today I listened to an article on NPR about spiritual warfare, in it disturbing news of very widely spread evangelical ‘apostles’ who speak about the 7 mountains that they will conquer and free from demons, the mountains are the Arts, Gay Rights/homosexuality, business…. No tolerance to tolerance and repenting the sin of having been previously tolerant… Muslims have to be freed from the demon that stops them from converting to christianity, Sarah Palin has to be protected from witchcraft… the list of horrifically backward thinking, re-awoken and presented live in the 21st century is long.

The hope that we may live in a balanced and tolerant society sometime soon is shrinking, I can not quite comprehend how such utterly ridiculous fanatical, fundamentalist boogey story style thinking can penetrate any educated and thinking person’s mind. It feels like the advances science and critical thinking have made are going to be cast down in favour of a culture that will be frighteningly like that of the 17th century where Women in the western world were accused of having angry wombs that had to be pacified with enforced sex.

I want to believe in a world of mutual tolerance and relative understanding, a world in which we think rationally (or as rational as religious thought will allow at least, moderate religious thought.. I had not accounted for the possibility of religious fundamentalism growing into such proportions that I see a chance that it will affect my day to day life in adverse ways).

It is just too unbelievable. The stupidity and greed for power of those promoting this absolute disgrace is limitless..
This makes it even more important to read more, educate oneself better to be prepared and armed against indoctrinations in the future. I don’t think the general complacency of population that ‘this is too mad and therefor will not cause a problem’ is well placed. I think it is careless and negligent, hard won democracies, freedoms of speech, freedoms of expressions and lifestyles have to be protected and upheld.

I see economic misery playing right in the hand of religious extremists of all denominations. After all the ‘reasonable’ are less likely to play dirty tricks and much less likely to rule by sensationalism.. However this age of reason was also the age in which we praised idiocy and stupidity over knowledge. Big Brother just the biggest dollop in that case..

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In the face of such rhetoric it is incredibly hard to try and follow the line of thought I was working on, about the dehumanization of individuals & groups. I wish I had the ability to articulate so well that the madmen of the world had no more arguments, but it seems that an incredible number of individuals are very happy to follow the most ridiculous of ideologies. What makes them accept obviously ridiculous propositions as truth worth supporting and living by? How stupid are people? Is it a matter of education? It appears even the educated join these groups.

I seek refuge in the wisdom of Amartya Sen, yet he doesn’t offer solutions, I have visions of Zizek being hung, drawn and quartered would he cross the path of these self proclaimed Evangelical apostles.

I worry about the future of the society of relative reason that I grew up in and I worry more that the threat to reason is not obvious enough to people. It will be like irreversible changes in welfare system, nobody will speak up until it is too late. What concerns me is the proximity to leadership that these ‘nutcases’ have. Protecting Sarah palin from witchcraft.. She must have agreed to this or else would surely have told the particular priest/pastor to take his hands of her head. What if an American president, with america’s international policies being as invasive as they are, was to believe in this utter nonsense? How would that affect the world?

Why is religious warfare still alive and vibrant? Why has it not yet been relegated to the past? I am fearsome of violence induced by fanaticism, it is not something to reason or argue with. Send Zizek to America, I would feel better if he had a word….

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Today I was approached by a man with a questionnaire about 2-D versus 3-D cinema. I wanted to throw it at him and ask him if he really thinks that anyone cares and had he perhaps noticed what state the world is currently in? It now makes me angry when people live in their fluffy worlds ignorant of the rising economical, societal, environmental problems and ignoring all signs and calls to wake up. Who really gives a monkeys about 3-D cinema, who needs an MA with pretend specialist understanding of it? The questions were as always with tick boxes that allowed you to select agree and disagree on a scale of 5. And I can not even begin to understand why we are still ticking boxes.. I have never come across one of these questionnaire that asked me something relevant and allowed me to also answer in a relevant way.

I think this is a soft subject MA not really worth the time it will take to complete. Reality removed. Or maybe I concede: it depends what reality we choose to live in, the one that protects out fantasy privileges or the one that is rooted in fantasy but does nothing to protect this terrain…