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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • rather destroy all life on earth than hurt The Economy.

    Oh don’t worry, I have have issues with that too.

    Thor summons lightning with Mjolnir

    If you believe Thor is the cause of lightning, you might be more willing to ignore meteorology. If you believe the Aesir are actually divine and walk between the worlds, you might be more willing to believe that some people are descendants of them and thus superior.

    Jesus needs to sacrifice himself on the cross in order to satisfy the Old Laws and get everyone into heaven

    If you believe that blood sacrifices hold power, you might think that some people are performing them when they aren’t, or even perform them yourself.

    If you believe the world will end, you might not be so concerned with maintaining it or even living in it.

    My point is that making a habit of denying reality makes it easier to deny reality in the future, and even if one denial of reality is innocuous, later denials may not be. Bigots love to use religion to push racist, discriminatory, and abusive ideas, and the best way to defend against those ideas is to see how they align with reality. We can’t identify harmful acts if we can’t agree on the effect of an act, can we?

    Anyway, the original topic was putting words in anti-theist’s mouths. There’s not even a generally accepted definition of anti-theism, with some being against organized religions, and others against monotheism specifically. To paint them all as opposite-christians is using a Zamboni as a brush.


  • I wouldn’t describe myself as an anti-theist, I’m not against the idea itself, it’s rather neat and might have been an important step in the development of human culture and thinking. I’m particularly interested in the old gods, like at gobekli tepe, or proto-devi and deva, or the bears and other beings that populate the oldest stories of the night sky. I might describe myself as a non-theist humanist: So long as it does good to the world, I don’t care in particular.

    If you take a definition of religion that places something above the demonstrable world --the sacred supernatural-- we run into the issue of the world being sacrificed to intangible ideas, which is bad. This idea of the world being pointless in the face of something that cannot be proven is pretty central to most sects of western religions, and the ability to move people for an idea unconnected to reality is a fantastic way to gain power over them.

    It’s this concept of unprovable authority that I find dangerous, and I think this is what is referred to with the theo in theism; the tyrant gods and political religious institutions of the west. It’s a very rough definition which may or may not apply elsewhere, but it’s probably what most english speakers are thinking about when you say god.

    This is certainly what I’m thinking of when someones wants me to accept even the existence of a god: that they defy the limits of the world and thus deserve attention. The problem is that none of these beings have ever had any notable effect on the world, universally being spoken for by their followers.

    You could argue for less-than-supernatural gods, like kings or pharoahs, or particularly respected people, or even certain animals, plants, or locations. In these instances, their effects can be directly investigated, and if any effects beyond those given by politics and popularity be found I would have no problem accepting them. I accept that we live in a shared reality, and thus I also accept anything that comports with it.

    The opposite is also true; I’ll reject anything that doesn’t comport with reality. I consider anything that can make one ignore parts of reality to be dangerous and likely to cause harm, so I find myself at odds with most religions and directly against the idea of most gods, western or otherwise. It doesn’t matter how good the acts of a being are, I will not hold them as more than what is evident. A system of belief on the other hand, I might accept, if it doesn’t hold itself superior to reality or the world.

    I can’t find any reference to antheist, but by your definition I am not one. I’m not anti-theist by your definition either. My belief is not guided by the supposed goodness of a being, simply their existence. It would be more accurate to call me an anti-delusionism-ist: against the practice of denying reality. That’s quite clunky though, and stops being true if a god is found to exist, although a lot of definitions and beliefs would change rapidly in that situation. Thus non-theist: I don’t care as long as you’re not hurting anyone.


  • I think Drag should ask more antitheists about their reasoning.

    I am of the opinion that any willful ignorance of reality is dangerous, and most religions are organized and ritualized ignorance.

    Most of them were just speculation when they were founded, and no one could fathom exactly how they were right or wrong. The difference is that now we can know better; we can fathom the depths of the universe and plot the edges of our ignorance.

    This leads to a conflict between the intensly held beliefs of entite cultures and the systems we use to progress society. Thus the anti-intellectualism movement and conspiracy thinking, theocratic movements, and the willingness to deny truth.

    I do not have the same issues with spiritual systems and religions that are willing to accept what we know about reality; but sadly those are in the vast minority. It’s less about being against gods in general, and more about being against the tyrant gods and authoritarian organizations that are willing to sacrifice reality on the altar of control and power.

    So go ahead and make rituals, worldviews, and sacred meaning, but don’t let those cloud your vision of the world, and remember to love each other.








  • I think one of the benefits of Land Value Tax is that an empty lot costs as much as a highrise or factory. It heavily disincentivizes leaving a property undeveloped or poorly developed, like with parking lots or abandoned buildings.

    That being said, it would also put pressure on underdeveloped properties, like your home on a street with rising property values. Some limitations would almost certainly be necessary.

    This could also be solved with better zoning, but most of our social problems could be fixed with better governance of some kind. Land Value Tax is one of the proposed methods that would need less fixes to make work and (hopefully) be harder to co-opt for wealth extraction.

    I’d accept trying anything though, instead of more tax cuts and funding cuts.




  • So to be fair, I’ve read the original comic, and it probably was just focusing on the negative aspects of airshows.

    What a lot of people get from this (including me) is the absurdity of military shows. Air shows are less ridiculous because planes are capable of some incredible things, but it’s still unsettling. Like gun shows or parades of duty.

    We have advanced many of our societies to such a point that we might be able to do away with weapon worship entirely, so I think it’s sensible to be uncomfortable with venerating the trappings of dictators and despots.

    I kind of agree that militaries are still necessary, but there’s a big difference between an unfortunate but necessary thing and a celebrated thing.

    The difference between an F-15 and an angle grider is that the F-15 is intended to hurt people. Pulling an angle grinder out of your coat isn’t as intimidating as pulling out a knife, even if the angle grinder could do more damage. Yet both angle grinders and most knives are tools used to create. An F-15 can only destroy. It can’t carry passengers, can’t fight fires, can’t deliver supplies, can’t advance science, at best it can do acrobatics while being incredibly expensive. It’s nothing more than a weapon.

    To be entirely fair, even without military aircraft the U.S. would meddle in international affairs. The air force doesn’t specifically enable these killings or infrastructure damage. It is however a popular and representative method of international war, and I don’t think that’s something to celebrate.


  • Most people don’t like living near even civilian airports. Active duty flights would’ve usually happened nearer to the front, and modern flights often happen from aircraft carriers anyway.

    Much more common for people to hear are shows of force, like the States do for holidays, airshows, and large sports games.

    The comic is making fun of the fact that an airshow idolizes machines of war. Not all airshows focus on military craft, but most of them do, often being held at military airbases.

    As cool as they are, it’s good to remember that those machines are instruments of death, and often used against people of no immediate threat. Regardless of the necessity, I don’t think that’s something to cheer for.