World sucks

Some days it seems the world is out to actively ruin my mood.

In UK, Ben Goldacre, a nice and sensible person, is again bothered by woo-woo people of unspeakable acephaliousness — and since they have no facts, and no talent for handling them even if they did, they use lawyers. Meanwhile, idiot parents listen to idiot woo-woo vendors and leave their children unvaccinated — and when their children drop dead of measles or something else easily preventable, I would laugh (oh so loudly) if I could forget that children shouldn’t pay for the mistakes of their stupid parents.

Tangentially related: parenthood licences. Seriously. You need a licence to drive a car, but you can fuck up a human being (or several) with no advance testing at all?

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In Italy, political opportunists have once again seized the cross, and declared that uncomprehending vegetative existence is much better than a merciful curtain — more opposition of euthanasia from the sanctity-of-life folks. Ain’t it grand when you can live as you wish, but you can’t die? Apparently to Pope Sidious an atrophied, mindless existence, or one of intense suffering and misery, is much better and nicer than (his words) the “false solution” of bowing out gracefully once one’s hand has been played.

Then again, given the ogre that Christians worship, it’s easy to understand the urge to stay alive and away from the threat of hellfire no matter the cost. Because, you know, God so loved mankind he set up a place of eternal torment for those that would not grovel before Him. (Christianity in a sentence: “All this will I give to you, if you but fall down and worship me.”)

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In US, athletic prowess has proven to be a very minor virtue, easily eclipsed by the gibbering bogeyman of bong use, as in the Phelps brouhaha. Apparently the heroic honing of one’s own body, and all the past accolades, are nothing compared to one picture of a pastime rabidly disapproved by some. I don’t care about sports, but it hurts to see a sportsman being kicked because of something harmless (well, certainly no harm to anyone else) and unrelated to his art. (As for the example he’s supposed to be setting for children — quick! Don’t tell the kids about Gandhi, or they’ll shave their heads and get those funky Lennon eyeglasses!)

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And in the ever-festering cesspool of madness and misery that is Iraq, a good contender for the Monster of the Millennium Award has been found only nine years into the third one — one Samira Jassam, a delightful woman who urged her boys to rape women so the shamed ladies could be easily recruited as suicide bombers — martyrdom being known as such a cleansing thing.

First you have this bizarre idea that a crime against you shames you, and then you offer the lie that a death by self-immolation redeems all blemishes. What a double load of idiocy!

Still, that’s just the religion that’s the same as every other religion — a solid foundation of mist, onto which any monstrosity can be built, above and beneath the various fairy castles. I don’t much care if some brand of Islam or Christianity or any other nonsense makes some people happy or good — as long as you’re glorifying faith and superstition, those two nearly identical things, this kind of a travesty will happen again and again without an end — murder, violence, brutality, arbitrary law, all in the name of ideals that must not be questioned, truths that shall not be doubted, claims that don’t need no evidences, and serpentine interpretations of vacuous and uncertain fairytales.

As long as faith is an acceptable reason for positions and policies — faith, or saying “without and even against evidence I believe this” — there will be an eternal parade of Salems, Jonestowns and Auschwitzes, without an end. (The last is included because idiot beliefs don’t need to be religious to be disasters — faith is all that is needed, that willingness to mistake passion for evidence. Besides, the road to Auschwitz was paved by centuries of Christian anti-semitism, like the kind bleated by Martin Luther himself.)

Well, if all religion died out, if all public affairs were organized without the crutch of wild guesses, still the stupidity of mankind would not cease, nor would horrors, but at least there would be one outlet less for them.

I could probably phrase this Jassam-thought better, but I’m too angry to do so.

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For some reason, saying “The world sucks!” makes its suckitude seem lesser. Ah well.