10 Male "Privileges"

An alternate perspective to "Damsel in Distress: Tropes vs Women in Video Games"

So a while back, feminist Anita Sarkeesian of the video blog "Feminist Frequency" posted two videos regarding Women in video games, and how they are portrayed. I will be tackling some of the things in the videos.
But before I do that, a disclaimer. This will not be a blog to dismiss everything that has been presented in these videos. In fact, these videos are very well put together and give some valuable information regarding the history of gaming, and how some plot devices are used repetitively. I'm not here to deny that concepts like the Damsel in Distress are being used. They are being used, and extensively so.

However, I am writing this to challenge the idea that this is somehow degrading women, or being used as solely power fantasies of men, and a few others. In other words, what is being presented is accurate, but, the conclusions are simply selective and have been tainted by false feministic perspectives, that d not represent reality. In fact, it reflects something a lot more tragic that most people from either gender do not see.

The feminist argument

Before I go on, I have to say that I will be writing this, assuming you've watched the videos, and that you know what the Damsel in Distress trope is and so on, even though I'll give a sort of summary below. Here are the two videos, Part1 and Part 2:

So the first part starts out with the example of Krystal, a female character being a protagonist in her own unreleased game (Dinosaur Planet), that somehow got transformed into a Damsel in Distress in another game (Star Fox Adventures) with a male protagonist, due to Miyamoto (a game designer) 'joking' that it should be a Star Fox game. This is enough for Anita to conclude that women are being dis-empowered from heroins to objects of desire. Well... If you do a little research, you quickly find out that the main reason the game got transformed, was due to Krystal's game being too similar to Fox's (the main character of the other game), and thus creating two franchises with barely any difference, so they decided to keep the old franchise with the old hero. Aside from that, she fails to mention that Krystal became a full-fledged member of the Star Fox team, thus her actually ending up an equal to the rest. But, I'll go into more detail later,regarding the fact that even though it can be seen as the dis-empowerment of women, it actually is a compliment to women rather than anything else.

Basically, the rest of the first video gives more history, and a bunch of examples of the Damsel in Distress as a plot device. It comes down to the woman losing all the power, being a victim, and needing assistance of the hero to escape, giving the impression that she's incapable of dealing with the issues on her own. This prevents the women from becoming archetypal heroines themselves. And aside from that, she is being objectified, since she's reduced to a prize to be won, or a trophy. She's a possession that has been stolen from the male protagonist, making her the victim of competition between men. It's all about adolescent male power fantasies in order to sell more games to men. She goes on to explain that it's a sad fact that a large part of the world still clings to the deep sexist belief that women as a group need to be sheltered, protected, and taken care of by men. Uhm.. Yeah.. Ok. I don't think this is true, but more on that later.

The second video goes on to argue how this is still being used today in modern games and that it hasn't gone away. Even though the female characters fight back more, ultimately they either lose anyway, or their 'pseudo-empowerment' moment comes after the battle has already been won and doesn't mean anything. The vulnerability of female characters is used to cause distress to the specifically male players (because female ones obviously wouldn't be distressed, oh wait...), and that somehow her vulnerability makes her desirable.
And then according to her, it gets worse when female characters are killed to move the story plot forward, since being dead is being worse than being captured, and thus it's again a fantasy of revenge and power for men. Usually, this is followed by having to rescue your daughter, shifting the trope to another female victim. And even worse, the females are turned into monsters that the player must himself kill. This according to her is somehow propagating violence against women, since it shows that women can be saved by beating them up, stabbing them, shooting them in the face, putting her out of her misery and so on. And all these different variations have been given different trope names. And this is (supposedly) blatant misogyny. And the killing of the protagonist's loved ones is oh so bad for women (because it can't possibly be the case that the man hates that situation, because he's so power hungry...).

The rebuttal

Let me say something real quick, before I get to the rebuttal. First of all, the gaming industry is an industry dominated (no pun intended) by male workers. They will be making stories that mainly males understand, and that's where the true tragedy is, as you will soon see.


Ok. Now, I will show you how I can basically throw her whole argument in the garbage, with one small question. What about all the men that are in distress?

Let me elaborate. Let's put some things in perspective, so you get where I'm coming from. Look at the following two scenarios.
- The first one is the current one. Women end up in a helpless position, and end up being fought for and saved. If they are not saved, it causes distress, and some action should be taken to avenge what has happened to her.
- The second one, imagine if games were basically killing women off gruesomely left and right in helpless positions, and the protagonist moves on without a second look, like no one cares. No action is taken at all, no vengeance, no justice, she just dies, and the player goes on to something else.

Which is worse? I think we can all agree that the second one is a lot worse. Well.. Guess what. That's the position the male characters are in. I will not post a long list of videos or games to show how men have it worse in video games, but, I'll give you just one example, and let you do your own research on the rest.

In the first Halo game, there comes a point where Captain Keys is transformed into a monster, and you have to kill him. Here is the scene:

You might say that this is exactly the same as the examples given by Anita with women in place, but, this is actually worse. Why? Because when it's a woman, usually she is the one that asks you to kill her. She asks you herself to put her out of her misery. She is the one that decides. What do we see here? The poor guy isn't even given the chance to speak AT ALL. There's this female AI telling the player what he inevitably must do. She decides. Not the transformed man, not the player. A woman is the one deciding again and again in either scenario, whether she is the victim, or whether someone else is the victim. And then in this game Captain Keys gets punched to death, and the players walks away with no remorse whatsoever, because we have more important things to do. If this was a woman with a man giving the order without the woman giving her consent, I'm 100% sure our 'Feminist Frequency'-writer would've mentioned it in her video as the most awful misogynistic and sexist example in video game history.

Starting to wake up yet? There are countless of examples, and if you pay attention during your games, you'll see that these kinds of scenes are present way more often than the female versions. We just forget, because, no one cares about the men that die in these scenes. Men are inherently disposable. Think for yourself for a second. Name a male character that was helpless, died, and that we were fighting to save, either before his death, or saving his soul. Think whether we mourned for the rest of the game, or if it lasted one second, or if there was mourning at all. You know there are a lot of them that died, but none of them did we see as worth saving or to seek revenge over. Even if you can think of one, it's not even close to the long list of females we deem worth saving.

What this whole presentation of miss Sarkeesian is actually saying, is that women are worth saving, even when they can not defend themselves. It's giving off the message that women are worth fighting for, no matter what. When they can't help themselves, they should be helped. It's not the backwards conclusion she is spinning off of it, that women are being victimized, being turned into objects of desires and so on. Because every time a male character is killed in the exact same way, if not in a worse way, they are simply forgotten and not fought for. No one cares about a male character's death. And remember, this is the male perspective too since games are generally created by males. The man is not worth fighting for, he's not even worth being an object or a trophy. He dies, the protagonist looks away, and looks for a girl to save in the best scenario, and a gun or vehicle to save in the worst scenario, because basically, a man is only valuable when he is a hero. He is less valuable than that ship or that gun otherwise. If he's not a hero, we don't need him and we'll just let him die as fast as we can blink without a second thought.
And this ties in perfectly to her Krystal example. She is worth fighting for, despite her being a helpless girl, she ends up being on the team, while if she was male she probably would've been sent away for being incapable, IF she was saved in the first place.

And somehow, this is all being framed as a huge problem for women by the feminist perspective, when in reality, it's a much bigger problem for men, because they are being portrayed as so insignificant, that no one remembers them if they die. Games are currently not full of these Damsels in Distress because we are wanting to portray women as helpless, but rather, because we are portraying non-heroic males as useless. So useless, that they can't even drive a plot forward by themselves, but need some sort of information on them, or a gun.

Men are portrayed as only valuable when they are the hero, while the women are still valuable, even when they can not be the hero and are actually only a burden. And this perspective is not only shared by women, but also by men themselves, meaning that no one will stand up to protect men or their rights. Not on an individual level, and not on a mass level. And it shouldn't be this way. And even feminists should agree if they really are striving for equality, that one life should not be worth more than another.

That is the true perspective of this. Women and girls are always worth fighting for and saving, no matter how clumsy or retarded they might act. It's the same old cliche of a sinking boat, where the lifeboat is reserved for women, and the men are only saved afterwards if there's room. It doesn't matter how retarded, clumsy, evil or sadistic the woman is. It doesn't matter how smart, just, sensitive, and caring a man is. He's going to die, and she is going to live. And if she dies, she will be mourned by millions, while the man will not. The only time a man's distress or death is sad, is when he was already proven to be a hero. It's sad because we lost someone of value. With a woman, we're sad because she's a woman. She doesn't have to do anything, to be worthy, while a man does. Men unconsciously know this. Why do you think they love to be the hero? It's not for power, but rather because society only sees them as being worth something when they are heroes. Not a hero? You're a loser then. These games are about being something rather than being disposable, and not about domination. Believe it or not, men also have the desire to be useful in life.

And this is the hypocrisy of feminism. They talk about the men being power hungry, while they are the ones wishing for feminine heroines that have great power. If that power hungriness of the male heroes is so bad, why do you want female heroines? Actually, a lot of women even admit to actually wanting men to dominate. It all comes down to wanting the privilege of having all the benefits of being a man, but keeping all the drawbacks and responsibilities in the men's hands.

YouTube user girlwriteswhat has given a great example in one of her videos. If you're allergic to peanuts, it's not the responsibility of everyone else to ask you if you're allergic. It's unjust to make a waiter pay for all your hospital bills for the rest of his life if he gave you peanuts because you didn't pay attention to what you ate. If you're capable of becoming pregnant, it's not the man's job to avoid you being pregnant. It's your own job to take responsibility for your body, and thus it's unjust to make the men pay for your lack of responsibility. I'm not talking about rape, since that is another matter (not to mention men are also raped by women, but I digress), but about getting drunk and sleeping around, and then abusing the men for your own mistake. In the case of gaming, it's unjust to accuse the game industry of being misogynistic or sexist, when you are victimizing yourself towards something that isn't even true. Anita talks about not wanting women to be portrayed as victims and being incapable of taking care of themselves, but ironically the whole feminism movement is an extreme version of how women are such huge victims of men's actions. So extremely so, that they are completely blinded by the worse situations that men are in, and at the same time even believe that men have it better than them.

These two videos are the perfect example of that. We've even come to a point where showing real statistics will get you the misogynist label... And when you point these things out as a man, you're a whiner, and you need to suck it up, because you're supposed to be tough.
No matter what subject Feminism touches, be it movies, relationships or games, the arguments are always a combination of victimization and hypocrisy.

To finish... Yes. I do agree that we need more female heroines in gaming. We however do not need female heroines to save other females. That would only enforce the view that men are inherently worthless and only women are inherently valuable. We need heroines that save male version of Damsels in Distress. Because for too long, the average men have been portrayed as worthless. And that, would be sexist, and as a feminist, you are against being sexist. Right..? So I will end with the same simple question.

What about all the men in distress...?

The game of opinions

Ah opinions... Everybody has them... There's one thing people don't realize however. There are mainly two types of opinions. One type can truly be considered an opinion, the other, not so much. We've become so used to calling everything an opinion, that we sometimes can confuse ourselves, and this limits us from digging deeper into a certain subject. I'll be discussing this in more depth below.  First, let's take the general definition of the word 'opinion', from Oxford Dictionaries. The latter part of the definition is the most important. You'll understand why later.

Definition of opinion:
a view or judgement formed about something, not (necessarily) based on fact or knowledge

Let's start with the easiest one. If I say as a general statement that I like chocolate, that's obviously my opinion. It's a view or judgment coming from me, about this thing we call a chocolate. Also note that it's also not based on fact. Knowledge is a little more gray, since one needs the knowledge of what chocolate tastes like to have an opinion about it. It is however, definitely not based on fact. No one can prove for a fact that I like chocolate, and even if you think you can, whether the chocolate statement is true or not doesn't hold much value to anyone else but me. If someone replies to my statement of liking chocolate with "No you don't!", we can all understand how the reply lacks merit, since the one replying does not hold the perspective that I have. This is all opinion based on aesthetics, and I would call these aesthetic opinions the only real type of opinion. It's a personal perspective, and whether other people share it or not, does not really matter. You don't have to like chocolate because I like it.


And now comes the hard part. The other type of opinions. These are the opinions that express a view or judgment based on something external. This means, we're no longer talking about your subjective perspective, your aesthetics, or your personal taste. These so-called opinions are based on the reality we share together. And herein lies the problem. There is no such thing as a statement based on reality, that at the same time is 'just an opinion'. The only time this can be the case, is when someone deliberately avoids the knowledge, facts, and/or evidence from the external world. Let me give you an example.

A while back, I was discussing with someone regarding evolution vs intelligent design. There came a point in the discussion, where I quoted a scientist. The quote goes as follows:
"We should reject as a matter of principle the substitution of Intelligent Design for the dialog of chance and necessity, but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations."

When I asked the person what he thought of that quote regarding there presently being no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, he said "it's just the opinion of one scientist". What did he just do? He shoved the statement aside, by calling it an opinion. He's deliberately avoiding the knowledge he could gain by investigating the statement. He's avoiding thinking. The statement the scientist makes is not really an opinion. It's an objective statement about reality, which can be verified by anyone. One only has to look for these detailed Darwinian accounts. One can look at the facts and very quickly find out whether the scientist was right or not. These types of statements can be only true or false. So, the game people play with the word opinion, is the avoidance of investigation or thinking. 

If people tell you 'it's just your opinion', they are saying that they disagree, not based on facts, not because they thought about it, but because they don't feel like it. In other words, based on ego or emotion. The other side is also true. The word 'opinion' is used as an excuse to talk whatever we want, especially when we have no idea what we're saying. It's a defense to avoid facing the nonsense we're talking, a way to hide that we didn't really do our homework. It's the shield that helps us to escape shame and protect our ego. 

Until we start making the distinction between real opinions and statements (being) masquerading(-ed) as opinions, we will too often be talking past each other. We'll let others and ourselves get away with nonsense, thus avoiding responsibility. We will  fail to admit when we're wrong, let emotions get in the way, and fall into violence, be it verbal or physical. This hampers our progress as individuals, and as a species. 

Now I'm just gonna wait for someone to tell me how this is all just my opinion... ;)

Justification from overcomplexity

It's a common thing... First let me explain what justification from overcomplexity is. In simple terms, it means that you complicate your own perspective and thereby cloud your own judgement, so you can justify something that you (either consciously or unconsciously) know is unjustifiable. Justification from overcomplexity could be the reason you believe in an Abrahamic God, it could be the reason you don't approach or talk to someone who's caught your eye on the street, it could be the reason you still believe in your government, it could be the reason you still smoke, eat meat, don't exercise, sleep too late and so on. Anything you have an emotional attachment to is very prone to this line of thought. We all have those moments where we want to do something, and suddenly your brain floods you with so-called 'reasons' as to why you should not do it.


This is where simplicity comes in. Whether you're trying to understand something, or make a difficult decision, or have an intellectual conversation, the most important thing is to cut the whole mess down to the basics. It may sound like a reductionist approach, but it isn't. In reductionism, you take the whole problem apart into different pieces, study the pieces, put them back together and then you can understand the whole. This assumes that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts, which is not necessarily true in all cases however. What I'm talking about here is different, in the sense that we're not trying to take everything apart into pieces and understand each piece to understand the whole, but we are looking for the most basic assumption that is absolutely necessary for the whole idea to withstand the trials of logic, before analyzing the rest of the problem/concept.


Why logic? Because that's the most fundamental method for verifying truth and separating truth from falsehood. And of course, I'm assuming that truth is preferable to falsehood with this, which is a sound assumption. You can try to argue against this, but it would end up being a logical contradiction if you do. When you're trying to say that someone should believe X over Y, you're already following the rules of preferring truth over falsehood. If you say X is falsehood and Y is truth, then.. Well.. I'll let you deduct that for yourself. For now, let's start with examples.


We'll take a controversial example. Governments. A lot of people have emotional attachment to this word. They see it as some kind of savior of humanity. The organization that will save us from ourselves and protect us from evil. It's supposed to create laws that we should obey so that life can be peaceful. Now before we go further, let's examine some things that we learn when we are children. Don't bully, don't hit, don't threaten, don't steal, and so on. What do these rules have in common? They basically have one message. The message is, it's wrong to initiate violence to get what you want. Now in general this is accepted as a good rule, and a rule that everyone should follow. This is the reason why most people are against wars, that people are against rape, that people are against theft, against beating someone up, killing and so on. It's a very basic, logical, simple principle that anyone can understand and agree with.


But when it comes to the government, things change. Say you refuse to pay taxes for a war you're against. What will happen? First the government will threaten you they'll raise the debt. If that doesn't work, they will come and rob you of your house and everything in it at gunpoint. If you refuse, they'll incarcerate you at gunpoint, and if you refuse that too, they will shoot you without any consequence for the institution itself. So the most basic aspect of the government is the gun. If there is any definition for government, it's an institution that claims to have the monopoly on the right to use violence to get what it wants. It is the exact opposite of one of our most basic moral rules. It makes the assumption that violence is the best (if not only) way to create peace. 
And I can see people squirming already, because their brain chatter has started. "But we need the government for order. If there is no government, who will create roads? Who will take care of us? Who will take care of the bad people? Who will organize society? Everyone would become violent. Other governments will invade our country and set up their own government." The emotional charge will make you think in overdrive to try as hard as possible to justify that which we call government. Just stop. That's an exact example of justification from overcomplexity. By allowing all this mess to enter your mind and making things overly complex, you are trying to cloud the fact that the most basic principle of (current) government is actually violent, and therefore unethical/immoral. It suddenly makes you realize something you prefer not to know, and you're trying to reject it with all your might. But if you stay consistent with the logic, then you might also start understanding why the world is a mess. When the institutions that govern the world are a contradiction to our basic rules as individuals, chaos is the only possible result. And chaos is exactly what government is supposed to overcome. Isn't that an eye-opener? When you let go of your emotional attachment, you can start seeing alternative answers to the questions you thought you needed government for.


The same thing applies to God. God is the creator of the universe, heaven and hell, is the most just, the most benevolent, all-knowing, merciful being. Most people believe in God not because they have a rational reason to do so, but because of their emotional attachment to some sort of potential savior. It's not surprising, because the whole concept is basically a list of problems. I'll list the most basic one.. Being all-knowing and still creating people who he knows are going to hell is neither just nor benevolent nor merciful. If a religion is based on such a contradictory concept of God, it immediately follows that such a religion has a flimsy foundation and can not be the full truth. Of course, when you use that argument against a religious person, what you get back is another flood of emotional information pretending that everything is more complicated than that, and that we are not capable of understanding God and should simply believe and so on. Basically it comes down to reasoning how to throw away reasoning to justify the belief in God.. 


The two examples above take full concepts and show how people try to justify contradictory things by making it overly complicated. You can move to more complex things when the rest has already been addressed logically. If you jump to the mess too soon, you will inevitably fall into overcomplexity, and be deluding yourself into submission of irrational beliefs and superstition. 


You can also 'fuse' different concepts after dissecting them, and you will learn more about something else. The two examples of God and the government have many parallels. They both tell us we are not mature enough to take care of ourselves and need someone else to guide us and take care of us. They both rely on fear of the individual that's masqueraded as salvation. That way you can discern that religion on itself is not really a problem, or government itself, but the human mentality is the real problem. We are trying very hard to put the responsibility in someone else's hands. The products of human beings suddenly begin to show parallels all over the place, and your mind will be able to entertain many simple thoughts that seem crazy to people, because they have the baggage of immediate judgement in their arguments.


In the end, we all have the issue of overcomplexity. By recognizing it and being critical of yourself, you can improve the consistency and validity of your thoughts, which can lead to a simpler yet wise and knowledgeable life. Your knowledge of things will expand by making things simpler. That on itself, is quite intriguing and eye-opening. I hope this has some use for you.

The truth about skepticism

Hi there. I hope you're all doing well. Today I wanted to write something about skepticism. First, let me give a definition of skepticism, the simple way, google, copy paste...:

skep·ti·cism also scep·ti·cism

n.

1. A doubting or questioning attitude or state of mind; dubiety.

2. Philosophy

a. The ancient school of Pyrrho of Elis that stressed the uncertainty of our beliefs in order to oppose dogmatism.

b. The doctrine that absolute knowledge is impossible, either in a particular domain or in general.

c. A methodology based on an assumption of doubt with the aim of acquiring approximate or relative certainty.

3. Doubt or disbelief of religious tenets.

For the purpose of this small piece I'm writing, we'll go with definition number 1, which is, having a questioning attitude towards information that one has received. At first glance, this may seem like a great way to go about in life, and actually it is, if done properly.. Having a questioning attitude towards anything one hears can be very healthy, since it allows you to keep your individuality and mental freedom. But we live in a world today, where this is rarely done, or done in a proper manner. We'll be discussing the latter one, and in a way, that one is way worse than not doing it at all..

In current days, there's information about everything everywhere. Not only information, but also misinformation and disinformation, and because of the last two, it's a good thing to be skeptical towards what one receives. The problem is, that people assume that certain sources are "always" telling the truth. The main ones of these are:

- Schools and universities

- Journals and papers

- Television (news reports and talk shows and the like)

And here's the part where skepticism fails. If you assume ANY source, to always be reliable, it is inevitable, that you will not only lose your individuality, but, you become easily manipulated into thinking what others want you to think. To clarify this further, let's get into our current day science (which has basically turned into non-science because it's more governed by politics than anything else...). To pick a more specific topic that most people are familiar with, let's pick the theory of evolution. Oh boy, is that a heated topic nowadays... And for what exactly..?

In any case, the theory of evolution has been propagandized a lot. And guess where.. Exactly.. Schools, journals and papers and on television. And there are a lot of people who blindly believe in it nowadays, even scientists.. But in here, we'll mainly talk about the public.

And what happens when you come with some alternative message to those kind of people? Well, you get ridiculed, or insulted, or they tell you to throw your bible away while you're not even religious, or you get some other out of proportion reaction. But, there's something that's even worse than this. Can you guess?

What's worse is, that they ask you for something.. They ask you, for scientific evidence.. And then you say for example, well, the information is available, go look it up. They'll usually reply with "you made the claim, so, you should give me the information, otherwise I might as well dismiss it", and they say that, because they're skeptical towards what you said. Or, you can also give them the information, and they will say something like "well that's not a reliable scientific source, so I might as well dismiss it", because again, they're skeptical towards anything that's not from the scientific community. And even if it is from the scientific community, they'll try to dismiss it as irrelevant. Let's say you found a scientific publication that says that our current dating methods can be wrong by a million years. They would say something like "yeah, but the data through evolution is consistent anyway so it does not disprove the theory".

And the reason why this is worse is because they failed to ask the initial source of information for evidence in the first place. They heard something so many times, that in the end, they accepted it as true, without any proper scientific evidence being presented to them in the first place. Usually, they are only told there is scientific evidence everywhere, but, it's never really shown to them. However, if you say the same thing about your own theory (there's evidence everywhere), they will say that they need proof. They didn't say that to the TV station for example.. And this kind of behavior is what I call selective skepticism. It's not "true" skepticism, because they accept one kind of information, which is what they already believe (usually by repetition), and dismiss the rest, while person himself has the same amount of evidence (or lack thereof) for both. Another word for selective skepticism is a well known word, bias.

Some may even tell you, that it's not needed to be skeptical towards certain things, but claims that are "extraordinary" need extraordinary evidence. And here is the part where I say that this just proves the selective skepticism. Something is extraordinary, when it falls out of your own beliefs and comfort zone, and your own beliefs are part of the information that you already received before and accepted as being true, and it's considered extraordinary when it contradicts those beliefs. When you are basing what you should be skeptical of, and what you should not be skeptical of, on what you find extraordinary, it's the exact same thing as being selectively skeptical, because you use your own beliefs as the point of reference, and beliefs can be true or false, and if they're false, you being skeptical towards anything that you think is extraordinary, will make you go against the facts.

To give a simple example. Imagine that since you were a kid, you've heard that the earth is flat from your parents. You grew up, went to school, they tell you there the earth is flat, you went to college and graduated, hearing there that the earth is flat, you worked for a few years, hearing everywhere around you the earth is flat, and one day, you suddenly read somewhere on the internet that the earth is round. What will your initial reaction be? What will your reaction be towards the ones claiming that? And even if they provide you with some logical explanation, would you be willing to accept it? Be fair to yourself here, and you'll see the point. Your wrong beliefs will only allow the wrong information in, supporting the "wrong facts" if there is such a thing.

Most people nowadays are afraid to let go of their old beliefs. This is true for science as well as religion, though the ones following science try to act like religion is the only one that does this.. A true skeptic does not simply dismiss information when a source is not provided. A true skeptic is willing to go look it up before dismissing it, allows the information in, but does not draw any conclusions with it. He/she allows the information to be evaluated through time, and as more information flows in, he/she allows previous assumptions to be dismissed or supported. That is the true way of a skeptic. When someone tells you they're skeptical, they're usually just telling you that they are not willing to believe something because it conflicts with their current beliefs. That is not skepticism, it's bias, or in some cases even worse, namely dogma. Usually when they say they're skeptical towards what you said, it's because they already have a "better" theory in their eyes, which again only transforms their skepticism into dogma.

Now, I'm not saying being a skeptic instead of a biased person is easy. It's not. How do you become aware of things that you take for granted? How do you become aware that you are assuming things to be self-evident? That is the hardest part.. You'll need to find what works for you on your own.. Because you're the one who knows what your past has been like, and you know your current life. Different beliefs require a different approach.

And before I finish, I just want to say that the evolution part was just to use as an example, and I'm not claiming it to be true or false. I might do some other post that might address that particular issue, but the point in here is, that you should beware when anyone says they're being skeptical simply because they're usually being biased.. "Anyone" includes yourself.. That is all for now.

I wish you a good day/night.

Birthdays, Growth & Age

Hi there. It's been a long time since I wrote something on my blog, and today is my birthday, and I thought it might be a good occasion to share my views on birthdays, growth and aging. I'll say first that this is my personal opinion. You can agree or disagree and you are allowed to think about it what you will.

Today, I turned 23, and I've gotta say, time goes by so fast. If you're wondering if I feel old, no, not really. Quite the opposite really.. I feel like I'm still 16 or something in a way. Is that a good, or a bad thing? Well, it depends on how you look at it. Let me elaborate..

First of all, I'll start with the social side, and I'll note that I've never felt a certain age. Only when I was a kid I felt that it was important, and after I became a teenager, it kind of dozed off. It was not important anymore for me. I slowly came to realize that age is not that relevant. It has more to do with your mind than with your physical age, if you want to call it that. When I was a kid, I always saw people that were older than me in a certain way, like they were people to look up to. Almost like they were "elders", if you know the meaning of that word. You can see elders as people to guide younger people that have incredible wisdom so to speak. As I grew, I came to realize that everyone, no matter how old (based on calendar age), is still simply just like me, and they've had certain experiences, which change their views and lets them be wiser than someone that has had less experience in a certain area (in theory anyway).

When I realized that, I suddenly realized something important. In order to become wiser by an experience, you need to be aware of that experience, and more aware you are, more you'll learn.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Of course, that's logical". Yes, it is, in theory. Most people know this, but, they don't apply it well enough since they usually eliminate a lot of information within a certain experience, kind of undermining the wisdom they can draw from it. As an example, a lot of people don't notice the influence that they have on others, particularly the bad influence. They only see the hurt that others have caused them, and not the hurt that they cause others. In a way, it's understandable, since you need to take care of yourself first before you take care of others, however, if you are more aware of what you do to others, you are also more aware of yourself, and that's the key to being more mature.

How does this tie into age? Well, it's simple really. I kind of already explained it. Depending on how you used your experiences, you can kind of extrapolate that into how "old" or "mature" you are. As an example, an 18 year old that reflects a lot on his actions, can be a lot more mature than a 40 year old that plays victim all the time. In that sense, how old you are and how many you've experienced, is not important, it's how you go about in life and how efficient you are about using your experiences. Self-reflection is one of the most important things that one can do. And in my opinion birthdays should be about this.

In current days, birthdays have kind of lost their purpose in my opinion. Usually, people go out and get drunk, or throw a party and get drunk, get gifts and get drunk.. You get the point. Your birthday is something that happens every year in a consistent manner. If there's any time/place that one should reflect about oneself it's this time. What did I do wrong last year? What can I do better? Did I hurt anyone? Why did others hurt me? etc etc. You should always do it, but, this is a good start anyway..

Also, what do you gain by having a party? Don't get me wrong. If you want to party and it makes you happy, do so. If you like gifts, encourage others to give you some gifts. It's all up to you. However, don't forget that doing that will not give you anything valuable in the long run. Your gifts may grow old or break, your party was temporal. You might be happy that day, but what happens the day after that because of the party? Or the week after that? The month after that? A lot of people even see birthdays as a day to do whatever they like, which is the complete opposite of what I think it should be. I think it might be some sort of escape for some people. Well, you won't escape from this reality, that's for sure. The next day everything will still be the same. The only way to "escape" is to be content with yourself, and that's what we all should be striving for, and not temporal stuff without any real value.

Have some alone time the day before or after the party to reflect on yourself, to allow yourself to grow a little mentally. In the end, the social aspect of how you deal with others is more important than your party or your gifts. If you remain an asshole, people will not like you more after your birthday party. In the end, we are social beings, and if there's one thing that we need to develop is the way we interact with others. Without others, you would have no party, without others, you would have no gifts, so always do better than yourself, and evaluate yourself. And the way to do that, is to look at yourself.

Ok, we've had the social talk, now, lets go to biology. I'll keep this one short, but basically it comes down to, what you believe about yourself, your body (or brain, usually both) will try to replicate it. If you think you're old, you will feel old. If you think you're young, you will feel young. This determines your self-image, and this will be reflected and expressed in your appearance or "aura", and also by the cells in your body. If you think this is mumbo jumbo, suit yourself. I'll post a video at the end of this blog by PhD Bruce Lipton, and you can judge yourself.

Anyway, this, and self-reflection play an important role together. When you reflect on yourself, and you are more aware of yourself, you know when you're doing better, and this will give you a positive attitude towards yourself, and this will feed your body, mind, and the people around you with some positivity. The more you do this, the more you grow as a person, and the less old you'll become. In other words, your wisdom rises, but your apparent age does not grow as rapidly as your calendar age.

Ok, this was my birthday rant, if you read through it, congrats, if you didn't, well, then you're not reading this part so I have nothing to tell you xD. Live your life however you want to, just don't get caught up in fantasies and forget about yourself..

Cheers.

Biology videos:

Bruce Lipton - The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet 1 of 2

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8506668136396723343#

Bruce Lipton - The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet 2 of 2

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-6568107389365915765#

Why God is probable, but religion is not

Ok, first of all, lets start with reason. Yes, reason. I'm not talking about reason in the sense of purpose. What is reason? Even the most experienced and old philosophers don't exactly know what reason is. They don't know where it comes from or what its essence is, so to speak. What we do know, is that reason works. Lets compare reason to rational thinking, even though they are (almost) the same. When you're reasoning, you're thinking in a rational way, which means, you are looking at the outside world, and thinking in a way that you know will work. If you have something in your hand, with your hand being with the palm up, you know that if you turn around your hand palm down, the object will drop down. That's a simple example of rational thinking. Of course, rational thinking can be used for matters which are a lot more complicated than that. We'll get into that later. But the bottom line is, for reason/rational thinking, we use logic, and that logic is implemented in all of us, and we all can use it, and in my opinion should use it. We have the potential to do so, and are even forced to use it many times a day, even though many are not aware of it. Becoming able to awarely use it, will get you very far on different subjects. Logic is our only fundamental feature that we have inside of us, that tells us how the world outside of us works, but not necessarily our feelings. It's also not possible to debunk logic, because to do so, you would need logic itself, which is self-refuting. It's the most basic understanding of the world that we have and use. Remember this, this is important for later on.

Now that we've covered logic and rational thinking (in a very short way), lets get to beliefs and our comfort zone. Every single one of us has a certain comfort zone. This comfort zone is determined by the person's beliefs, confidence and a lot more. The comfort zone covers subjects, situations, actions and occurences which a single individual will find comfortable, or at least, not disturbing. For example, some people like meat, some don't. For the ones who like it, eating meat is in their comfort zone. For others, it's outside of it. And now comes the hard part to explain. The smaller your comfort zone, the bigger the amount of your beliefs (probably). If you have a very small comfort zone, you probably believe a lot of things which are not true, because if you know they were true, you would be comfortable with them much more easily, thus making them be inside your comfort zone instead of outside of it. There are exceptions to this of course on a small scale, but on the big picture, I believe that's how it looks like. Something like war being in so many people's comfort zone for example is a really really bad thing.. But something like being responsible for yourself, being present inside your comfort zone is a very important thing, just like logic for example. So usually, the more you expand your comfort zone in a rational way, the more you grow, since you are able to accept more, do more, gather more experience and act accordingly in different situations, and don't feel desperate or anxious about all those actions.

Now lets get to religion. The main purpose of religion is to tell people how to live. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's a good thing in its simplicity. The problem is, that religion in current days narrows one's comfort zone instead of expanding it. It has so many restrictions, that it alienates someone from using one's own logic and rational thinking. And this is in my opinion the place where religion fails. It tells you everything you should do, and you must just do it, without questioning anything, and if you question anything, you need to find your answer within that religion, and not anywhere else, including not inside yourself. In other words, your actions should be natural, without questioning anything, and they should just "happen" for you, for example, it should be "normal" for you to go to church every sunday if you're a Christian, or it should be "normal" for you to pray 5 times a day if you're a Muslim. You just need to do it, like a routine, and not wonder why you're actually doing it, because if you do it, you're doing it right and you'll go to heaven and that's all that matters in the end. But I don't like this kind of thought, because it removes your most precious gift about understanding the world, which is logic like i said earlier. As soon as you start doing routines, you stop using your logic and you don't think rationally anymore. All you're doing is acting like a robot and following rules, which you didn't set by yourself in the first place. The why is very important for your actions.

The why for religions is of course, to go to heaven. But what if there is no heaven? That's one of the questions you're not allowed to ask in religion, because they tell you it's there, so it must be there and don't you dare think otherwise. That's another example of the limits of religion. That question is simply something that came out of yourself using logic, but they've disallowed you to use it. And since logic/reason is the most important feature that humanity possesses, and actually makes us human, it's not probable that religion is the way for you to live your life, because it forces you to throw away your own self potential. To put it a little harsh, religion makes you an animal. Let me explain what I mean by that. If you teach a dog to fetch, or to lead a blind person, he just does it. That's all he knows, and he's not able to question why he should do it, because he's an animal. So, if you want to keep your human self, you will not blindly follow a religion and go to the church to sing that the blood of Jesus saved you, because, that's just what they told you to sing and you lost your humanity and are nothing more but an animal. That does not mean we should ban all religions all together, it just means, when we look at a religion, take the teachings it has, and use it yourself in a rational manner, instead of blindly following it. But your life should still be based on yourself, and not on anything outside of yourself, because the only thing you have to rely on, is yourself. You are the one who is perceiving, and without your perception, the "religious data" could not be processed in any way.

Now that I've explained why I think religion overall is not a realistic way to living our life, let's go to God. Ok, according to the religions, if you agree with what I just said, God basically wants you to be an animal, even though he gave you the ability to be human. Does that seem right to you? Didn't think so. In its essence, i think God exists. What God is usually defined by, is the "creator" of all. In other words, He was present before earth existed, we existed, and even time and space existed. Now we're gonna mix science with religion. Before the Big Bang, time nor space existed, yet, out of "nothing", kaboom, existance was present. Now, one of the basic understandings of science is that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. One of the most recent discoveries say that matter is nothing more than vacuum fluctuations. So basically, all that exists is vacuum. Vacuum is the energy that's needed for the existence of everything that is, and is the only energy that is. This energy is what formed our universe, you and even your use of logic. Now comes a bit of a problem, because we don't know anything about the vacuum, except that it fluctuates into matter and energy. This vacuum is something that we can not perceive at all. 

One might say that vacuum then, is God, but i would like to go a bit further than that. Because vacuum is something that might be present in our current universe. We don't know if this is the only one, and can't know that either (yet). So vacuum is the material for everything created in our universe, which we know exists since we live in it, so let's not comment on other universes since we don't know if they're real or not. Since vacuum is the material so to speak, there must be a source of where that material comes from. That source, one might call God. Now, some people might say, yeah, but that source must have come from somewhere too, and that one above it too etc. and can keep going into infinity. The answer to that is simple. It doesn't matter. You read that right. You know why? The fact that you can keep going into infinity means, that at some point, there is something that has no source, no beginning, no end, no limits whatsoever. That's what logic tells us, and that's the bottom line. You can't go further than that, and that's the reason there must be "something" (not the right word to use since something implies a limit) which has the same description as God, which is the ultimate source and the ultimate everything, and has no limits.

To go back to the religious version of God, i want you to ask some questions to yourself. You can write answers in comments if you like.. But at least answer them for yourself based on your own logical thoughts.

Why would God, [who's infinite in all aspects (including time space etc.), who can create humans like Adam and Eve, all knowing, perfect] ;

1) Create you while he knows you would be going to hell because of your own choices

2) Send a prophet at one time instead of giving each individual a direct source of truth at any given moment ( I actually believe he did do that...)

3) Want worship

4) Punish you for trying to use what he gave you

5) Feel human emotions like anger, disappointment etc.

6) By being all knowing and, still have the same approach with his spread of religions, knowing the majority will go to hell in the end

There are more but i think this is long enough already.. That's it for now. Until next time.