It may seem arrogant to post a massive page like this devoted to just my opinions. However, just as posting my artworks on this site enables me to express myself artistically, posting my thoughts enables to express myself intellectually. Being able to express myself is something that is very important to me.
Although many of the opinions I share are ones that I hold to quite strongly, I don't intend to give anyone the impression that I think that I have the answers to all the world's problems here, itemised for your convenience. I'm simply expressing myself. Writing helps me get out what is inside me - and in the process, it helps me form it more succinctly and thoughtfully in my own head. If people read some of my thoughts here, then that's nice. If someone gets something worthwhile out of some of them, then even better. If nothing else, then it has at least given me an outlet to express myself.
Opinions: Anglo-Saxon culture tends to be a bit scared of them. Yet try to imagine a conversation without the exchange of any opinions: it would almost always be pointless and dull. Everyone has opinions, and without the constant sharing of them, human communication would make little sense (and learning from others would be almost impossible). An English word that, in my opinion, shouldn't exist (and indeed has no equivalent in many other languages) is "opinionated". Another such word is "emotional" (that word also has no equivalent in many other languages). Both of these words usually have slightly negative connotations. This is a shame, since not only do they describe two of the most central elements of the human experience, but perhaps two of the elements that most make the human experience such an exciting one.
The witholding of opinions, like the witholding of emotions, is seen by some as a mark of tasteful restraint. I see both rather as the witholding of an important part of a person's humanity. If you also dislike opinions, you should probably stop reading here. I have lots of them, and I've compiled below a collection of many that I've accrued over the years. I doubt anyone will want to read them all, but I invite you to peruse a few of them as you will.
Success: Our Western culture teaches us that success is measured by how readily we can achieve wealth, financial stability, comfort, and social standing. And it's astounding how many millions of otherwise intelligent people actually swallow this. Think for a moment: if this were true, then would a society that has come closer than almost any other to achieving these goals for its people (as the West has) be the sort of society that has some of the world's highest rates of depression? Would darkness, alienation, brutality, meaninglessness, and restlessness become dominant themes in this society's art? Would the definitions of "violence" and "entertainment" continually merge towards each other and blur in such a society? Would life in such a society be marked by increasing levels of stress, anxiety, relationship breakdown and dissatisfaction? Would such a society be one of the world's leaders in suicide rates?
Elections: Surrounding the average election, there is usually a whole plethora of issues of national and global importance. Though in the end, people usually count these as secondary and just vote for the guy who will take the best care of their pockets. Amusingly, these same voters then become outraged when the guy they voted in seems less interested about issues of national and global importance, and more concerned with taking care of his pockets.
That famous image of Che Guevarra: The Capitalist beast that Guevarra spent much of his life fighting eventually defeated him, killed him, chewed him up and excreted him in the form of a pop icon image - thereby immortalising him as a part of the very Consumerist machine that he so despised. His image has been used to sell almost any product you can think of: from vodka to bikinis, from keychains to lip-balm. If you wear a T-shirt with Che Guevarra on it and you aren't a bonafide Socialist, then I'm afraid you are, wittingly or unwittingly, the messenger of a very sick joke..
Creation: The more of the universe that we explore, the more we discover its grandeur, colossal beauty, and mind-boggling variety. And the more we tamper with the Earth, the more we learn about the complexity, intricacy and delicacy of its design. Just about every element of nature, and the surrounding cosmos, serves a purpose, and life on Earth thrives only when the all of the millions of variables of the eco-system are kept in healthy balance and harmony with each other. It seems to me that it is only logical to suppose that if there exists a universe of such beauty and such complicated design, the odds point towards there being behind it a Designer; an Artist. Yet most Westerners ignore this logic, as indeed I did for most of my life. But then who would claim that we live in logical times......
George W. Bush: When he starts talking about forgiving one's enemies, blessing those who persecute you, loving your neighbour as yourself, avoiding riches and instead striving to help the poor, and trying to make a difference in the world with love and self-sacrifice instead of power and force, then I might start taking seriously his claims about his agenda being a Christian one.
Christians and War: A Christian who supports the violent invasion of another country is like a Jew who owns a bacon factory
Conservative Christians: I don't know what exactly it is they're trying to "conserve" about the past. The racism? The endless cycle of wars and retaliations? The repression of women? the opression of the poor? The exploitation of the Third World? The hateful religious intolerance? the negligent disregard of the environment? I struggle to understand why people think there is so much about the past that is worth "conserving".
Jesus was probably the most radical person in the history of our planet, and his call is a radical call that tells us to go against the grain of history, and against the grain of our human nature itself. In 2000 years, no country has ever come close to creating the sort of loving and peaceful society that Jesus urges us to create, so why would anyone be "conservative" and look backwards for the answers?! When we look backwards at history, all we can see is a history littered with injustice, cruelty, and suffering. If we keep looking hard enough, we'll see a few people here and there who made a difference - for example, those Christians who helped end slavery, liberate women, lessen political opression of the poor, and so on. Those people made a difference because they were looking forwards!
To the society of his day, many of Jesus' teachings seemed very strange, alien and new. Upon reading them 2000 years later, a great many of them still seem strange, alien and new. So let's finally stop looking at the past, and take up Jesus' call to look forwards!
Christians who don't care for the environment: Some Christians say that we needn't care for the planet, beacuse we're not pagans, so we don't worship nature, nor do we believe that the Earth is our Mother. It's true that Earth isn't our Mother; our true Parent is much greater than this mere planet, and so our devotion should extend far beyond that of just Earth. I believe, however, that the appropriate Christian perception of the planet is that it is something like an Older Sister to us: a creature like us, and one that we should learn from, respect, enjoy, and care for. And, frankly, when I hear of Christians who have an open disdain for environmentalism, it resembles to me a boy who tells his father every day that he loves him, yet regularly beats (or worse) his sister, right in front of him.
Other Christians say that caring for the Earth would be all well and good, but that this planet is only a temporary place; that eventually the apocalypse will come and destroy it, and it will be replaced with another world. This new world won't be broken like Earth is, but will be eternal and pure, and in total health - environmentalism will be a thing of the past. They say that Christians should set their focus on this new world, rather than worrying about such trivial concerns like the health of this temporary one. I wonder, though, how many of such people would apply this perverse logic to their own health? Maybe the next time they fall ill, the doctor should refuse to treat them, and instead tell them "Don't you know that this life is only temporary? And that in the next life, your body will be made whole and healthy and pure, and will be healthy for all eternity? Stop wasting my time with your trivial bowel cancer, and go home and wait for the Apocalypse!" Thankfully, Jesus didn't have such an attitude, but was moved by our suffering on this temporary planet, and made a habit of going around and healing people. If Jesus cared so much about our health, then I find it difficult to believe that he wouldn't care about the health of the ecosystem that supports us.
"Anti-Semitism": I don't like this word. All racism is wrong, and when we start giving certain types of racism their own special words, we begin to imply that some types of racism are worse than others. And if we imply that some types of racism are worse than others, then we're implying that some races are more deserving of respect than others - which gets dangerously close to implying that they are better than others. I believe that all racism, just like all races, should be treated with equality.
World War II: For every Jew that died during the Second World War, more than ten non-Jews died. It is a good thing that we endeavour to never forget the 6 million Jews that died. In fact, it would be a crime if we forgot them. Just as it is a crime that so many people have already forgotten the 17.5 million Chinese, 20 million Russians, 2.1 million Indians, 3 million Ukrainians, 400,000 Roma......etc...etc...etc......
Fighting Back: When Hitler invaded France, the French were defeated fairly quickly, and thereafter offered up relatively little resistance. Poland on the other hand fought longer than any other nation in the war, and as resiliently as any; they were the only European country to refuse to offer up a Nazi-controlled puppet-government; they created the largest underground resistance of the war, and conducted the largest scale uprising.
Poland had tens of thousands of its people executed or sent to the gulags by Stalin, 85% of its capital city destroyed by Hitler, and overall lost 17.5% of its population (a far larger proportion than that of any other country). After the war ended, Poland was sold into political slavery to Stalin by her so-called Western 'allies', with considerably reduced borders. France had much fewer casualties and, after the war ended, was left with a beautiful and relatively untouched capital city, and the economic boom that resulted from being outside of Stalin's new domain. Was fighting back worth it? On paper, it is difficult to see how.
Materialist Atheism: Those people who believe that the only world that exists is this physical one that we can see: what supreme self-confidence it must take to go against every other group in the history of mankind who, without exception, gave experiential accounts of other worlds that exist alongside our own. And (ironically) it must take a lot of 'blind faith' and tunnel-vision to keep denying science, which has been declaring for decades that there are at least 10 or 11 dimensions to our world, that linear time doesn't really exist, and that what we know as "physical matter" only actually comprises a tiny percentage of the 'matter' in the universe...
Western Civilisation: I agree with Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
Subcultures: They come in very handy for those people who refuse to let mainstream society tell them how to dress, behave, and what music to listen to - but who would still prefer that someone tell them how to dress, behave, and what music to listen to........
Soccer: The sport of kings!
Bill Gates: There are various legitimate reasons to dislike Microsoft and Bill Gates. But to those who would attack Gates with objections of the "He's a greedy capitalist pig!" variety, I ask: Do you spend as high a proportion of your time and your money helping those who are needier than yourself?
Left-wing and Right-wing: I think it's a really simplistic and inadequate way of describing the world of politics. I sometimes wonder how much harm might have been prevented if people hadn't long been trained to see politics in this polarised way; taught to assume that once they found themselves somewhere on one side of this artificial divide, they automatically became in direct and almost unquestionable opposition to anybody who found themselves somewhere on the other side of it.
I never bought into the left-/right-wing model, as I realised that some of my beliefs were 'left wing', some 'right wing', while many very liberal (centrist). For what it was worth though, I considered myself to be, in general, somewhere on the right-wing side of things.
In 2003, I had a powerful supernatural experience in which I met Christ. At that time, I knew very little about the Bible, and I wanted to find out more about the wonderful entity who had made such amazing contact with me, so I went out and bought one and started reading the Gospels. I quickly realised how hugely 'Socialist' this Jesus guy was (much more 'left-wing' than even Marx, in a way) and that he demanded that anyone who would follow him should adopt equally 'left-wing' attitudes about humanity and how we should relate to each other. It was then, by necessity, that my views became less right-wing and more left-wing. That so many Christians somehow feel comfortable on the Right is a fact that I find as bewildering as I do unnerving.
Satanists: God loves humans (in fact, God is love). He loves all of them with a passion.....even Satanists. On the other hand, Satan hates humans. He hates all of them with a passion....even Satanists.
"What music do you listen to?" An amazingly powerful question. Few questions will reveal as much about the inner life of a person's mind, heart, and soul as much as this one. Yet despite its probing power, it's a question that we can ask in the earliest stages of knowing someone - it's like a little glitch in code of social etiquette
Apostrophes: There are two types of people in the English-speaking world. There are those who will already know why I'm writing about apostrophes, because they share my frustration. And there are those who have no idea what I'm talking about. You are the ones causing all the frustration.
