals and humans and faunus"

and then. "what they are not and what they never can be"

is such specific wording

"what they could never be." "what they never can be." the latter is a statement of pride in having chosen to change mingled with scorn for humans who refused to change and persecute the changed. the former…

"why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans" <- why spend our lives trying to appease the old gods and return things to the way they were before; why spend our lives resisting change.

"when we could replace them with what they could never be" <- salem has always been about overthrowing and replacing the gods, and she is also not human anymore; 'the shallow sea' is an allegory about the faunus but also it is just salem's story, a leap of faith into mystical waters that changed her into something new. and that myth is an ancient oral tradition. and in the lost fable, salem quotes its concluding lines to express her alternative path to the mandate

(which. would be in line with salem's manner of speech generally; as i've discussed before, her big speeches are rehearsed and she struggles to go off script. it makes…sense that she would fall back on quoting from an oral tradition like this in a tense moment, and in many ways 'the shallow sea' does challenge the brothers' perspective on humankind in ways that are cogent for her rejection of their mandate, so it also makes sense that salem would connect the dots)

at a minimum i think "what they never can be" signals that "what they could never be" is also not a statement of genocidal intent because… why would you end this faunus-origin myth with an almost identical phrase to salem's final words in her origin episode if she was proposing genocide, lmfao

especially when:

In the aftermath of the Great War, when Faunus settled on Menagerie, the story of a magical island made just for them has become tinged with bittersweet irony. Consequently, the story has fallen out of favor and I understand it is rarely spoken these days. This, too, influenced my to record it before it is lost to posterity.

Here I will remind you that this story—dare I say every story ever told—may still hold a kernel of truth, even if the plot details are contrived. Whatever the criticisms laid upon “The Shallow Sea,” in my opinion it still holds deep truths about Humans and Faunus that everyone should take the time to consider.

ozpin's annotations on all of these tales contain pretty fucking blatant foreshadowing, and his notes on this one flag that this myth is one of the stories that is "true" for a given value of truth. compare 'the two brothers':

Remnant survived the Great War, but while the four kingdoms now cooperate and coexist, our bond seems tenuous. We have a fragile peace, and in some ways, we are more divided than ever. Even if the gods aren’t real, even if they don’t return to judge us for our deeds, we should act each day as though they are arriving tomorrow. In the end, we will be the arbiters of our fates. We will either create a beautiful, peaceful world and live in harmony together or destroy ourselves and our planet, and the gods will judge what we have chosen.

(<- note that these and 'the hunter's children' are the only stories wherein ozpin mentions the great war; on 'the hunter's children' he "speculates" that the last king of vale based the four-huntsman teams idea on the fairytale, and his reason for invoking the specter of war after 'the two brothers' is obvious, but that leaves 'the shallow sea' as the odd one out… unless you associate the story with salem, and then ozpin's choice to emphasize that this particular story has fallen out of favor and is seldom told anymore is perhaps worth raising an eyebrow at.)

#thinking out loud here but like #this lives in my brain 24/7 #if 'the shallow sea' is salem's story and she's the god of animals--#how does that recontextualize her words in 'the lost fable'#… the lost fable. 'the shallow sea' is in danger of being lost because of the design ozma imposed upon the world after the great war. hm #throws this one onto the 'ozpin telling on himself' pile

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 8 months

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By: David Marchese

Published: Aug 25, 2023

For more than 50 years, Daniel C. Dennett has been right in the thick of some of humankind’s most meaningful arguments: the nature and function of consciousness and religion, the development and dangers of artificial intelligence and the relationship between science and philosophy, to name a few. For Dennett, an éminence grise of American philosophy who is nonetheless perhaps best known as one of the “four horsemen” of modern atheism alongside Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, there are no metaphysical mysteries at the heart of human existence, no magic nor God that makes us who we are. Instead, it’s science and Darwinian evolution all the way down. In his new memoir, “I’ve Been Thinking,” Dennett, a professor emeritus atTufts University and author of multiple books for popular audiences, traces the development of his worldview, which he is keen to point out is no less full of awe or gratitude than that of those more inclined to the supernatural. “I want people to see what a meaningful, happy life I’ve had with these beliefs,” says Dennett, who is 81. “I don’t need mystery.”

Right now it seems as if truth is in shambles, politics has become religion and the planet is screwed. What’s the most valuable contribution philosophers could be making given the state of the world? Well, let’s look at epistemology, the theory of knowledge. Eric Horvitz, the chief scientist at Microsoft, has talked about a “post-epistemic” world. That phrase, the mere fact that he could utter it, is extremely frightening. The presence of agreed-upon landmarks and sources of common knowledge — this is something we’ve taken for granted for a long time and can no longer take for granted. We have to work to try to restore it.

How? By highlighting the conditions under which knowledge is possible. This will look off track for a moment, but we’ll come around: Andrew Wiles proved Fermat’s last theorem.It was one of the great triumphs of mathematics in my lifetime. Why do we know that he did it? Don’t ask me to explain complex mathematics. It’s beyond me. What convinces me that he proved it is that the community of mathematicians of which he’s a part put it under scrutiny and said, “Yep, he’s got it.” That model of constructive and competitive interaction is the key to knowledge. I think we know that the most reliable path to truth is through communication of like-minded and disparate thinkers who devote serious time to trying to get the truth — and there’s no algorithm for that.

There’s a section in your book “Breaking the Spell” where you lament the postmodern idea that truth is relative. How do we decide which truths we should treat as objective and which we treat as subjective? I’m thinking of an area like personal identity, for example, where we hear phrases like, “This is my truth.” The idea of “my truth” is second-rate. The people who think that because this is their opinion, somehow it’s aggressive for others to criticize or reject them — that’s a self-defeating and pernicious attitude. The recommended response is: “We’d like to bring you into the conversation, but if you’re unable to consider arguments for and against your position, then we’ll consider you on the sidelines. You’re a spectator, not a participant.” You don’t get to play the faith card. That’s not how rational inquiry goes.

This is skipping around a little, but in the memoir you refer to the fervor around ChatGPT as a “bubble.” Why is it a bubble? There’s an idea here that I want to talk about: In the piece that I wrote for The Atlantic on counterfeit people, I mentioned that the great danger of GPT-3 and ChatGPTs and so forth is that they can reproduce. They’re memes. You don’t have to be alive to evolve. Viruses aren’t alive; boy, do they evolve. Things evolve because they can, and cultural evolution — memetic evolution — is a potent phenomenon. We don’t want to have censorship, but we want to have something like quarantine to prevent the spread of cultural variants that could destroy culture, destroy democracy. The economist Paul Seabright writes movingly about trust, and trust is a social phenomenon. Society depends on trust. Trust is now seriously endangered by the replicative power of A.I. and phony interactions. This is a grave danger. There’s a natural human tendency to think, If I can do it, I will do it, and not worry about whether I ought to. The A.I. community has altogether too many people who just see the potentiality and aren’t willing to think about risks and responsibility. I would like to throw a pail of cold water on their heads and say, “Wait a minute, it’s not cool to make easily copied devices that will manipulate people in ways that will destroy their trust.”

You’ve written about the idea that comprehension can come out of competence. Does that imply that there’s nothing stopping A.I., which we currently think of as more capable of competence rather than true comprehension, from becoming sentient? Yes, strong A.I. is possible in principle. There’s no magic. Many years ago, Giulio Giorello, wonderful philosopher of science and journalist in Milan, interviewed me, and the headline in the Corriere della Sera the next day was, “Sì, abbiamo un’anima. Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot”: “Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made of lots of tiny robots.”

What did you mean by “tiny robots”? Your brain, your whole body, is made of cells. Each cell is a living agent of its own. It has a sort of agenda: It’s trying to stay alive. It’s got to keep itself a supply of energy to keep going. It’s got a metabolism. It’s the descendant of a long ancestry of free-floating, living cells that had to fend for themselves, and they’ve all joined forces to make a multicellular body. Those are little robots. If you look inside them, how do they move? How do neurons reach out and grab other neurons and send signals to them? They’ve got trillions of motor proteins, and motor proteins are not alive. They’re macromolecules. They march along on these little highways on the brain, carrying things around. They’re porters. They carry the necessary materials to keep the cell going and to repair and to extend its dendrites, for instance. Motor proteins aren’t alive. Ribosomes aren’t alive. Life couldn’t exist without these little molecular machines — by the trillions — that are working in your body right now. Human life and human consciousness are made possible by these incredibly brilliant consortia of little robots.

We have a soul, but it’s made of tiny robots. There is no God. These are ideas of yours that I think a lot of people can rationally understand, but the gap between that rational understanding and their feelings involves too much ambivalence or ambiguity for them to accept. What is it about you that you can arrive at those conclusions and not feel adrift, while other people find those ideas too destabilizing to seriously entertain? Some people don’t want magic tricks explained to them. I’m not that person. When I see a magic trick, I want to see how it’s done. People want free will or consciousness, life itself, to be real magic. What I want to show people is, look, the magic of life as evolved, the magic of brains as evolving in between our own ears, that’s thrilling! It’s affirming. You don’t need miracles. You just need to understand the world the way it really is, and it’s unbelievably wonderful. We’re so lucky to be alive! The anxiety that people feel about giving up the traditional magical options, I take that very seriously. I can feel that anxiety. But the more I understood about the things I didn’t understand, the more the anxiety ebbed. The more the joy, the wondrousness came back. At the end of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea,” I have my little hymn to life and the universe. That’s my God — more wonderful than anything I could imagine in detail, but not magical.

Is it right that your sister is a minister? My older sister is the white sheep of the family. [Laughs.] She went to seminary and was ordained late in her life. She’s still alive. She was raised in the Congregational Church, which became part of what’s now the United Church of Christ, which is religion lite. If all religion were like that, all religion would be fantastic.

So how do you understand religious belief? No problem at all. More people believe in belief in God than believe in God. We should recognize it and recognize that people who believe in belief in God are sometimes very reluctant to consider that they might be wrong. What if I’m wrong? That’s a question I ask myself a lot. These people do not want to ask that question, and I understand why. They’re afraid of what they might discover. I want to give them an example of somebody who asks the question and is not struck down by lightning. I’m often quoted as saying, “There’s no polite way of telling people they’ve devoted their life to an illusion.” Actually, what I said was, “There’s no polite way of asking people to consider whether they’ve devoted their life to an illusion, but sometimes you have to ask it.”

There was something in your memoir that was conspicuous to me: You wrote about the late 1960s, when your pregnant wife had a bowel obstruction. Yeah, we lost the baby.

You describe it as “the saddest, loneliest, most terrifying” time of your life. Yes.

That occupies one paragraph of your memoir. Yes.

What is it indicative of about you — or your book — that a situation you described that way takes up such a small space in the recounting of your life? Look at the title of the book: “I’ve Been Thinking.” There are hundreds of pages of stories that I cut at various points from drafts because they were about my emotional life, my trials and so forth. This isn’t a tell-all book. I don’t talk about unrequited love, failed teenage crushes. There are mistakes I made or almost made that I don’t tell about. That’s just not what the book’s about.

But that brevity — I thought, is that showing something about you? I’m interested that you had that reaction. I bet you won’t be alone in that. We have two adopted children. I don’t talk about them much, but they are joys of our life. I’ll tell you a little story: Joe Weizenbaum was very avuncular with me when we met in 1973. I was teaching at Harvard, and he was writing “Computer Power and Human Reason.” He was sort of my Dutch uncle for a while, giving me advice. And one day I said to him: “You know, Joe, I have a strange worry. Our children are growing up in this house full of books and music and love. They’re having an ideal childhood in many ways, at least by my lights, and I’m afraid that when they get to be adults they’ll be soft as grapes. I don’t want to put troubles in their way, yet it worries me that I’m not giving them any troubles.” He said: “Don’t worry, Dan. They’ll make their own troubles.” And they did, both of them. I don’t talk about those. They’ve overcome the obstacles they created for themselves, and I don’t go into that either. But, boy, I spent as much time on that as I spent on my career as a philosopher.

The title of the book is “I’ve Been Thinking,” but don’t your feelings affect your thinking and the philosophical ideas you pursue? Oh, absolutely! It’s all — to use an old-fashioned term — driven by passion. The emotions rule. When I wrote the book with Matthew Hurley on humor, one of the great insights that Matthew gave me was that all control in human minds is via emotion. This is an important idea. Your laptop has an operating system. It’s dictatorial in how it runs things. It’s the traffic cop. In your brain, there’s no operating system in that sense — it’s all the turmoil of emotions. Happily, we have learned how to harness those emotions. That is to say, the emotions have learned how to harness one another. [Laughs.] But that “self” is at every level and all times driven by what we might call emotions and microemotions. Let’s see how I can put it: When you are choosing the words that come out of your mouth, slight subliminal differences in the emotional tone of one word over another, that’s what’s going to decide which word you use. If you’re in a pissy mood, you use one word. And if you’re in a happy mood, you use a different word. All of that is controlled by emotions.

Is it possible to be objective about the ways in which our emotions drive us? Very good question. There’s a conflict between objectivity and subjectivity here. You can’t objectively, calmly study in yourself the heights of sexual passion. If you try, you fail. Don’t try. You can think about it before or after. You can think about it in others. You can do heterophenomenology, but you can’t coldly study your own passions, because you need other passions to be in charge when you’re doing that. Only one set of agents can be in the driver’s seat at a time. A self is an individually evolved — I use the word “evolved” on purpose — variety of natural selection that trains up the emotional drivers in each of us and achieves a level of balance. It’s an entente. It’s a ruse of sorts that holds until it doesn’t. It’s a story we tell ourselves, but it’s a story guided by facts. It’s not just made up. We should agree with Richard Rorty and Jacques Derrida, because the ideal of objective truth in the sense of what Tom Nagel speaks about in “The View From Nowhere” — that’s a sort of ideal that is not achievable in any meaningful way. Absolute truth, off the table. But practical truth? That’s real, and that’s what we’re striving for. Rorty was the hero of a lot of postmodernists, and he seemed to be saying that there was no notion of truth, that it was all just conversation. I always resisted: No, no, there’s still a good notion of truth. It’s the notion of truth that you use when you say, “Is this a good map of the roads in the state?” We can get quite objective about that. [Laughs.] Rorty called that the vegetarian concept of truth. OK, let’s be vegetarians!

[ Archive: https://archive.vn/uTgJP ]

#Daniel Dennett #happy life #atheism #evolution #religion #religion is a mental illness

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albertfinch · 22 days

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DOING BUSINESS WITH GOD

As Believers who are seeking to advance His Kingdom we have the right and privilege to do business with God.

Why does we need us to do business with Him?

1. God has given mankind dominion over the earth. Therefore, we have the authority to release Him to work when we pray. God has never violated the free will that He gave humankind.

Psalm 8:4-8 says: "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen—even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas."

He does not violate the authority He has given us. To do so would be a violation of our free will. Understanding how Kingdom authority works is absolutely essential if you want to walk in the fullness of God's purpose for your life.

Why authority and dominion matter in our prayer closets: It matters because God has given dominion over the earth to men. Therefore, if we want Him to move on the earth, we must ask. History is full of stories of God moving when there was prayer. If we want God to move, we must pray.

PRAYER OPENS DOORS AND PROVIDES A WAY WHERE THERE SEEMS TO BE NO WAY

Father is so serious about our prayer assignment that He actually gave us the Helper to help us pray! The Holy Spirit of grace and supplication has several specific jobs, but one of them is to move through us in prayer. Romans 8:26-27 says: "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the Saints according to the will of God."

We have dominion over the earth. If we desire to see God move on the earth, we must pray.

God has always desired to converse and even reason with mankind. God desires the best for us now. Even if some things are stored up for the future, they can be pulled into the present by the prayer of faith.

PULL ON GOD THROUGH FAITH-FILLED PRAYERS

Then remember Moses, who interceded before God for the lives of the children of Israel. It was God's plan to wipe them out and raise up a new nation from the offspring of Moses. But Moses reasoned with God, and He changed His mind.

God's reasoning is the kind of reasoning that God encourages us to logically present His Word back to Him in prayer. Psalm 138:1-3, "I will praise You with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing praises to You. I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your loving kindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your Word above all Your name. In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul."

When we reason with God His way, we search out the deep things of His Word to discover His will for our lives individually and for the whole earth. Then, we go boldly before God's throne of grace as the kings over the earth that we are. From that position, we are to present our requests to Him with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving—based on His own Word. When we pray God's own Word back to Him, we have assurance that we will receive whatever we request.

1 John 5:14-15 tells us this: "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."

QUESTIONS TO ASK MYSELF:

Starting in 2024, will I set myself apart to seek Him morning, noon, and night?

Will I go boldly before His throne of grace, praying specific prayers with the expectation that He will answer me?

Will I accept the challenge to do business with God on purpose?

ALBERT FINCH MINISTRY

#calling #destiny #purpose #dominion #authority #power #prayer of faith

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littledigest · 2 years

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Asteroids indicating Activism and the Rebellious Spirit in your Birth Chart - PART 1

This will be separated into two parts since there are so many asteroids that have to do with the following:

Contributing to rebellion

Using your power to go against something bigger/tradition

Resilience as a stance

Drive and willpower

Intelligence and human advancement seen as a threat to others

Coming together as one group, power in numbers

Freedom, liberation

Justice

Sign of the times

Peace and Disharmony

PART 1 will focus on themes 1 - 5

21419, 1809, 126, 661, 897, 1181, h58, h13, h21, 175, 4921, 1589, 238, 5450

These asteroids could also point to a more negative manifestation: zealotry, extremism, etc.

GOING AGAINST:

Devience 21419

Deviance is where we stray away from accepted rules and standards

Prometheus 1809

Named after Prometheus, the Greek Titan god of fire

Defied the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humans = giving technology, knowledge, and civilization to humans

Champion of humankind, punished by the gods

Velleda 126

Named after Veleda, a Germanic priestess and prophet, who predicted success of the Batavian rebellion against the Romans

Cloelia 661

Named after Cloelia, a woman who was taken hostage as a peace treaty, but escaped from her camp and helped a group of Roman virgins escape too

Praised for her heroism and bravery

Lysistrata 897

An ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes about a woman who, with the help of other women, denied all men sex to end the Peloponnesian War.

Ends up being a battle of the sexes

Known for its themes of sexual relations in a male-dominated society

Lilith 1181, Waldemath Lilith h58, True Lilith h13, Natural Apogee Lilith h21

Lilith 1181 is named after Lili Boulanger, a French composer and the first female winner of the Prix de Rome [often used as an asteroid version of Lilith, a demon and the first wife of Adam, although Lili Boulanger sounds pretty cool too]

Was equal to Adam and refused to be subservient to him

Left Eden and the narrative of Lilith as succubus and baby stealer persists

Lilith was later reclaimed as a feminist icon

RESILIENCE & DRIVE:

Andromache 175

Named after Andromache in Greek mythology

Her name means man battler, fighter of men, man’s battle, or courage

Represents the suffering of women during the Trojan War

Her husband and son die during the war, leaving her alone; she is made into a concubine and then a slave

But she survives, remains faithful to her husband, and lives to old age

Volonté 4921

Named after Gian Maria Volonté, an Italian actor

Can be read as the french word volonté meaning will, willpower, wish, goodwill

Fanatica 1589

Named after Eva Perón or Evita, the First Lady of Argentina and an Argentine actress, politician, activist, and philanthropist

Can also be read as fanatic, fanaticism, extreme passion

INTELLIGENCE AND ADVANCEMENT AS A THREAT TO OTHERS:

Hypatia 238

Named after Hypatia, a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician in ancient Alexandria

Known for her intelligence, wisdom, and tolerance

Was murdered by a Christian mob and was made into a martyr for philosophy

Was later a symbol of Christian virtue in the Middle Ages

Sokrates 5450

Named after Socrates, a Greek philosopher and a founder of Western philosophy

Known for ethics and moral philosophy and was controversial in his time

Accused of impiety and corrupting the youth and was sentenced to death after a one-day trial

Refused help from followers and friends to escape prison

Read PART 2 here

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