RE: WTF Atheists!?
October 31, 2012 at 12:57 am
(This post was last modified: October 31, 2012 at 12:59 am by Cyberman.)
(October 31, 2012 at 12:46 am)Brian37 Wrote:
Who is denying the term is used? You miss our point in that allowing the magic of words to rule you is stupid. If they want to call themselves hipsters and or others want to use it as a slur to distance themselves from "hipsters" I don't give a shit. It still doesn't change that virgin births arnt real.
Any word that is used to label onself or label others can be used as both a postive thing and or a pejoritive.
"Gay" has more than one definition. Originally it ment happy. Then homophobes used it to demonize "gays", but somehow gays got through it and beyond it and STILL use the word "gay".
Thats why while words are important, I don't treat them like they have magical powers over me.
I'm sure, in fact I know, I've posted this before, but the etymology of the word gay is, like most words, a fascinating one. The origin of the word in the sense of homosexual is older than you'd think, derived from 'gay' in the sense (I apologise) of promiscuity which is far older even than that.
I like your phrasing of being ruled by the magic of words. Divorce them from whatever intent may be behind their use and the words themselves are nothing but symbols. Wonderfully evocative symbols, but nothing more. Nobody has ever drowned in the word 'lake', skated on the word 'ice' or been shot by the word 'gun'.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
