Self-denial sucks

Marge Simpson, one of the advocates of self-denial I hate the most.

Among the things I fight against the most are sexual repression/oppression and self-denial. Here, I’ll tell you why.

The way I understand it, self-denial is the principle of blockading oneself from pleasures such as sex and intoxication, as well as suppressing desire, excitement, and passion and denying oneself those things. It’s the central principle of every closed-minded paranoid moral guardian and his/her brainwashed followers, and one the chief values of Christianity and Islam.

The reason I oppose it is its sheer asceticism, it’s complete rejection of ecstasy, passion, desire, and anything pertaining to the id, and I think society today is the poorer for its aversion to the wild, passionate, and sexual. Thanks a lot Christianity. But to be fair, it’s not just Christianity. There are Indian religions (and sects of those) devoted to asceticism, including Jainism, some forms of Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism in a way, and some other sects of Buddhism, such as Shugendo. Modern religion in general seems to be very keen on seperating the material/carnal from the spiritual and denying the value of the material end of the spectrum. And contemporary society can only think to choose between spirituality and materialism (often in the form of modern atheism), little realizing the possibility of living in both worlds (which primitve man did). The sad thing is that self-denial and shunning pleasure and desire is considered spiritual, when really it’s not (or at least not necessarily).

The point is, I hate the family values campaign of sexual oppression and self-denial, as well as the religious one, because it pretends to be moral but actually serves no moral purpose, and may as well be actually immoral. Think: when did we repress sex in our society before? Medieval Christian Europe. Take your guess as to where that lead. What’s an example of a society that represses sex to the point they won’t even let you talk about AIDS? India. Yep, freaking India. You know? The same place that used to be very open and frank about sex. The moral guardians also claim they’re in the interest of “protecting children”, but they’re not. They just don’t like the fact everything isn’t family values or tailored to Christians, children and soccer mommies.

So to conclude, if we let the crusaders of sexual oppression and self-denial win, you can look back and take a good look at where that will lead.

A world made by moral guardians is a world of emptiness and suicide

Pictured: Bullshit. Particularly espoused by a lame person.

Ever noticed that moral guardians always go after the things that make us happy? They’re always out to get rid of anything that is not “morally clean”. You know, the kind of people who make loud and false claims that video games are evil, that Harry Potter is satanic, and that a woman’s naked body permanently damages anyone who sees it, and believe that children should be protected from fucking everything (the German, and possibly also the Australian, government is full of those types). They have flat out ridiculous moral standards, almost always motivated by religion, or their fundamentalist religious beliefs.

But this isn’t about them, strictly. This is about what kind of world they’d end up creating. Lots of the things they go after make us happy. We enjoy heavy metal music, it makes happy, helps us deal with life, confronts issues we would deny, and empowers us. We like playing video games because they empower us, they take us to a world where we can take out our desires, and they let us enjoy ourselves (most of the time, and in the case of good games). Some of us read books because we get the pleasure of being taken to another realm, kinda like in video games. Same is true of movies. Violent movies put us in the action (and the sexy action) without us having to experience the potential consequences, or because some of us want to see it happen, or want to see someone kill bad guys. Even monster and horror movies fulfil some people’s need to see the content their looking for. Some of us drink and smoke stuff to keep ourselves happy. It might work, it might not, but you can only find out one way.

Now imagine if everything that wasn’t “clean” but made us happy had been removed just to “protect” children. We’d be in a pretty bland and unhappy place. No sexual liberty, no musical freedom, no free media. And would you believe there’d be more suicides and death? See, music makes you feel better about life after a hard day, heavy metal especially makes you feel better, inspires you not to give up. The music never judges you, it’s always there for if you’re willing to listen. It keeps you alive. Take that away, and chances are there’ll be more young suicides. Take away violent video games, and chances are you’re more likely to be killing real people rather than taking your homicidal anger out on virtual people. Take away sexual excitement, and I’m sure relationships will end much faster. Take away things that are part of being human, and things go wrong with human beings. The sad thing is that in such a world, the moral guardians will never acknowledge that that things are be going wrong, or that it’s their fault for creating a puritanical world where people live in fear of going outside imposed dogmatic standards and actually kill themselves or other people more often than without violent media and heavy metal. They’ll just say that a group of devil worshippers or supposed Satanists are inspiring people to kill themselves and each other, like any suburban murder.

Pictured: Someone who really doesn’t give two fucks about youth suicide.

And the sad thing is, plenty of them are just political opportunists seeking to get attention based on something popular, which only helps the sales of the media they’re trying to ban. Who knows, they’re probably serectly more perverted and depraved than they appear. These people are useless and contribute nothing to society, except maybe to remind us who the real enemy is.

Why I hate religion as a concept

This is about religion in general, as you can guess. I am anti-religious, that much is already clear from previous posts (that doesn’t make me an atheist). Though I respect some religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, pagan religions, and even Satanism to a small extent, along with other religious ideas, I still very much hate religion as a concept. Why? I’ll tell you.

It turns virtues into moral obligations

Virtues, by definition, are characteristics that make one admirable in people’s eyes. They are characteristics of moral excellence, not necessarily laws of morality. What religion does is socialize, if you will, virtues and turn them into codified moral laws outline how you should behave or not behave.

It turns mythology into doctrine

Mythology and religion are not the same. Mythology is great. At it’s heart it’s about storytelling, an art form as old as mankind himself, right down to when we first started gathering around fires and telling each other stories, long before the English language had been invented. Religion, on the other hand, is designed around creating a moral doctrine or dogma for you to follow in hopes of acheiving salvation or so-called spirituality (religion doesn’t real spirituality, but rather uses spirituality as a hook to lure fools in). To do this, it transforms mythology from almost spiritual storytelling to a matter of faith.

It socializes tradition into law

Traditions are customs that different people have and that have been passed down by enough generations. Religion, however, turns that into a religious law for all people to follow. Even little beliefs among religious people become full on doctrine, such as when the belief in the Assumption of the Virgin Mary became dogma, and thus mandatory.

It furthers social control and the power of the state

It seems as though religion has always had a special relationshop with the state, the authorities, and the ruling classes. Those sorts of people have always use religion to falsely justify their authority, especially when their authority unjustified. Popes, Lamas, Ayatollahs, and other such religious leaders have attempted to impose their dogma on whoever they see for ages now, and they work within secular authoirty. Religion has been in bed with state for so long, that separation of religion and state is an important issue of modern times.

It ruins war

War is always spoilt and corrupted when you try to use religion to support it. I’m not saying that war is never right, but I’m saying wars can be unjust if religion is used to support it. Through religion, war is turned into a campaign of religious cleansing on the part of both sides (if both sides are religious), with only the religious viewing it as “fighting the good fight”.

But in the end…

All religion ever was is a mass cult

All religion has ever consisted of as a concept is the idea that if you worship our god, follow our dogma (moral or othwerwise), and believe what we tell you, you’ll get into heaven, achieve enlightenment, or some other form of salvation or spirituality. In fact, salvation has always been the hook to lure in those who aren’t strong or wise enough to save themselves or forge their own path. It’s nothing but a cult-like entity, with no worth other than to the desperate, the weak, and the gullible. The sad thing is, even if we get rid of religion, what’s stopping other dogmatisms from replacing it, as long as people are weak and in need of a voice telling them what to do so that they can save them, rather than take the initiative to save themselves. I wonder what the next religion will be?

That sounds likely, don’t you think?

How did India become so prudish?

Some very sexual temple carvings in India. How did India get so closed-minded about that?

Hinduism is a religion known for its open mind about sex and sexual pleasure. Hell, they made the Kama Sutra, and they invented Tantra, and whether you think it’s an erotic spirituality or not, it is pretty sensual nonetheless. India, on the other hand, seems to have lost respect for the open-mindedness of what is the biggest religion in their country. Maybe it’s their interactions with the Abrahamic faiths in their history, and the damage the British empire did to Indian religion (although getting rid of widow burning was one good move), but the fact is that today, politicians and politicial opportunists paint themselves as petty moral guardians, and self-appointed “morality police” crack down on sexual honesty and liberty as “against Indian culture and morality”, despite its historical place in Indian culture, religion, and tradition. Politicians in India, as well as Pakistan, frequently try to censor the Internet and dictating what people can and can’t view there. There’s even cops cracking down on India’s nightlife and youth culture, and doing it quite rudely too. And for what? “Protecting the innocence of India’s youth”? “Indian morality”? Ladies and gentleman, this is the same crap that still haunts our judgement in Western society, though probably with even more disregard for freedom than the West could hope for.

Here’s an example. In 2005, the South Indian film star Khushboo Sundar encouraged spreading awareness of AIDS and the need to practice safe sex. She also supported pre-marital sex, so long as the particpants of said sex took precautions for protected sex. Two entire political parties called her out for it and socially conservative political groups apparently staged rowdy demonstrations, pelted her with tomatoes, rotten eggs, and abuse, and filed over 24 defamation and public interest suits. She was initially arrested, but authorities then released her on a $100 bail and ordered her to “keep her mouth shut”. Even the chief minister of Tamil Nadu condemned her and not even India’s health minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, supported her. According to him, they apparently don’t even talk about AIDS in India. And as we all know, not talking about AIDS greatly contributes to the spread of AIDS, same with other sexually-transmitted infections.

India tends to silence women who hold frank views on sex, and the conservative middle class in India get scared about losing “the traditional Indian family” whenever women express and assert their sexuality. Indian society these days also does not approve of pre-marital sex. Sound familiar? It should, it’s a lot like Christian or Western morality. But that’s the least of our problems here, this time. Because of India’s apparent disapproval of pre-marital sex, you have to do it undercover if you want to do it there. What happens if you don’t? You get killed. It’s true. And what’s worse, you get killed by your own family. That’s right, so-called honour killing prevails here.

An example is when two young people fell in love and planned to get married, but one of their fathers, a former armyman, had opposed their love affair and used his background in the army and contacts to get them arrested, then tried the two in a “home-made” court with the father acting as judge, and their own friends and family acting as the jury. He sentenced them to death and had them hanged, for falling in love. And nobody stopped him. What a pathetic mockery!

So what is the cause? Maybe it’s Islamic influence in the country over the years since Muslim invasions of India, maybe it’s British interference from when they conquered India during their time of empire, or maybe it’s rapid economic changes. Personally, I think India’s copying Western morality, along with influences from Muslim countries, shaming their own culture in the process. Why would they do that? It’s probably to do with the success of America and it’s reach in the rest of the world. Other nations end up trying to copy America, and India is apparently no exception. The end result is the fall and disgrace of Indian culture and India’s mass forgetting of what made it great in the past.