But, of course, that is regression. All conservatives, to SOME degree, wish to slink back into the darkness and ignorance of history, the only factor that differs is by how MUCH time. I know Conservatives who want to regress back to a time when homosexuality was considered a mental illness… instead of moving forward down the path of human rights for all. Some wish to go back to Segregation and Jim Crow laws. Some wish to regress to before Women’s Suffrage… Hell, some are still pissed about the outcome of the Civil War. Others still think the country would be a better place if it were a Christian Theocracy, to be something like Europe during the Dark Ages.  At the far end of the spectrum are the truly Regressive and the most devout of their religion: we should return to Biblical values and cast off the sins and perdition of all modernity. Of course, they wont blatantly admit as much, but their arguments, legislation and actions reveal this to be true.

All Conservatives are actually Regressives. Its all just a matter of degree and how far back they wish to go.

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FROM: http://meaningwithoutgodproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/dungeons-and-dragons-vs-church.html

Is there any substantive difference between a weekly gathering of Dungeons and Dragons geeks and Church?

Let’s find out?

1. Does the weekly gathering involve getting together with close friends?
2. Is the weekly gathering facilitated by one member who guides the discussion?
3. Does the weekly gathering involve the use of a core group of dense and inscrutable books?
4. Do the inscrutable books require multiple guides, addenda, compendia, rulebooks and explanations and to facilitate understanding of the central books?
5. Do some members of the weekly gathering support an extremely literal interpretation of the core rulebooks while other members advocate a more liberal and lax understanding of their tenets?
6. Do the people in your gathering use arcane terms and strange sayings that an outsider would find odd?
7. Does the weekly gathering involve ‘serious’ and occasionally intense discussions of invisible and/or magical beings?
8. Do the people in your group pretend that they are involved in an epic struggle of good against evil?
9. Does the group’s epic struggle of good against evil involve magic and invisible beings, demons and spirits?
10. Do the people at your weekly gathering actually believe that the magical beings and epic struggle you discuss are real?

If you scored 9 out of 10, then your geekly gathering is called Dungeons and Dragons.

If you scored 10 out of 10 then your weekly gathering is called Church.

1. Wealthy people do not have your best interests at heart.

2. The well-to-do feel deserving of their riches and see no need to excuse themselves for having such material wealth—which  gives them a sense of being exceptional and entitled, disconnected from ordinary people.

3. The goal of the well-off is to keep their money and grow it.  You are not part of that formulation because you are not necessary to achieve their goal.

4. If you earn income that places you in the middle class or lower, you will not improve your circumstances by aligning yourself with the rich, including voting the way they may vote and thinking the way they think.

5. Although you may be told that “you, too, can be rich some day,” it most likely will not happen.  That is why the rich make up less than two percent of the U.S. population.

6. Fortune 500 companies have determined they can achieve their goals by using labor from all over the world.  In fact, they prefer to pay a fraction of what an American wage earner expects, so they employ workers in third-world countries.  Consequently, you are meaningless to them as a worker.

7. The economic system in America is designed to keep your wages and earnings adequate enough to buy the goods and services that corporations want you to. However, you will never earn sufficient money from your employer to rise into the top economic tiers.

8. If you support tax cuts for the rich because it’s only “fair,” no worry.  The wealthiest Americans, including corporations, have legions of accounting experts to rely on so they experience little or no tax burden anyway.  By the way, it’s the middle class which pays the bulk of income tax to the states and the federal government.

9. Since your time in the cradle, you’ve been trained to want the things corporations want you to desire.  Eventually, you may find that you cannot afford those items and you will feel badly about yourself—like a failure and a loser. You’re supposed to feel that way.

10. You’ve grown up with myths:  “American is the land of opportunity.”  “Anyone can make it in America.”  “There’s still something called ‘The American Dream.’”  It’s effective propaganda, but it has nothing to do with the real world and your real life.  Best option is to step over the bull**** and forge your own way.

“Sorry but I don’t really know what a biome is…”

This statement was made on an internet forum for a game that i’m currently playing…

Now, being a generally reasonable person, it seems to me that the first logical connection to make is that this person is:

A. Connected to the internet through a web browser.

B.  is able to operate said browser.

C. doesnt know the definition of a word, that he/she saw on the internet.

Given these parameters, my mind screams the obvious. ” WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING LOOKING IT UP?? YOU HAVE THE LARGEST REPOSITORY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, TO EVER EXIST, LITERALLY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS.”

You’re already ON the internet! Fucking go to Wikipedia. Go to Google. Fuck, go to Yahoo Answers, I don’t care. But do NOT helplessly, pathetically claim to not know something that someone is talking about. Take an extra 60 seconds, look it up and THEN respond with a useful or insightful answer. Now, if you don’t find anything, maybe the knowledge truly is that rare, or maybe the person misspelled it. Fair enough. But ‘Biome”?? Seriously? I learned about that word in 6th Grade, in Tennessee!

Its like starving to death because you can’t be arsed to lift the fork full of food all the way from the plate to your mouth. ITS RIGHT THERE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biome

http://www.dearcoketalk.com/post/407638687/on-christian-close-mindedness

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Hello Dear Coke Talk, I have been following you since before you created a seperate tumblr, and I enjoy the cut-throat advice and wisdom you provide, and the aid you have given me indirectly through this blog.

But, I have a question/comment for you. In some of your posts you speak very negatively of religion. You’ve touched on the close mindedness of Christians.

My question for you is this, isn’t kind of close minded to lump and entire group of people like that? I am a Christian, but I don’t think less of people based on their own religious beliefs or who they go to bed with at night.

I’m not trying to show you that every Christian has an open mind. You and I both know that a majority of people in the Christian faith are what you assume them to be. Heck, I even assume them to be close minded.

What I am getting at is that there are Christians out there who are open-minded. Not all of us are alike.

Sure. Not all of you are alike, but what every practicing Christian has in common is enough for me to lump you all together and think less of you.

I don’t have to respect your beliefs. Respect is earned, sweetie.

That’s not close minded of me, by the way. I’m educated in comparative religion. I have the Bible, the Qur’an, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Tao Te Ching all next to one another on one of my bookshelves. Can you say that?

I doubt you’ve even taken the time to critically examine your own religion’s sacred texts beyond whatever Sunday school fantasy-adventure ride you were strapped down for as a child. Even if you have, you still identify as a believer, and all that tells me is that you aren’t enough of a rational thinker to separate myth from reality.

Listen, I get that you’re asking me for a Christian hall pass. You want me to wink and nod and tell you that you’re one of the good ones because you don’t think less of me for my lifestyle. Well, no. It doesn’t work like that.

You’re not doing me any favors by not condemning me. That sentiment isn’t an expression of open-mindedness. It’s an expression of tolerance, and you know what? Fuck your tolerance. I don’t need it.

You have a holier-than-thou attitude. Literally. Do you understand how condescending it is to be tolerated by someone like you? I don’t owe you respect just because you smile and pretend to show me some.

Part of the problem here is that you’re missing the point about what it means to be open minded. As a Christian, you’ve co-opted a set of canned answers to life’s greatest mysteries. It’s bullshit.

You don’t know any more about the nature of the universe than I do. All you’ve done is surrendered your rational thought to an ancient cult in exchange for peace of mind. That is inherently close minded.

Right now, all you’ve got is the potential for an open mind. Start asking questions. Examine your religion with a critical mind. Stop fearing the unknowable. Open yourself up to all possibilities and never surrender your rational thought.

Hopefully, you’ll stop being afraid of the insignificance of your life and the inevitability of your death, and you won’t need an imaginary friend in the sky to tell you everything will be all right.

I remember, when i was 9-ish, that i had asked my mother what happened to babies that died… She responded that they automatically went to Heaven… within a day, i had reasoned out that the most moral thing a parent could do was to kill their babies as soon as possible, in order to assure their place in eternal Heaven, rather that let them grow up and, possibly, do things that would make them go to Hell. It would be irresponsible of a loving parent to take that kind of gamble with their child’s eternity.

The logic is as sound to me today as it was when i was a kid when i first thought of it. Its no big wonder that i made the conscious decision to be an atheist not much longer after that.

It is sad that this film, released 63 years ago, still has a message that needs to be repeated.

This is the United States of America. It is not about WE and THEY… its about US. We are ALL  minorities here.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~leonghw/Courses/cattywampus.html

Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.

When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?

Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been any such animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?

Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?

We should have figured it out, Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the every moment he was passing around the cattywampus skull (in truth, a cat’s), hadn’t he been telling us that no trace of the animal remained? He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn’t have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, and we still hadn’t been suspicious. The zeroes on our papers would be recorded in his grade book, he said. And they were.

Mr. Whitson said he hoped we would learn something from this experience. Teachers and textbooks are not infallable. In fact, no one is. He told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we ever thought he or the textbook was wrong.

Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. On day he told us that his Volkswagon was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn’t let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.

We carried our brand-new skepticism into all our classes. This caused problems for the other teachers, who weren’t used to being challenged. Our history teacher would be lecturing about something, and then there would be clearings of the throat and someone would say “cattywampus.”

If I’m ever asked to propose a solution to the problems in our schools, it will be Mr. Whitson. I haven’t made any great scientific discoveries, but Mr. Whitson’s class gave me and my classmates something just as important: the courage to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong. He also showed us that you can have fun doing it.

Not everyone sees the value in this. I once told an elementary school teacher about Mr. Whitson. The teacher was appalled. “He shouldn’t have tricked you like that,” he said. I looked that teacher right in the eye and told him that he was wrong.

I think it would be fair to have my voice heard, so I will make a few points on this issue.
1) I would like to start by saying this. I feel insulted by these pictures that people are posting, but I don’t think anyone should lose their life over this, that is extreme and ridiculous.
2) Please understand free speech. You absolutely have the right to say whatever you want, no one is stopping you. But, would you call a black person a n*gger to their face? Would you insult someone’s mother if you knew that she had just passed away? You have every right to do so, but you should have enough respect and class as a person not to. And if free speech really is the issue, then why aren’t you in an uproar that the word “fuck” is not allowed on TV. It’s the same principle right?
3) This is not satire, this is an insult. Muslims have been made fun of before. Even on South Park and team america ( remember “burka burka muhammad jihad” http://www.viddler.com/explore/thepurplepixel/videos/1/ ). No one was in an uproar over that stuff. This is a different level of insult.
4) The worst sin in Islam is to believe in idols, or associating partners with God. The reason we don’t have pictures of Muhammad is because the fear is that we would begin to worship him, or associate him as a partner with God (as the Christians did with Jesus).
5) Whether or not you believe in religion or God is not the point, the point is that you should not insult someone’s beliefs. If something means so much to so many people then it is a pretty douchey thing to just shit on it because you can.
6) I despise radicals and extremists as much as you.
7) Thanks for your time and consideration, sorry for any spelling or grammatical errors.

What is better… to be offended or to not be offended?
It is my opinion that it is better to not be offended.

How does one be not offended? One way is to never hear or see that which offends you. Unfortunately, this requires that the entire world beyond your head conform to what you happen to be concerned with. This is the most difficult, arrogant, selfish and freedom-destroying way to succeed at your goal.

Another way to not be offended is to no longer BE offended by what once offended you. Do you know that some black people, as a term of familiarity, call each other nigger (or ‘nigga’)? Or that some Christians say “God damn it!” as an expletive? This is taking what once offended you and forcing ownership of it.

If you are unable to see an image of Mohammad without worshiping it, then the fault lies not with the image (or the person who created it) but with YOURSELF for not being mature enough to handle such a mundane circumstance.

Of course, the same argument can, and should, be used for the burka. If you (as a Muslim man) cannot control your base, animalistic sexual nature on the mere viewing of a woman’s skin or hair, the fault lies not with the nature of the woman for having skin and hair, but with YOU for being unable to control yourself.

We KNOW that it is possible (and perhaps common) to not be offended when seeing an image of what one believes the Savior to be: Christians, Jews, etc do it all the time, all over the world.
We KNOW that it is possible to view a scantily-clad woman (or even a nude one) without being overcome by the urge to rape her: Billions of men do it all day, every day, all over the world.

The fault of your offended-ness is your own. You’re CHOOSING to be offended. Your actions, your beliefs, and your emotional state are largely under your own, sovereign control. With freedom comes responsibility. The Freedom of Speech has no corollary that you are Free from Being Offended.

I’m aware that what I’m suggesting is ‘unfair’. The fact that it, and the very nature of the world that we live in, is fundamentally ‘unfair’, in no way negates the truth or reality of it. I am suggesting that, instead of the world conforming down to your tastes, that you grow, adapt and evolve. It IS unfair that we must make concessions to the rest of reality… however, it is an inescapable fact that, while i find it unfair, that birds may fly under their own power and i cannot, i do not demand that all birds cease their flying in order to keep me from being offended by their blithe disregard for my predicament.

Instead, I accept truth, I accept reality, and i alter myself in light of it. Instead declaring a fatwa on birds flying (or people drawing pictures that i don’t like or women wearing blue jeans), i construct a hot air balloon to join them in my own way.

Perhaps Islam will mature and will lose the adolescent insecurity that has plagued it for the last few generations. There is room for any belief system that allows for other belief systems.