On the whole, I find New Atheists much more annoying than the God-botherers. And that's saying a lot, my background is Roman Catholic and I am, in fact, atheist.
Whenever words like capital r "Reason" or "enlightenment" pop up on the internet I cannot help but cringe. The movement has picked up a bunch of people who clearly want to be considered public intellectuals of some sort, and think some dismissive and excitable comments about dhem stupid faith-heads is sufficient. Yet I doubt Minchin, Gevais, Carr and the rest could tell you what the Enlightenment actually was. All they're likely to do is to direct you to Sam Harris' site instead. (A shitty Ben Stiller impersonator-cum-prophet, described as a "great man" by people who really, one would've thought, ought to have known better: see Hitchens and Fry.)
That Guardian article is a bizarre bit of self-flagellation. If I didn't know better, I would assume it to be a very subtle parody.
I'm a Maoist, but I don't think right-wingers are evil fascist bastards, I just think they've come to a different set of conclusions to me. If there's any indoctrination going on here, it's the liberal ideology that says that other opinions are aberrant and shameful, that anything outside of a narrow consensus is so obviously wrong that it doesn't merit debate.
Well said, I'm centre left new-labour, my best friend on this planet is a right wing Thatcherite.
We get on great, and although we agree on little we are grown up and mature enough to respect that we don't need to hate each other, we simply have different opinions on things.
Cannot stand wankers, and I hate to say it as a leftie, but it is usually lefties, who think that if somebody doesn't believe the same as you they're an abhorrent poor hating bastard and you automatically have to dislike them.
It's this supercilious attitude that has led to so many abandoning the left.
I was considering making note to ask people not to make shite jokes about two completely separate ideologies but I thought nobody here is enough of an A-level wanker to think they're the same.
>I was considering making note to ask people not to make shite jokes about two completely separate ideologies but I thought nobody here is enough of an A-level wanker to think they're the same
>Cannot stand wankers, and I hate to say it as a leftie, but it is usually lefties
You need to get off the internet every so often m7. Go to an arms industry conference and ask the sales reps for Lockheed and Boeing if they're Corbynistas; pop into any FTSE 100 boardroom - Exxon, HSBC, BP - and see if you can find any sandle-wearing vegans; or go over to any war zone and ask the guys with the longest ear necklace if they were inspired by airy-fairy liberalism.
>It's this supercilious attitude that has led to so many abandoning the left.
Your conception of "wanker" seems limited to a very small bubble, and you would be terrified if you found it had one day popped.
>>24462 You, or him, were suggesting that there was little to no difference between New Labour and Thatcherism when there is a huge difference.
I was considering adding into my post a note about people making predictable, A-level tier, superficial comparisons but I thought nobody here was that much of a wanker.
Mao Zedong Thought is a living ideology, not some relic from the 1950s. Communism with Chinese Tendencies is fundamentally different to Communism with English Tendencies or Communism with Scottish Tendencies. Modern Maoist thought emphasises the need for pragmatic systems of government that suit a particular country at its own particular stage of development.
The Communist Party of China are not opposed to democracy in principle, but reject western-style democracy for pragmatic reasons. The evidence is abundantly clear that democracy is simply too great a risk for a state like China at its current level of development. There is a clearly stated goal to transition towards more democratic rule, but only at a pace and in a manner that ensures continuing political and economic stability. That transition is ongoing, just as they have transitioned towards market-based economics.
Britain is sufficiently stable to afford free and open debate. We have a well-established political tradition with relatively good safeguards. What we cannot afford is a propagandist media dominated by a handful of foreign corporations. The British people are perfectly capable of making good decisions about their own governance if they are provided with impartial and accurate information, but that information is sadly lacking.
>Are you also a pacifist?
No, but I'm anti-interventionist. I strongly support Trident, I strongly support the existence of a large but efficient standing army. I strongly oppose pointless and expensive wars in the middle east, I strongly oppose expensive and defensively useless spending on aircraft carriers and multi-role combat aircraft.
>>24466 >Read this post twice, still no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
Roughyl translated the post means "I read a Mark Thomas book once and stole half my persona from it".
I don't understand how Tim Minchin still has fans when his entire personality is based around being a shrill dickhead. I suppose 'the enlightenment' is inherently grating considering how it treats its past but if you think about it he's having a go about a vicar's daughter for sometimes finding confidence is her faith.
He should shove that piano up his arse and play us a tune as he fucks off back to Australia.
>>24463 >pop into any FTSE 100 boardroom - Exxon, HSBC, BP - and see if you can find any sandle-wearing vegans
You'd be surprised about this or in fact judging anyone based upon how they pay the bills. I think you're part of the problem m8, the world is much more nuanced than the brain of a teen revolutionary and the problem people have with this fact reeks of intellectual laziness.
>>24467 I thought it was commonly held these days (at least internationally) that the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party fundamentally changed with Deng Xiaoping. I don't see what justification you can use to continue calling it Maoism when Mao is no longer held as infallible and his ideas have been stripped away on the basis of pragmatism.
>You'd be surprised about this or in fact judging anyone based upon how they pay the bills. I think you're part of the problem m8, the world is much more nuanced than the brain of a teen revolutionary and the problem people have with this fact reeks of intellectual laziness
So, wait, what exactly is wrong with what I said? The other lad said most wankers come from the left, and I responded by suggesting that you'd have to have a pretty limited world view (.gs, social media and your mates at uni most probably) to think that. We're not talking about the morality of working within a crummy system.
The sort of people who spend their time getting angry at SJWs and bleeding hearts, instead of, say, arms dealers, mass murderers and unscrupulous corporate executives, have no sense proportion. (It's telling that you chose to greentext the bit about execs and not the other two.) What's so difficult about this to understand?
That, in a sense, is the issue with the "alt-right" - they begin with a legitimate disdain for elements of a politically correct culture, and allow themselves to be deluged with criticism of it (on YouTube, imageboards, etc.) to the point they see no good in a liberal society, and begin to hate "do-gooders" out of instinct. That's objectively stupid, there's more to the world than Anita Sarkeesian and whiny cunts on acrobat.
But, it seems, the first lad I responded to isn't the only one here who has lost his ability to be objective, and you'll still misunderstand my point.
>>24474 >So, wait, what exactly is wrong with what I said?
People in normal life are much more nuanced than what you find on the internet and in lefty circle wanks. Professions don't work this way and I highlighted your comment on executives because from my experience such careers are a magnet for counter cultural types -just look at that notorious social justice menace Kim Yong.
The problem you and the modern left have is you're a bunch of smary cunts with a holier than thou attitude. Just look at you impotently floundering about talking about how nobody is mad enough at mass murderers while at the next minute discussing the Alt-Right like a special child getting continually distracted at the butterfly sanctuary. The icing on the cake is that you expect us to believe nobody understands your point because we lack objectivity when in reality you're just talking out of your arse.
>The problem you and the modern left have is you're a bunch of smary cunts with a holier than thou attitude
So, essentially, people who sell arms and work on the boards of companies that trash the economy are - in your experience (I must've missed that journal) - nuanced and delicate creatures, and it's wrong to paint them all with the same brush. Lefties, however, solely because of their attitude, are just the worst.
>So, wait, what exactly is wrong with what I said? The other lad said most wankers come from the left, and I responded by suggesting that you'd have to have a pretty limited world view (.gs, social media and your mates at uni most probably) to think that. We're not talking about the morality of working within a crummy system.
Holy shit, this is exactly what I hate about this place. You've gone off on a tangent, responded with some shit about FTSE boardrooms and then carried on going on without giving any regard for the context.
I was clearly talking about wankers (who are usually leftie in this regard) who think that if you don't agree politically the other person is an immoral bastard who you have to hate.
I wasn't just saying in general that lefties are wankers, but in that regard.
Christ Almighty. It will never stop pissing me off how lads on here want to seem to argue about everything so are willing to completely misrepresent something just so they can shoehorn a counter in.
Were you brought up a lefty environment? The worst moralist arseholes I've come across are ex-military, minor aristocracy, union-busting managers and the clergy - all who consider the current Tory government as an outgrowth of the Socialist Workers Party.
He did get me thinking, with his "I don't get mad with my enemies" mumbo-jumbo of that excellent Godwinian put-down.
>I regard you as vicious; but I do not consider the vicious as proper objects of indignation and scorn. I consider you as a machine; you are not constituted, I am afraid, to be greatly useful to your fellow men: but you did not make yourself; you are just what circumstance irresistibly compelled you to be. I am sorry for your ill properties; but I entertain no enmity to you, nothing but benevolence.
I agree, so called "New Atheists" want to appear as intellectuals and also superior to those who believe in a God - i.e. "I'm strong enough to not need a God unlike those feeble minded Bible bashers".
What they turn to instead is science, which they feel religion is the enemy of. But science is just a method of testing the validity of a hypothesis about the physical world, so when they say they believe in science all they are really saying is they believe in the mechanics of the physical world. Is it then a stretch to say that the mechanics of the physical world is their God? These mechanisms "created" everything, supposedly from nothing, they are at least vastly more powerful than humans, even if you believe it wasn't "their" aim to create life.
I'm not trying to defend religion either, it's a dangerously effective tool of control. Theresa's being a typical lying cunt politician and using it to pander to the electorate since it's almost political suicide to announce you're an atheist.
People are nuanced, which is why rigidly labelling yourself politically doesn't make much sense to me. There may be things that I agree with that a self-proclaimed right-winger says, as well as things that a self-proclaimed leftie says.
Defining yourself as left/right, conservative/liberal etc removes nuance. Suddenly you become part of a side, and you are sort of forced to go along with whatever that side deems to be right in the same way people will do things in a group that they wouldn't usually on their own. Maybe it's easier that way.
>Cannot stand wankers, and I hate to say it as a leftie, but it is usually lefties, who think that if somebody doesn't believe the same as you they're an abhorrent poor hating bastard and you automatically have to dislike them.
>It's this supercilious attitude that has led to so many abandoning the left.
Agreed m9, a lot of those butthurts fail to see the fire that they have kindled. People are seeing through the bullshit that the regressive left create and stupidly believe. Usually delusional hypocrisy.
A sure sign you don't know what the fuck you're on about and your finger paintings must be drying. Though, I have to say, you lads must meet very different people to me. The loudest, most abrasive and irritating men-children I have forced upon me daily are of the Ukipper persuasion off-line, while it's the Trumpanzees online.
The amount of comments I see by alt-rightists and their fellow travellers which go along the lines of "if this happened to the Left, they would lose their shit!", while clearly losing their shit... Irony really is lost on the conservative (literal) minded, in'tit.
>>24756 >Theresa's being a typical lying cunt politician and using it to pander to the electorate since it's almost political suicide to announce you're an atheist.
This is fucking nonsense. There is absolutely no reason to doubt May's religious conviction and atheism is evidently not political suicide given over one hundred MP's are currently members of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. Perhaps you think we live in America?
>>24758 I don't get it. Are you saying that gay marriage is a 'regressive left' issue or that its hypocrisy to come to a different viewpoint after 12 years? Perhaps by sharing a video of an American Presidential candidate this is some act of satire and the real issue is American cultural imperialism that has turned Anglican sensibilities on religion and politics into a snide shouting match?
>Are you saying that gay marriage is a 'regressive left' issue
No and you're stupid >I don't get it.
>its hypocrisy to come to a different viewpoint after 12 years?
Yes as politician with a political agenda, no as a everyday person
> Perhaps by sharing a video of an American Presidential candidate this is some act of satire
Clinton isn't a candidate, she lost
>the real issue is American cultural imperialism that has turned Anglican sensibilities on religion and politics into a snide shouting match?
Try harder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadilad.