7:28 am, March 21, 2009 · Filed under Life, Online, philosophy, religion, Society, youtube · Tagged africa, complex thinking, darfur, genocide, global problems, Hank Green, HP Alliance, imagining the other complexly, john green, killing, nerdfighters, rwanda, vlogbrothers, world, youtube comments
Today I was having a blast on Spring Break (ha! Not really…) and browsing through Youtube, because that’s what I do. Still featured on there was John Green‘s video on the Rwandan Genocide and the HP Alliance‘s idea from Rwanda to have real people light candles and show that they care for their problems, which are all of our problems. It was a funny, yet serious video about how to help stop a problem.
Then I scrolled down to see the comments, and to my horror, people had posted comments not only against HPA’s initiative, but against stopping, preventing, or helping deal with genocide in Africa. There were mainly three categories of diversion from John and most people’s philosophy on this:
- Who cares about Africa? They’re poor and miserable and different from us. We should take care of ourselves first; for we are the only people that matter, and it’s their problem not ours. They should deal with it themelves, not mooch off of our charity.
Ok maybe they weren’t that articulate or intentionally harsh, but that’s pretty much their idea. And I’ll elaborate with example 3.
- Sure, the travesty in Rwanda and Darfur are abominations of mankind, and we should certainly make an earnest effort to prevent it from happening, and help restore the country(-ies), but lighting candles won’t help that. Maybe you should put links or show how we can donate and actually take action for this cause?
And this is certainly a valid argument, and I like that people are thinking compexly about this. I for one apparently love to be proven wrong (even indirectly like this), and I’m glad I can broaden my view on the matter. But it’s an act to show people that we care and are going to help – that they have support, and that it’s not their problem, it’s the world’s problem.
There’s a great value in a small thing – especially when a community collectively responds – that has a great effect on people. It may not be objective or scientifically provable, but it’s there. People in Rwanda will actually see us showing our support. Of course we have to take political action, but it starts somewhere small, and if we want the Big Guys to notice, we gotta make noise!I definitely think that we should really be taking action in donations and awareness would help a lot.
- Then there’s this:
What can I say? It’s hard to believe people can be so selfish and animalistic, caring only for themselves ans seeing the world with such warped values. I’m all for diversity of opinions, which is essential to social (and any) progress, but people have to think complexly about these problems…
I mean that’s just not right. I really don’t have a problem with religion, as long as it’s well thought out, criticized, and thought about deeper than stuff like the Bible and God. And that’s not even the problem here; it’s that people can be so stupid and barbaric in simple thinking, that they completely isolete themselves emotionally from the world, and refuse to care about the world.It’s people like this that really scare me, and make me fear for the future….
6:01 pm, October 8, 2008 · Filed under Life, religion · Tagged atheism, big bang, god, Life, Morality, philosophy, religion, Thought
After my aforementioned conversation with my dad, I am actually seriously rethinking my philosophy. Interesting. Perhaps religion’s only purpose is to actually promote the antithetical argument of atheism. Not that religion is all bad, but it is stretching “thinking outside the box” quite a bit. I’m all for the metaphysics and souls and stuff, to a degree. However overall I have no religion or belief in any god. Even if there were a god, I would be as indifferent. Nope, I just don’t care. Not that I never think about the possibility of god at all, but mostly I use hypothetical gods to prove their non-existence, and sharpen my belief that there is no god.
If anyone is reading this, please don’t read it without looking at a post I will publish in a few days about the actual concrete (as concrete as god gets…) theory or idea of mine. That is, if people get influenced at all by this post, which I doubt and hope against. But I do not people to wander off aimlessly and lost in a new world- one without religion or god, as I was a few years ago. That can lead to misguided ideas and chaos. Instead I want people to wait for my actual content-featuring post, which will focus on (pay attention future-me who’s reading this to write said post) Morality, God, Science, Big Bang, Life, Thought, etc.
1:54 am, October 5, 2008 · Filed under Life, My Life, religion · Tagged atheism, atheist, determinism, free will, god, logic, morals, parents, power
Yeah so today my parents were driving to Kansas City and they decided to drag me along. Unfair, but more on that another time. So we’re in the car for hours, and my dad brings up magic in Harry Potter, then proceeds (rather subtly, I credit him) to turn it into a debate about God, free will vs. determinism, and power and morals. I won (self-decalred winner), but it was rather close, and he nearly got me off my ideas and philosophy; I had to many times refer to hypothetical gods and possible alternate universe/dimension for souls. Lots of metaphysics.
But alas, logic+morals > god
Oh and this is a REAL short summarization of the arguement. I wish I had had a tape recorder (or a digital recorder that doesn’t have like just 5 KB).
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7:28 am, March 21, 2009 · Filed under Life, Online, philosophy, religion, Society, youtube · Tagged africa, complex thinking, darfur, genocide, global problems, Hank Green, HP Alliance, imagining the other complexly, john green, killing, nerdfighters, rwanda, vlogbrothers, world, youtube comments
Today I was having a blast on Spring Break (ha! Not really…) and browsing through Youtube, because that’s what I do. Still featured on there was John Green‘s video on the Rwandan Genocide and the HP Alliance‘s idea from Rwanda to have real people light candles and show that they care for their problems, which are all of our problems. It was a funny, yet serious video about how to help stop a problem.
Then I scrolled down to see the comments, and to my horror, people had posted comments not only against HPA’s initiative, but against stopping, preventing, or helping deal with genocide in Africa. There were mainly three categories of diversion from John and most people’s philosophy on this:
Ok maybe they weren’t that articulate or intentionally harsh, but that’s pretty much their idea. And I’ll elaborate with example 3.
And this is certainly a valid argument, and I like that people are thinking compexly about this. I for one apparently love to be proven wrong (even indirectly like this), and I’m glad I can broaden my view on the matter. But it’s an act to show people that we care and are going to help – that they have support, and that it’s not their problem, it’s the world’s problem.
There’s a great value in a small thing – especially when a community collectively responds – that has a great effect on people. It may not be objective or scientifically provable, but it’s there. People in Rwanda will actually see us showing our support. Of course we have to take political action, but it starts somewhere small, and if we want the Big Guys to notice, we gotta make noise!I definitely think that we should really be taking action in donations and awareness would help a lot.
What can I say? It’s hard to believe people can be so selfish and animalistic, caring only for themselves ans seeing the world with such warped values. I’m all for diversity of opinions, which is essential to social (and any) progress, but people have to think complexly about these problems…
I mean that’s just not right. I really don’t have a problem with religion, as long as it’s well thought out, criticized, and thought about deeper than stuff like the Bible and God. And that’s not even the problem here; it’s that people can be so stupid and barbaric in simple thinking, that they completely isolete themselves emotionally from the world, and refuse to care about the world.It’s people like this that really scare me, and make me fear for the future….
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