Just a quick ‘now that I’m sober’ clarification on this post; I use the term facts here very frivolously. No fact is forever or infallible. I’ve said before that a fact is just a almost universally held opinion, which may seem in contradiction with this post, but the explanation is that there are different contexts or meanings that exist for these words. Basically I’m saying that just because something is a fact doesn’t mean that it’s true, it just makes it much more likely to be true then an opinion.
I’m drunk, and it’s 3 am, so I hope this is readable, but I’ve written a lot on here about how much I hate religion, how it’s evil, how drugs should be legal, how I want people to join The Zeitgeist Movement, and all about whatever other opinions I have. I’m going to try not to do that anymore. Making a blanket statement that religion is evil just puts people off, the people that I’d like to actually talk to. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, whatever the fuck else all have good ideas, but they aren’t put into practice, because people project their opinions onto these teachings, and they all follow their leaders… Basically, what I’m trying to say is that opinions are useless, and facts are useful. And from now on, when I talk about religion (or anything else), I’m going to try to state only facts. People don’t need to be free to have whatever aberrant opinions they want. We need people to have access to information, and if the information doesn’t exist yet, if the facts haven’t been arrived at, then people should say “I don’t know”… not create an opinion. People have such allegiances to their opinions that when those opinions are questioned, they feel like they are being attacked. If you have an idea, research it. I’m a big know-it-all and I know this, but I’m trying my best to say “I don’t know” as often as possible, because to be honest, I don’t know most things. And discussing opinions is useless. If you have a hypothesis, test it. Get a fact. Once you have that, you actually have something.
I was talking to Mr. Jack Fucking Nemo today, as I do everyday, because we work together, and we were talking about war. I agreed, against my gut feeling, that some wars are justified. I stand by that, because in a historical context, the revolutionary war, ww2, the civil war were all necessary. But all wars really stem from an abundance of opinions, and a lack of facts. If Hitler, as a boy, had been properly educated to think critically, then he could never have reached the ludicrous opinions that about jews that he did, because there are no facts to support them. There has never been any -facts- that supported the idea that black people should be owned by white people. Obviously. So while these wars, unfortunately, were necessary, they could have been avoided altogether had the world utilized a proper education system. To paraphrase Jacque Fresco, if the US took the pentagon and all it’s resources, and devoted it to employing psychologists and social scientists to study the world’s people and to bridge the gaps between them, to find common ground and to reason with them, imagine what we could accomplish. All our differences; religions, nations, classes, government systems, races… these are all useless divisions. Harmful even.
That was kind of a strange tangent, but I wanted to find an example for what I’m trying to say about opinions. Opinions were fine 50 years ago, even 20 years ago, but now information is widely available, like never before, and facts will always trump opinions, every time.
The last thing I wanted to say is that I try to be entertaining (sometimes) when I write these, and often that means I slip into insulting people and being sarcastic, which is (like being a know-it-all) is a big part of who I am. My whole family is like that. But sarcasm and insults are more useless then opinions. I can’t say I’m going to completely change who I am, but I’m gonna try. I guess knowing and recognizing that is a step in the right direction… And just to clarify, I’m not backing down on my opinions about religion. Religion has proven to be more harmful to society then almost every other divisionary tactic combined. I know most religious people aren’t doing evil things, and their beliefs aren’t harmful, but they support an infrastructure that gives credibility to the extremists, which have proven time and again to be harmful. If you want to believe in God, perfect, I hope it makes you happier, but please don’t go to church, and please don’t give them money, because no church follows the teachings of the (most likely) fictional character Jesus Christ. One more quote from Jacque Fresco to finish this off, so I can go pass out; “Christianity is a great idea… when are they going to put it into practice?”.
