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I liked how they introduced her, like "her mother died in an insane asylum thinking she was Queen Victoria" and my thought was, I like where I think this is going. I was not disappointed.

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Why Paganism is Crap, parts I-V

Started by Doktor Howl, August 02, 2011, 08:15:18 PM

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Reginald Ret

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on March 19, 2014, 09:05:19 PM
It's obvious to you because you were active here when all of that stuff happened. For people who weren't the thread just sounded like a lot of people here hated pagans for reasons i knew nothing about.
I agree with you, it sounds like bigoted hatefilled bilespewing.
Then again, I hate all humans so I assume they deserved it.
Lord Byron: "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Nigel saying the wisest words ever uttered: "It's just a suffix."

"The worst forum ever" "The most mediocre forum on the internet" "The dumbest forum on the internet" "The most retarded forum on the internet" "The lamest forum on the internet" "The coolest forum on the internet"

LMNO

Or, if you're going to comment on a thread that was created in 2011, you could do some light research to figure out the context of the OP.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on March 19, 2014, 09:05:19 PM
It's obvious to you because you were active here when all of that stuff happened. For people who weren't the thread just sounded like a lot of people here hated pagans for reasons i knew nothing about.

Sure, it's easy to conclude that there's no backstory, or that people don't have reasons for their opinions. But it makes more sense to suspect that there might be backstory, and previous interactions, that have led people to their feelings and opinions.

Most of us have some sort of history with the Pagan boards we've trolled; many of us didn't even initially set out to troll them.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

It would be very difficult, bordering on impossible, to vet all threads on a given board to ensure that they include adequate backstory to allow any given newcomer to read them and gain a full and complete understanding of the conditions under which the thread arose. This is one reason why it is wise, when reading a thread on any given forum, to assume that there is indeed some unincluded backstory, and not unreasonable to ask what it might be, if interested.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cain

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on March 19, 2014, 09:05:19 PM
It's obvious to you because you were active here when all of that stuff happened. For people who weren't the thread just sounded like a lot of people here hated pagans for reasons i knew nothing about.

Or you could just assume we mindlessly hate all pagans because we're bigots.

I mean, which is the more likely conclusion?  Missing backstory, or bigots.

Reginald Ret

Quote from: Cain on March 20, 2014, 07:46:02 AM
Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on March 19, 2014, 09:05:19 PM
It's obvious to you because you were active here when all of that stuff happened. For people who weren't the thread just sounded like a lot of people here hated pagans for reasons i knew nothing about.

Or you could just assume we mindlessly hate all pagans because we're bigots.

I mean, which is the more likely conclusion?  Missing backstory, or bigots.
Anywhere else I would say bigots.
Lord Byron: "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Nigel saying the wisest words ever uttered: "It's just a suffix."

"The worst forum ever" "The most mediocre forum on the internet" "The dumbest forum on the internet" "The most retarded forum on the internet" "The lamest forum on the internet" "The coolest forum on the internet"

Cain

Well thanks for that vote of support, regret.  We're not anywhere else, in case you hadn't noticed.  And I would've thought people who had been here for more than a couple of months could maybe figure out that actually meant something but, apparently, I was wrong.

P3nT4gR4m

Been here years. Only a vague notion of why everyone is hating on the hippies but hey, it's a belief system, if you aint piling on the hate, you're lending it legitimacy :lulz:

Have to admit, I'm kind of baffled at the singleminded dedication a lot of you have to this mystic wicks board but I guess that makes it no different from any other hobby I don't get. At least you're attacking a part of the problem that is human belief so why should it matter that it's only a minority subset if it creates a net gain?

Of course, I'm an outlier, since I happen to be of the firm opinion that non-violently attacking any belief system is always justified

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

LMNO

From what I remember, the MW thing started out more political than anything.  A couple of people from here were talking politics over there with friends of the "Elders", or something. Anyway, some of them were leaning heavily right, and talking a lot of shit (Bush era talking points, IIRC).  The obvious scuffle ensued, and the Discordians were banned.

From there, the Law of Eristic Escalation kicked in, with more Discordians coming on board, leading to more rules and bannings, leading to more asshattery on our part, leading them to besmirch the Discordian brand, etc etc. A couple of people sold us out, some other MW joined our side, they created a "Discordian Ghetto"... oh, those were the days.

Anyway, the point is it wasn't their belief system that drew our ire, in my opinion.  For me, there were three main points of objection:

1. An almost sociopathic conservative libertarian political viewpoint, "supported" misinformation and ignorance.

2. The monetization of Woo, and an extreme anti-science (anti-rational) mentality.

3. The power-and-ego-tripping of the mods and admins, banning anything they didn't like, creating an opressive social heirarchy.



But that's just me.

Reginald Ret

Quote from: Cain on March 20, 2014, 08:16:55 AM
Well thanks for that vote of support, regret.  We're not anywhere else, in case you hadn't noticed.  And I would've thought people who had been here for more than a couple of months could maybe figure out that actually meant something but, apparently, I was wrong.
Oh don't get me wrong, I think taking context into consideration is a good thing. I was simply agreeing with Chelagoras that without context it does seem like bigoted hatefilled bilespewing.
But i stupidly used a phrase (it sounds like) to change what i stated from a judgement to an observation. Silly me, using a mere three words to modify meaning.
Lord Byron: "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Nigel saying the wisest words ever uttered: "It's just a suffix."

"The worst forum ever" "The most mediocre forum on the internet" "The dumbest forum on the internet" "The most retarded forum on the internet" "The lamest forum on the internet" "The coolest forum on the internet"

hooplala

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on March 20, 2014, 11:19:10 AM
From what I remember, the MW thing started out more political than anything.  A couple of people from here were talking politics over there with friends of the "Elders", or something. Anyway, some of them were leaning heavily right, and talking a lot of shit (Bush era talking points, IIRC).  The obvious scuffle ensued, and the Discordians were banned.

From there, the Law of Eristic Escalation kicked in, with more Discordians coming on board, leading to more rules and bannings, leading to more asshattery on our part, leading them to besmirch the Discordian brand, etc etc. A couple of people sold us out, some other MW joined our side, they created a "Discordian Ghetto"... oh, those were the days.

Anyway, the point is it wasn't their belief system that drew our ire, in my opinion.  For me, there were three main points of objection:

1. An almost sociopathic conservative libertarian political viewpoint, "supported" misinformation and ignorance.

2. The monetization of Woo, and an extreme anti-science (anti-rational) mentality.

3. The power-and-ego-tripping of the mods and admins, banning anything they didn't like, creating an opressive social heirarchy.



But that's just me.

That's pretty much my memory, yep.
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 20, 2014, 10:35:42 AM
Been here years. Only a vague notion of why everyone is hating on the hippies but hey, it's a belief system, if you aint piling on the hate, you're lending it legitimacy :lulz:

Have to admit, I'm kind of baffled at the singleminded dedication a lot of you have to this mystic wicks board but I guess that makes it no different from any other hobby I don't get. At least you're attacking a part of the problem that is human belief so why should it matter that it's only a minority subset if it creates a net gain?

Of course, I'm an outlier, since I happen to be of the firm opinion that non-violently attacking any belief system is always justified

Atheists are among the funniest belief systems to troll, in fact. But the fuckers keep banning me.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Chelagoras The Boulder

Quote from: Cain on March 20, 2014, 07:46:02 AM
Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on March 19, 2014, 09:05:19 PM
It's obvious to you because you were active here when all of that stuff happened. For people who weren't the thread just sounded like a lot of people here hated pagans for reasons i knew nothing about.

Or you could just assume we mindlessly hate all pagans because we're bigots.

I mean, which is the more likely conclusion?  Missing backstory, or bigots.
I'm willing to admit that i leeroy jenkins'd into this discussion without all the facts. That is true, and i'll own it. But the reason i did so is that every so often on this board i notice lingering bits of butthurt from this whole mystic wicks thing and yes, without context, it sounds like there is an undercurrent of antipagan hate. It pops up here and there, so yea, when a thread popped up that blatantly said Paganism is Crap, i reacted, and said my piece.
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Nigel on March 20, 2014, 02:29:57 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 20, 2014, 10:35:42 AM
Been here years. Only a vague notion of why everyone is hating on the hippies but hey, it's a belief system, if you aint piling on the hate, you're lending it legitimacy :lulz:

Have to admit, I'm kind of baffled at the singleminded dedication a lot of you have to this mystic wicks board but I guess that makes it no different from any other hobby I don't get. At least you're attacking a part of the problem that is human belief so why should it matter that it's only a minority subset if it creates a net gain?

Of course, I'm an outlier, since I happen to be of the firm opinion that non-violently attacking any belief system is always justified

Atheists are among the funniest belief systems to troll, in fact. But the fuckers keep banning me.

Hell, yeah, the beauty of atheists is they don't realise their whole argument against unsubstantiated belief hinges on an unsubstantiated belief. Out of all the belief systems on the planet it appears to be the only one that doesn't realise it's a belief system and that puts it head and shoulders above the rest in the running for king retard crown  :lulz:

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Pæs

I was going to come in and tell Chelagoras The Boulder that they're a dick but then this thread felt a bit like Nigel calling people White, instead I'm going to consider whether specifically targeting pagans for trolling, even where they are pagans unrelated to the original conflicts, may have conditioned me to feel contempt for pagans in general.

There is an acceptance here of bashing on smelly pagans. I'ma take someone's criticism of the same as a chance to examine whether there's a prison bar that needs addressing.

Or whether it's just fun to troll pagans.