About
This is the Tumblr for Cand86, a.k.a. Gwen, just a crazy girl who spends far too much time online.
This is the tumblr for my as-of-lately rarely updated blog, Pop Shot, a simpler place for me to drop off all the random thoughts in my brain and a dumping ground for every one of the amazing things I happen to find whilst meandering on the Internet- pictures, videos, songs, quotes, and websites that would otherwise languish in folders or on my browser's Favorites bar until I felt I could organize and post them "properly". Enjoy the unorganized mess!
Following
I’m constantly going back on forth on my feelings on foie gras as I read competing arguments for and against it- can creating it be harmless for ducts when done properly?- but I also just really want to try it and see what all the fuss is about. Like, somewhere that does it good, because supposedly when cooked properly, it’s heavenly.
I’d have to go to Nevada to do so, though.
I don’t want to get too deep into it … but what about Body Integrity Identity Disorder (for those who think they should be amputees)? It’s entirely possible that I am remembering an episode of Nip/Tuck and taking it all too seriously, but the idea of your brain’s body map being off has long been…
Body Integrity Identity Disorder actually should cover other forms of transableism, but it doesn’t yet. The amputee people were “discovered” first, therefore they get to go in the DSM first. It’s all the same disorder.
I don’t know about transethnicity, I’m not going to talk about that.
But is there a plausible scientific explanation for other type of transableism? I mean, I don’t want to go dismissing it out of hand (because hey, discoveries are made all the time!), but part of the reason I’m more open to BIID folks is because the brain mapping of the physical space your body takes up makes a lot of sense as an explanation- something that is not true for, say, folks who believe they should be deaf or blind.
I’m not one of those atheists who vociferously denounce agnosticism; most of the time I really don’t care if somebody identifies as such, and indeed, I think that it’s a comfortable position for a lot of people to take- when you don’t have faith in the supernatural, but atheism sounds so final and resolute*, it just feels right to call yourself agnostic.
But this picture, and the snarky tone it takes, bothers me enough to make me tackle the topic.
Bethany asked for me for the link to this brilliant article not too long ago, which posits that conservative media creates a false narrative of “Both the left and the right do it; they’re both guilty of ____.” in order to legitimize their actions. I believe the same is true for many theists- and I’ve written about it before. This demotivator is evidence of that in action- it equates atheism to theism as though they were equal but opposite viewpoints. They’re not. Atheism and theism employ opposing thought processing, which leads them to opposing viewpoints, but the fact that those viewpoints are the opposite of each other is the result of their different processing. In other words, atheism vs. theism is not “there is a God vs. there is no God”; it is “I require logical processing to arrive at a conclusion vs. I do not require logical processing to arrive at a conclusion.” (And once again, I will point out that I am not loading the word “logical” with any value judgments- it simply means “of deductive reasoning”).
If you try to frame atheism as a form of faith, equal but opposite of religion, then obviously, agnosticism will be seen as the most sane option. And indeed, if I accepted the concept that atheism and theism are two sides of the same coin, then I would probably be in full agreement with the caption here- yelling back and forth about something that can never be resolved (barring undeniable, miraculous proof of the divine) is the epitome of stupidity.
But atheism is not faith- it is the absence of evidence. Stephen Colbert has a penchant for cutely saying “Agnostics just atheists without balls.”, but the honest truth is that agnostics just don’t get it. (Or that they get it but are too afraid to either call themselves atheists, or to follow their weighing of the evidence to its logical conclusion).
I value consistency over pretty much anything else- if you are not trying to push your agenda on me and you remain consistent in your ideology, then I tend to ignore you. The only problem is that it is impossible to be consistent with a flawed premise, and agnosticism is no different:
If you want to champion agnosticism, I stand by your choice, so long as you apply your agnosticism widely and consistently. Not only must you consider and give validity and credence to the possibility of EVERYTHING that has ever been mentioned but not disproven (the FSM, Lochness, Big Foot, a monster hiding under your kid’s bed), but also those things which nobody has even claimed to exist but still cannot be conclusively proven to not exist. And if you really do approach life this way, well, 1) kudos, you are amazingly consistent, and 2) I feel incredibly sorry for you, living in a frightening and unpredictable world that must make mere existence rather horrifying.
ETA: In perusing Tumblr, I came across a post featuring the following wonderful image, which is incredibly elucidating and shows clearly how agnosticism is not a middle point between atheism and theism:
* Which is still the way it is often perceived, even though nothing could be father from the truth. Atheism is predicated on there being no credible, observable, objective proof of the supernatural. If there were such proof, no atheist would deny it (although they might very well point out that something which is undeniably proven no longer requires faith and is such, can no longer be called supernatural).
Whenever my dad decides to talk about Muslims or Islam, no matter from what angle, he will inevitably end up saying something along the lines of “You’d expect that feminists would be all up in arms over the way they treat women.”
It’s annoying as hell, and I know he’s doing it to upset me. I always reply that no, feminists are most certainly aware of, reporting on, and advocating for women who are being oppressed by conservative, radical, fundamentalist Islam. I point out that the reason he doesn’t know this is because he doesn’t consume any feminist media, but it goes in one ear and out the other, the implication being that since I offer no proof, he is right and wins.
For any followers who might not appreciate penises and erections popping up in their dashboards, I’ve graciously offered a “Read More” cut, even though this is a post about being uncut (heh, puns!).
It’s still here, but I really do think DADT is starting to crumble, so I’m posting this song, which I love endlessly. I get shudders every time I hear the line “Are you afraid I’ll be the hero that you are looking for and you’d have to thank my faggot ass for winning you your fucking war?”.
Sometimes I feel like I talk too much about abortion … but I can’t let it go when I hear about some of the things that are going on. One of Jezebel’s tags for their posts on abortion is “Roe vs. World”, and it seems dead-on.
I don’t even understand how they’re trying to justify this; at least other attempts to stop abortion usually fall under justifications that sound good and right (i.e. “We just want to protect women’s mental health!” or so on). I mean, as the video points out, if this is about safety and health, why aren’t other outpatient procedure clinics being subjected to the same regulation? And for that matter, what horrible event occurred in an unregulated abortion clinic that made Ken Cuccinelli realize the horrible oversight and need for two gurney-wide hallways?
Oh, there wasn’t one? Gotcha.
This is fascinating and I really like this man, based off of what I’ve seen in this video. The bit about enhancing our humanity, rather than rescuing us from it … kind of gives me shivers. Also, I have never conceived of the “born again” principle the way he described it, but it really is an incredibly apt metaphor.
Hell is an invention of the Church
Bishop Spong puts the boot right in to Fundamentalism, Bible Inerrancy, Christian exclusivism, and all the stupidity of religion. Rock on, Reverend… Immense video!
[ht dc]
Remember how once upon a time in America, white people in the South used to own black people and treat them like chattel? This horrible event- known as slavery- included the black men and women being forced to live inside of the white folks. The slaves couldn’t do anything- being uncomfortably squished inside of the white folks’ bodies, they didn’t have much choice; you can’t work the fields, pick cotton, cook, or clean when you’re housed in someone’s abdominal cavity.
This calls to mind our current situation today, where the ones doing the unpaid, forced manual labor is actually fetuses. Harrowing, indeed, to see them toiling out there, being treated liked property.
If that describes the world, the comparison of slaves to fetuses is fine. If you live in the real world and that isn’t the case at all, THEN STOP COMPARING FETUSES TO SLAVES.
I don’t mind people who hold the belief that a fertilized egg, a zygote, an embryo, and a fetus are people from the moment of conception, but I really hope that the same people who hold those beliefs can also realize the ludicrousness of this argument (not to mention the racial insensitivity and co-opting of civil rights as mentioned in the article).
I mean, honestly. What. The. Fuck.
I hate bringing up the whole “parasite” argument, because I do think it’s pretty awful, but it’s stuff like this that really makes me want to say “Fine, you think it’s a person with the right to life? Well, right now it’s trespassing on my body so I’m gonna pull the sucker off and you can have it.” Because seriously, if anybody is a slave in this scenario (a comparison I wouldn’t use in the first place), it’s the woman. The government has never forced private citizens to care and provide for other private citizens, and they’re more than happy to take those for whom you cannot do so, either forcibly (Child and Adult Protection Services, foster care) or willingly (Child Drop Off centers, orphanages).
I am not an incubator. If you want, take the thing out of me and put it in your own goddamned incubator, because the women wanting abortions don’t want these “slaves”, as you call them. And masters not wanting their slaves is a really shitty example of slavery, Colorado.
