Musings

Humanity: a tabula rasa. Should be fantastic. But can you decide? Are you sick or well? Are you tired or wired? Are you loving or indifferent? Hot or cold? Rebel or bovine? Are you all of these things? Are you none? Shouldn’t you know?

Forever influenced by external stimuli. Internal knowledge and love for oneself is the path to happiness. The issue is remaining in that state. Is the sweet as sweet without the bitter? The sweet is never sweet enough it seems.

Return to acting: it is a necessity in this modern age. Bare one’s heart just to have digested by the locust that is the mob. Reality is a lie, propped up by all of us. Always happy, always healthy; shun those less-fortunate, lest we be reminded of our own misery and mortality. Run away from it all; retreat to your armor, your cavern, your castle. Come out when you are fit for the world, outfitted in that armor. Make it as thick as you can, lest something penetrate it, allowing the window into your soul, that which you share with everyone, to be seen. No one could feel the way you do. It’s impossible. We are all ridiculous.

The musings of a troubled mind free of worry.

Knowledge < Intelligence

What up peeps. It’s been a while. It’s been an excruciatingly long while since a posting of this style. A little less argumentation, a little more of me being an ass and bitching about shit that pisses me off. Oh, there will be probably be obscene language and possibly some grammer:speling errors. This is my caring face. Read the title. I bet you can imagine where this is going. One last disclaimer: the theories and reasoning presented in this are totally suspect and you should give me no credit whatsoever. I think a lot though, so that’s something.

I have come across a number of people in my time who view themselves as intelligent human beings. Incoming generalization: some of them act as if they are the smartest person on the planet earth. Whether each of them actually believes this fact is irrelevant. The fact remains that they ACT in a plethora of social situations as if they do, and this does a number of things, many which are bad, and I shall address them momentarily. Another aspect I shall look at is how said persons got this way. Wow, this has suddenly become an argumentative piece. Professors have corrupted me and stifled my rambling. Where’s the fun in that? Final note: intelligence, for the purposes of this article, refers to how quickly/well you can learn and make use of new information. It does not equal knowing a lot of shit about stuff, though high knowledge levels are probably CORRELATED with higher intelligence (not necessarily caused by it though; some people just work really fucking hard).

Alright. Here’s why these people piss me off. Most of them simply cannot stand being privy to a conversation without lending their two cents to it, regardless of whether or not they have any relevant information on the subject-matter. They think, because of one or more of the reasons one of the upcoming paragraphs, that they are a smart human being, and a smart human being should always have something relevant to lend to any conversation. After all, isn’t that what being intelligent is? So they throw in some comment, and the people who actually have knowledge about the subject immediately know they’re faking. I have been on both sides of this situation, and I can tell you it’s just really fucking awkward for everybody and no one really knows what to do, so what usually happens is the original conversation just continues and the perpetrator of the comment is supposed to feel like a jackass. Normal people do, these “smart people” do not. They rationalize that their statement was somehow meaningful, and that the awkwardness was generated by the other people in the situation being unable to comprehend their obvious awesomeness. Thus the mistake repeats endlessly until they run into an asshole like me at the bar after I’ve had a few and come at me with some ridiculously general and/or stupid comment. Then I usually just tell them “you’re an idiot” and to just stop. Too bad people love to do this at the bar. Wait, maybe it’s a good thing they do it there. Except they won’t remember/care in the morning. Losing.

Pissed off reason number two. Because of their perceived intelligence, they take their knowledge for granted. This has consequences. One: their beliefs, when challenged with legitimate concerns, become a touchy subject. They structure their world around those beliefs and have so much confidence in them that they have internalized them and done so to such a degree where it actually offends them when the legitimate possibility of their beliefs being incorrect is presented to them. Thus they immediately become defensive and agitated, causing them to ignore logic and reason in favour of emotion and instinct. Do not fret unintelligent peoples: this last part is not your fault; your body is supposed to react in this manner when presented with a fearful situation. The thing is, this situation is not to be feared: it is to be embraced. Legitimate reasoning to question your belief structure? That’s AWESOME! Talk about progressive thinking. Now you can take this new knowledge, adjust your beliefs, and live a better, fuller, happier, more knowledgeable life. Who can argue with that? Stop fearing what could literally open your world to infinite possibilities. Consequence two: because these people take everything they “know” for granted, they don’t bother to take new information as seriously as those with open minds, and thus are assholes about many topics for longer than anyone needs to tolerate.

Pissed off reason number three. When one of these people is interacting with someone who they perceive as having less knowledge about a topic than they do (this analogy is especially applicable to intellectual types….who can also be exceedingly stupid in some situations), they automatically attribute an intelligence lesser than their own to the other party. Fallacy. Just because you know more about one subject does not mean you are a smarter person than the person you are talking to, or better than them in any way. Is a heart surgeon somehow better or smarter than the paramedic? It can be argued one studied harder, or tried harder in school, and that individual therefore deserves the stature that comes with the position. I argue that has little bearing on one’s overall intelligence though. Who’s more important to you? The paramedic who holds his/her bare hands over your gunshot wound for a 15 minute ambulance ride, or the surgeon who removes the bullet and closes the wound? They each have their place, and both are just as important as the other. But don’t get me started on nurses. KIDDING. Totally kidding. Still think I’m wrong? Think of the last time you started a new job. Many of your new coworkers believe you have the aptitude of a 3 year old toddler regardless of whether you have an IQ of 75 or 168 (not that IQ is a relevant measure of intelligence, pretty much for the exact reason I’m addressing now). Your intelligence will magically increase as you progress through your probation period. Weird eh?

A prime example of people like this is staunch Christians who view atheists as the devil minions on earth (this obviously does not refer all Christian people).  Patrick Condell made the argument…..you know what? Fuck it. Go look at this picture and read the quote.

Ex-fucking-actly. Listen, believe what you want. Go to church. Believe you’re going to heaven when you die. I think it’s way better than my two choices (you know, non-existence or hell, but then again).  Just don’t judge me for not believing (the second half of the quote in that picture is not exactly my view on the matter by the way, though it’s close.   I just was talking about the judgement I feel coming at me from most Christians I meet). By the way, a lot of you atheists have dirt on your hands as well.  Look what religion has given us over the years? Much of classic western culture can be attributed to it (think of De Vinci’s Last Supper, or the Sistine Chapel). Would society be at this point in history without Christianity/religion in general? Religion gave historical peoples/slaves power (even if it was imaginary power) and drive towards achieving something in life above just survival and doing what they were told by their superiors. God became the only true superior, and thus man was free of tyrants….eventually……ok western man……maybe…….I’m really trying here religious folk ok? And what about eastern religions? Can you argue those establishments have not done loads of good throughout history? Yes you probably can, you sophists.

This is where I was going to talk about how people ended up this way. However, I don’t really care enough to make full sentences at this point, so you’re getting a bullet point list. Enjoy.

How the people I’m bitching about got this way:

• disney
• parents, teachers, society, television, computer games etc. Constantly telling people “you are special”
• being told they are smart/intelligent by people who cannot tell the difference between work-ethic and actual intelligence
• the individual spent an inordinate amount of time on one subject and believes that mastery of said subject means mastery of many subjects
• religion tells them they are shit and need god to be moral upstanding individual, but they are better than all those non-believers who do not have an objective moral standard
• they think an alternative lifestyle makes them above the “normal”
• they actually ARE intelligent, but not intelligent enough to realize that throwing it in everyone’s face needlessly is not only annoying, but actually fucks over your relationships

Those are my half-assed theories. I’m sure some psychologist somewhere will eventually determine if they are correct or not, but really who cares? I was bored, and I like coming up with bullshit reasoning for unimportant crap.

So here’s what I want you to do unintelligent people who think you’re awesome. Stop acting like dogs ie. barking your beliefs and desires at everyone in ear shot, whether they want to listen or not. Start acting more like rational thinkers (key word: more. Not completely, as that’s not fun; it denies our humanity.) Discuss your opinions with one another in a civilized manner. Express yourselves as articulately as you possibly can, and leave emotion at the door. Oh, and don’t mix alcohol with these discussions. Only bare knuckle boxing matches or radical life-changing sexual experiences can ensue.

One last thing. I am allowed to judge. I used to be one of you. In other words, I hate myself. Welcome to life as a critical thinker; I’m going to need therapy. Also, yes, I realize this is a giant oxymoron of a blog post. If you were planning on writing that in the comments section, YOU ARE PROBABLY WHO I AM TALKING ABOUT!

Ladies, I Am Sorry, or What I Learned From Feminism

Those of you who know me personally may know that I am, if not a “typical” heterosexual male, then certainly one with blatant heterosexual attitudes towards women.  There are a variety of reasons for my attitudes.  One is probably due to my father.  He has an old school chivalry mindset; on the surface it appears that he has the utmost respect for women.  He speaks to them excessively politely, makes kind gestures such as holding the door for them, and generally goes out of his way to impress them in these types of ways.  There is a problem with this line of thinking though: it implies that women are incapable of doing small things like opening doors for themselves, or that they cannot handle foul language, or a crude joke.  Would I have ever thought this if it had not been for my feminism class?   Well, a woman at some point in my life would probably make this point to me, but to be honest I wouldn’t have taken her seriously if she had, because I would have always viewed women’s ideas about things of this nature as misguided or misinformed.  But isn’t it to some extent?  Should chivalry really die in the name of equality?  Is it even possible for chivalry to die?  Why is it that every time a woman holds the door for me I feel I have wronged her in some way by not doing the same for her first?  I don’t want chivalry to die, but I also don’t want to feel badly every time I walk through a door held by a woman.  Speaking of door holding, what about when an elderly person holds the door for you?  Don’t you just feel terrible?  I know I do, but it’s discrimination in the same way.

Alright.  On to the second reason for my former attitudes.  I used to be in an army unit that was made up almost exclusively of white males.  Out of approximately 100 semi-active troops, maybe 3 were women.  Our conversations and remarks were the often incredibly sexist.  We’d make fun of women’s biological mechanisms, their attitudes, their intelligence, their capabilities etc.  We would also tell stories about former flames, and the raunchier they were the better received they were.  The girls in each story never had personalities; they were just objects to be poked fun at for one reason or another.  Another terribly sexist practice was simply referring to a troop as a “pussy” or a woman every time he showed weakness of any kind.  I wish I could go back to all of those story-tellings now and say something along the lines of, “whoever this girl is a real human being and should not be simply objectified in this manner.”  This is where I have still have issues though.  A portion of me still just wants to laugh and enjoy the story, and I feel as though if I were in that situation again, I wouldn’t risk facing ridicule in the name of some unknown person or the feminist cause.  Sad, but probably true.  There are people out there stronger than I though.

The third major reason for my poor attitude was from knowing about the so-called “Game”.  When I was about 19, there was this girl in my life who I really liked, and I desperately wanted to date her.  The problem was she didn’t feel the same about me.  We were friends and all (co-workers actually), but that’s where it ended (the “friendzone”).  I pined for her for almost a year, but could never figure out what I could do or say to make her like me (yes I know how this sounds. To be honest I’m not overly impressed with myself on this portion of the story).   First of all, if you even can “make” anyone have feelings for you is up for debate, but in my quest for her I stumbled across a sub-culture known as Pick-Up Artists (or PUA’s for short).  There are volumes upon volumes of information about how to go about “picking up” women of all types.  They use techniques like “negging”, which is when a man says something negative about a woman (generally about her appearance) in nonchalant manner as if almost complimenting them.  Something like, “your smile really lights up the room; it must be the size of your teeth”.  It’s usually something small so that the woman’s confidence isn’t shattered, but it is supposed to lower her self-esteem enough to give your sorry (and sexist) ass some illegitimate hope at somehow getting this girl’s phone number in the next few minutes.  This is only a small portion of the whole ordeal though, which involves openers, demonstrations of “worth” (basically showing off), segregation of the “target” from her friends for a more intimate chat (or other things, depending on how well things go), and finally closers (or more openings………….).  Here is the problem: some of this bullshit actually works to some extent or another, thus giving it some legitimacy.  I personally ended up dating that co-worker for more than 2 years about 6 months after learning all of this, but that’s not telling the full story.  After doing this research I still didn’t take it all 100% seriously.  I did change some things it told me to, such as my body language, and I worked on my confidence levels, which was actually directly benefited by my changes in body language (it’s been proven that if you sit in a confident position, you will feel more powerful almost immediately), but that’s about where my practical application of my knowledge of the “game” ended (and still ends for that matter).  I’ve never really had a problem carrying on conversations with girls for long periods of time (at least with the ones who can.  I don’t do well at clubs because most girls there can’t talk for long periods of time about the subjects I am interested in (though maybe I should be more interested in the subjects they are interested in (I’m three brackets deep!!  I’ve always wondered what it’s like down here.  Dare I risk a forth?   Nah, I don’t want to end up in limbo like in Inception.), so it’s up for debate whether the specific “techniques” work, but apparently self-confidence works out rather well.

Clearly my attitudes concerning women were suspect, but I was living out my existence oblivious to these facts.  I would go so far as to say I thought my treatment of women and my thoughts and concerns about them were correct and more enlightened when compared with most men I knew (the sad part is, this is actually somewhat true).  I even signed up for feminist philosophy because I knew there would be mostly women in the course, perhaps some single ones (this was not the ONLY reason I signed up……….really……….I swear…………fuck).  This has turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life (though in all honestly, my life has not been full of great decisions, so this isn’t saying as much as I wish it was).  But what exactly did I learn?

I learned women are oppressed by many portions of our society.  Women on average earn less than men do.  Women occupy less science/technology jobs than men do.  Women are generally the primary caretaker of children in a family.  Women do more housework then men do.  Women do not get as much financial compensation in a divorce on average.  Many women are subject to unwanted sexual advances, often in situations where they could not defend themselves adequately were the man to “insist” upon his sexual urges.  Women are seen as overly emotional and therefore irrational.  They are considered weak, which means they are less-than-human in a way, for a good human being is a strong human being according to many philosophers (Nietzsche for example).

This is where many people who don’t value feminism or lend it any credibility would say something like, “why don’t women just bypass each injustice?  Surely a woman won’t be denied a higher paying job if she is qualified for it.  More women should just get more qualifications”.  These poor folks fail view the issue from as broad a perspective as it needs to be.  Each of these individual oppressions are actually related to one another and form what Marilyn Frye terms the “birdcage” of oppression.   For example, women do not have as many jobs in engineering, and one could simply say that women just don’t like engineering, or that they are not properly qualified to be engineers.   But that fails to take into account that society pushes women to focus on aspects of life other than science from birth.  Women are told by others to be feminine, and science isn’t feminine and is therefore to be ignored or left for the boys.  Thus a girl doesn’t get the experience needed in early life to gain a proper understanding for science and develop a passion for it.  Then later in life, even if she does find she enjoys the subject, she is behind in her learning process and must compete against boys who have been working on the subject for years already.  If Malcolm Gladwell’s ten thousand hour rule is correct (10000 hours spent on any one activity will make you a master of that activity) then boys will master science (if you can “master” science…..weird analogy I guess) much earlier than girls, and they are therefore admitted to better schools and have more job opportunities upon graduation.  It’s not that girls cannot be good scientists, it’s that girls are told not to be good scientists.

Probably the biggest issue I got introduced to was the fear of sexual assault that many women deal with on a daily basis.   This came from reading a book called Aftermath by Susan Brison, which I recommend every person read, especially women, though I kind of think saying that is sexist, as men would learn much from this book as most of us have the POTENTIAL to be a rapist (POTENTIAL simply means we have the strength to physically impose our will).  This raises an important debate: should women really have to adjust their behaviour in our society because they could be raped?  Our society continuously tells women to “be safe” and all that bullshit while simultaneously not being proactive about preventing rape altogether, which would then allow women to be more autonomous.  I didn’t realize that walking home alone at night for a woman can be a truly harrowing experience.  I am a 6 foot 3, 190 pound man who spent some time in the military and has taken a Tae Kwon Do class or two and works out semi-regularly; in other words, I don’t think twice when if I’m walking home alone from the bar intoxicated.  I Nike the shit out of that.  But a girl has to be careful.  What surprised me even more was that most women I asked said they would be more comfortable walking in the woods at night than they would be in downtown Toronto or even Peterborough.  I am the exact opposite; bears, coyotes, and  that type of shit live in the woods.  Those dudes can fuck me up in a hurry, and I can’t outrun them over short distances.  Anyway, now that I am aware of this issue, I find myself asking any girl leaving somewhere I am at night if she is walking home alone.  If she is, I usually at the very least insist she texts me when she gets to wherever she’s going, and sometimes I will walk her there.  However, I kind of feel sexist for intruding into girls’ lives in this way.  It’s kind of the same sort of feeling I get when I am chivalrous; I feel kind of guilty for assuming that a girl could not handle her own business without my intervention.

As you can see, I learned quite a bit about women’s issues in this class, and I believe that this new knowledge has shifted my attitude towards women.  I really try hard not to objectify them now, though it does still happen on occasion.  I try to be sensitive to there needs; I try to understand their perspective; I talk with them about the issues I have mentioned in this blog, but most importantly of all, I have learned to listen to what they have to say.  Clearly they have been telling me these things all along, but only now have I opened my mind enough to comprehend the information being imparted on me.  I am certainly glad I did, and my relationship with every single woman in my life has improved because of this course and my new perspective/understanding of the female sex.  I still have many questions though.  What is sexist and what is not seem to be where most of them end up, and also when is it okay to be a little sexist?  Spreading awareness is also a task I am focusing on, as it seems to be the only way to affect change in a democracy.  Change the minds of the majority of the people, and you can change the policy.  So much fucking easier said than done.

Sex, Gender, and the Institute for “Canadian Values”

I haven’t bitched about shit for a couple of weeks now, so I’m due.

Issue Numero Uno: It has been brought to my attention recently that there is lobbyist group in Canada known as the “Institute for Canadian Values”.  They are in the habit of putting up posters like this one in schools around the province of Ontario.  Go look at it.  I’ll wait.

You’re back?  Good.  Are you as pissed off as I am?  Hope so, because if you’re not you’re probably not going to enjoy this next part.  These people are being absolutely ridiculous.  Educating children at an early age to accept the differences in sexual orientation or gender selection is probably the BEST IDEA EVER, and these people want to stop it before it catches on.  Kids are notoriously bad when it comes to accepting differences; there are stories of children committing suicide because of severe bullying almost daily, and one of the main reasons some kids are bullied is because they don’t conform to a given society’s gender stereotypes.  If you’re gay, transexual, mix-gendered or even just a little manly (for girls) or effeminate (for guys), you can expect to be ridiculed on a daily basis.  The reasoning for most of this hatred is because of ignorance and mis-information.  The curriculum for sexual education in public schools is at least making an attempt to inform children of all the possibilities for sexual orientation and gender in the world, and thus are trying to negate this ignorance at a young age, and the ICV wants to STOP THIS?

Listen, the government can’t tell you what to teach your children at home, so if you want your children to be as ignorant as you are, so be it.  But please, try to realize that there are other people in the world too.  You can’t possibly imagine what a gay child/teenager has to go through on a daily basis.  I really wish there was a machine that could allow people to trade places for a week, so that people could understand what it’s really like to be someone who doesn’t conform to the binary system of gender.  Or maybe every ignorant prick who thinks being gay is a choice could have the blessing of a son or daughter who is gay.  But seeing as these things aren’t going to happen anytime soon, why don’t we allow for a little education so that gay and mix-gendered people don’t have to kill themselves to escape the ridicule.

The worst part of this poster campaign is that its under the banner of the Institute for CANADIAN VALUES.  What kind of picture is this painting for the rest of the world when it comes to Canadian values?  I know I’m pretty damn Canadian, and these beliefs certainly don’t represent MY values, but someone on the outside looking in is just going to get the message that all Canadians don’t accept gender ambiguity or atypical sexual orientations.  Great message for our country.  Fucking assholes.

There is more that saddens me.  Recently, I read an article for my Feminist Philosophy class (Don’t laugh, it’s actually pretty good, and eye-opening for a heterosexual male.  Everyone should take it, especially guys.  I mean it.) that talked about people born with dual sets of genitalia and other genetic differences.  The medical community has been terrible in their dealings with these people.  Often, infants with both types of genitals are operated on immediately to “fix” the “problem”, sometimes against the wishes of the parents.  For example, Helena Harmon-Smith’s son was born with both an ovary and testes.  She expressed to the doctor that surgery was unnecessary; she planned to go along with the child’s wishes when he could express himself.  However, the surgeon removed the testes against her wishes.  The kicker is that this happened IN THE 1990s!!!  You know, when we were all supposed to be more enlightened about issues such as this.  What. The. Fuck.  There is a lot of research that has been done that shows that infant surgery in these cases actually does a lot more harm than good, causing extensive scarring and often resulting in multiple surgeries being needed throughout childhood/adolescence and even into adulthood.  But the absolute WORST part of all this is that often medical records of the initial surgery are withheld from the patient, even when expressly requested.  Sometimes children are even told that they are having a normal surgery, such as having their appendix removed, only to find out later that the surgery was anything but normal.

One of the theories this article (by Anne Fausto-Sterling) spoke of was Martine Rothblatt’s “343 shades of gender”.  She suggests that each individual can be categorized into one of 7 different levels of aggression, nurturance, and eroticism (7x7x7=343).  This makes much more sense to me than our society’s binary system.  I would even go further.  There are MILLIONS of different shades of gender, unique to each individual.  I am my own gender, and I call it Drew Johnson.  Simple.  Fuck this binary bullshit!

Insert Title Here [ Agtheism ]

Hey guys/girls/hermaphrodites.  I don’t really have a topic today (hence the title, though I may actually insert one once I finish this), so I’m just gonna talk about my day and see where I end up.  Should be good times.

Alright.  Day started with Ancient Philosophy.  Knee-slappin’ topic eh?  We talked about Socrates and some of his beliefs, including his thesis that human beings can do nothing bad (harm) willingly.  At first this seems counter-intuitive; everyone has willingly done something they believed is wrong before, right?  We’ve all hit that bong one extra time, or had one too many drinks, or punched that asshole in the face (yes, I know he deserved it, but it’s still harming someone).  Socrates would argue something along the lines of “if you committed the action, you obviously didn’t think it was legitimately wrong, for your rationality would prevent you from doing the action if you TRULY believed it was wrong”.  Fun stuff eh?  I’ll end the Socrates talk here.

Anyway, this class was tough for me this morning for a variety of reasons, which can be boiled down to one cause: I am quitting smoking.  By smoking I mean weed and cigarettes.  This is causing me to be kind of fidgety.  It is also causing me to lose lots of sleep and be unable to eat properly, especially in the morning.  Seeing as this class was at 10am (I know I know, not THAT early, but when you can’t fall asleep till 3am and wake up every hour until 7am, at which point its impossible to fall back asleep, it sucks) I was kind of out of it.  So much so that I was actually having dizzy spells.  Good times.  I forced some food into me, finished the class, and moved on to write an essay outline, which was due Wednesday of this week.  Whoops.  I do kind of have an excuse though; quitting this shit isn’t exactly easy, and I’m not really all the motivated to do stuff at the moment.  I don’t think I’ve half-assed an assignment as bad as I did this one, at least this year.  Oh well, it’s only an outline; I’ll get feedback and then make the essay better.

After that I came home for some food and watched a bit of Enemy at the Gates with my roommate.  Good movie that one, but I had to cut it short to hit the gym.  Fuck does the gym suck when you haven’t been going consistently for months.  It’s just pain.  Pain which ends up feeling good later on (you know, like when you look in the mirror), but pain nonetheless.  After that I went to see a guest speaker at the lecture hall: Christopher DiCarlo.  He is a philosopher who recently published a book call “How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass”.  This was put on by the Atheist society at Trent (oh shit, I said the A word).  Before we go any further, I should probably tell you that I am, to quote Christopher, an “agtheist”.  This means that I don’t believe that any religion in the world has gotten it right, but I leave room for there to be a creator (like an agnostic), for clearly we haven’t been able to determine BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT how the universe came into existence.

Anyway, he talked about how the world is getting more and more fucked up (I’m paraphrasing a tad) because we are no longer having rational discussions about our beliefs.  It is considered taboo to discuss things like religion, politics, etc. with friends and family.  This is out of fear of offending someone, and trust me when I say that, as an “agtheist”, I offend a lot of people when I talk about my beliefs.  So I often bite my tongue when I’m in a situation where there are people with strong religious beliefs surrounding me.  I kind of feel like my beliefs are constantly under attack by literally EVERYONE who does not share them.  Whether you’re Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or whatever else, you can all agree on one thing: we atheists are fucked.  If only we could see “the truth” they say, we would understand.  Listen, I see the truth all around me.  It’s called the physical world.  And in the physical world there are some rules which govern how things work, known as laws of physics.  How these laws came into being?  I don’t know.  But I see no evidence supporting there being a God who created these.  I also see a LOT of evidence which points to the fact that the world is NOT 6000 years old, that humans evolved from a species of ape, and that being gay is not a choice.  So I take this evidence and use it to my advantage.  That is not to say that I ABSOLUTELY, 100% believe that this is the way things are.  Can you really ever be 100% about anything?  There’s always got to be a little room for doubt.  Thus I love to have conversations with religious people.  I am NOT out to prove you wrong; I’m just trying to make you think a little more about what it is you believe.  For if you don’t question your beliefs, how can you be sure that they are correct?  I am just looking for the answers, like religious individuals, but unlike them, I don’t place my faith all in one place.  I guess the only real faith I have is in myself and my ability to think rationally (most of the time) about the happenings around me.

Wow, my argumentation is terrible this evening.  I’m really glad this is just me rambling and not an essay, as this would be a FAIL.  Whatever, let me know what you think of all this crap.  I could always use more information and more perspective.