I've been spending a bit too much time on youtube, thinking about things. I don't remember exactly how it all started but I do recall being moved to check out videos on youtube. Soon enough I found enough videos complaining about Japan and Japanese people or society or culture. I felt compelled to add my two cents, and was "rewarded" for it in the form of "likes." It's very much like facebook that way: You can contribute anything, no matter how trite or trivial or assinine, and you will get a response. Unlike facebook, though, the response can be varied, so it's a bit of a challenge.
Soon enough this somehow led me to looking for videos on atheism. That was an enjoyable intellectual journey; I've come to learn more about atheism, their stance and "beliefs" and more information about religion and religious history. I'm glad I did that. But after that I was hooked. I realize that youtube is a fantastic and wide-ranging forum for ideas and discussion, and that has its benefits. However, it was all too easy to get sucked into the bottomless mire that is "discussion." I realized again first-hand that people rarely talk or discuss or debate things for the sake of learning, but in order to be right and to find a cohesive community to unequivocally support and coddle their beliefs. I was shocked by how consistently illogical people and their beliefs were, and I started realizing even more the merits of atheism and its tenets, how silly it seems to adhere so strongly to a belief you have so little evidence for.
It's not that I think holding faith-based beliefs is a bad thing. I think it's fine. It's the degree of stubbornness that's attached to it that I find problematic. You, me and everyone else is only human. We may be wrong about a multitude of things. To deny that is, in the very least, arrogance, and at worst delusional and self-grandizing. I don't see why some people have such a problem with allowing fallibility in their own beliefs.
I guess another aspect of the frustration was that because I do (allow the possibility that my beliefs are wrong), I was hoping that I would hear some reasonably convincing arguments contradicting my beliefs. I haven't yet, just heard a lot of ad hominem attacks and appeals to emotion and popularity. Unfortunately, that just serves to strength my belief in my beliefs.
I think I wasted a lot of time on this. On occasion I get into this overly analytical mode, sink deep into intellectualizing and wake up from it, full circle, realizing that what data tells me is not the end all be all, becoming aware that my mission is beyond this quibbling and symbiotic whining that intellectuals engage in as a form of mental masturbation, fooling themselves into thinking they're being productive, and then I want out. I have wasted a lot of time. It takes time and energy and as a non-omnipotent being I have limited quantities of both. Time to use it on the one thing I think makes it worthwhile: my mission.
The other problem I have with it is that, as a well-adjusted social animal, I am vulnerable to outside influences. I looked a lot into men and women, a topic most people seem to think they know all about but most know very little. There are quite a surprising number of men who seem to have nothing but venomous thoughts towards women. When I objectively look at my woman and my relationship, I can't understand how men would come to these conclusions. She's intelligent, caring, giving, generous, kind, fun, sociable, strong and positive. And yet I feel certain simple minded people's opinions causing me to waiver. I may be naive or weak but I'd prefer not to be swayed but nay-sayers.
Soon enough this somehow led me to looking for videos on atheism. That was an enjoyable intellectual journey; I've come to learn more about atheism, their stance and "beliefs" and more information about religion and religious history. I'm glad I did that. But after that I was hooked. I realize that youtube is a fantastic and wide-ranging forum for ideas and discussion, and that has its benefits. However, it was all too easy to get sucked into the bottomless mire that is "discussion." I realized again first-hand that people rarely talk or discuss or debate things for the sake of learning, but in order to be right and to find a cohesive community to unequivocally support and coddle their beliefs. I was shocked by how consistently illogical people and their beliefs were, and I started realizing even more the merits of atheism and its tenets, how silly it seems to adhere so strongly to a belief you have so little evidence for.
It's not that I think holding faith-based beliefs is a bad thing. I think it's fine. It's the degree of stubbornness that's attached to it that I find problematic. You, me and everyone else is only human. We may be wrong about a multitude of things. To deny that is, in the very least, arrogance, and at worst delusional and self-grandizing. I don't see why some people have such a problem with allowing fallibility in their own beliefs.
I guess another aspect of the frustration was that because I do (allow the possibility that my beliefs are wrong), I was hoping that I would hear some reasonably convincing arguments contradicting my beliefs. I haven't yet, just heard a lot of ad hominem attacks and appeals to emotion and popularity. Unfortunately, that just serves to strength my belief in my beliefs.
I think I wasted a lot of time on this. On occasion I get into this overly analytical mode, sink deep into intellectualizing and wake up from it, full circle, realizing that what data tells me is not the end all be all, becoming aware that my mission is beyond this quibbling and symbiotic whining that intellectuals engage in as a form of mental masturbation, fooling themselves into thinking they're being productive, and then I want out. I have wasted a lot of time. It takes time and energy and as a non-omnipotent being I have limited quantities of both. Time to use it on the one thing I think makes it worthwhile: my mission.
The other problem I have with it is that, as a well-adjusted social animal, I am vulnerable to outside influences. I looked a lot into men and women, a topic most people seem to think they know all about but most know very little. There are quite a surprising number of men who seem to have nothing but venomous thoughts towards women. When I objectively look at my woman and my relationship, I can't understand how men would come to these conclusions. She's intelligent, caring, giving, generous, kind, fun, sociable, strong and positive. And yet I feel certain simple minded people's opinions causing me to waiver. I may be naive or weak but I'd prefer not to be swayed but nay-sayers.
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