Captain Potatoes & Life nom nom nom potatoes

Good eve, me hearties. I wasn't planning on making a blog entry tonight, but I checked my e-mail and found something that rattled me up pretty bad. Bear with me for a sec while I spill the potatoes (I hate beans).

Tonight, a friend of mine had to remove me from Facebook because I use curse words which almost got him into trouble (quoted). Granted, he isn't a real-life friend, more of an online acquaintance. This bugged me to no end. I know this guy to be of Catholic upbringing, and a pretty stern one at that. However, having Facebook friends that curse landing you in trouble? Either he's lying about it, or his parents still irongrip him like all good extreme religious fanatics do. I don't know which one I prefer, honestly - either he's submissioned by an external moral code, or his parents still control his life with it.

Fine, I'll admit I'm biased. It's true that I've met a lot of extremely religious people who manage to tolerate others' lifestyles and opinions while remaining true to their own. On the other hand, I've seen people so intolerant that they get violent. But this just takes the cake. I almost feel like going on an all-out anti-religion speech, but I choose to refrain from that due to it suffering from that very same thing I wish to fight - intolerance.

Intolerance in religion is like aggressive nationalism, in a way. You can only strongly believe in something if you agressively discredit everything otherwise. War-time propaganda exploits that very same principle, fueling citizen's love for their own country by making them hate opposers, while also averting those same citizens from contact with anything from abroad. Belief is stronger in those that will not question their ideals. Dogmas, and so forth. We've been over this before.

It saddens me to see so much conflict arising over these issues. Gay marriage? I've seen no valid arguments against it, all you hear are religious and conservative points (it's against God's will, family is meant to procriate, marriage is a sacred institution, yadda yadda). To be honest, the only good point against it is the adoption situation, and even then I'm still skeptical - the only real reason to prevent gay couples from adopting would be if you could prove that children in that situation are at a psychological disadvantage or that children adopted by a homossexual couple will end up socially retarded. Which I doubt. Show me an unbiased study, someone.

There are so many problems in society that could be quickly fixed if people would lose their religious / moral high-ground claims and think about the practical implications an idea can have. These conservative dogmatic views keep a stranglehold on cultural progress and efficiency, they leave us in the past. But don't think I'm attacking right-wings only - I'm not a liberal junkie, feeding on change and reform at any cost. That kind of thinking, a blind need to bring down everything that's been built because it "doesn't work", is just as bad. Sometimes the past has answers we can exploit for our benefit in the present.

Locke's idea of a just society envolved an abstract concept of gathering founding citizens who were completely unaware of their social or physical status to define the "law of the land", to determine benefits, duties, etc. Their minds would be free of any preconceptions, and hopefully through reason the result would be a fair and equal utopia for all.

In my honest, yet somewhat humble opinion (ok, not too much though) people need to rid themselves of these chains, these pre-conceived notions of life and consider everything on a practical scale - use justice and equality of opportunity and rights as measures instead of your imposed upon codes of morals and sacred parchments. The only reason I see that prevents us from reaching there is the political power struggle that plagues democracy - the fact that no one ones to give up benefits for the greater good, the fact that everyone prefers instant gratification to long-term reward. We're only human, after all.

I'm sorry, I know I said I wouldn't attack religion. I really have no beef with religious folk, in fact, you could say that most of my mates are believers. However, I can never really get along with someone who hates homossexuals because they are "freaks", who goes to church not because they want to (for enlightenment, spiritual peace, etc.) but because it's needed to "obtain salvation" or "favour in life", who blame their failures on themselves but credits his successes on God and who inherit their beliefs from their parents without any reasoning of their own (this goes for the hip youngsters in those youth political parties). Especially if you'd go to the point of avoiding a friend because he uses curse words. That said, I deeply respect believers who are able to find reasonable and thought out meaning in all that they do, and still manage to respect and co-habitate with people with radically different perspectives.

No pictures tonight, though I was planning on making intercalated pictures and paragraphs my new blog format (thanks Cracked!). I'm pissed, and nothing funny came to mind.

I'll go relax by counting my unpeeled potatoes.

The Cap'n