HoboFactory

It was something of a joke. I think it's always cool when a band does a cover of a not so good song, but a not so good artist and turns it into something worthwhile. For instance when most any artist covers a Depeche Mode song, something better than the original results. The exception of course is when Manson did "Personal Jesus" or whatever... because anything he does pretty much automatically blows.

But extreme beliefs and extreme actions are tied to one another, no? People believe things for a variety of reasons, be it because of experience, evidence, popular opinion, or blind faith... but naturally people behave according to their beliefs. In that sense, an extreme belief is required in order to carry out an extreme action, because moderate belief would only result in "moderate" actions whatever those may be. It doesn't matter that democracy or whatever isn't a belief, the way it is approached becomes a belief. Democracy is an idealogy, but for example, the idea that "democracy is the best system of government" or "democracy is worth killing for" is a belief. All that a belief really is, is basically an opinion that people are reasonably confident is true... regardless of whether or not it is in actuality. In that sense, just about anything can be a belief, and when such a belief becomes extreme, the problems come about. To explain the WW1 example... well as you pointed out about the moderates, that they try to take the middle ground between religious fundamentalism and logical common sense... in that they don't fully belief atheists are absolutely right, but nor do they think the fundamentists are completely correct either. So they can be called "neutral"... and as with the WW1 example, if you remove what is essentially a neutral country, you still have the opposing sides, and nothing changes.

I guess no one is perfect.

So how exactly are the moderates to blame? I mean, suppose I like democracy, but I'm not so extreme about that I'd be in favor of going overseas and killing people in its name, it would be my fault that there are those who do? Would I just be using a cheap cop-out excuse if I was to say that not all people who like democracy do these things? Suppose you hate eating cream cheese, but not the point where you'd wanna beat up people who like it, is it your fault if there is someone out there who is somehow ardent enough to give a beat-down to people who like it? Would it be just a rationalization if you think "Well, I also hate cream cheese, but I definitely don't think it's right to attack people who like it."? Or would you have to abandon what you think just because someone else exists who believes some of the same things except it is to the point that they behave violently? If moderates suddenly decide maybe religion isn't a logical thing to believe in at all, and they abandon it, why would the extremists cease to exist? If we were to use your earlier analogy of atheism being the negative and religious extremism is a positive, why would adding or subtracting a "zero" make any difference? What would be the benefit if only opposite extremes exist? It's like saying WW1 would've been vastly different if Ecuador didn't exist.

They're really awesome (I say "they're" because often times it is more than on person performing after all), quite a cool style without it seeming like a deliberate attempt at originality.

I forgot how cool that song is... the video isn't spectacular but then most videos aren't.

Sometimes I can't help it when someone unintentionally says something that's also a song lyric, have to finish it...

I like it quite a lot as well, some very good songs on there. The immediate favorites are "Fire It Up" "People As Places As People" "Parting the Sensory" and "Little Motel." Is it just me, or is "Parting the Sensory" sound a bit like it's political?

I didn't go to work for a month I didn't leave my bed for eight days straight I haven't hung out with anyone 'Cause if I did, I'd have nothing to say I didn't feel angry or depressed I didn't feel anything at all I didn't want to go to bed And I didn't want to stay up late When youre living your life, well, that's the price you pay Whenever I breath out, you're breathing it in Whenever I speak out, you're speaking out I didn't go to work for a month I didn't leave my bed for eight days straight I haven't hung out with anyone 'Cause if I did, I'd have nothing to say

So there've seriously been that many of them? My guess would've been maybe 7. Never seen any of them.

"WE" by Yevgeniy Zamyatin. It served as the inspiration for Orwell's "1984" and probably Huxley's "Brave New World" as well... although the latter denied it. Anyhow, it's very insightful, and an easy but excellent read.

Modest Mouse's "Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again" is pretty good.

It was good, but it's one of those things where the hardcore fans of it sort of piss me off. Suddenly people know "all about" Guy Fawkes and recite that "remember remember" poem as if they knew it from childhood. Suddenly they start thinking of themselves as some kind of intellectuals just because they saw it in a movie.

Was too slow, Portland shows are sold out. Sucks. I dunno why the kept the balloon thing going as far as album art goes, but it's probably fitting. Dashboard really grows on ya.

They're coming to Portland in March... I'll definitely have to go.

Maybe none of them want it badly enough. ;)

Anyone else hear the new single "Dashboard"? It's up on their myspace page. It's alright, very catchy but it didn't blow me away.

I'm all for taking America down a peg, but RATM just didn't seem to be very good.

Heh, is this like day 4 now...or? But it's cool, actually good food for thought and what not. How so? There's not a direct connection between class an religion that I'm aware of. There are really poor Christians, just as there are wealthy ones, there are really poor Muslims, just as there are wealthy ones, and so on. In a capitalist society it absolutely essential that there be a bottom rung of the ladder as far as class goes. Not everyone can be millionaire living in a giant mansion and driving a 9th generation Mercedes S600. Even in the various attemps at "classless" society, these class differences emerged, maybe there was a smaller gap between rich and poor, but it was definitely there. Well, I hope I'm wrong and that humanity pulls off a better world, but I definitely don't see it ever happening. I thought that when you were only semi-reasonable and only most of the time then it makes you moderate and that is bad? But it makes no sense to condemn religion's fallacious reasoning useing that same fallacious reasoning. But I think the mindset is the same that applies to changing and evolving ideas about anything. To illustrate, lets use the science of light. In ancient Greece, there existed a belief that light, being what enabled people to see, was actually composed particles that "shot" from people's eyes like beams, that closing one's eyes, blocked that light from illuminating what they were looking at which is why they couldn't see with their eyes closed. It made sense to them in that anything within your field of view was illuminated, one would suspect that unilluminated spots existed all the time, but of course one could never see them because if you try, then you'd have to look, thus illuminating it. These days, for many reasons, we know better. To religious people, God is as real as light is, but I think what happens in the case of the moderates is that they develop a different concept of God's nature based on "knowing better" in the same way the concept of light changed based on what people came to know over time. Maybe they're "not all the way there yet" but it's quite an understandable thing. True enough, but it wouldn't be that rapid an escalation, suppose he doesn't go so far as to shoot you, maybe he just takes a punch (still technically his doing, but not nearly as an unjustifiable an action given the scenario), well then you'd likely punch him back, and suddenly you've a fight. Maybe it gets broken up, but if the guy is enough of a nut, maybe stews in his rage long enough, it becomes possible for him to plan a more violent course of action. It would still be his fault, but by insulting him, and stooping to his level, you can see something of cause/effect relationship.

I once found a Rage Against The Machine CD in one of the computers in a web design class that I was in. I gave it a thorough listening to because even though I had heard of the band before than I hadn't heard the music. Didn't like it at all and ended up just putting the CD back where I found it.

What's more frustrating than not voting are the people who register to vote but never actually do. For instance in Oregon, around 70% of those who are eligible to vote register to vote (if these people all voted, the turnout would be far above the national average)... but less than half of those who register to vote actually do vote. What makes it worse is that this state offers people the option of voting by mail when they register, meaning one can vote at any time by a certain deadline (generally this is several days) and does not depend on polling places which open and close at certain times on a certain day.

I stopped using it for some reason. I'm not even sure why.

You'd have to do an equal if not greater denial of the obvious if you think religion and only religion is responsible for the conflict. Race, politics, class have no role whatsoever? Let's be reasonable here. You're saying that as if it's a contradiction. It's black and white thinking to claim that something must either be completely rational and logical or it must be some kind of voodoo. As I keep pointing out, with something as intangible and subject to interpretation as "freedom", you can have extreme and violent actions being taken on its behalf, yet "freedom" isn't something that can be dismissed as "bronze-age superstition." True, people can have a conviction about it in a way that parallels religious thought... to have a world where everyone is purely logical and rational about absoutely everything at all times, is totally impossible, contrary to human nature, it's essentially the same reason anarchy will never fly. That's what I'm saying though. He doesn't believe any of that crap he fed to the public in his campaigns, the guy is liar, and he would most likely have done anything to win... for instance his portrayal of John McCain as un-American when McCain was the one who put in time at a POW camp while Bush AWOL (at some crackhouse) ("while" not meaning literally at the same time) in order to get the Republican nomination for presidential candidate. Not quite what I meant, perhaps I should've been more clear. It's not atheism in itself that breeds religious extremism, it's (as was implied in my post to begin with) when the atheism attacks religious belief. It's over-simplification to sum up what I meant as "disbelief in God causes belief in God"... To clarify, it is a given that there are those who believe in God and those who do not, but it's not the simple fact that there are those who don't believe that causes religious types to redouble their efforts and only strengthens their conviction, but rather, when those who don't believe in God attack the belief. It's when they have an active opponent that it can breed extremism. It's a very simple notion, to illustrate: suppose you're sitting on a bus, or in class or wherever, next to some dude who you think is a real douchebag, maybe he's not so fond if you either, but if you go ahead and call him a douchebag, you better believe he's gonna be a lot more polarized against you than before. Just simple attack/defend... you know fight or flight, and they probably won't choose flight. Not saying you're necessarily wrong in attacking religion, but it's defintely accomplishing nothing.

I never said that there could be no secular morality if religion were absent, nor did I claim that religion is the sole or even primary source of morality for a society, that debate is quite beside the point. I think though, with your latest post you blur the line between the actions of governments and their religion... just as the line between government and religion was blurry in those days. When talking about the European explorers of centuries ago, yes obviously they took control over many parts of the world, and they killed countless of the native peoples in the process, but religion really came on the heels of the original goal, which was mainly to claim territory for a given nation, obtain resources, and to gain advantage over other European nations. Public school history books here fill students with the idea that the Pilgrims and Puritans typified European settlers, that these people came to this part of the world to practice their religion freely and not face persecution in England, and that this is how America grew into what it is today. In reality, these two groups formed neither the first nor the most substantial settlements in "the new world." The vast majority of colonies in America and all over the world as established by England were for financial gain. While the religious types used the situation to try and spread their influence because the opportunity appeared, the most significant motive by far was to gain land, resources, and strategic advantage over its rival powers. The same generally applied to nations like Spain. They didn't pay for dangerous voyages across uncharted seas (mind you, while putting those who were essentially pirates up to the task) so they could find more people to make Catholics out of, it was again, because they thought they'd get gold, or establish trade routes, or obtain territory, thus not falling behind other colonizing powers. Religion simply followed and to some extent served as the justification... while indeed religious leaders to put various native people in the position where they had to convert or die, but the most significant portion of the genocide, whether the result of Columbus' mission, British colonization, gold-seeking conquistadores, or even the United States with its westward expansion towards the Pacific coast (to which, incidentally some attribute around 24 million natives killed) the true motive. Though some attempts were made at lip-service to God in the process, the reality I think was that they just wanted the natives' land and resources, and they best way anyone knew of at the time was to wipe them out. That certainly doesn't make it right, but it's how it was.

But you see, both Medieval Catholicism and Stalinism, when put next to each other serve to illustrate that the problem isn't what you believe, it's how far you will go to try to spread it. It doesn't matter if you do it because of God, or for "the people" or for freedom, or for security; when you can delude enough people and fire up their convictions, it doesn't take the virtue of obeying God to justify it, after all, fighting for freedom is also an act of virtue. The idea of "freedom" for example, is just as inconsistent and subject to countless interpretations as a religious text.