To continue my last blog, I figured out what that form of discrimination is called. it’s called “constructive” or “indirect” discrimination. The name changes from place to place, which to me is a sign that it’s “new”, and that it’s a concept which doesn’t have the same moral fortitude as does old school discrimination. Anyways, I’ll finish that subject another day.

My title is very vague because I don’t really know what I’m going to end up with at the end of this blog, so here goes. There’s a bunch of things swirling around in my head: truth, fitting in, lying, contradictions, atheism, friends, principles, and corruption. Let’s start.

There are a few reasons behind why I now call myself an athiest. One was when I was in grade 3 or 4, I was playing a game with friends where we had to save the world by finding these stones scattered around the playground. I really enjoyed that game. But then one day when recess ended, my friends were all going inside when I wanted to continue playing (you know, cause the fate of the world depended on us finding the stones!). I was like “hey guys, we can’t go in now! We’re so close to saving the world!” and they said (roughly speaking) “shut up, it’s a game, don’t take it so seriously.”

I was very very upset because it turned out that I had been fooled! And ever since then, I’ve been suspicious of playing games. Well, not games. I’ve been suspicious of belief structures. Because it may be the case that you’re just being fooled by said belief structure. Or someone might be manipulating you (as the writers of the latest Mission Impossible movie attempted to show the audience with the way Tom Cruise was being stabbed in the back by his bosses over and over and over again).

But what was real about the game, and about Mission Impossible, was the adventure that came with it. It’s not possible to say that the game wasn’t fun, nor that the adventure that Tom Cruise went on was meaningless. To use a cliche, life’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. And what if there’s nothing at the destination? Or, why not just bring the contents of the destination to me? That’s what someone who doesn’t start says. And that person would be wrong because moving towards a destination at least moves you forward.

So what does this have to do with truth? I got into a discussion with a person earlier today where we pushed back and forth about what it was that made the Pennsylvania file on clergy abuse so horrifying. He didn’t have a clear answer. After pressing him for truth, after questioning him in order to get him to help me figure out what made the Pennsylvania case different from any other, he got defensive and upset because he took my questioning as me trying to expose his ignorance. But he wouldn’t say he didn’t know the answer, nor that he hadn’t thought about it.

I wanted to end the discussion on a positive note, so I brought up something that he just said with which I agreed, something I doubt he thought would happen. But then he contradicted himself and I pointed that out, and we started all over again. He said that there are contradictions, and that there’s no straight line. But only a few minutes ago, he was professing that there exsisted truth and a high moral standard. I pointed out this contradiction too, saying that a straight line was the truth. So then he added in a new twist to his argument, which I saw as more bs, because if he had had the truth in the beginning, it would all cohere.

But it was in this discussion that I finally articulated why I became an atheist. There were simply too many contradictions in religion. If you’re reading this, know that I’m no hater of religions. In fact, I might even venture to consider myself a semi-religious person. I like the Bible for its moral messages. But the point that I’m making here is that once you find a flaw in a system, you are not morally allowed to return to ignorance and pretend you never saw anything. Because doing so is a form of lie. It’s deceit. You know there’s a problem, a kink in the system, and you don’t want to do anything to fix it. Instead, you push it under the rug and hope it goes away. And this is wrong. Because you know that the room isn’t clean. You know there’s something to which you should attend. And no amount of running away will solve the problem.

Ben Shapiro had a really good way of categorizing persons:

When they lose an argument, do they laugh or get angry?

It seems to me that if you get angry after losing an argument, it means that you’re insecure and you’re not humble as a person. And if you’re not those two things, then you will continue to suffer along in life until you die. Right? If you lose an argument, and you get angry, you not only lose the argument, but you lose the respect of the people with whom you argue. Because a person who gets angry after losing an argument doesn’t want to grow up and learn. I think he would do it so that it allows a person to continue being a victim. Something like that. You can’t be a victim if everything is on its way to becoming better, can you? I’m not too sure what all of the motivations are for being a victim. But I do know you choose to do do so.

Maxime Bernier just quit from the Conservative Party today. Just like that. And if you’re a political person like Ben Shapiro who sees everything from a political lens, then let me stop you here. I support Bernier, and I agree with his opinion on Diversity. Hopefully you are happy now that you know my position on him.

I’m going to bet on Maxime. I think he’s going to do a great job in the upcoming election (if he reaches it) because I think he’s the only politician I know of who has stuck with the truth.

His is a problem which I’ve faced many times: fit in, or speak your peace. But I think that it should be this: speak your peace > fit in. Because if you flip that ‘greater than’ sign, you lose both.

I’m only 19, so I don’t know much about the history of the Conservative Party, but I do know about it today. It seems like political opportunism to me. The CPC is kind of like that beta male in rom coms who is really nice and tries to please the girl by being everything she says she wants, but then ends up being rejected “as a friend” because he’s too pathetic and weak kneed to stand up for something, to have limits, to say that there is a way he would not like to be treated, etc.

In trying to bend and mould his character into someone who she will like, he loses anything attractive about him that was remotely attractive in the first place. And it’s the same with gaining the support of the people. If all you do is pander to them and change your policy and principles with every step that the electorate takes, then they will think of you as nothing but someone desperate for an election win.

Rather, what makes a politician more attractive is two things. One is a strong, articulated belief in his principles. Two is a market for said principles. And if you brush snow over (1) in order to try and get (2), you gain neither.

There’s courage that you need to have in order to hold to (1). For (2), it’s just luck. But the people need to see your motivations; they need to see that you’re pursuing these goals for the right motivations: because you believe them to be solid and right and just. Only then will they trust you with government for 4 years.

To finally get to the point, properly speaking the truth steers you away from the people who don’t want to help you at all in the first place. And that’s how you identify your supporters as a politician, and it’s how you identify the people in the world who are best for you.

I have two people I follow on twitter who go to my school who I’d like to be friends with. For some reason I want to be friends with everyone. This probably isn’t good for me. But anyways, when I try to befriend them, there’s always a disagreement that pops up, here and there. And hen I found out that one of them was anti human and I thought “wow I just dodged a bullet”. So it’s okay to not be friends with some people because maybe they’re going to bring you down instead of pull you up.