Randomness
Jan. 19th, 2012 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fireprincessIt has been said that in polite company you are not to discuss politics or religion. i made a commitment at one point in my life to at least not do one. For me, i have no problem with political discussion. Differences in the personal politics that matter comes down to a choice of what is oppressive and what is not. It's pretty much as simple as that. While this is defining things in certain terms, something i realize in my writing I should refrain from (i.e. i should be using E-Prime), yet i cannot help but see differences in politics coming down to a choice to be hateful or not. Either You are alright with continuing oppression, or You want it stopped. Period.
For this reason, to a certain degree, I wear my politics on my sleeve. i don't talk about it much - unless someone else brings it up first. Even then i generally guard my opinion until i have felt out where the other person stands. As with most political nerds, i will attempt to feel out a person's politics by their subtle comments on issues and things that are brought up.
Much of this comes from being a trans woman, and having to constantly be aware of the type of people I am around and how they might potentially feel about me. This is where the personal and political play a huge degree of intersectionality in my life.
The personal is political and the political is personal. Especially for trans and queer people.
Religion and different forms of spirituality, or however you want to frame this paradigm of human thought, seems to me a different matter. i grew up with an abusive father who was a nut job fundamentalist. As a young above average intelligence teenager, i had to know for certain why I did not "believe" or why i refused to "get saved". It was a long time before he realized that my problem with Christianity was not just that i didn't believe the specific events of the bible happened, but on the the fact that i thought the premise itself was wrong. That everything was made by this unforeseen force that was conscious yet refused to reveal itself was and still is preposterous to me.
i don't understand why people see the physical world and want to assume that there is anything more. It seems like wishful thinking to me at best. i am a student of the sciences, where conclusions require evidence, reproducible results, and peer review. Not just blind faith or a belief in someone's word or a feeling. The way that i see things, faith = ignorance. Faith says that i will not question, i will simply blindly accept something as truth. The very concept of faith is opposed to science and everything it stands for. Everything it stands to show us about the world.
i simply don't know how much to say it. i used to be a very outspoken atheist. For almost 15 years. i was loud as fuck about it. i decided though at a certain point as I began to do more on the ground activism that it was not a good topic of conversation. Not only that, but my views, being so radical, are rather offensive to some. That's fine, so i simply will not discuss it. i see it as being something that would cause more disruption and hurt feelings than progress and understanding.
i would much rather convince someone to fight against oppression rather than attempt to show them that god is dead. i also feel that i am much better at the former than the latter.
For this reason, to a certain degree, I wear my politics on my sleeve. i don't talk about it much - unless someone else brings it up first. Even then i generally guard my opinion until i have felt out where the other person stands. As with most political nerds, i will attempt to feel out a person's politics by their subtle comments on issues and things that are brought up.
Much of this comes from being a trans woman, and having to constantly be aware of the type of people I am around and how they might potentially feel about me. This is where the personal and political play a huge degree of intersectionality in my life.
The personal is political and the political is personal. Especially for trans and queer people.
Religion and different forms of spirituality, or however you want to frame this paradigm of human thought, seems to me a different matter. i grew up with an abusive father who was a nut job fundamentalist. As a young above average intelligence teenager, i had to know for certain why I did not "believe" or why i refused to "get saved". It was a long time before he realized that my problem with Christianity was not just that i didn't believe the specific events of the bible happened, but on the the fact that i thought the premise itself was wrong. That everything was made by this unforeseen force that was conscious yet refused to reveal itself was and still is preposterous to me.
i don't understand why people see the physical world and want to assume that there is anything more. It seems like wishful thinking to me at best. i am a student of the sciences, where conclusions require evidence, reproducible results, and peer review. Not just blind faith or a belief in someone's word or a feeling. The way that i see things, faith = ignorance. Faith says that i will not question, i will simply blindly accept something as truth. The very concept of faith is opposed to science and everything it stands for. Everything it stands to show us about the world.
i simply don't know how much to say it. i used to be a very outspoken atheist. For almost 15 years. i was loud as fuck about it. i decided though at a certain point as I began to do more on the ground activism that it was not a good topic of conversation. Not only that, but my views, being so radical, are rather offensive to some. That's fine, so i simply will not discuss it. i see it as being something that would cause more disruption and hurt feelings than progress and understanding.
i would much rather convince someone to fight against oppression rather than attempt to show them that god is dead. i also feel that i am much better at the former than the latter.