1129: Cerebral

[Junkenstein]

Originally Posted by BrianAlt

You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

Get the fuck outta here, Tommy!

[rodimusprime]

The entire idea of Lent seems silly and cultish to me. Glad I don't have to deal with that shit.

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by BrianAlt

You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

I knew someone would get it. Someone like you Brian.

[GMan]

Originally Posted by yoav

i don't get it, and was hoping for a deeper insight than you just being defensive. sorry for worrying your fucking sensibilities.

Don't be ingenuous. You were being insulting, not hoping for deeper insight. If you're going to talk shit, especially on the KATG forums, you should be prepared to have talked back.

Do you really think that knowing a lot about one subject precludes knowing anything about other subjects? Studies on cultural literacy show that people who know a lot about one subject tend to grasp new subjects more quickly.

But I guess those studies were done on people who could both walk and chew gum.

[Ansur]

Originally Posted by yoav

i can't believe people know so much about religion, do you feel like you've wasted your life?

I have to agree with GMan, this line was not a request for insight, it was just an attempt to push a button. But that's just my opinion, and maybe Yoav really was hoping for insight because he wanted to compare. Is Yoav doing something great with his own life that makes it less of a waste?

Or that maybe with over 2 billion people in the world who identify themselves as Christian or Catholic, this knowledge of the religion could never be useful?You did say it is on the same level as knowledge of Star Trek and roleplaying games, so does this mean being a trekkie would give you insight to a third of the world population? If there are that many trekkies, that last movie should have made at least $20billion if they only saw it once.

As you may have guessed from my avatar, I am not a priest.

[SoFocused]

Originally Posted by rodimusprime

The entire idea of Lent seems silly and cultish to me. Glad I don't have to deal with that shit.

c/s breh

[BrianAlt]

Originally Posted by Bucho

I knew someone would get it. Someone like you Brian.

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

[yoav]

Originally Posted by GMan

Don't be ingenuous. You were being insulting, not hoping for deeper insight. If you're going to talk shit, especially on the KATG forums, you should be prepared to have talked back.

Do you really think that knowing a lot about one subject precludes knowing anything about other subjects? Studies on cultural literacy show that people who know a lot about one subject tend to grasp new subjects more quickly.

But I guess those studies were done on people who could both walk and chew gum.

Originally Posted by Ansur

I have to agree with GMan, this line was not a request for insight, it was just an attempt to push a button. But that's just my opinion, and maybe Yoav really was hoping for insight because he wanted to compare. Is Yoav doing something great with his own life that makes it less of a waste?

Or that maybe with over 2 billion people in the world who identify themselves as Christian or Catholic, this knowledge of the religion could never be useful?You did say it is on the same level as knowledge of Star Trek and roleplaying games, so does this mean being a trekkie would give you insight to a third of the world population? If there are that many trekkies, that last movie should have made at least $20billion if they only saw it once.

As you may have guessed from my avatar, I am not a priest.

- yes i was looking for deeper insight

- i still can't tell what your deal is, but between your very detailed post about the intricacies of catholicism and your forum name you came off as someone who had spent their life obsessing over a single religion and its ridiculous bureaucracy. the kind of person - in general, that spends their life learning just that and blocking out anything else always relying on the text and regulation of an outdated, some would say irrelevant, culture to make decisions in navigating through life.

if that's not the case, then you can't answer my question.

-yes i was intentionally being abrasive and pushing a button, but for the purpose of sidestepping the 50 pages of posts where you (assuming you are hyper religious) back-peddle and delude yourself while i drag some kind of an insight out of you regarding why you do it, and how you see the time you've spent doing it.

it's more a question of motivation then anything else, i've always wondered how someone (again assuming you are hyper religious) can devote themselves to something so trivial. i've spoken to rabbis who when you actually ask them they don't believe any of the religious nonsense. and i've spoken to people that practice various religions and the response is always "well my parents raised me like this, and i can't change" which is bullshit.

it's not the first time on the forums i've asked someone to explain a behaviour that i didn't understand, i just didn't feel like coddling and dragging the info out of you.. been kinda busy lately and don't want to spend the next few days on the forums doing that in mind numbing repetition.

-as for studying trekkie culture for the sake of making a movie. obviously that wouldn't be a waste of time and has nothing to do with being obsessive. i was referring to people that spend large amounts of time submerging themselves in a culture where they imagine a 'perfect' world instead of actually going into the real world and living that.

so instead of someone saying "i just spent 4 weeks watching every episode of a tv show because i dream of being able to fly through space", just go out and take flying lessons and go be a pilot. i see the tv watching/dreaming as wasting your life, because that person could actually be living out their dream.

summary
so to sum up, i wanted insight into why you or anyone that feels the need to learn every tiny detail of a religion(be it catholicism or trekkism) would be motivated to do that. it seems from my experience that people that are passionate about anything have to delude themselves to some degree to block out the negative influences in their life (ie: people saying they can't achieve goal x - or in the case of religion people turning on a television or telling them about carbon dating). i wanted to further explore the correlation.

i wanted to offend you enough to explain yourself without all this time wasted nitpicking about my motivations.

[GMan]

Originally Posted by yoav

- yes i was looking for deeper insight

i wanted to offend you enough to explain yourself without all this time wasted nitpicking about my motivations.

Let me get this straight: you think i did nothing with my life but learning about Catholicism based on one forum post (admittedly a long post) where I provided some correct information about Lent--information that anyone who read the wikipedia article would know.

Then, you decide the best way to gain deep insights on the motivations of the religious is to be offensive. Is it really your experience in life that offending people is the best way to get information? Have you ever tried asking?

To answer your question: I don't feel that I've wasted my life. When you enjoy something, be it Catholicism, or Star Trek, you tend to learn more things about it. The development of Christianity really is the story of Western Civilization for the past 2000 years or so. The calendar you use is based upon it. The idioms you use (blind leading the blind, turn the other cheek, etc.) are based upon it. The classic works of western art and music are based upon it.

On top of that, I have other interests. You wouldn't know it from my original post because that was about a single topic--correcting misinformation about Lent. I could write an equally detailed post about the American Civil War, etiology of tuberculosis, or Korean food, but those topics didn't come up.

I'm sure you have some interest in your life (Phish? Photography?) that other people don't get. Hell, you've made close to a thousand posts on an internet forum for a relatively small group of people devoted to a podcast. To some, that might seem like a waste of time, but if you got something out of it, it's really not anyone else's business.

[Mattman]

Originally Posted by yoav

yes, not knowing anything would have been a huge waste of my life. hence the comment.

it's like people who obsess over star trek or role playing games. all that time you could have spent learning stuff instead of fixating on one random story or subculture. i don't get it, and was hoping for a deeper insight than you just being defensive. sorry for worrying your fucking sensibilities.

Knowing and believing are 2 different things. Knowing about Lent and believing in Catholicism, or Protestant Christianity are different.

I cannot understand why people who do not follow a religion vehemently attack the belief of others on these forums. Is it because our two hosts have decided to be agnostic or atheist?

As others have pointed out in this and other threads, Chemda does not know the detail of other religions but often criticises them for their ridiculousness. Strangely she still gets defensive over Judeism from time to time.

Lessons that should be learned from the forums: Displaying your knowledge to the ignorant is not appreciated by the ignorant. Displaying your ignorance with pride just makes you look pathetic.