(no subject)

[farla]

Because the class is Philosophy and we are girls, we are discussing love for two months.

This means reading someone who, despite having nothing but failed relationships, believes she is qualified to make grand statements about What Love Really Is. And if you don't agree you're in denial. "You're in denial" is to Philosophy and Psychology what Hitler is to online debate.

Today we discussed her brilliant statements like "If you don't love God, you can't love".

To not even touch the fact that the statement is unsupported, one of those things people just say because it sounds right at the moment, it is so annoying that Christians get to make statements about atheists being amoral jerks, yet it's not considered polite to say, "Yeah, and I guess Christians are just amoral jerks who are also cowards" in response. And you just get in trouble if you say something like, "So I guess I'm going to bring in a gun and shoot you all tomorrow, what with having no idea of right and wrong." Bring up prison populations and there's some whining about how "those don't represent all Christians". Well, better an obnoxious sweeping statement based on a tiny percentage than an obnoxious sweeping statement based on your idea of how atheists act because you just think so. (The nicest thing my classmates can say about atheists is that despite being godless freaks with no moral center, sometimes we have some kind of spirituality in our life despite the lack of god. Seeing as I don't, I can only assume they really are expecting me to go on a shooting spree soon.)

Then it continued on to some stuff about consumerism replacing god in our lives. Except, you know, Christians are major consumers. I don't know they're more consumers than atheists, but considering my class is pro-anecdotal evidence and I'm the least consumerist of all of them...

It's not so much that it's somewhat aimed at me (I was pretty annoyed Hinduism was put in the hallowed "semi-good" category because they are the most compatible Eastern religion with Christianity) as it is just that it's so incredibly dumb. It's one thing to hold different views. It's another to hold different views because you heard someone say something that one time and you thought it sounded clever.

And if I never have to hear that bit about needing to love and accept yourself before you love others it will be too soon. Stop repeating the fucking soundbytes.

Comments

[kddreams.livejournal.com]

How is it possible to discuss love for 2 months? And pssh, what does religion ever have to do with love?

[farla.livejournal.com]

By discussing each individual chapter of the book.

Supposedly, religion is all about loving god for letting you exist and stuff. The author has this whole thing about how relationships have to be equal and completely positive or it's not love, which is a description that is about as far from god as possible.

[negrek.livejournal.com]

Geez, did you end up in some kind of ultraconservative Christian private college or something? Because that's really just ridiculous.

I mean, seriously, the other day in class we were watching videos of one religious ceremony that involves self-mutilation and a bunch of people were all "Ewww, gross, how could you do that to yourself, it's so barbaric!" but at least a third of the class was telling them they were idiots and should STFU.

[farla.livejournal.com]

They're not hardline or anything, there's just this underlying current of assumptions they've never even thought about. I'm sure they don't see anything irritating about "so anyway, you have to love god to be decent" because in their minds, people believe in (a singular male) god and it's just an issue of which relationship with god is good. Saying, "Uh, no, atheists don't believe in god and manage (x) just fine" leads to these momentarily blank looks until it's remembered that there are actually people who don't believe in Christianity without converting to Wicca and then heading across the street to the Unitarian church. At which point they decide atheists are like Wiccans, but instead of replacing "god" with "goddess" we haven't got around to naming that chunk of belief.