Florida sucks - Florida sucks bigtime. If their neck and neck race with TX to execute the most persons found guilty of capital crimes weren't enough, their lack of any protections whatever, for queers who have the misfortune of being trapped in their healthcare system is. Or for that matter their attitude about gays and adoption...Hmm - pretty much anything they have to do with gay rights, I should say - because there are few states that treat GLBTs worse than fucking Florida.
But seriously, if you happen to be gay and there is even a slim chance you might fall deathly ill, do not vacation in or wander through Florida.
Thanks Greg...
Showing posts with label Fucking Shit Eating Bastards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fucking Shit Eating Bastards. Show all posts
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
My Experience With Universal Healthcare
I have been without health insurance for most of my adult life. The time I actually had insurance, it was the really shitty, rather expensive kind that blue collar workers tend to get - high deductibles, high premiums that are hard to manage and a hell of a lot of exclusions.
Without insurance, I have been relegated to having the stoned hippie who lived with me at one point, stitch the hole in my arm left by an ex-lover (who it turned out was married) and my 22 pistol. Without insurance, I have learned to give myself stitches and (as the lovely Juniper discovered) have become a very good hand with butterfly insta-sutures - even one handed, because the wound is on my other arm. Without insurance, I once bought cocaine on the street as a numbing agent, so a friend could drill a cavity that I packed myself - thankfully another friend is a solid hand with a needle in the gums. Without insurance, I have a small chunk of my left elbow bone floating about under the skin - thankfully it only hurts when I bang it just right. Without insurance, I have learned to manage sprains and minor fractures - I learned from the best as a rather "active" child, to manage splints and immobilizing bandages. Without insurance, I became pretty adept with herbal medicine - I can make tinctures, extracts and even a few isolates, all day long. Lets hear it for medicine as it was practiced 150 years ago.
But there have been plenty of times when I was afflicted with something or another, that simply couldn't be left to home healthcare. For those, I had to turn to the U.S. version of universal health care - the emergency room. Let me just take this moment to thank those of you who have been paying for or who have expensive insurance paying for the programs that cut thousands off of the hospital bills - not because I asked them to, but because they wouldn't treat me if I didn't sign the papers that allow them to cover the cost out of special funds that many hospitals have for people who can't pay. They have to pay the staff somehow - and that is the how. It comes out of funds that everyone who can pay, is paying into. The best you can do, is make donations later, to that fund - because you don't even get the bill. Which is to say that you get billed, but that is for the actual bed cost and sometimes for tests they have to run.
I have been in ERs a lot. I have been there when I was injured or seriously ill on my own. I have been there when I have been injured on the job. I have been there when my eldest had a temp of 104.3 and rising when he managed to get the damned thermometer out of his mouth (at eleven thirty pm - almost two am). I have been there when he gashed his head - I wasn't home when he gashed his leg. Something I have noted - the ER is pretty much always crowded - though thankfully, when we were there in the middle of the night with a high fever, we were in a children's ER waiting area that was quiet. And they aren't full with people who have serious emergencies, few enough with even urgent care needs. They are full with people who are sick or injured, who if they had a doctor, if they had insurance, could see their primary care provider. But they don't have those things and are thus relegated to the only provider they can get - the ER.
And most of them are in one of two positions - they make little enough, that they qualify for one of those programs I was talking about, or they make a little too much and just won't be able to pay for any of it. I have been in both categories and I have sometimes been able to pay some - mostly I have come to accept that for the time being, I am going to have horrible credit. But that is besides the point - the bottom line is that those who can afford to pay, are paying for those visits. Taxpayers are also paying for those visits. And to make this a really big "what the fuck?!?!" Many of those people have fucking health insurance - they just don't have enough - don't have enough to cover five hundred dollar annual deductibles. Don't have enough to cover half the cost of the primary care physician visit. Don't have enough to cover the cost of the script the doc will write them and know the hospital pharmacy will fill it for free.
I am that strange sort of introvert - the kind who is capable of sitting down and having a conversation with a whole lot of different sorts of people - as long as the conversation is only with one or two other people...I have talked to a lot of people in ERs and there are all sorts there. Including people like Beatrix, from a couple of posts ago - people with preexisting conditions, who simply can't buy insurance, can't, because no one will sell them any, at any cost. Some of them can pay their bills - at least over time, many of them can't - many of them are just giving up and going on disability, because that is the only way they can actually get healthcare. It's not that they flat out can't work - it's that if they do, they lose their medicaid. So they end up living in poverty, at taxpayer expense - when they could actually work, if someone would let them and not take away their healthcare.
Our current government is about as disgusting as can be. Unlike the other republicrats, they were hired in part, because Americans want publicly funded healthcare options. 60% of republicans polled, want UHC. Substantially more democrats want UHC. And we have a democrat majority - virtually a supermajority. So what the fuck is going on? As Stephanie mentions, the only motherfuckers who don't want public options, are the insurance lobby, the corporate media and the fucking assholes we hired to bring us fucking healthcare...
Without insurance, I have been relegated to having the stoned hippie who lived with me at one point, stitch the hole in my arm left by an ex-lover (who it turned out was married) and my 22 pistol. Without insurance, I have learned to give myself stitches and (as the lovely Juniper discovered) have become a very good hand with butterfly insta-sutures - even one handed, because the wound is on my other arm. Without insurance, I once bought cocaine on the street as a numbing agent, so a friend could drill a cavity that I packed myself - thankfully another friend is a solid hand with a needle in the gums. Without insurance, I have a small chunk of my left elbow bone floating about under the skin - thankfully it only hurts when I bang it just right. Without insurance, I have learned to manage sprains and minor fractures - I learned from the best as a rather "active" child, to manage splints and immobilizing bandages. Without insurance, I became pretty adept with herbal medicine - I can make tinctures, extracts and even a few isolates, all day long. Lets hear it for medicine as it was practiced 150 years ago.
But there have been plenty of times when I was afflicted with something or another, that simply couldn't be left to home healthcare. For those, I had to turn to the U.S. version of universal health care - the emergency room. Let me just take this moment to thank those of you who have been paying for or who have expensive insurance paying for the programs that cut thousands off of the hospital bills - not because I asked them to, but because they wouldn't treat me if I didn't sign the papers that allow them to cover the cost out of special funds that many hospitals have for people who can't pay. They have to pay the staff somehow - and that is the how. It comes out of funds that everyone who can pay, is paying into. The best you can do, is make donations later, to that fund - because you don't even get the bill. Which is to say that you get billed, but that is for the actual bed cost and sometimes for tests they have to run.
I have been in ERs a lot. I have been there when I was injured or seriously ill on my own. I have been there when I have been injured on the job. I have been there when my eldest had a temp of 104.3 and rising when he managed to get the damned thermometer out of his mouth (at eleven thirty pm - almost two am). I have been there when he gashed his head - I wasn't home when he gashed his leg. Something I have noted - the ER is pretty much always crowded - though thankfully, when we were there in the middle of the night with a high fever, we were in a children's ER waiting area that was quiet. And they aren't full with people who have serious emergencies, few enough with even urgent care needs. They are full with people who are sick or injured, who if they had a doctor, if they had insurance, could see their primary care provider. But they don't have those things and are thus relegated to the only provider they can get - the ER.
And most of them are in one of two positions - they make little enough, that they qualify for one of those programs I was talking about, or they make a little too much and just won't be able to pay for any of it. I have been in both categories and I have sometimes been able to pay some - mostly I have come to accept that for the time being, I am going to have horrible credit. But that is besides the point - the bottom line is that those who can afford to pay, are paying for those visits. Taxpayers are also paying for those visits. And to make this a really big "what the fuck?!?!" Many of those people have fucking health insurance - they just don't have enough - don't have enough to cover five hundred dollar annual deductibles. Don't have enough to cover half the cost of the primary care physician visit. Don't have enough to cover the cost of the script the doc will write them and know the hospital pharmacy will fill it for free.
I am that strange sort of introvert - the kind who is capable of sitting down and having a conversation with a whole lot of different sorts of people - as long as the conversation is only with one or two other people...I have talked to a lot of people in ERs and there are all sorts there. Including people like Beatrix, from a couple of posts ago - people with preexisting conditions, who simply can't buy insurance, can't, because no one will sell them any, at any cost. Some of them can pay their bills - at least over time, many of them can't - many of them are just giving up and going on disability, because that is the only way they can actually get healthcare. It's not that they flat out can't work - it's that if they do, they lose their medicaid. So they end up living in poverty, at taxpayer expense - when they could actually work, if someone would let them and not take away their healthcare.
Our current government is about as disgusting as can be. Unlike the other republicrats, they were hired in part, because Americans want publicly funded healthcare options. 60% of republicans polled, want UHC. Substantially more democrats want UHC. And we have a democrat majority - virtually a supermajority. So what the fuck is going on? As Stephanie mentions, the only motherfuckers who don't want public options, are the insurance lobby, the corporate media and the fucking assholes we hired to bring us fucking healthcare...
Never Go For The Lowball
I am currently busy with the roof of the matriarch of one of my closest friend's family. It was roofed less than five fucking years ago and has had problems ever since - problems that have gotten increasingly worse. I have finally gotten around to taking it apart - days before my fall semester starts - and what I have found is verging on fucking criminal. These assholes made mistakes on this roof that were obvious enough, that I doubt a single reader of this blog would not have recognized them as major fuckups.
If you get a bid for work on your home - especially the roof, electric or plumbing, that is more than fifteen to twenty percent lower than the next lowest bid (assuming the next was from a yellow pages, licensed contractor - most states require the license number on any adverts) don't go there. Do not get excited at the notion of saving big money, because when you have to hire someone else to come along and fix everything that got fucked up (or in the case of electric, burned up) you are going to lose those savings and some. It is expensive to get that shit taken care of later - so just don't fucking do it.
At the very least, someone working for that much less is not carrying insurance. There is simply no way that someone can actually charge that little and be covering necessary overhead. In some states an exception might be a licensed handyperson, but if you are talking about a relatively large job, that work won't be covered by the handyperson's insurance - though again, there are some exceptions. But, even as someone who used to work as a handyperson, it is just not worth the risk. I hate to say it, because I was perfectly capable of jobs that I took on - I did what my clients wanted and at a reasonable price. But in that, I was exceptional. For every one of the people like me out there, there are a few dozen who are just going to fuck your shit up...
Sorry it has to be like that, but that is reality.
If you get a bid for work on your home - especially the roof, electric or plumbing, that is more than fifteen to twenty percent lower than the next lowest bid (assuming the next was from a yellow pages, licensed contractor - most states require the license number on any adverts) don't go there. Do not get excited at the notion of saving big money, because when you have to hire someone else to come along and fix everything that got fucked up (or in the case of electric, burned up) you are going to lose those savings and some. It is expensive to get that shit taken care of later - so just don't fucking do it.
At the very least, someone working for that much less is not carrying insurance. There is simply no way that someone can actually charge that little and be covering necessary overhead. In some states an exception might be a licensed handyperson, but if you are talking about a relatively large job, that work won't be covered by the handyperson's insurance - though again, there are some exceptions. But, even as someone who used to work as a handyperson, it is just not worth the risk. I hate to say it, because I was perfectly capable of jobs that I took on - I did what my clients wanted and at a reasonable price. But in that, I was exceptional. For every one of the people like me out there, there are a few dozen who are just going to fuck your shit up...
Sorry it has to be like that, but that is reality.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
I haven't said anything about health care for a reason...
If I were to express my feelings, the language use would be offensive even to my fucking standards. Thankfully, there are others who are able to express their feelings about this better than I would. And here is just one of the many people denied health insurance for preexisting conditions. Here is one of those "irresponsible" people who many would have you believe just doesn't deserve access to health care.
(Stephanie has an especial lot of posts and links)
As Greg puts it, makes me want to go out and slug the first motherfucker who goes on a tare about universal health care.
(Stephanie has an especial lot of posts and links)
As Greg puts it, makes me want to go out and slug the first motherfucker who goes on a tare about universal health care.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Of Fish Hatcheries, French Fries and Butterflies
People and their fucking sense of entitlement is such an ass-sucking pain sometimes. People and their ways of fucking up their children for the rest of society to deal with is becoming an increasing pet peeve of mine.
The other day the wonderful Juniper and I were at the Kalamazoo Nature Center, where we witnessed a horrible example of parenting with her female spawn. She was in the process of giving the rest of us two young girls who don't believe that the rules apply to them. They were capturing butterflies, you see, as well as picking bits of flowers so they could smell them closer.
Contrast this with my upbringing at the KNC, where I was taught that if it is alive, we leave it alone and if it is dead, we put it back where we found it when we are done checking it out. This was not a polite suggestion, this was the rule if we wanted to be welcome back to the KNC. And given the amount of time I spent there as a child, not being welcome would have been traumatic to say the least.
Now we just returned from a jaunt to the Wolf Lake Fish Hatchery. The interpretive center is closed on Fridays at the moment, due to funding issues - which apparently means they can't leave the fucking fish food vending machine out by the show pond. This did not deter one pathetic excuse for a family from deciding to feed the fish, they just ran back to the car (or waddled, such as it was) to grab some leftover McDonald's fries. Never mind the big, bold sign on the end of the dock that admonishes people not to throw that kind of stuff to the fish - these people are above the fucking rules and we can thank them for teaching their children to be as well.
And let's not forget our run to South Haven yesterday, to visit Lake Michigan. It was no longer particularly stormy when we got there (a bummer actually, as storms off the lake are fucking awesome), but the waves were pretty intense. Suicide to be on the water like that - but that didn't stop a couple folks from letting their small children out into the waves. Thankfully we weren't around to see any of them drown - possibly none of them did. But if they didn't, it was not thanks to their braindead motherfucking parents.
At least I didn't have my kids with me for this shit. Because nothing says fun like explaining to your own children that we aren't going to do this or that, only to see other children doing these things that are impolite or just plain fucking wrong. My boys are used to watching other children do things they aren't allowed to and eldest actually remembers observing a few situations over the years, wherein a child or more provided him with a great example of why papa said no. But even those memories don't always compensate for the lack of a chance to do what they really wanted to do. But they are my boys and I will be damned if I am going to raise them that badly. I am far from the worlds best papa - I am a pretty good fuck up at times, but I will be totally fucked if my boys are going to grow up as completely fucked as all that.
The other day the wonderful Juniper and I were at the Kalamazoo Nature Center, where we witnessed a horrible example of parenting with her female spawn. She was in the process of giving the rest of us two young girls who don't believe that the rules apply to them. They were capturing butterflies, you see, as well as picking bits of flowers so they could smell them closer.
Contrast this with my upbringing at the KNC, where I was taught that if it is alive, we leave it alone and if it is dead, we put it back where we found it when we are done checking it out. This was not a polite suggestion, this was the rule if we wanted to be welcome back to the KNC. And given the amount of time I spent there as a child, not being welcome would have been traumatic to say the least.
Now we just returned from a jaunt to the Wolf Lake Fish Hatchery. The interpretive center is closed on Fridays at the moment, due to funding issues - which apparently means they can't leave the fucking fish food vending machine out by the show pond. This did not deter one pathetic excuse for a family from deciding to feed the fish, they just ran back to the car (or waddled, such as it was) to grab some leftover McDonald's fries. Never mind the big, bold sign on the end of the dock that admonishes people not to throw that kind of stuff to the fish - these people are above the fucking rules and we can thank them for teaching their children to be as well.
And let's not forget our run to South Haven yesterday, to visit Lake Michigan. It was no longer particularly stormy when we got there (a bummer actually, as storms off the lake are fucking awesome), but the waves were pretty intense. Suicide to be on the water like that - but that didn't stop a couple folks from letting their small children out into the waves. Thankfully we weren't around to see any of them drown - possibly none of them did. But if they didn't, it was not thanks to their braindead motherfucking parents.
At least I didn't have my kids with me for this shit. Because nothing says fun like explaining to your own children that we aren't going to do this or that, only to see other children doing these things that are impolite or just plain fucking wrong. My boys are used to watching other children do things they aren't allowed to and eldest actually remembers observing a few situations over the years, wherein a child or more provided him with a great example of why papa said no. But even those memories don't always compensate for the lack of a chance to do what they really wanted to do. But they are my boys and I will be damned if I am going to raise them that badly. I am far from the worlds best papa - I am a pretty good fuck up at times, but I will be totally fucked if my boys are going to grow up as completely fucked as all that.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Creationist Tactics of the Puritanical "Feminist" Movement
Renegade Evolution has a post up about one Donna Hughes, a puritanical "feminist" who's tirades would be right at home with those of Don Wildmon (AFA), James Dobson (Focus on the Family) and Beverly LeHaye (Concerned Women for America). Apparently Donna is taking even more cues from the religious right, using the same quotemining and mischaracterizations creationists are so very fond of. I am not going to spend the time debunking, when Renegade has done such a grand job. I am just going to reiterate a point that I have made here before and several times in meatspace - including to the faces of more than one puritanical "feminist."
When you are pushing repressive, anti-sex bullshit, you are sucking far more patriarchal cock, than those who do it for cash. So who exactly is the whore here?
Please check out her post and share it with your friends... (ht, Lou FCD)
And while we're on the topic of sexual repression, let me post a little tidbit that was sent to me by someone who shall remain nameless (unless s/he chooses to reveal)... Apparently, this does not totally get viewed on my page - clicking on it will reveal the climax...
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
When you are pushing repressive, anti-sex bullshit, you are sucking far more patriarchal cock, than those who do it for cash. So who exactly is the whore here?
Please check out her post and share it with your friends... (ht, Lou FCD)
And while we're on the topic of sexual repression, let me post a little tidbit that was sent to me by someone who shall remain nameless (unless s/he chooses to reveal)... Apparently, this does not totally get viewed on my page - clicking on it will reveal the climax...
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Christian Logic: Why I Don't Love My Boys...
Sometimes people wonder why I am so very fucking angry about theism and it's pervasive influence on our culture - and most other cultures for that matter... My very favorite neighbor to the north (you know, one of those Canuckistanians) recently got into a little tangle with someone who is a picture perfect example of where this anger comes from. After that aforementioned tangle with Jason, the cowardly fucking Christian decided to write an offensive piece of garbage about that encounter.
Well Denny, that would be because it is a fucking hateful thing to claim. Hateful and strikingly ignorant. But Denny's ignorance doesn't stop there...
I don't reject any god, I also don't accept the conception of gods - Denny and I are operating on separate paradigms. But let's explore this logic for a moment, with the assumption that Denny's god is real and described accurately in the Christian bible...Denny's god demands - or at least used to, before Christ, that parents stone children who don't respect their parent's authority. While it can be argued that said god changed it's mind later on, there is no denying that the god Denny worships used to demand that parents kill their children for misbehaving. On the other hand, when you strike past Denny's stunning ignorance of neurobiology, you would find that there is highly unlikely that an atheist, or anyone else for that matter, is going to go through a neurochemical shift that would suddenly cause them to stop loving their children. It can happen, but when it happens, it happens at the result of a pathological imbalance - what we would call mental illness. And this is not something that Christians are immune to - such neuropathology can happen to anyone with a fucking brain.
Now you can go take a look at the rest, I am not going to keep going through this line, by line. But if you want to comment on it, don't bother doing so there - the comment likely won't get posted, no matter how reasoned and polite you might be. Indeed, I took Denny on his face and made a comment in good faith, which I will post in a moment - a comment that he chose to respond to in email, apparently thinking that posting it to his blog would be a bad idea.
I gave up nothing for my emotions - my emotions had nothing to do with my becoming an atheist, except in so far as they actively prevented me from becoming an atheist a great deal sooner. I am an atheist because I finally lost the battle of attrition, wherein my religious brainwashing was fighting to reconcile my Faith, with reason and reality. But I love the implication that I am somehow lying about who and what I am, and why...
First of all Denny, I reject the god paradigm that your abysmally fucking stupid statement was based on. Your premise fails on it's face right then and there. Secondly, I would like to point out that this is a logical fallacy. Even if we were to give that atheism is predicated on some claim of truth, it would not stand to reason that said truth implies anything unchanging, beyond our reality. The only way that this would stand, is if we accept as an absolute, the existence of a supernatural that there simply isn't any evidence for. And finally, I am not an atheist because I believe there isn't a god or any sort of supernatural. I am an atheist, because I have not seen evidence to indicate the existence of either. I don't <i>believe</i> anyfuckingthing...I accept that there may be a supernatural, I just don't see evidence to suggest it. I even accept that there may be a godlike higher power - again, I just don't see evidence for it. Still further, I accept that there may be a interventionist, godlike higher power - just not the evidence. Finally, I even accept the possibility, no matter how slim, that <i>your</i> version of god is real. The thing is, without evidence to suggest that any of these are true, I reject the premises. And in the order I listed them, I go from finding these premises exceedingly unlikely, to being about as likely as the premise that The FSM is coming to save us and guide us into a beautiful reality of peace and piracy.
A fucking moron says what? Seriously Denny, you need some help - please do me a favor and spend a little time on elementary logic... You are doing a hell of a job of showing just how fucking bereft our educational system is...
And for the record, logic and this silly notion of <i>evidence</i> based reason are not tools of Satan, created to drive man from god. Least ways, I give that notion less credence, than I give the notion that your version of god is real. We'll skip over the next couple of paragraphs, because once you ground yourself in elementary logic, you will see that it is just more of the same fucking bullshit.
Fuck you. Seriously you fucking shit eating little bastard - Fuck You!
Now I am almost inclined to just leave it at that and be done with your sorry fucking ass, but I want to clarify something you asked to clarify, because one, I am honest and two, it will provide you with a short lesson in logic. In your second email you asked...
For the question you asked, no. I don't think that faith or lack thereof has anyfuckingthing to do with one's capacity for love. I do not think that becoming an atheist made it possible for me to suddenly love that much more deeply. I would suspect that Faith was running some interference before, but the truth is, after becoming an atheist, I also got help for my neurological issues. I also became more focused on metacognition and better understanding myself. It also makes a huge difference, that I have now met a women whom I love quite passionately and with a depth I previously assumed was simply not possible for me to feel.
People, especially men, are perfectly capable of not recognizing. ignoring and even suppressing emotions. Humans have that capacity to compartmentalize that I talked about in my comment that you are afraid to post to your blog. Because of that capacity, we are perfectly capable of never even realizing how we really feel about things, people and ideas. We can repress memories and desires, without ever realizing what we've done. It is mostly just coincidence, that I have broken through some seriously damaging compartmentalization since becoming an atheist.
But I really want to hit on this fucking ridiculous notion you have about neurochemistry and love. It is not some singular chemical that we can just take "hits" of, to feel something more or less. It is a complex interaction of neurotransmitters and the "hardware" of our brains. We're all different, because our brains are all different. Our specific, individual brain chemistry is easily as unique and far more complicated than our fingerprints. This is what prevents us from being singular, automaton like creatures - one indistinguishable from another.
This is all relatively simple to understand, even if the mechanisms are complicated. No gods needed and unlike godbased, lazy fucking assumptions, there is a great deal of evidence to back up every assertion I have made here.
I had a thoughtful discussion with an atheist named Jason about real love. He deemed that it was “hateful” to claim that Atheist are not able to love their children.
Well Denny, that would be because it is a fucking hateful thing to claim. Hateful and strikingly ignorant. But Denny's ignorance doesn't stop there...
If God is love, then it is true that an atheist is incapable of loving their child. Atheist by definition reject God; therefore, an atheist is not capable of loving their children. God’s love never fails; however,an atheist love will fail based on the chemical make up of that person.
I don't reject any god, I also don't accept the conception of gods - Denny and I are operating on separate paradigms. But let's explore this logic for a moment, with the assumption that Denny's god is real and described accurately in the Christian bible...Denny's god demands - or at least used to, before Christ, that parents stone children who don't respect their parent's authority. While it can be argued that said god changed it's mind later on, there is no denying that the god Denny worships used to demand that parents kill their children for misbehaving. On the other hand, when you strike past Denny's stunning ignorance of neurobiology, you would find that there is highly unlikely that an atheist, or anyone else for that matter, is going to go through a neurochemical shift that would suddenly cause them to stop loving their children. It can happen, but when it happens, it happens at the result of a pathological imbalance - what we would call mental illness. And this is not something that Christians are immune to - such neuropathology can happen to anyone with a fucking brain.
Now you can go take a look at the rest, I am not going to keep going through this line, by line. But if you want to comment on it, don't bother doing so there - the comment likely won't get posted, no matter how reasoned and polite you might be. Indeed, I took Denny on his face and made a comment in good faith, which I will post in a moment - a comment that he chose to respond to in email, apparently thinking that posting it to his blog would be a bad idea.
Jason is far from the last line on love and atheists. Not all of us would agree with him, just as not all Christians would come close to agreeing with your assertions, here or there.
I am an atheist, after spending the vast majority of my life trying to reconcile my Faith with reason and reality. I understand very clearly, many different Christian premises about the nature of love. Now you may just decide that because I am now an atheist, I must never have been a real Christian, in which case this is probably a pointless exercise. But I am not going to assume that you are rather bigger than that.
When I was a Christian, I was very caught onto this notion of love and godly love. I have written very extensively over the years, on 1 Cor. 13 and that has been an absolute my entire life. I have believed absolutely in loving everyone, unconditionally. When I was a Christian, I absolutely believed that this was the least I could do – the least I could be, as a living testament to my god. The thing is, now that I am not a Christian, I not only continue to love like I did – I have found a much deeper and meaningful love than I have ever experienced.
Emotions are chemical based, because we are chemical based – everything we think, is based in chemical processes. The difference between you and who I am now, is that you somehow see this as making you less of a person – less miraculous than you actually are. Rather than arguing that this is somehow mundane and degrading, I would ask; Why do you think that this degrades us? We are truly marvelous and beautiful creatures – what makes us who and what we are, is awe inspiring. It is much like the notion of creation, versus evolution – I am far more inspired and awestruck, by the understanding of how we – these significantly flawed, yet wholly remarkable creatures came to be, than by the notion that we and the universe around us, were just magically “poofed” into existence. I am awestruck by the notion of the billions of years and virtually infinite space that spans out universe.
But the thing that I actually really have to disagree with Jason about – rather strenuously even, is this idea that our emotions are fleeting things – they assuredly are not. While some of our emotions are fleeting things, that which is most important to us does not evaporate, it usually just gets buried. We humans have a remarkable capacity for compartmentalizing and do so on an ongoing basis. Were we to stop, we would quickly be completely overwhelmed by the inability to process absolutely everything. So the vast majority of what we see, what is happening around us, goes into tidy little compartments – some of them much like the RECYCLE function of our computers. Certain types of information are harder to reach while they are still there and only stay until we have put so much more in, that it disappears.
But there are a great many things that never leave us – though we may get past the worst of the impact of those events, people and the feelings they inspire. And when we dwell on them, it is easy enough to recall and experience those emotions again – unless we’ve repressed it, which is something that men are especially good at.
I don’t believe in gods anymore, don’t believe in the supernatural at all. That doesn’t mean I have any less capacity for love and emotions than you do. Indeed, believing as I now do, that such beliefs are dangerous and overall bad for us, I not only love you, but much as I am sure you love me and wish that I would come back to God’s grace, I wish you would come to reason and out of the dangers of magical thinking.
And I too, love my children. Ever so very deeply and in a way that to you, a fellow parent, can totally relate to.
You can see how terribly offensive my comment was - no question why he wouldn't fucking let it post out of moderation. I will note here however, that I misunderstood Jason and he did clarify it here. Sorry Jason, your comment makes a whole lot of sense now. And for anyone going over to read that, please ignore my comment below - that was meant for Jason only and frankly, I'm concerned that if you read it, you may decide to kill me. But I digress, because while Denny the Cowardly fucking Christian chose not to let my comment post, he did respond. And out of respect for his notation on the bottom of his email, admonishing that it is indeed intended only for me, I will have to request that you not actually read the following quotes and just read my responses to them - I post them for Denny's reference, so he knows what exact points I am responding to...And if you like, you could take a break and go read Jason's response to Denny the Cowardly fucking Christian's blog-post, which he was blissfully unaware of, until I pointed it out to him....A person can claim to love their children; however, it is impossible for chemicals to love chemicals. I don't doubt that chemicals can affect emotions; however, love is not an emotion. Your statement, "I love my children" while denying the existence of God informs me that your definition of love is based on chemicals and not truth.
Denny, we are not talking about neat little bottles of chemicals in your child's chemistry set. Nor are we talking about stuff that got mixed up in a laboratory. Please take a moment to learn a little bit about the human brain and how all this thinking and feeling stuff works...We'll wait for you...If you gave up Christ for your emotions, then that explains why you are an atheist. Jason at least was honest about atheism.
I gave up nothing for my emotions - my emotions had nothing to do with my becoming an atheist, except in so far as they actively prevented me from becoming an atheist a great deal sooner. I am an atheist because I finally lost the battle of attrition, wherein my religious brainwashing was fighting to reconcile my Faith, with reason and reality. But I love the implication that I am somehow lying about who and what I am, and why...
In order for atheism to be true, it has to admit to the existence of truth. As soon as an atheist makes a claim on truth, they just established the existence of God. In other words, it is logically impossible for atheism to be true. When you make a claim on truth, you are admitting to an unchanging reality that exists beyond our own. Truth is unchanging; however, everything in our experience is changing. The only basis for truth or for reason is the existence of God.
You know, I love me some elementary, circular logic and this example is truly circular and very elementary. But worse, it's also predicated on the notion that atheism is based on any claim of truth.First of all Denny, I reject the god paradigm that your abysmally fucking stupid statement was based on. Your premise fails on it's face right then and there. Secondly, I would like to point out that this is a logical fallacy. Even if we were to give that atheism is predicated on some claim of truth, it would not stand to reason that said truth implies anything unchanging, beyond our reality. The only way that this would stand, is if we accept as an absolute, the existence of a supernatural that there simply isn't any evidence for. And finally, I am not an atheist because I believe there isn't a god or any sort of supernatural. I am an atheist, because I have not seen evidence to indicate the existence of either. I don't <i>believe</i> anyfuckingthing...I accept that there may be a supernatural, I just don't see evidence to suggest it. I even accept that there may be a godlike higher power - again, I just don't see evidence for it. Still further, I accept that there may be a interventionist, godlike higher power - just not the evidence. Finally, I even accept the possibility, no matter how slim, that <i>your</i> version of god is real. The thing is, without evidence to suggest that any of these are true, I reject the premises. And in the order I listed them, I go from finding these premises exceedingly unlikely, to being about as likely as the premise that The FSM is coming to save us and guide us into a beautiful reality of peace and piracy.
Mass and Energy that has been informed by information establishes the fact that a mind does exist which is the source of that information. In other words, God does exist and it is undeniable if you hold to truth.
A fucking moron says what? Seriously Denny, you need some help - please do me a favor and spend a little time on elementary logic... You are doing a hell of a job of showing just how fucking bereft our educational system is...
And for the record, logic and this silly notion of <i>evidence</i> based reason are not tools of Satan, created to drive man from god. Least ways, I give that notion less credence, than I give the notion that your version of god is real. We'll skip over the next couple of paragraphs, because once you ground yourself in elementary logic, you will see that it is just more of the same fucking bullshit.
The fact you were trying to be a Christian and now an atheist tells me that you never found the Love of God that can be yours through Jesus Christ. If you would have found it, you would never have left.
Fuck you. Seriously you fucking shit eating little bastard - Fuck You!
Now I am almost inclined to just leave it at that and be done with your sorry fucking ass, but I want to clarify something you asked to clarify, because one, I am honest and two, it will provide you with a short lesson in logic. In your second email you asked...
You stated that your love is now deeper and more meaningful.
If your love is chemically based, everyone's experience should be the same since you are hitting the love chemical; however, it would seem to me that admitting that love is now deeper would imply that you activated a new chemical that is forcing you to believe that it is now deeper....
Do you think that love can really go deeper for an atheist?
If your love is chemically based, everyone's experience should be the same since you are hitting the love chemical; however, it would seem to me that admitting that love is now deeper would imply that you activated a new chemical that is forcing you to believe that it is now deeper....
Do you think that love can really go deeper for an atheist?
For the question you asked, no. I don't think that faith or lack thereof has anyfuckingthing to do with one's capacity for love. I do not think that becoming an atheist made it possible for me to suddenly love that much more deeply. I would suspect that Faith was running some interference before, but the truth is, after becoming an atheist, I also got help for my neurological issues. I also became more focused on metacognition and better understanding myself. It also makes a huge difference, that I have now met a women whom I love quite passionately and with a depth I previously assumed was simply not possible for me to feel.
People, especially men, are perfectly capable of not recognizing. ignoring and even suppressing emotions. Humans have that capacity to compartmentalize that I talked about in my comment that you are afraid to post to your blog. Because of that capacity, we are perfectly capable of never even realizing how we really feel about things, people and ideas. We can repress memories and desires, without ever realizing what we've done. It is mostly just coincidence, that I have broken through some seriously damaging compartmentalization since becoming an atheist.
But I really want to hit on this fucking ridiculous notion you have about neurochemistry and love. It is not some singular chemical that we can just take "hits" of, to feel something more or less. It is a complex interaction of neurotransmitters and the "hardware" of our brains. We're all different, because our brains are all different. Our specific, individual brain chemistry is easily as unique and far more complicated than our fingerprints. This is what prevents us from being singular, automaton like creatures - one indistinguishable from another.
This is all relatively simple to understand, even if the mechanisms are complicated. No gods needed and unlike godbased, lazy fucking assumptions, there is a great deal of evidence to back up every assertion I have made here.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Yes, I am alive...
It's nice to know that I'm loved...Seriously - I appreciate emails from people wondering if I'm alright - especially from people who have never actually communicated with me before. So yes, I am alive and mostly alright.
I am currently in TN with my boys for the weekend--eldest wanted me here for fathers day. I am also brutally fucking busy and will probably be too busy to get a lot written over the next few weeks. I am going to do what I can, but I have been really stressed and honestly, reading the blogs has been making it worse lately, so avoidance has been key for the last week.
I am fucking pissed at our fucking government, which I expected to be. I just didn't expect to be angry about the things that I am. I was honestly hopeful that I would be pissed because things that I happen to believe in would be done badly or halfassed. Never - never in a million fucking years did I expect to actually be considering whether we might not be better off with a president McCain, tempered by an opposition congress.
But I am.
Not even his first motherfucking SCOTUS pick is looking any better than someone that a president McCain would have picked. And given everything else that this sick fucking excuse for an administration has fucked us up the ass without lube about, that was about all I had left.
I am grateful that he has made science a priority. But that is hard to weigh against the outright destruction that this motherfucker has done to our justice system - a system already fucking broken. But hey, we really didn't need to protect the rights of suspects to be free from the pressure of law enforcement to waive their right to counsel during questioning - as long as they've been charged and are now considered a defendant.
Obama is a fucking disgrace and our circle jerk fucking congress is absolutely fucking pointless. These shit eating bastards are no better than the fucking republicans. At least the republicans actually throw their constituency more fucking bones than these fucking scumbags do...
I am currently in TN with my boys for the weekend--eldest wanted me here for fathers day. I am also brutally fucking busy and will probably be too busy to get a lot written over the next few weeks. I am going to do what I can, but I have been really stressed and honestly, reading the blogs has been making it worse lately, so avoidance has been key for the last week.
I am fucking pissed at our fucking government, which I expected to be. I just didn't expect to be angry about the things that I am. I was honestly hopeful that I would be pissed because things that I happen to believe in would be done badly or halfassed. Never - never in a million fucking years did I expect to actually be considering whether we might not be better off with a president McCain, tempered by an opposition congress.
But I am.
Not even his first motherfucking SCOTUS pick is looking any better than someone that a president McCain would have picked. And given everything else that this sick fucking excuse for an administration has fucked us up the ass without lube about, that was about all I had left.
I am grateful that he has made science a priority. But that is hard to weigh against the outright destruction that this motherfucker has done to our justice system - a system already fucking broken. But hey, we really didn't need to protect the rights of suspects to be free from the pressure of law enforcement to waive their right to counsel during questioning - as long as they've been charged and are now considered a defendant.
Obama is a fucking disgrace and our circle jerk fucking congress is absolutely fucking pointless. These shit eating bastards are no better than the fucking republicans. At least the republicans actually throw their constituency more fucking bones than these fucking scumbags do...
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Fuck Adobe and Fuck Microsoft Too!!!
My motherfucking computer just got hammered with a motherfucking virus from hell that came in through motherfucking adobe. I have just changed all my passwords online, canceled my debit card and wiped my entire fucking computer. Still not sure it's shiny, but it will do until I get it to a friend who'll shred the contents of the hard drive and install an unrestricted motherfucking linux OS. I've been running linux and had only a segregated portion of the drive with windows, because I need it for some school stuff and viewing media. But I have a converter to put all my media into an opensource format and I'll figure the school shit out.
I am so fucking done with windows and adobe.
On the upside, I only lost a couple of fairly important things I hadn't yet backed up to my external drive. And I won't be connecting that back up until I know that there isn't some vestige of that fucking virus left hiding in some dark corner of my hard drive...
I am so fucking done with windows and adobe.
On the upside, I only lost a couple of fairly important things I hadn't yet backed up to my external drive. And I won't be connecting that back up until I know that there isn't some vestige of that fucking virus left hiding in some dark corner of my hard drive...
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