Man, it's been a LONG time...
Offline It's hard to find a really solid place to start again from, but I guess life isn't always easy and you have to jump in with both feet whether you're ready or not. So, here, goes...
How's everyone doing? This isn't my first time to this site. I signed up about three years ago after seeing Brian and Kelly's dismantling of Kirk and Ray. Really admired their guile and candor to oust those dimwitted, close minded dangers of social reform. I've always struggled to understand why people can't just open up more and take a step back to see what they're doing isn't helping anyone or themselves, but I digress. After signing up here, I started posting and trying to get as involved as I could because, for the first time, I felt accepted and unhindered; free thinking, intellectually brazen individuals that I could relate to. Finally, I could be myself. It wasn't long until I got my blogger badge and was really up and running, posting stuff that was on my mind, getting active in the community here and cementing my place among you all. I even thought about contributing my own personal time to promote this organization as well as my earnings to make sure everyone knew that this was the place to take the gloves off and stop hiding in the shadows; where your voice would be heard, opinions respected and openness embraced.
Well, it wasn't like that after awhile. I felt a little bitter from a few people and comments. I felt like my voice was being snuffed out by arrogance and pseudo-intellectual blather. I no longer wanted to be here.
I won't go into details, but drama ensued and I left this organization and haven't looked back...until now.
You're probably asking why come back now? Why are you even wasting your time if you hate it here so much? Why make the effort when it's clear you dislike the community?
A lot has changed in the past few years. Quite a lot actually. For one, I ended my seven year relationship about a year ago so, that chapter in my life is over. It was an awkward period and I'm glad it's all behind me. I grew to dislike a lot of things and really became a socially inept individual and it carried over to places like this at times. Now, I'm not saying it was a direct correlation with my problems with the members around here, but my attitude certainly didn't help me in being constructive about the whole ordeal; just exacerbated things. That's one thing.
However, as a direct result of my new found single status, I started to doubt myself and really question whether I wanted to stay in this morbidly fucked up reality. If it wasn't for a buddy of mine, I probably wouldn't have lasted very long. At my lowest point, he taught me how to pick myself back up, to improve my social standing, to focus my hatred, disdain, anger and contempt; to undergo a metamorphosis in how I felt about my world. He laid the foundation; I took that and built a fucking mental fortress. I embarked on a journey to become more open-minded and even more aware than ever before; to begin a new era of awakening. Being just a non-believer wasn't cutting it for me; I had to find out more. Over the past two years, I've been desperately immersing my thoughts into social reform and why it needs to happen QUICK. I've been exposed to so much information in the past two years that my brain is about to burst. I've listened to the likes of Peter Joseph and Jacque Fresco of The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project respectively (they split from each other recently) for so long that I've even begun my own Zeitgeist chapter in my community. I'm so on board with these ideas that it keeps me up at night with frustration as to why these methods aren't being implemented faster. Then I started to clear the fog, relax and slowly begin to understand the situation...
People just aren't ready to adopt any of this. Oh, sure, we have our movement, but that's all it is. We have concepts, sound reasoning, very detailed explanations on what we can do to improve and frameworks detailing a very strong and very put together society. People are too scared to make these drastic alterations to their very automaton-like lives. I don't blame them really; how would you feel if a large group of people said you're living in denial, your life is governed by the upper 1% and that the choices you make are calculated every minute of every day by a cold, cast iron economic hand? You'd laugh and continue to deny everything. I've come to accept this and it hasn't phased me from questioning my motives with this movement or deterred my plans to get the ball rolling. Why? To put it simply, the mere fact that I am willing to go out of my way and sacrifice my comfort, possibly my safety and my money speaks volumes. Another main motivation is that I'm brutally honest, truthful and direct to people that get fed lies every day; it keeps me going. It's what I am all about; the genuine article. You will not put me down, say I'm a Socialist/Communist/Marxist or any other bullshit labels and you will NOT divert my morals just because yours are all screwed up in a system where "normal" is your reality of being one of the self-appointed guardians of the "status quo."
This brings me to why I'm back here. To put it bluntly, I need to surround myself with as many free thinkers as I possibly can from all walks of life no matter how I feel about them. Everyone here that has publicly denounced religion as a giant profiteering farce to regulate social control has the right idea; now we need to really up the game. Take back your communities, get active in local politics, hold meetings about the RRS and, if you belong to it, The Zeitgeist Movement. What we are living in now will slowly come to an end if we just sit on the sidelines and become nothing more than talking heads. I hope everyone here will take initiatives and help each other out through these shitty times because we're all in the same boat.
You'll be seeing me around here more if you'll have me. I look forward to talking to each and every one of you. Later.
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Welcome back. I must confess I don't remember you. Looked a bit through your post history and found our paths did cross in a few topics, though never appeared to intersect. So I'm inclined to think we never had a problem.
People aren't ready yet, but they're so close that it'll only take the right voice at the right time. I've been quietly promoting revolution for about 10 years now, and recently have seen a large jump in the number of people willing to discuss it. I've correspondingly increased my promotion of the idea. I expect it to gain even more power should the protests continue in the spring. And if they actually last the winter, things could become very interesting very quickly.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
If you care to tell us, were you going by a different name the first time?
Secondly, as far as personal beefs with individuals, that is actually part of all life. It is impossible to like everyone, no one can do that.
I rarely get upset to the point of wanting to leave ANYTHING. People are going to be who they are regardless of what you say or do. The only thing you can do is make an appeal and make an argument, what they do with what you give them is not under your control.
Welcome back. Hope your second stint here is more enjoyable.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I don't have enough time to write at length I just wanted to say I always respected Sage, and I'm glad to see him back.
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good lord, we can only hope. should the conditions ever become ripe i'll be more than happy to book my plane ticket back to the states and contribute to any revolutionary organization dedicated to dealing decisively with our constitution's dirtiest word: property.
what is to be done, indeed.
welcome back, sage.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
You have a very nice smile. Important only to take seriously the personal comments of people who you actually know. You know the the Internet.
This said, of all the forums I've spent time posting on, RRS is the most consistently worthwhile, tolerant and generally balanced. I have a lot of respect for the latitude the mods allow us here.
It would be nice to have some more quality theists around to talk to. As well as a steady stream of fundies to use as target practise.
When there are no christians on the boards we all tend to get a wee bit of cabin fever, I think.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Zeitgeist is a bunch of naive crap.
The Venus Project has come up before here, and seems to mean well, but also seems to be misconceived and naive.
Extreme conspiracy theories just misdirect us from addressing the real issues of imbalance of power.
They all show elements of blind faith and intolerance of criticism, not that unlike other religions.
But hey, let's discuss.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Welcome Back Sage!
I look forward to reading your ideas and thoughts on social reform ~ hope you find it comfortable here...stick around this time
Slowly building a blog at ~
http://obsidianwords.wordpress.com/
Thank you, everyone, for the warm welcomes, I really appreciate it. It's really cool to see friendly familiar faces as well.
A long time before I watched the film, I got mixed reviews from other Atheists. Some stated that it was terrible, others just liked the fact that it took a shot at religion.
When I finally watched it, I was a little taken aback by some of it's inaccuracies of religious history. I feel that we have scientific evidence to debunk god belief without resorting to outright inaccuracy to do so.
I also do not believve that 9/11 was an inside job.
That having been said, the latest zeitgeist film raised some very interesting points about social environment and such, but the counter arguments to some of the points in the film ALSO made sense when I further researched it.
However, like Bob said, Let's discuss.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Good on ya, Sage. Very well written post, by the way.
I do seem to recall your avatar, unless someone else also had one like that. But no, I also remember your user name, so it must have been you. Sadly, I don't remember your positions on things, but your new intro makes it pretty clear. A hearty welcome back!
You seem like just the kind of person who might be interested in a new project some of us are getting involved in: http://atheismunited.com/
I'm especially involved in the new wiki: http://www.atheismunited.com/wiki/
There's seriously big stuff happening right here, right now. It's perfect timing for your new-found energy.
I happen to have serious misgivings about Zeitgeist, but I'm open to hearing what you find you have gotten out of the movement. As long as someone's open to reason, I'm open to discussion.
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