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  1. All entertainment has important value in it. There is no such thing as "mindless" entertainment, only "mindless" absorption of whatever it is you are attempting to engage yourself in. everything has something that can be learned from it, whether it was intelligently embedded, or if it was drawn out by self-reflection. Everything is important, everything is crucial, but most important of all everything has the power to inspire and influence. i am getting really tired of games and television being demonized, especially when it is done by a fellow entertainer, no matter what kind. Just because something has been around longer doesn't make it superior. I am a writer and am working as we speak to be a professional novelist. I don't have a degree in literature but i have the same knowledge of it and carry the same serious treatment to the subject. But instead of cutting out other forms of entertainment, I use this critical mindset for everything. and because of this (and this was recently told to me by several friends in the last few months) I tend to like way more things than most people. I believe it is wrong to treat one form of entertainment as lesser than another, and I feel it is wrong to also claim that there are superior things in a particular entertainment compared to others in the same category. Twilight is not lesser than Ulysses, even though I like Ulysses and not Twilight, and movies, shows, video games and music are not lesser than books. The only reason that anyone thinks that is because they are afraid of what someone else might say. It's funny that the only people who care are the very same ones who are pretending to care. So stop caring, everyone else will stop caring, just do the things that genuinely sound enjoyable to you, you will find you have a much more enjoyable life when you're taking breaks in between levels of Demon's Souls to read the next chapter in City of Glass, anticipating the ending of your night with a few episodes of MASH to awake in the morning and do your daily viewing of Clerks, but boy you can't wait to hear what your favorite radio station 1200 miles away from you has to say on one of the Supreme Court' greatest moves of the century, and anyone who does truly care that you like all of those things can kiss your butt, but that won't need to happen because they don't care, they are just like you pretending to. How silly is that, when you really think about it? And the genre war is just simply a result of tensions between people who are all afraid to step outside their comfort zone, because they think that they read the genre that they do because they like the genre. It isn't true, and I actually proved it in a paper I wrote once. I will try and type it up as soon as possible since it is written, but the basic idea is that people think they have a preferred genre because what really happen s is the first book they read with characters, lines and concepts that linger in their mind for the long term was in whatever genre they believe they prefer. it isn't the genre, its the things that were in that particular book, and they sought out more things in that genre, believing that that is what it was, and they would get more of it from that genre. However, you can actually find all of those great things in literally any book ever written. Think critically of everything, never disclude(new word) anything, and above all else find the value in everything, because I promise it is there, otherwise no one would have bothered making it in the first place, even if they did it for profit, the idea came about for a reason. If there are characters, there is something important in the work, no matter what it is. Alright, I have a novel whose genre doesn't matter to go write. I hope this didn't come off as negative, I really didn't have that intention. I promise, the motive was positive and I hope something good comes of this, because the stigma between certain books, between certain genres, and between certain entertainments is ludicrous, and is locking people off from possibly life-altering experiences. Have an amazing day and go do your thing.
  2. No, because that's not how morals and opinions work. Just because someone exists, doesn't make them right. I'm not saying they're evil, or I outright hate them either, it's just that, for me, their good deeds don't add up to the things i think were wrong of them to do. No one is inherently evil, but few people are completely good, either. And so far, none of the gods I have ever heard of, read about, or been told about make that list of the few. I would say Jesus is in that few, but after 2,000 years, it's hard not to be critical of the story (and I don't mean just his, I'm critical of history in general (the farther back, the more critical.)) But even if I was convinced he was real, I'm not sure if worshiping is the proper way to uphold someone you idolize, someone you thought was great. The best way to remember that person is to try and do the good things that person did. And you can see where this becomes a problem, because that may work well with someone who idolizes Jesus, but when it comes to certain other worshiped figures, if you actually tried to do the things they did, this would be a horrifying and chaotic world. People doing everything they can to corrupt language (God (see Tower of Babel lines in Genesis,)) warlords rampaging across multiple worlds, usually crazed in most descriptions (many Greek and Nordic gods,) or doing everything in your power to destroy other peoples' faiths (St. Patrick in Ireland.) And now we come to my point. For the most part, the things these people did were not wholly good. In the case of St. Patrick, they were outright awful. These are things we as a globalized society condemn other people for doing today, because they are, widely agreed upon, pretty awful things to do to another human being. they're so awful, they hardly ever happen. But when they do, that person is called out almost instantly, because we all know that the acts of most of the people we idolize were not completely good. Instead, most people tend to pick out the good things (which is a healthy mindset to have) and try to emulate those acts, or at least uphold them as examples of what is good. To answer your question: no. And everyone, including people who worship these figures, the people who are certain they existed, has that instinct, whether they realize it or not. Never in a million years would pillaging a town go over well in today's world, I doubt it went over well when it happened. It is, for most people, not even an act that would cross their minds. However, not only did it cross His, but He acted on it. Most people cut this out, and instead uphold the artistic stories of Him. People go on to create things. and again, this is a healthy mindset to have, because it's correct: no one is always in the right, but when they are those good traits are healthy ones to adopt, and you can do it without doing the bad stuff as well. That's how morality and opinions work. When you believe a deity exists, you can choose the things you think were right. No one is evil, and when a good deed is done it is up to the individual to decide whether they think it amounts to what they believe were bad deeds. That is how morality and opinions work.
  3. Even as an antitheist, I find the music and other art that comes directly out of religions (hymns, paintings, statues, the artistic way the Qu'ran is read out loud, and much more,) wonderful because it's all just so heavily fueled with passion and isn't just influenced by their religion, but rather is the influence the people doing them feel.
  4. other: anti-theist. It means that if any of the proposed religions turned out to be true and I believed any of them, I would still be morally against all deities that have thus far been proposed. nothing wrong with the people who do side with them; I just have morals not compatible with those of gods that have been suggested to exist up to this point. My personal belief is that just because someone exists, doesn't mean their actions are in the right. Again, nothing at all against anyone who is a part of a religion. In fact, I think religion is one of the most beautiful things to come from human cultures. That's why I spend my life learning about it.
  5. Doctor Zhivago. I've waited a long time for this one.
  6. I hat posting twice-in-a-row, but it's been days, and I love what I'm listening to. It's not necessarily music (though it is accompanied by soundscapes made with instruments,) but I am listening to Patti Smith's delivery of her Coral Sea. Wonderful poet, fantastic spoken-word artist.
  7. Fury Road, Fury Road, Fury Road. That is by far one of the greatest things I have ever witnessed with my eyes. I watched it last night. It was so amazing. Words can't express. if you haven't seen it, do everything you can to do so, you won't be let down. "What a day, what a lovely day!" i watched Se7en a few hours before, and it was really good. But there are very few things I have seen as epic, as full of energy, and as full of ideological battle, and certainly nothing as beautiful, as Fury Road. It takes all the energy, life, action, and themes Mad Max has always had, and enhanced it to the max (pun intended.) And we finally got to see how mad he really is. Fury Road is a Feminist epic in the form of a two-hour car chase through the junkyard desert world we have known to be Mad Max's apocalyptic world. And, in true Mad Max style, you can watch it without watching the other movies. (Not that you shouldn't see them, they're awesome.) There are so many things I am absolutely shocked Hollywood allowed him to do with this movie, but i'm not questioning it, I am just glad we have it. Fury Road is visually stunning, emotionally moving, and is one of the most striking visions of what art is capable of doing. This is someone's vision of what a film can be, and it is one of the ultimate takes on what movies can be; this movie will go down in history as one of the most inventive things to come out of the movie industry, and it deserves such praise and more. This is the type of thing that will influence people to make their own movies. I know this, because I have always wanted to do movies someday, but I have never been compelled the way I am now. Go take a ride on Fury Road.
  8. I waited a very long time to be seen as an adult absolutely not. While I think it's crap that things children say aren't taken seriously, I'm glad to be at an age where being heard is at least a possibility. Not only that, but high school and middle school are crap. I did everything I can to get out of it and was thankful enough to spend what would have been a senior year, at a community college instead. i have never been more relieved than when I escaped "youth" and was finally able to start doing the things I actually wanted to do. Work, write, learn actual things, study the subjects that had peaked my interest for years but never had a chance to look into. Travel. No. I don't miss it. I resented it while I was there, and never once in these last few years have I looked back and hoped I could go back to those days. Middle school was awful, high school was dull. I was literally not allowed to work by law. And I had very little time to do the things that were important to me. There are so many things I want to do, and all my adolescent years did was prevent me from doing anything for the entire beginning of my life.
  9. I'm not the only one! Isn't Yossarian just an awesome character?
  10. Anthony Powell, I assume you mean the masterpiece. You see, things like that and Proust are interesting, because they're not historical fiction. They read like family sagas but are much more than that. They are the perfect example of what an epic novel is as its own genre. I suppose Dance to the Music of Time could actually be placed in satire, since the nature of the story satirizes and overplays particular different lifestyles and human behavior and reaction to events. Though I hesitate to call it a satirical novel, that is how the book treats these subjects: it overplays them (and beautifully.) So, since it's kind of its own thing, I guess satire is closest, though I'm still not sure I agree with that being its genre. Now writers like Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck are hard to place. Steinbeck's all over the place, with comedy, history, fantasy, realism, and genre isn't even really prominent in the books whose genres can be identified; authors like these have styles that are more prominent than the genre or movements their novels belong to. Because you can say Grapes of Wrath is realism ,or that Faulkner wrote Southern Gothic, but its theirs styles that fill the entire novel rather than genres and movements. Stylistic authors like these ones are on a different playing field outside of genre. Genre-specific novels and stylistic novels are like baseball and Chess: they're both games, they're both widely played amongst pretty much everyone, but they are two completely different games, with completely different focuses and motivations; they require different kinds of thinking. I've only read one Golding book, and it's the one that everyone's read. I would classify Lord of the Flies as an adventure in the vein of Robinson Crusoe and the movie Cast Away; it also goes in Dystopian, which is a subgenre of sci-fi. However, I can't speak for the rest of his books. I'll get to them someday.
  11. Wow, thank you That was really awesome of you.
  12. I don't actively set out to read comics. But I've read a handful of series. I really like Chew, Fables, Unwritten, and I binge-read Bone twice in-a-row two summers ago now. I also really like Tang Girl and a couple of others that I've only read a few issued of but absolutely loved the stories, settings, characters, and artwork.
  13. My favorite authors at the moment are Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon. Their books are all really good, and they are both contemporary. They both write a variety of different stories. At the memont, my favorite from each of them is: Amnesia Moon, by Jonathan Lethem Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon. I've also been doing a rather extensive re-read of Thomas Pynchon's books, the newest of which is Bleeding Edge. After I'm finished with this, I'm going to re-read Catch-22; I'm itching to read it again. It's been a while. -Amnesia Moon is kind of a mystery, but it's not really an important part of the book. Basically, it is set in a post-Apocalyptic America and is a road trip story through different towns and cities who were affected in different ways and is about everyone's differing versions of what happened. -Telegraph Avenue is about a couple of pop-culture junkies who own a record store. -Thomas Pynchon's books cannot be easily summarized. It's really something you've got to go into without knowing very much about the books. -Catch-22 is a satire set during WWII and is about Yossarian and his fixation on the fact that people are trying to kill him. The bulk of it is his interactions with friends and fellow soldiers at his base. Half of it is his interactions, the other half are the tangents the book drifts off to. I have been praising the book's structure for years, I finally got someone to read it a couple years ago, and I think I convinced my sister to read it at some point this summer.
  14. -There isn't much of Firefly, which means it won't sustain you for long. But it's a a great space Western with characters to love. there's no gore, sexual content, and is something an entire family can enjoy. -The Last Airbender presents amazing art, voice-acting, stories, but most importantly presents some extremely crucial points that anyone watching it can understand. It was structured with the intended audience of children and teenagers, so it's pretty clean. -Saturday Night Live, of course. It's always good to end the night on a humorous note. There's so much of it, you could probably spend months catching up on this, and Improviganza. You could also look into variety shows, sketch shows and things in this vein.
  15. I don't think mine should have counted lol. It had already been rated. But yes, Tool is amazing. (Which reminds me, don't rate this one, rate the one above it lol)
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