Day: October 17, 2014

Learning (FOR SCIENCE!)

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So recently an opportunity came up that I could not resist; Udemy (an online learning academy) is offering a 3 hour online course on Creation Science, entitled “Beginnings”. It is hosted by one of my favorite creation speakers, Eric Hovind. The course is actually paid ($20 for the whole course!), which means I am assuming they are actually intending their audience be only people who share their view on things (or maybe they just want money).

In my quest to understand the minds of every human on the planet (I am already at 1 out of 7.x billion! That’s practically halfway there!), I decided to take the course. What is $20.00, compared to the massive trove of knowledge I can take in?!

I won’t share the materials point for point (I respect their desire to make money from this, as they did invest time in making it), but at the end of each lesson (after the exam), they present discussion questions. Well, I am able to look at attendance numbers (that seems odd, but I’ll take it), and I am the second student to sign up.

As there are only two students to sign up, posting my discussion answers to the students only forum (THERE IS A STUDENTS ONLY FORUM!) would feel a little less like a discussion and more like talking to myself. Well, even more than talking to myself than writing to this blog (I am talking to AT LEAST two other people, rather than just one).

To that effect, over the next few days, I’ll be taking these lectures and then making blog posts about the discussion questions posted at the end of each. I am sure sometimes they will be funny, from what I’ve seen many will be philosophical, and I doubt any will be scientific.

I hope you’ll enjoy taking this journey with me. I am learning about non-science, FOR SCIENCE!

They Were Good Guys All the Time! (Spoilers)

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Well, it’s official. The world is now so progressive, I am not allowed to hate anything any more, ever, because that is rude. Apparently.

I think it is out of control, but I think that requires some explanation.

Let’s start with the popular musical, Wicked. It turns out the Wicked Witch of the West was good the whole time.

Maleficent? A villain whose NAME is based on a word used to describe evil? She was good the whole time! Misunderstood, betrayed, good!

Dracula? The new Dracula paints Vlad the Impaler not as history would have him, as a man who loves torture so much that popular history remembers nothing but his torture. In the movie, Vlad sells his soul to save his family and the people he rules over. He did it for you! For you the whole time!

I realize ideas are difficult to come up with (as someone who spends a considerable amount of time writing, and triple that time with writer’s block), but I feel like Hollywood is throwing in the towel. That is not to say that all movies are creatively barren, but the amount of fresh ideas is getting so sparse. Even in those few short stories that I have posted on this very blog are very derivative/cliched (I am open to admitting this).

Just… Leave me something to be angry at, please? Maybe the whole reason I love Harry Potter is, even after a detailed look at Voldemort’s back story, it is clear that he was a jerk right from the start; bullying kids at a young age, being evil in school, murdering shortly after leaving school.

What I am about to say may sound shallow, or wrong, or any one of a thousand possible negative words, but I think it speaks to psychology.

I have preached (eheheheh) on this blog the idea of tolerance (in various forms). We can condemn people who are clearly off the rails (militant terrorists, who should NOT be confused with your average Muslim), but we should understand where everyone is coming from, and condemn only what requires condemnation, and only after we understand them.

I do not really hate anyone, not anyone alive. I dislike some people, but I would never call it hate. I dislike some groups, but I wouldn’t call it hate (Westboro Baptist Church… You have tempted my patience, I won’t lie). My friends over at Creation Today, I like them, even if I disagree with their ideas (they are sincere, which is more than I can say about many people I know).

So where am I going with all of this?

I don’t WANT to hate any living person, and that is why I need Hollywood to stop messing with me. I NEED to hate someone (I think it is part of human nature to hate, something we all work to overcome to various degrees). To that end, let me hate evil; let me hate people to whom “evil” truly applies. Let me hate people that don’t exist. It makes me feel good (needs my dopamine hit, please) to see good triumph over evil, it makes me feel good (I will admit it publicly) when someone who is *evil* dies.

So stop telling me that evil is just misunderstood. Dracula was not a misunderstood historical figure; he would put people on giant spikes and slooooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy split them open with it. Maleficent tried to corrupt something purely innocent. The Wicked Witch of the West was… Well, okay, I actually have always thought she got the short end. I mean, Dorothy killed her sister and looted her corpse. Wanting revenge for that is understandable.

But stop it, Hollywood. Just. Freaking. Stop.

Let me continue to hate evil. Please? It makes me feel good to hate evil, and if you leave me not evil to hate, I feel like I will be a worse person for it (is that ironic?).