Two years later; Does my Disdain For Organised Religion Still Hold?

If you've ever been disillusioned from a belief system you were indoctrinated into as a child, it's understandable that you'd bear some animosity towards it.

And when I drew the straw that broke the camel's back I had to watch a part of me crumble into dust without as much as a warning. I was mad. I was mad that I had internalized the teachings into my person that made my life harder, that made me feel feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing that would take years to shake. We'd drifted from different congregations as we moved but the one I remember the most was the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church, I think...? Weird Afrikaans things I never learned the English words for) and the commonalities and differences between it all was part of what eventually drove me away, because Christian teachings are scarily inconsistent across the variant sub-sections.

To top it all off, I was an objectively worse person when I still had held Christian beliefs. There wasn't a lot of wiggle room for me to grow as a person whilst juggling the dilemmas of everyday life alongside the morals and values that had been instilled to me by various mentors, teachers and parent figures growing up.

After it all, I became a rather aggressive atheist. The belief that theistic religion was toxic had enveloped a piece of me with a bitter rage. I still do believe it can be toxic, and I witnessed first hand at what made it toxic, but I've since mellowed.

Then when I did my thirty day blog challenge, I was to write a piece about my thoughts on religion (which is coincidentally the piece that has the most views), I remember revisiting those memories made me even angrier. Fuel to the fire. A reminder.

But the writing helped heal.

And as such, in 2017, as with any beliefs one holds, it's good to review and ruminate on them to see if you've changed.

Don't get me wrong, I still do get angry when I see someone misusing religious authority or citing religious texts as a moral reason for hatred or bigotry instead of using empathy like I know they're capable of.

But if I had to be genuinely honest, I do not harbour the intense hatred I once had for religion. Hating takes energy, These days I'm a permanently exhausted pigeon, and life is short and everyone is going to die and succumb to the sterility of entropy so nothing we do in this life matters and everyone and everything that has ever existed is insignificant.

That is to say, life is too short.

I mention this because I've noticed in harbouring hatred towards organised religion, there's a tendency for atheists to also hate religious people.

And that's something I think is objectively wrong.

A lot of atheists hold inherently Islamophobic views. And while I think neither Islam nor any religion is above criticism or parody, I do think Muslims deserve all the same rights and respect that I'm afforded. That's just how we should treat fellow human beings.

This came up recently with a debate in some Facebook comment thread about whether or not the Hijab is a valid form of female empowerment, to which I replied as thus, and I paraphrase; There's this core tenet of feminism which states that no one gets to police how any woman empowers herself. And while I think it's healthy to criticise any idea, I do think we have to distance criticism from cynicism.

Atheists would take a symbol like the Hijab and invalidate simply on the grounds that it's a religious symbol. And while to me, a piece of cloth is a piece of cloth and I have no desire to show any given cloth much more respect than any mundane cloth would earn, if that specific cloth empowers someone, than it deserves to at least be acknowledged as a symbol of empowerment, even if I would also say that in certain places, making it mandatory does take away from its ability as a symbol of empowerment, such as the case when a chess grandmaster was banned form entering the world championship for refusing to wear the hijab.

I'm still a vocal advocate for freedom from religion and separation of church and state. While I may have become more moderate, I do think such examples are detrimental and worthy of criticism.

However, if I had to answer the question of whether or not I'd press a button that would instantly destroy religion, wipe if from the face of the earth, to be forgotten and never dug up again...

I don't know if I would press it.

Faith in something has given comfort to the dying, the sick, the old. It's saved some people from severe depression. It's formed communities. I'd press a button that made every religion clean up its fucking act and stop active attempts at making the world a worse place. I'd press that button hard.

But I know that faith helps some. It gets some people to sleep at night.

And I'm a firm advocator of having the right to believe in whatever you want. I think everyone believes something that might not be entirely logical or is at least unverifiable. I believe people are at their core are good. I believe that everyone suffers in this life and you're likely going to receive as much harm and hate if not a great deal more than you dish out. I believe everyone deserves a chance at redemption if they are willing to make a conscious effort towards it. I believe death isn't a fitting punishment for any crime.

I fully acknowledge that religious beliefs and faith are not one and the same. Faith can be held in things that aren't religious. Human beings are imperfect and sometimes we just have to go off our gut feelings because we don't have all the information.

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from believing in what they believe in, truth be told I encourage the diversity of thoughts and positions it may bring. I think life would be a little more boring if we were all the same and I genuinely think that religion has made certain people objectively better and has done them a lot of good. There are plenty of churches that do charity work for their communities and I can't fault that in the slightest. It provides people with social interaction which is a basic human need, and creates a network and support group to fall back on in hard times. Hell, I wish there was a place atheists could meet up and discuss philosophy and philanthropy and socialize instead of the clusterfuck that currently is the YouTube atheist community, I'd love to create or be part of a secular house that has secular equivalents to church bands and youth camps and retreats, not for the theology of it but just the experience of people getting together and exchanging ideas and teaching and supporting each other.

Religion has many practices that were created out of necessity and frankly I wish there was a way to translate some of those practices into society in a secular fashion. LaVeyan Satanism recognized this and incorporated rituals for the psychodrama into their branch of atheism/anti-theism (although this is a topic for another week that I would love to dive into).

But perhaps wishing for all the benefits of organized religion without the drawbacks is wanting to both have my cake and eat it. Maybe there isn't a way and we're all better of just being the secular apes that live and die in the meaningless fashion that nature intended before the universe collapses in on itself. I don't know, I don't have all the answers.

But I just don't have the energy to hate religion anymore. Life is too busy to spend so much time on one thing.

But if there's any takeaway from all this, don't let religion stop your kids from enjoying Harry Potter, that's just a daft practice. Ignorance and bigotry are always inexcusable and that much I do still find a minute in the day to loath.

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And Open Letter To All LGBTQIA+ Family Members; #Pride2017

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Hey, it is June which means Pride month and I just wanted to say Happy Pride to everyone. I've been writing these posts for about two and a half years on and off and it's really weird to think about that. I think if I keep posting at a consistent rate I'll reach my 100th post this year and that'd be really awesome so I seriously hope I manage. Another quick note, the flag above is a cool revision to show that gay pride is intersectional and that we do not exclude people of colour and I really hope it spreads wide and far, perhaps to even go so far as to be adopted as the new Pride flag.. Anyway, it's Pride Month and hence I decided to write an open letter to anyone who happens to be LGBTQIA+ reading this.

Hey. Happy Pride 2017, and may every pride month hereafter be just as happy and blessed and full of rainbows. I want you to know that you might be struggling right now, but that's okay. Whether it's a struggle for acceptance, or representation, or legal recognition, or acknowledgement, your struggles are not in vain. I read something recently that I loved, that goes like this;

This too will pass. It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.

I love that. I love you. I think you're special and wonderful and your queerness is a blessing too good for this world. And if you're a person of colour, you are not worth less and your life matters and your queerness isn't worth less because of the colour of your skin, it's just a little different, and that difference deserves recognition, celebration and protection.

Some places in the world still want to deny our existence, and many folk hate us, and fear us. We scare them because we dare to be different. We dare to shake their faith. We dare to be gay, and bi, and pan, and trans, and ace and everything and anything in between. But we've survived worse. And we'll survive worse yet. Love will win. It always does in the end.

Make your mark on this world despite those who would tell you that you do not have a place in it. You are a child of the universe and you have every right to be here. You are a remarkably wonderful person and I want you to know that you matter. You matter so very, very much.

Be queer unashamedly, because life is too short for anything else. Love passionately, live passionately, and always have pride in who you are. There is nothing wrong with you. You are enough. You are queer enough and you are a person enough and you are perfect just the way you are. A wise man said that in Hogwarts, help will always be given to those in need. And in the LGBTQIA+ family, support will always be given to those in need. You have allies everywhere, and help is near. Don't ever forget that.

And if there is one final thing I can leave you with, wear your queerness on your sleeve. Shout it from the rooftops and have pride in being you, you gorgeous human being. This life is short, and finite, and wasting time listening to hateful rhetoric is not worth yours. Make time for you.  Make time to show your pride.

And know that I am proud to call you part of the LGBTQIA+ family.

Happy Pride everyone.

Love yourself.

-Matt-Dave Stevens

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White Men Using Racial Slurs For Edgy Comedy

Louis CK does a brilliant piece in which he comments on how white commentators get away with saying "nigger" by sort of patronizingly saying "the n-word". I love this bit, but then right after he kind of finds himself guilty of doing the same thing Bill Maher recently did, and that's using a racial slur as the punchline of a joke.

While I personally hold the belief that a word cannot be taboo or censored without it's context, and that unless you're using a racial slur as an offensive and derogatory term for a person of a particular ethnic group, you should not lose your job or face extremely harsh penalties, doesn't mean I'm particularly comfortable when white men use racial slurs for comedic effect. Let's be honest, Bill Maher and Louis CK are comedians by trade, they're entertainers, they get paid for what they do or say. By using racial slurs as punchlines, they are making off using racial slurs for laughs. Words that have history among people of colour are trivialized and then normalized, and of course this is to say the very least ethically dubious as well as morally questionable. I mean, if straight people using gay as a synonym for shitty bothers you, white comedians using nigger as a punchline should similarly bother you.

The truth is, that same joke could probably have worked just as well without resorting to a racial slur.

In Bill Maher's case, he made a joke saying that, in response to a joking job offer by a senator to "come work in the fields", Bill was more of a "house nigger".

Bill Maher could have said "house elf" and gotten away with not only a clever Harry Potter reference but also said the same thing and not have put his job and reputation on the line, so at the very least the word's use should be more carefully considered. Bill Maher especially didn't in that moment understand the gall and presumption it took for him as an white celebrity to compare himself to a black slave but you don't need to look far to figure that Bill Maher and Louis CK aren't people with explicit racial prejudices, and the use of these may arise from a more minor character flaw of being blunt and or brash rather than any major racial prejudices.

The concerning thing is when they do it, because they're such high profile figures, there's this message that goes to other comedians that may enable them to use racial slurs in similar ways.

The essence of it all I think comes back to that white men have a privilege black men and other people of colour don't, where they can use racial slurs without having it be something that's ever been used against them. I think because comedians in particular have to be pretty thick skinned because of hecklers, they don't necessarily understand the emotional blow they deal to the everyday person of colour by so frivolously using a racial slur in that manner.

It's unfortunately just something everyone in the world has to learn, and that's just how to be empathetic.

Bill Maher misspoke, and it was pretty bad. But he's not the only one to have done it. And I think he'll likely not come off with as heavy a penalty as he could if he held more republican views, we'd probably campaign harder for his removal from the air and he'd likely have been fired on the spot.

But we're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I think that's a good thing. I'd actually argue that we should do that if a similar situation occurred to anyone else regardless of their political views.

I think we're at a point in time where we know that using a racial slur as a racial slur is a pretty awful and unacceptable thing to do. I'm not saying that we can never make a joke using the word nigger because then half my favourite comedians would have to half their sets. I do hope we can get to the point where we at least stop using racial slurs to get laughs when we don't have any right to use them.

But if you really need to use the word nigger, there are at least a couple creative solutions out there.

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Tragic Backstories; How To Do Them Right

When I think of the many sobstories of characters throughout various media that have never really managed to grab me to the point where my only thought is "tragic backstory is tragic", I started noticing patterns. A lot of stories rely on the punch of a character's history.  And if that history doesn't grab you or is just a little too melodramatic, well, then you're going to watch an supposedly sad scene in the same headspace you'd watch a weather report. Anime recently has been especially guilty of this, and Steven Universe has been a breath of fresh air with how real and developed its characters are.

So what makes an effective tragic backstory? Here's eight things in no particular order that I think you should keep in mind. Also, I don't really have a target platform in mind, but this can be adapted for video game narratives, novels, short stories, screenwriting etc etc. I'll keep the advice general and only get into specifics when necessary.

1. The characterization

No likes a Mary Sue. I also hate the term Mary Sue because it's now been co-opted to mean any female character in any media who doesn't follow traditional tropes, buuuuut that's an issue for another day.

But anyway, perfect people are boring. Flaws make your character interesting. Their own self-interest, their fears, their weaknesses. And I mean real weaknesses, not caring too much or being too heroic. I mean like real, observable flaws. Racial prejudices. Homophobia. Quick tempers. Stinginess. Spitefulness. Arrogance. Carelessness. Misogyny. Misandry. Hypochondria. Naïvety. Mistrust. Jealousy. Ignorance. Rage. Alcoholism. Drug addiction. Abandonment issues. Immaturity. Possessiveness. Stubbornness.

A character is not the events that happen to them, but their actions and reactions. Their growth and regression. And you're going to make a character a lot more relatable if the bad things that happen to them are their own fault. If it stems from their own character flaw. That really hurts.

But overall, a well constructed character always evokes more emotion than a poorly constructed one. Your reader/viewer/player doesn't need to particularly like the character, they just need to care about what happens to them.

2. Don't be overly tragic

An audience can easily feel a disconnect when something is a little too melodramatic. If her mum and her dad and her sister and her dog and her goldfish died, it becomes comedy without being comedic. That's not to say you can't still play up tragedy, but less is more. It's why you cry at the end of a movie where the dog dies but you cannot find a fuck to give when Thomas and Martha Wayne die (again). Less is more. Sometimes the mundane, inevitable sad things are what get to us the most. Think about all the silly normal, every day things that are so freaking sad but we always rely on the same few tropes. Let me just list some for you. People dying of old age, or disease. Hearing mom's voice for the first time, because you never got to meet her. Getting dad's approval for the first time ever. After a lifetime of being told you're worthless, being told that you're special and wonderful. Never getting to tell your son you accept him and that his sexuality doesn't matter. Not getting to hear her voice one last time before she goes. Not getting to say goodbye. Getting at the airport too late. Trying to get her back, but seeing her happy through her window. Watching everyone drift apart slowly. Realizing that the person who meant everything, is now a stranger. Falling out of love with someone for no reason. Losing the child, after trying so hard to getting one. Explaining to your daughter what happened to her sister. Finding out he was going to kill himself, but had no one else to come to but you. Everybody holding hands and taking comfort in the fact that no one is dying alone. Finding him crying uncontrollably, because his wires are tangled and all he wants is for the noise to stop. Being pathetic in front of someone who continually hurt you. Always being told you're stupid, but then having someone tell you your ideas are valid. Knowing that it could have been forever, if you'd just held on a little longer. Finding out it never could have been, because you loved her more than she loved you. Allowing fear to take your dream from you. All your friends knowing you've got severe manic-depression and them just sitting with you, acknowledging your sadness, just quietly supporting. Feeling human warmth for the first time in years. Falling in love with someone, but then realizing you'll never ever have a chance. Unreciprocated love. Never getting that human warmth you crave. Never being acknowledged despite trying your very hardest. Being unable to overcome shame about your own body. Being told your body is perfect for the first time.

Sadness isn't always bad. Remember that it can't always be bitter. Sometimes it's bittersweet. And one of the most emotional scenes you can write is going to be one that ends on a good note. And if it rings home, if it's something that you yourself experienced, it's always going to be more impactful.

Think of Up. That film starts with one of the saddest montage of two people who just... Live. They live their entire lives pretty well, they have hopes and dreams and grow old. Technically, they win. But it's pretty unbearably sad, isn't it? How about Bridge To Teribithia? How about those feels? *spoiler alert* All of that emotional weight happens because of a swinging rope accident. How much did you feel that? And it happens off screen. *spoilers end*.

3. Catharsis and levity; You have to know when to push, when to pull, and when to just be

After a tragic event, you can always squeeze out a bit more emotion. Have your character experience something good, something that allows them to be vulnerable again. Take them to the top of a hill after the funeral, and let them see a beautiful sunset. Let them contemplate how much their loved one would have appreciated. After a massive failure in romance, let them experience paternal or platonic love. You have no idea how impactful seeing someone win can be after a huge loss.

And while this bit applies to film, sometimes silence is the most effective tool.

4. Fake-outs; Used Sparingly, they can just nail you right in the gut

Sometimes when it turns out he's alive at the end, that he did make it out, that makes you appreciate it all him all the more.

But other times, it sets up false expectations.

The Vampire Diaries is particularly guilty of this. By the end of it's final season, death meant nothing. And when a perma-death actually occurs, it has no punch. Nothing. The imagery on the screen is bleak, but you're fucking annoyed. Maybe you really liked that character.

Just remember that after the umpteenth time, it stops working. So use very sparingly. After a string of deaths, have one fake-out. Show that someone makes it out alive.

Sometimes, having a fake-out but then immediately turning that fake-out around your character can also work. It's the man who needs to deliver a letter but doesn't have a stamp, who then finds one at the post-box, but realizes it's the wrong day, and it's far too late for his letter to ever arrive on time.

Just be sparing. It's far to easy for the audience to peek behind the curtain these days, and they'll know if you're doing anything for reasons that don't serve the story, ie. pressure from publisher to establish a franchise, etc.

5. Beware plot-armour

Game Of Thrones saw itself being successful because no one is protected from death or tragedy by mere virtue of being vital to the plot. Anyone can die, anyone is fair game. When you have a set cast of main characters that always make it out of scrapes, you're going to take a lot of emotional punches out because the viewer knows they're going to live in the end, otherwise the continuity will be broken. Like Harry Potter in The Deathly Hallows, you knew he wasn't going to die because, well, he's Harry Potter. Sure, this can be avoided, look at The Great Gatsby (but Nick in this case can now never be put in mortal danger because who tells the story if he dies? Then again... That'd be hella interesting.)

Beware of plot-armour, because it creates predictability. And predictability can work against your audience's engagement.

6. Use vulnerability

I love it when expressively unemotive or stoic characters drop their guard. Blindside your reader. People who are characteristically unfeeling or just always happy letting their defenses slip just the tiniest bit, that's always riveting. But beyond that, every character has a state they don't want to be seen in. Everyone scream-cries. Sometimes you do something pathetic, or futile. It's when they keep trying CPR but it just doesn't work. It's the forth press of the defibrillator long after the pulse died.

And this is where your perspective can come in handy. Novels written in the first person can experience these events as an outsider. They don't necessarily have to happen to the main character. The omnipresent third person narrator can also describe things that might be awkward to fit into the inner monologue of the first person narrator. But first person narrators can also describe events personally, things that are happening or have happened to them, and this can make your reader really feel it. So keep that in mind when deciding how to tell your story.

7. One tragic backstory does not fit all

Personalize your character's history. Dead parents don't fit everyone. Everyone now has dead parents. And for the love of god, rape is not an acceptable tool for drama. Rape for the sake of tragedy is tried and a little offensive actually. Rape for shock value is also not acceptable, as writers we have to do better. I remember making this mistake and learning the hard way. Sexual assault needs to be approached with tact and nuance and it is so very easy to butcher so please, please, please, thinking it over several times before you use it.

Also, things other than death is sad. I remember watching Re:Zero and getting so annoyed by Rem's backstory. It was over the top and overly tragic and it was sad to the point of comedy, but I'd already seen it before. Be careful of repeating tropes of the past, and just because something worked then does not mean it will work now.

Things we don't explore often enough are issues of mental health. We're good at covering depression, but seem to lose a lot of our nuance when speaking about anxiety. Humans are anxious creatures. And for some of us, it can be crippling. When your wires are tangled and everyone else seems to have them connect right, that's an awful feeling. We definitely need to talk about that more.

We also don't talk enough about disability. Losing a sense, or the ability to walk is something that can happen to anyone, and we often take it for granted. Being born with a disability can also make for a very interesting character, and it's relatively unexplored territory lost among the piles of white male protagonists of first time novelists.

8. Through the eyes of a child

Everything becomes decidedly more bleak when you look at it through the eyes of a child. It's like experiencing these things for the first time. It's sometimes even mimics our own experience. Use this! You'd be surprised at how much of the cruelty of society you can reveal when it comes through the eyes of a child. Death isn't just death, it's now the sudden realization of your own mortality. Divorce isn't just divorce, it's the sudden realization that people who love each other very much still can't make it work, despite trying their very best. Losing a friend is like the first time you've ever lost a friend. Now it's not just any dog that dies; it's your first dog. The one you had as a kid.

Our childhood memories are powerful, and we can use them to evoke real emotion.

I don't know if this list is all encompassing but I hope it helps. Far too often we see poorly constructed backstories that just don't hit their mark, and are small blemishes on what would be otherwise great works. Do it right, and you might even be able to repeat those emotions on subsequent reads, or playthroughs, or watches.

I think we just have the ability to make people feel through our respective arts, and pushing that emotional connection to it's limit sometimes makes all the difference.

But either way, happy writing.

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