Vent thread

@Zincy  
Good point, and the serious loonies don’t have a problem taking down unbelievers with actual violence.
 
Still, I remain optimistic, though I worry that the strain will just mutate into that particulary odious form, the Prosperity Gospel sect (you know, the fuckers that are all about how much God wants you to be rich and all you have to do is give money to these rich guys with terrible hair.)
 
I suppose the unfortunate fact is that as long as there are desperate people there will be those that will prey on them.
 
Speaking of which…

@gasmaskangel
 
Nothing wrong with a little faith in a higher power, but the moment you let it control your earthy existence, all you’ve done is sell your soul.
 
Worse still, is it gives them the impetus to force their morality and beliefs on the rest of us. Remember, they think they’re “saving you” from some terrible fate. Which is why the crash your D&D party or stand on the street protesting gays.
 
I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard one of my rants about the shit I’ve seen here. Pretty sure you did, a few times actually.

You know what really, really pisses me off? I mean actual moral outrage as opposed to just violating my personal pet peeves.
 
Con artists who prey on the desperate. Faith healers and psychics particularly.
 
One can laugh at a con that works by exploiting base greed, but to target those who have lost, those who suffer, those who are lonely and desperate? That to me stinks of genuine evil.
 
I can laugh at ghost hunters who hand around old hotels with some useless piece of electronics that promise to reveal the supernatural. I can smile on the bigfoot believers and UFO experts.
 
But those who claim they can talk to the dead when all they do is ask vague questions and say it is the dearly departed communicating with us piss me the fuck off.
 
My dream is to one day visit one of these phony motherfuckers and punch them square in the fucking jaw, that is how much I loathe this practice.
 
Is there anything more vile, more base than exploiting another’s trust and hope and despair? Possibly.
 
But at least those things are actually acknowledged as evil. The psychic and the faith healer operate freely, claiming to be simple entertainment or under protection of religious freedom.
 
I can think of no greater blasphemy to any god that may exist that look a parishoner in the eye and tell them that the cancer is gone, and then to tell them that they have no faith when the doctors tell them the abominable truth.

@Zincy  
I have, and generally I am in complete agreement with you on the subject.

@gasmaskangel
 
The con-artists are pretty bad, and the ones that claim to cure cancer with the touch of god are pretty despicable. Especially the ones that are charging money for their “gifts”.
 
But, the little rinky-dinc crystal healers and shit actually might be helpful. Not in treating actual illnesses mind you, but we’ve got a bit of research data to show they’ve got the “cognitive control” thing down pat. They aren’t actually treating things per se, but they can have placebo’ish cognitive benefits. The “cyrstal” healing specifically is actually rather intriguing, because getting a patient to focus their “energy” (in actual scientific language, their attention) into an object can help settle their mind, and make therapy more effective.

isis needs to be wiped from the face of the earth

@Zincy  
Be interesting if combined with actual medicine, and I reserve my contempt for anyone who tells you to replace medicine with the placebo.

@Nathan Drake  
You’ll get no argument from me.

@gasmaskangel
 
Of course, I’d never advocate replacing science with mysticism. But, sometimes mysticism can be useful, when you boil away the supernatural and examine why people believed in the first place. The mind is a powerful thing, and it can work wonders on itself.

@Zincy  
Indeed it can. Hell, last I checked the study of how we think and the effect our thinking has is one of the big areas where we still know pretty much nothing.

@gasmaskangel
 
You can thank the tail-end of the behaviorist movement for holding us back on that front, putting the kibosh on the cognitive studies. Watson and Skinner, did a lot to move psychology forward, but inadvertently held it back. Turns out the “black-box” is pretty damn important.

I’m slightly peeved. So, I just posted in the Religion thread about how an airmen has been denied re-enlistment because he refused to say the last 4 words in his oath “so help me god”. He’s fully within his constitutional rights to do so, thanks to Article VI and the first amendment.
 
I’ll keep the religion part in the religion thread. What I’m going to vent about is a congressional issue. Back in 1946, the Supreme court issued an opinion that basically said religious oaths in the military are a no-no, but 4 years later because of Cold War nonsense, Congress decided to ignore the Supreme Court and the US Constitution and make the oath end in “So Help Me God”, however they left an exception in that non-religious or non-Christians could “affirm to the state” instead. However, in 2013, the congressional armed forces committee, an entirely civilian co-committee formed of politicians, decided to amend the oath to require the religious part and remove the exception, and the military is powerless to change it without congressional approval.
 
So not only do those bloody cowards in congress buck the Constitution, the buck the military to, and every serviceman and servicewomen defending out nation. Fuck the Congress, damn wanna-be nobles.
 
Here’s an article on the subject

Well, i did talk with my friend. And everything went to hell. Dunno why i was expecting things to go in another way.
 
Oh well, a burden has been lifted from my shoulders at least.

You ever see one of those relationships, romantic or otherwise, where one or both parties is put simply a plague sent to spite the virtuous?
 
And one or both parties will still claim to love the other, in a manner that makes their behavior all the more unforgivable?
 
Can you imagine having to decide which of the dual realities that person lives in is the one you will meet them on?

Can people actually be willing to talk about things? For once? Without shit being thrown?

I feel mad because I posted a piece I worked really hard on and it’s getting ignored. Heck the person I made it for helped me with it and says it’s a fantastic sketch…but then I post it and it gets a couple likes and that’s it. Some previous drawings which are doodles are MUUUUCH more popular.
 
I think I’ve bitched about it before but it’s just really hurting me to work so, so hard on a picture then to have everyone look the other way, it makes me feel like I don’t belong in any art community.

@Sono  
Sorry to hear that, dude.

Anybody who misuses the term “literally.”
 
I’ll just let Reynolds speak for me.

I don’t like it when people censor historical facts just because it doesn’t feel right. The children will know eventually and conflicting statements might confuse them. What’s done is done and covering them up won’t make it go away. It will always be a part of us, better to learn from it than make the same mistakes.

Violent rant inbound.
 
With the recent disruptions across the world, and talk of prolonged conflict on the horizon, a certain type of…person has emerged from the woodwork. People have probably noticed by now that I have an extreme respect and deep connection to the military, and as such tend to get a little…defensive of our boys and girls in uniform.
 
Well, recently, the talk of sending our troops back into the fray has unleashed one of my most hated phrases. “They know what they signed up for” or any variant there of. If ever there was a more callous, cowardly, despicable statement to be uttered I have yet to hear it. My first question to people that I see use this statement, as it’s mostly been online and never irl, is to ask them if they’ve ever served, and not once have any of them answered yes. My response after that is to point out how those soldiers he/she are so callously dismissing are the reason their fatass can sit in front of their computer screens and how they are too much of a pants-pissing coward to actually join up. I swear to the Goddess on-high that if I ever hear someone say that directly, they best pray I’m in a good mood lest I rearrange their face with a tire-iron.
 
And any talk of our troops being “expendable” will elicit from me nothing short of barely containable hostility and my considerable fury. Anyone who says this needs to be given an M16 with no ammo and dropped in the middle of Syria with a target painted on their back in 6 bloody languages.

@Zincy  
I feel ya on that one. Any sort of smug callousness irritates the shit out of me, but I’ve got enough a personal stake in this issue that I’d be next in line to hand out ass whuppins.

@gasmaskangel
 
Incidentally, the same people who make those kind of statements, tend to be the ones that claim to be “true Americans” and decorate all of this belongings in flag motifs. They believe that because they put a Red’White&Blue bumper sticker on their car and own a gun that it makes them a true patriot. Cowards the lot of em.

@Zincy  
I’m curious. Does the term ‘patriot’ only apply to Americans? No hostility intended.

@Albus Fahrenheits
 
I would suppose no. Being a patriot just means vigorously supporting your country and/or its ideals. I’m American, so I’m referring to Americans specifically, but it can apply universally. A Brit can be a British patriot, and a Canadian a patriot for Canada.
 
However, the people I’m talking about would probably say yes, the only way to be a patriot is to be American. But remember, these are the people who think America is the center of the universe, all other nations are 3rd world shitholes, and that the military exists to shoot brown people they don’t like. Hence my seething hostility toward them.

@Zincy  
Dogs that have quite the bark but never the bite to justify it.
 
Here’s another I’d like to vent.  
I hate it when people pity me. It’s insulting. Why? Just because I’m blind in one eye, I’m in need of special treatment. I am not incapable. That’s what I like about the ROTC, they treat me like they do to other cadets.