For starters the US is a relatively new nation compared to the rest of the world with many years of tradition behind them.
England takes great pride in their tradition.
They, in fact, mock Americans for not having a “culture”.
[quote]Alpha F wrote:
For starters the US is a relatively new nation compared to the rest of the world with many years of tradition behind them.
England takes great pride in their tradition.
They, in fact, mock Americans for not having a “culture”.
[/quote]
Let’s not turn this into America vs UK, I’m asking a sensible question. I’ve been to the States and I loved it. And you are really generalising when you say the British mock the Americans. Some probably do, most (myself included) do not. This isn’t about one place being superior to another - my whole point is how similar Europe is to the States. Both were founded on Christian values. Why would a loss of these values affect the one but not the other?
Anyway, I’m not sure the sense in carrying on back and forth like this over the internet. I’m not sure anyone is going to change their mind haha. I guess the only real point that I was trying to make, though I got caught up in everything else, is that atheists can be good people too.
As it’s 15 minutes until Christmas day (over here anyway) I’d like to sincerely wish you all a Merry Christmas. Have a great one guys.
I think the root of the problem with the “moral decline” of the USA lies with three things that our country was founded on: Capitalism, Freedom of Speech, and the rise of Feminism/Liberalism.
These three forces meet resoundingly and is the force that drives the MEDIA. The root of it all is money. Money drives the advertizing which is dependent on the ratings. Bad news gets higher ratings and we become “immune” to all the carnage out there that gets drummed into us over and over again every hour on the hour in grisly detail. With the popularization of “reality tv”, airing people’s dirt has become normal and commonplace. Such that “instant celebrities” are created overnight, becoming rich and famous not for doing something great, inspiring or worthwhile, but for doing something completely idiotic. We now celebrate mediocrity and poor performance. Half the reason people watch American Idol is to watch Simon shut someone down (and that someone gets a million hits on YouTube the next day). THAT’s what sells these days. THAT’s what passes for entertainment. It’s fucking pathetic what the masses enjoy. This “pop-culture” has become so important (IMHO because of the rise of the science of subliminal advertizing) that more people can name all of the Kardashian sisters than can name their own Congressional representatives.
The advertizing industry has gone WAY beyond a clever phrase and catchy jingle. There are literally HOURS of research, thought and planning and thousands of dollars spent that go into every SECOND of every single commercial we watch. Subliminally it is a two pronged attack on our self esteem (you’re not good enough now, but with XYZ product you can smell/look/feel good enough to get the girl) and our rational mind (even though you’re in debt, it doesn’t matter, you need to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!!!). They are using ALL kinds of subliminal gymnastics to sell two things: SEX and POWER.
Add to the mix the lack of respect of the Media for ANYONE’S private life. After the way Bill Clinton was dissected after the Monica affair and details of the “cigar” were made public, NOTHING was sacred anymore. I mean less than a century ago FDR was elected President while in a WHEELCHAIR and NOBODY KNEW ABOUT IT! Nowadays, we know EVERYTHING. I think it has gone too far. “Investigative journalism” has led to sensationalism becoming the NORM. Compared to a few decades ago, it’s as if our whole news cycle has gotten on CRACK! Coupled with an inflated sense of political correctness (more reasons to trash people) the average news reporter has become a vulture on steroids (they compare EVERYTHING to steroids, don’t they?). They don’t give a fuck about “fact”. They care about RATINGS. And they will drag anyone through the dirt to do it.
We USED to have heroes, role models and people we could look up to. The modern media has changed all that. Now ANYONE who does something good, or tries to make a difference in the world in a positive way has to have EVERY aspect of their life passed under a microscope. If you’ve EVER done anything bad, objectionable or even “normal” to MOST people and you end up under the spotlight, within a week some fucking bloodsucker will be publishing something from ten years ago that’s embarrassing. Having role models is important, but when everyone who we believe stands for something is torn down, we lose hope. It’s not like the role models of the past were any better - it’s just that the press actually had RESPECT. Freedom of speech has gone too far.
I mentioned over blown political correctness earlier, now I’ll touch on that. Look at today’s sit-coms now. It’s perfectly fine to make men look like fat, stupid idiots, but GOD FORBID you portray a WOMAN or a MINORITY in a negative light… White men have become the butt of EVERY joke because they know that no white man will SUE anyone over it. (Now how long until someone cuts and pastes this ONE sentence and calls me a racist, even though everyone here KNOWS I’m not - I was using that as an example, but it will get social mileage, right? That’s what our media-influence instinct is to do now!) But the price of that is that we are effectively emasculating an entire generation of men. Think about it.
Boys are given labels of “ADD” or “ADHD” for the crime of being BOYS. For wanting to run around and be PHYSICAL and not conform to a female dominated liberal school system. They are taught to snitch on other students who are bullying them and are expelled when they are tempted to fight back or “take it outside after school”. The “manly virtues” glorified in our literature and history books will simply not do in today’s world. This society doesn’t want MEN around, so it cut off their balls at every opportunity. This feminizing and repression of the natural nature of MEN gives rise to all sorts of “ailments”. Passive aggressive little punks, cowards, and a whole generation of angry young men who hate their mothers and want to “show” society enough to want to shoot up a school. Then shooting up a school wasn’t enough, someone had to top it: a school full of KIDS.
These shootings have NOTHING to do with religion, although the religious among us will have a hard time viewing anything outside of that lens. They have NOTHING to do with gun control - Americans have always had guns. They have everything to do with the evolution of a sensationalist, asshole-glorifying Liberal MEDIA bent on selling advertizing and shaping the American people into a herd of cowardly, defenseless sheep waiting helplessly in front of their TV/computer/smartphone for the latest detail and instructions on what to do (because they can’t think critically for themselves).
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
I think the root of the problem with the “moral decline” of the USA lies with three things that our country was founded on: Capitalism, Freedom of Speech, and the rise of Feminism/Liberalism.
These three forces meet resoundingly and is the force that drives the MEDIA. The root of it all is money. Money drives the advertizing which is dependent on the ratings. Bad news gets higher ratings and we become “immune” to all the carnage out there that gets drummed into us over and over again every hour on the hour in grisly detail. With the popularization of “reality tv”, airing people’s dirt has become normal and commonplace. Such that “instant celebrities” are created overnight, becoming rich and famous not for doing something great, inspiring or worthwhile, but for doing something completely idiotic. We now celebrate mediocrity and poor performance. Half the reason people watch American Idol is to watch Simon shut someone down (and that someone gets a million hits on YouTube the next day). THAT’s what sells these days. THAT’s what passes for entertainment. It’s fucking pathetic what the masses enjoy. This “pop-culture” has become so important (IMHO because of the rise of the science of subliminal advertizing) that more people can name all of the Kardashian sisters than can name their own Congressional representatives.
The advertizing industry has gone WAY beyond a clever phrase and catchy jingle. There are literally HOURS of research, thought and planning and thousands of dollars spent that go into every SECOND of every single commercial we watch. Subliminally it is a two pronged attack on our self esteem (you’re not good enough now, but with XYZ product you can smell/look/feel good enough to get the girl) and our rational mind (even though you’re in debt, it doesn’t matter, you need to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!!!). They are using ALL kinds of subliminal gymnastics to sell two things: SEX and POWER.
Add to the mix the lack of respect of the Media for ANYONE’S private life. After the way Bill Clinton was dissected after the Monica affair and details of the “cigar” were made public, NOTHING was sacred anymore. I mean less than a century ago FDR was elected President while in a WHEELCHAIR and NOBODY KNEW ABOUT IT! Nowadays, we know EVERYTHING. I think it has gone too far. “Investigative journalism” has led to sensationalism becoming the NORM. Compared to a few decades ago, it’s as if our whole news cycle has gotten on CRACK! Coupled with an inflated sense of political correctness (more reasons to trash people) the average news reporter has become a vulture on steroids (they compare EVERYTHING to steroids, don’t they?). They don’t give a fuck about “fact”. They care about RATINGS. And they will drag anyone through the dirt to do it.
We USED to have heroes, role models and people we could look up to. The modern media has changed all that. Now ANYONE who does something good, or tries to make a difference in the world in a positive way has to have EVERY aspect of their life passed under a microscope. If you’ve EVER done anything bad, objectionable or even “normal” to MOST people and you end up under the spotlight, within a week some fucking bloodsucker will be publishing something from ten years ago that’s embarrassing. Having role models is important, but when everyone who we believe stands for something is torn down, we lose hope. It’s not like the role models of the past were any better - it’s just that the press actually had RESPECT. Freedom of speech has gone too far.
I mentioned over blown political correctness earlier, now I’ll touch on that. Look at today’s sit-coms now. It’s perfectly fine to make men look like fat, stupid idiots, but GOD FORBID you portray a WOMAN or a MINORITY in a negative light… White men have become the butt of EVERY joke because they know that no white man will SUE anyone over it. (Now how long until someone cuts and pastes this ONE sentence and calls me a racist, even though everyone here KNOWS I’m not - I was using that as an example, but it will get social mileage, right? That’s what our media-influence instinct is to do now!) But the price of that is that we are effectively emasculating an entire generation of men. Think about it.
Boys are given labels of “ADD” or “ADHD” for the crime of being BOYS. For wanting to run around and be PHYSICAL and not conform to a female dominated liberal school system. They are taught to snitch on other students who are bullying them and are expelled when they are tempted to fight back or “take it outside after school”. The “manly virtues” glorified in our literature and history books will simply not do in today’s world. This society doesn’t want MEN around, so it cut off their balls at every opportunity. This feminizing and repression of the natural nature of MEN gives rise to all sorts of “ailments”. Passive aggressive little punks, cowards, and a whole generation of angry young men who hate their mothers and want to “show” society enough to want to shoot up a school. Then shooting up a school wasn’t enough, someone had to top it: a school full of KIDS.
These shootings have NOTHING to do with religion, although the religious among us will have a hard time viewing anything outside of that lens. They have NOTHING to do with gun control - Americans have always had guns. They have everything to do with the evolution of a sensationalist, asshole-glorifying Liberal MEDIA bent on selling advertizing and shaping the American people into a herd of cowardly, defenseless sheep waiting helplessly in front of their TV/computer/smartphone for the latest detail and instructions on what to do (because they can’t think critically for themselves).
[/quote]
Up until this point I’ve been avoiding discussing the actual causes of what has been going on - I only commented to defend atheism.
Having said that I’d just like to say that I pretty much completely agree with everything in this post. Very well written and it makes complete sense. Men in today’s society are like animals in cages. Thank you.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
Thank you for this, goodness gracious man the media covered ONLY this for 3 days straight,
and mental illness aside, how else should we expect kids to act nowadays when they are taught moral relativism,there is no ‘good or bad’,and that we were descended from the wild apes of the jungle?
[/quote]
BINGO!
A word to the atheists on the board. Whether you believe in God or not they system has worked for many years. When you take it away (prayer out of school etc.) what is it replaced with?
NOTHING!
You are really going to hate the end result of what you are seeking.[/quote]
It worked great for the “witches” in Salem. Lol
[quote]ZEB wrote:
They had self respect and a moral code.
[/quote]
I am sure many of them did. I’m also sure that there were many who had nothing of the sort. John Joel Glanton and his boys would fall into the latter category.
[quote]furo wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]furo wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I don’t know enough abot the writer or the article to know if it is factual but assuming that it is it doesn’t tell the entire picture. I guess I’m looking at it from a different angle. There can be an argument made that the time period that we live in is far less violent than say 1850 to 1900. But it’s the type of violence that is troublesome. Even in the wild west you didn’t see bad guys kicking down the doors at a school house and shooting children. It was men fighting with guns against other men who also had guns.
And I am not just talking about shootings.
[/quote]
I think you are grossly underestimating how incredibly bloody and violent the past 2000 years have been. The conquistadors were strict Christians, and they slaughtered thousands of innocents (including children). Again, thousands of innocents were killed in the Crusades. I’m sure plenty of Native American innocents were killed by settlers.
And in more recent times, hundreds of thousands of religious women and children in the Middle East are being killed by people who are also religious.
I’m not saying that religion is the CAUSE of these tragedies, I’m saying it’s ridiculous to think such tragedies didn’t exist before atheism was common, let alone actually attribute them to atheism. I’m not attacking religion here, you can believe whatever you like, I just don’t like being part of a minority that is blamed for things it has no hand in, I’m sure you can appreciate that.
Also, you haven’t managed to explain why Western Europe (also built on strict Christian values but now far more atheist than the States) doesn’t have the problems you are talking about.
Also also, I think you might have missed my earlier post Zeb, as you didn’t respond to it. [/quote]
I am talking about the US. I am well aware of the violence that has taken place over the past 2000 years of humanity. We can begin with the capture horrible beating and eventual crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
[/quote]
Why would Christianity/lack of Christianity affect the US differently to the rest of the world?[/quote]
I am keenly aware of what the US was founded on. And as a student of American history I can easily follow the path that we’ve taken. I am not as well versed regarding the history of other nations.
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
These shootings have NOTHING to do with religion, although the religious among us will have a hard time viewing anything outside of that lens. They have NOTHING to do with gun control - Americans have always had guns. They have everything to do with the evolution of a sensationalist, asshole-glorifying Liberal MEDIA bent on selling advertizing and shaping the American people into a herd of cowardly, defenseless sheep waiting helplessly in front of their TV/computer/smartphone for the latest detail and instructions on what to do (because they can’t think critically for themselves).
[/quote]
Try to replace the word “religion” with an exceptional “value system” that was put in place from the beginning. And then suddenly ripped away with nothing to replace it.
If you think of it that way my friend you may have a different take on the matter.
[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
Thank you for this, goodness gracious man the media covered ONLY this for 3 days straight,
and mental illness aside, how else should we expect kids to act nowadays when they are taught moral relativism,there is no ‘good or bad’,and that we were descended from the wild apes of the jungle?
[/quote]
BINGO!
A word to the atheists on the board. Whether you believe in God or not they system has worked for many years. When you take it away (prayer out of school etc.) what is it replaced with?
NOTHING!
You are really going to hate the end result of what you are seeking.[/quote]
It worked great for the “witches” in Salem. Lol
[/quote]
No system is perfect once man touches it. But having a value system which teaches people right from wrong is far better than what we are now gravitating to.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
They had self respect and a moral code.
[/quote]
I am sure many of them did. I’m also sure that there were many who had nothing of the sort. John Joel Glanton and his boys would fall into the latter category.[/quote]
Certainly in the old west there was an abundance of outlaws who would steal the gold from your teeth. Or kill you for your scalp if they thought they could sell your hair. But their murderous ways were almost always for profit. Sure…they were bad men. But as I’ve been saying even the lowest of the low wouldn’t kick a school house door down and shoot little kids.
We’ve got a special kind of human being that we’ve bred in this day and age. We’ve taken God out of their lives, put in just the right amount of senseless violence. And made sure that they were exposed to it at an early age. Also, in many cases that the child has grown up without the proper parenting. When you remove the Judeo-Christian value system marriage means nothing and couples can come and go as they please. And if they have children that’s a shame because YOUR feelings come first. As you are now the center of your own universe, in essence your own God.
Oh yeah…this is a unique recipe that we’ve concocted and it will be paying us back in blood and pain for many years to come.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]furo wrote:
…I’m sure plenty of Native American innocents were killed by settlers…
[/quote]
It is typical historical revisionism to mention this ^ and fail to mention what precipitated many of the atrocities you’re referring to, namely the atrocities visited on the settlers PRIOR to their vicious responses.
Don’t ever buy into the “Dances With Wolves” bullshit that all the red man ever wanted was to live in peace and harmony with Nature until the evil, religious white man showed up. The North American continent was a continual bloodbath and slavery fiefdom well before the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria ever left their Spanish ports.
[/quote]
But Hollywood said that Indians were peaceful so it must be true.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]furo wrote:
…I’m sure plenty of Native American innocents were killed by settlers…
[/quote]
It is typical historical revisionism to mention this ^ and fail to mention what precipitated many of the atrocities you’re referring to, namely the atrocities visited on the settlers PRIOR to their vicious responses.
Don’t ever buy into the “Dances With Wolves” bullshit that all the red man ever wanted was to live in peace and harmony with Nature until the evil, religious white man showed up. The North American continent was a continual bloodbath and slavery fiefdom well before the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria ever left their Spanish ports.
[/quote]
But Hollywood said that Indians were peaceful so it must be true.
[/quote]
THATS what I’ve been saying…
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
These shootings have NOTHING to do with religion, although the religious among us will have a hard time viewing anything outside of that lens. They have NOTHING to do with gun control - Americans have always had guns. They have everything to do with the evolution of a sensationalist, asshole-glorifying Liberal MEDIA bent on selling advertizing and shaping the American people into a herd of cowardly, defenseless sheep waiting helplessly in front of their TV/computer/smartphone for the latest detail and instructions on what to do (because they can’t think critically for themselves).
[/quote]
Try to replace the word “religion” with an exceptional “value system” that was put in place from the beginning. And then suddenly ripped away with nothing to replace it.
If you think of it that way my friend you may have a different take on the matter.
[/quote]
IMHO, “religion” doesn’t have a monopoly on right and wrong, my friend. A “value system” is a set of beliefs and behaviors that is reinforced. What is the MEDIA reinforcing?
It’s not a LACK of religion or a LACK of values and good people. It’s a fucking blitzkrieg of filth flarn filth, grand theft auto VII (the one where you can not only kill the bitch but rape her family), and 2 girls 1 cup that ANY kid with an internet connection can have access to… And there is a certain SMALL percentage of the population who is sick enough to be affected by it.
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
I think the root of the problem with the “moral decline” of the USA lies with three things that our country was founded on: Capitalism, Freedom of Speech, and the rise of Feminism/Liberalism.
These three forces meet resoundingly and is the force that drives the MEDIA. The root of it all is money. Money drives the advertizing which is dependent on the ratings. Bad news gets higher ratings and we become “immune” to all the carnage out there that gets drummed into us over and over again every hour on the hour in grisly detail. With the popularization of “reality tv”, airing people’s dirt has become normal and commonplace. Such that “instant celebrities” are created overnight, becoming rich and famous not for doing something great, inspiring or worthwhile, but for doing something completely idiotic. We now celebrate mediocrity and poor performance. Half the reason people watch American Idol is to watch Simon shut someone down (and that someone gets a million hits on YouTube the next day). THAT’s what sells these days. THAT’s what passes for entertainment. It’s fucking pathetic what the masses enjoy. This “pop-culture” has become so important (IMHO because of the rise of the science of subliminal advertizing) that more people can name all of the Kardashian sisters than can name their own Congressional representatives.
The advertizing industry has gone WAY beyond a clever phrase and catchy jingle. There are literally HOURS of research, thought and planning and thousands of dollars spent that go into every SECOND of every single commercial we watch. Subliminally it is a two pronged attack on our self esteem (you’re not good enough now, but with XYZ product you can smell/look/feel good enough to get the girl) and our rational mind (even though you’re in debt, it doesn’t matter, you need to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!!!). They are using ALL kinds of subliminal gymnastics to sell two things: SEX and POWER.
Add to the mix the lack of respect of the Media for ANYONE’S private life. After the way Bill Clinton was dissected after the Monica affair and details of the “cigar” were made public, NOTHING was sacred anymore. I mean less than a century ago FDR was elected President while in a WHEELCHAIR and NOBODY KNEW ABOUT IT! Nowadays, we know EVERYTHING. I think it has gone too far. “Investigative journalism” has led to sensationalism becoming the NORM. Compared to a few decades ago, it’s as if our whole news cycle has gotten on CRACK! Coupled with an inflated sense of political correctness (more reasons to trash people) the average news reporter has become a vulture on steroids (they compare EVERYTHING to steroids, don’t they?). They don’t give a fuck about “fact”. They care about RATINGS. And they will drag anyone through the dirt to do it.
We USED to have heroes, role models and people we could look up to. The modern media has changed all that. Now ANYONE who does something good, or tries to make a difference in the world in a positive way has to have EVERY aspect of their life passed under a microscope. If you’ve EVER done anything bad, objectionable or even “normal” to MOST people and you end up under the spotlight, within a week some fucking bloodsucker will be publishing something from ten years ago that’s embarrassing. Having role models is important, but when everyone who we believe stands for something is torn down, we lose hope. It’s not like the role models of the past were any better - it’s just that the press actually had RESPECT. Freedom of speech has gone too far.
I mentioned over blown political correctness earlier, now I’ll touch on that. Look at today’s sit-coms now. It’s perfectly fine to make men look like fat, stupid idiots, but GOD FORBID you portray a WOMAN or a MINORITY in a negative light… White men have become the butt of EVERY joke because they know that no white man will SUE anyone over it. (Now how long until someone cuts and pastes this ONE sentence and calls me a racist, even though everyone here KNOWS I’m not - I was using that as an example, but it will get social mileage, right? That’s what our media-influence instinct is to do now!) But the price of that is that we are effectively emasculating an entire generation of men. Think about it.
Boys are given labels of “ADD” or “ADHD” for the crime of being BOYS. For wanting to run around and be PHYSICAL and not conform to a female dominated liberal school system. They are taught to snitch on other students who are bullying them and are expelled when they are tempted to fight back or “take it outside after school”. The “manly virtues” glorified in our literature and history books will simply not do in today’s world. This society doesn’t want MEN around, so it cut off their balls at every opportunity. This feminizing and repression of the natural nature of MEN gives rise to all sorts of “ailments”. Passive aggressive little punks, cowards, and a whole generation of angry young men who hate their mothers and want to “show” society enough to want to shoot up a school. Then shooting up a school wasn’t enough, someone had to top it: a school full of KIDS.
These shootings have NOTHING to do with religion, although the religious among us will have a hard time viewing anything outside of that lens. They have NOTHING to do with gun control - Americans have always had guns. They have everything to do with the evolution of a sensationalist, asshole-glorifying Liberal MEDIA bent on selling advertizing and shaping the American people into a herd of cowardly, defenseless sheep waiting helplessly in front of their TV/computer/smartphone for the latest detail and instructions on what to do (because they can’t think critically for themselves).
[/quote]
Interesting essay that you wrote.
Sheep need a shepherd.
If you take the shepherd away you need to replace it with another.
The only reason why the liberal media/feminism/money/anything has a hold on the sheep is because they were left with a void to fill.
And so, your essay serves well as a corollary of his point:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Whether you believe in God or not they system has worked for many years. When you take it away (prayer out of school etc.) what is it replaced with?
NOTHING![/quote]
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
IMHO, “religion” doesn’t have a monopoly on right and wrong, my friend. A “value system” is a set of beliefs and behaviors that is reinforced.[/quote]
Bollocks.
[quote]Alpha F wrote:
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
IMHO, “religion” doesn’t have a monopoly on right and wrong, my friend. A “value system” is a set of beliefs and behaviors that is reinforced.[/quote]
Bollocks.
[/quote]
If it had the monopoly, you’d have about 15-20% of the USA running around killing, raping, and stealing.
Constantly.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]furo wrote:
…I’m sure plenty of Native American innocents were killed by settlers…
[/quote]
It is typical historical revisionism to mention this ^ and fail to mention what precipitated many of the atrocities you’re referring to, namely the atrocities visited on the settlers PRIOR to their vicious responses.
Don’t ever buy into the “Dances With Wolves” bullshit that all the red man ever wanted was to live in peace and harmony with Nature until the evil, religious white man showed up. The North American continent was a continual bloodbath and slavery fiefdom well before the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria ever left their Spanish ports.
[/quote]
You are missing my point entirely. I wasn’t in any way establishing blame at all, and I’m sure Native Americans did than their share of horrific things too. My only point was that strictly religious people have done awful things in the past (killing children is killing children, whoever “started it”), and I think that’s hard to argue against. And, as I have said numerous times, I’m not taking this stance as a dig at religion - I just want to say that children have been brutally murdered long before atheism became common, so I think it makes no sense to blame school shootings on atheism.