My problem…is youtube

[Thy Plague DoctorParticipant]

I wanted to make a youtube…Based around the name I bear….The plague doctor….See I see religion especially extremism/fundamentalism religion as a plague …which I had hoped to help cure…. however one comment chain later on youtube itself has me…lost …confused and just…depressed…my world shattered…. who I wanted to be how I wanted to act…char design…costume all of it shattered… because of this: “A disease is to much. Many diseases can’t be cured only treated. Diseases makes it harder to have a normal life. You can’t cure a disease by raising questions. You can be a theist and live a normal long life. With no problem. Would you say someone with a lucky charm is diseased. Besides saying all religious people are diseased sounds more bigoted than anything else. You aren’t going to “cure” anyone with that attitude. If someone is questioning their religion. With your attitude they might just find a different one that gives them answers they like better. You sound no different than the people who say all atheist are just denying god because they want to sin.” …Frankly this fellow who shall remain nameless…makes some good points and I could make some decent counter points….But I am wondering…whats the point? Whats the point of starting a youtube…I cant right now anyway cause parents…I doubt I will be as good as the others and frankly most of the stuff…has been dunked and talked about already…what could I possibly add? It’s the same here..I dont really post or join forums much…because I dont…really…feel like I could add anything…im not special..im not that smart…I am trying to learn…but is that…all in vain too? I just…am not sure where to go from here.

-Plague Doctor …or am I?

[Simon MathewsParticipant]

@thyplaguedoctor – it’s hard to receive a comment like that where the other person is clearly not just the usual internet psycho but actually makes a decent point. However your attitude that you are learning is a commendable one. Too many people simply wish to put forward their view and never accept any criticism, valid or not. You should continue to put your stuff out there but do not fear valid criticism. When someone makes a point, hone your own point of view and re-present it. The worst thing someone can do is become entrenched in their views. That’s what organisations like religion rely on. Be brave enough to put your viewpoint out there and have it critiqued. It can only improve your argument.

[DavisModerator]

If you cannot read the comments section without getting hurt or discouraged…then DO NOT READ THE COMMENT SECTION. Ask a friend to do it or pay someone to make honest summaries of it. There are many online temp sites where you can pay a student $5 an hour to do whatever you ask them (including very smart students from India or budding journalists/editors/social-media-consultants from Canada/US/UK) who would be delighted to get experience on their resumes and very much needed chash. If your channel takes off…you won’t have time to read it all anyways. Get them to cut and paste a few positive ones and VERY importantly to summarise ALL constructive criticism. Throw away the harassment, trolling, insults and scum writing from the notable scum culture of web 2.0

Simon is absolutely correct. Don’t shield yourself from constructive criticism but DO NOT READ THE COMMENT SECTION if you cannot handle it.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by  Davis.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by  Davis.

[Thy Plague DoctorParticipant]

Thanks guys this has helped a lot…to bad I cant do youtube right now due to religious parents not knowing what I am

[DrBobParticipant]

Whats the point of starting a youtube…I cant right now anyway cause parents…I doubt I will be as good as the others and frankly most of the stuff…has been dunked and talked about already…what could I possibly add? It’s the same here..I dont really post or join forums much…because I dont…really…feel like I could add anything…im not special..im not that smart…

But you are you, and in some ways your experience and perspective is unique. In addition, your style and approach may do a better job of speaking to different audiences than “what’s already out there.”

I’m a professor at a major university, and when graduate students start their programs it can be daunting. There’s a lot of research and knowledge already out there, after all. What could they possibly add?

The answer is “Lots!” They are able to see things with “fresh eyes”, and bring new ideas while still learning. They all find new things to try, and new insights to share, and many launch whole new areas of research or development or instruction.

The way you do this is by being persistent, and by staying open minded and learning from the comments and contributions of others. Be willing to incorporate feedback, and modify your ideas or direction. Be willing to work hard, and revise, and revise some more. Don’t get discouraged by comments – people comment when you are saying something interesting. They ignore you when you’re boring or just being dumb. Comments are good things.

The commenter above makes a good point, and as a theist I think the value-laden notion of considering me a disease might not track. However, it might be interesting to model the propagation of ideas in the same way that epidemiologists model the propagation of diseases. You seem particularly interested in fundamentalism, as do many here. So an interesting question would be something like what’s the transmission rate for contacts with fundamentalism? How many exposures and of what intensity must happen before someone begins to embrace fundamentalist thinking? How deeply does that thinking go, and what causes it to progress? Are there ways of inoculating people so that they are less likely to adopt fundamentalist notions when exposed? Is the proper treatment really to argue with them, or something else?

Those may be productive ways of thinking about things, or they may lead you to yet another permutation that is even more sound. Persistence. Inquisitiveness. Open mindedness. Honesty with yourself. All great things.

Good fortune on your journey.

[Kuba AdamówParticipant]

Hi Doc,

Just to make sure we’re on the same page—I don’t know what you should do and I’m not even going to try to attempt to convince you that I have a faintest clue that I do. I’m not going to patronize or preach, because I’ve been through some similar doubts over the years of my journey. All I can say is you are not alone—I, and quite a few other people here and in other places, do feel your frustration and understand it—judging by what you’ve written, I gather you may be relatively young (we all are, right? :)) and, from my own experience, it is vital that you do not get discouraged from seeking and questioning just because there are people who are capable of making valid counterpoints. It’s good, and very important, that they are there. Avoiding confrontation with facts and thoughtful mind is exactly what’s wrong with religion—a fixed, petrified dogma that is so very often so rigid and impregnated that it must fight any thought that questions its validity, just because its foundations are usually so frail and illogical that any attempt of touching them with reason may lead to their decomposition and chaos. If it takes a few questions to make the giant on clay legs fall and crumble—does it deserve to exist?

You may be familiar with this quote from Timothy Leary:

“Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself.”

My late grandma was a very devout Christian—raised in the spirit of culturally and socially sanctified patriarchy, total subjection and unquestionable trust in the words of the Bible. I just could not, as a teenager—and a son of blasphemous parents who dared not to have cared about going to any sort of church, having more important things to do in life—subscribe to all that and felt it was my duty to ‘enlighten’ her. ‘Despite’ her religiousness, she was a very good person—no matter how confused she seemed to me then—and now I feel trying to shatter her world was a really bad idea. And a very arrogant one. I was very arrogant then, and, quite likely, I still am, but at least now I am capable of recognizing it and making sure that I do not impose what I’ve tried and failed at onto my son, for example. And he may have it a bit easier because of that. Now, being 40 and having struggled with my thoughts for some 25 years, I have come to the point of accepting that, faulty as we may see it, religion, and its very existence, is far from perfect but it is because it is the product of imperfect ourselves—but, luckily, we, as our needs and fears that underlay our being and our need of some sort of order, do evolve and dissolve—slowly, even if not as dramatically as many of us would like them to. A few hundred years ago we’d be burned for our thoughts, a few decades ago—we’d be universally ostracized, now—we can gather and discuss, exchange ideas, and the thought is growing stronger as never before. So do not give up. Just be peacefully resilient.

There is a nice, and rather suitable Buddhist proverb:

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

We’re all students, and we’re all teachers as well, but usually not in the way our confused ego would like us to see it. Trying to shove our ‘teachings’ and ‘enlightened wisdom’ in the faces of those who aren’t ready for them is neither wise nor enlightened and will only make things worse, both for us and them.

There are plenty of stupid people, but there is a plenty of wisdom around there as well—and we have access to all that! Rejoice! Learn and evolve :).

I just thought you might like this talk (on youtube—it is, or may be, a very useful platform, indeed):

Alan Watts – Myth and Religion [1hr42]

Enjoy your journey—this is a wish, not a piece of advice :).

[EParticipant]

Do what you do, how you do it. Comments are comments. Soak them up, and do not let them fog your lens. There will always be the opening for a person to find an answer they like better in another place. Put out your feelings along with why you feel them, validate to yourself but let others see it. That is it. You need not explain deeper, even when they want you to. The answer to “But?” can always be “Our experiences are vastly different in this area. This is true from my place and heart”
I could say that I was to young when people saw I was an atheist. I did not even know what one was. Still, I paid for it every day. When I hear people say I know there is a god but just want to sin, it slays me. Here is the kick. I know that they can not see it differently. It was beat into them from birth. Somehow it did not hold to me. I do not know why. So really all we can do is share what we feel, and who we are. Let the watchers decide how they absorb it into their lives. Do not fall into argument. Only answer questions, and remember that just saying I do not know is an answer at times.
The point of doing it should not be to battle back and forth. You can put your material out there just to help others see a likeness. That’s it. Why not cure just one, if that is all you get, then you may find a valued friend for life out of it. Worse, would be you wanting to do it and never do. If it means enough for you to come here to talk about it, I think you may want to go do it.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by  E.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by  E.

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