Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Religious breakdown of the United States

  • 45.2% Christian
    • 21.2% Protestant
    • 20.8% Catholic
    • 1.6% Mormon
    • 0.8% Jehovah's Witness
    • 0.5% Orthodox
    • 0.4% Other
  • 25.4% Satanist
  • 3.1% Science Worship
  • 1.9% Jewish
  • 0.9% Muslim
  • 0.7% Buddhist
  • 0.7% Hindu
  • 1.0% Other Religions
  • 19.8% Unaffiliated
(source: http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/)

Monday, April 3, 2017

Living in a Bubble

Is it a good thing? Blogger Bryan Caplan thinks so. As a Christian and a political moderate, you wouldn't think I'd get much from an atheist libertarian's blog, but I can relate to a lot of his posts. The first one is called My Beautiful Bubble, which explains how awesome it is to live in a bubble. The second one, Make Your Own Bubble in 10 Easy Steps, explains how to make one.

I shouldn't say this, but I agree with a LOT of his advice. Out of the ten steps he gives, I think 1-4 are great and 6-8 are eventual goals of mine. I can't quite do 5 because of my depression, and I doubt I'll ever be ready to do 10. My sub-sub-culture is so tiny that 9 was never an option, but I have a girlfriend so it's a moot point. But most of it is great advice. After the election from hell, I quit reading news. I will probably never buy a newspaper again. I use a Facebook plug in called FB Purity so I don't have to see Facebook posts that annoy me. I read a variety of blogs from a variety of viewpoints I have at least some sympathy for, the few that are left. If I was more settled in my opinions I'd only read blogs I agreed with.

If I wasn't religious I would have started working on the bubble a long time ago. I thought it was wrong. Maybe it is. But it helps me stay sane. I hate American culture. In my head, I consider ISIS worse than the alt-right and I consider the alt-right worse than the secular left, but on a gut level, I think all three are evil and worthless. I don't have the emotional strength to live without a bubble right now. Too bad I can't spend more time in it.

Friday, February 10, 2017

The failure of an ethical system

Until last year, both the left wing and the right wing had competing versions of morality and ethics, both of them with some problems but still more "good" than "bad". Both versions had a lot of things in common like don't murder, don't steal, don't lie, etc. Last year, both the left and the right mutually agreed that the left is the "good guys" and the right is the "bad guys". Left-wingers bash right-wingers for being too bad, right-wingers bash left-wingers for being too good. That's what "snowflake", "gay", "cuck", etc. all mean - someone who is too good, who doesn't sin enough, so they must be punished. (For more see here) The new right-wing "morality" is simply left-wing morality in reverse. It's weird to see the complete failure of an ethical system.

It's hard for me to write this because I don't get along well with the left. But the right has turned evil and there's no way around it. There's a lot of left-wing morality that I think is completely wrong, but at least it's a system of morality where people strive to be good. A lot of the right strives to be bad because they want to be the opposite of the left wing. This culture is a sick parody of what it was 10 years ago.

I wonder what society would be like if left wing morality had collapsed instead of right wing morality. Probably just as horrible, but horrible in a way that makes more sense.