(no subject)

[narcasse]

I suppose the point would be if that if you’re going to fail you may as well fail hard.

I can almost see what they were reaching for with this and the first part of the question does make perfect sense but then we get into the realms of Buddhism doesn’t work like that. In a sentence it goes from reasonable question to fuckwit territory and that honestly is an impressive level of incomprehension. I can’t decide if I’m more offended on a Buddhist level or because common sense is very evidently not as common as everybody likes to think it is.

All that said I have had on occasion to explain to people what the point of reincarnation would be because they just don’t seem to get it and never seem to manage to absorb the information through the usual sources. Reincarnation is a learning curve not an ongoing party. In fact I’m amazed at just how many people don’t get that because it’s a ‘mystical Eastern belief’ and the monks are just too polite to call them on their idiocy.

At least this serves as another reminder of why Kant believed that while humanity as a whole can progress: individuals really tend to stay mired in their idiocy. I’ve been being reminded that the vast majority of the world are idiots of late but despite the fact that I know this the sheer levels of stupidity around never fail to amaze me. Oh, the wonder of the natural world.

Comments

[lanithro.livejournal.com]

In my past life, I was Charlotte Church.

It was horrid, but I got to be drunk a lot.

Before that, I was the Enterprise D. Will Riker crashed me into a planet. Why did Picard even leave him with the keys?

[blasphemiliar.livejournal.com]

Oh my. I recalled a little problem I had in the last week where my attempt to simply explain atheism to a teacher fell on selectively deaf ears; I suppose it would have been worse had I tried to explain reincarnation as well.

And I guess the only thing to do when a question like this turns up is to apply palm to face. Preferably that belonging to the person who came up with it.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

You didn’t have the atheism =/= agnostic conversation, did you? I thought that one was pretty well limited to fiction and was rather self-explanatory.

It may well have been cultural appropriation week if another question on choosing spirit guides was anything to go by, not that that makes things better.

[blasphemiliar.livejournal.com]

I was only trying to correct the error another student made in saying that atheists don't believe in an after-life; the teacher had asked for an explanation as to the differences between atheists and agnostics, and snapped up the first one. Being a history teacher, I thought he would have known better. But then again we're talking Catholic school, so I really shouldn't have been surprised.

Spirit guides? Oh no. I'm guessing that only 0.25% of the people who answered that question actually knew just what the hell they were talking about.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

That’s sad to hear, especially since I’ve always heard of the Catholic school system having such a fine reputation. I attended Catholic schools myself from the ages of 5 till 18 but luckily never encountered that sort of fiasco after the age of 11. The junior and infant schools weren’t terribly knowledgeable about anything but high school did grant me such moments of hilarity as an entire class mocking an anti-abortion activist who’d been invited in to talk to us (and was woefully uninformed about details that she probably ought to have been aware of considering what she was preaching) as well as much better occasions such as a Catholic priest who actually knew what he was talking about when it came to genetics presenting his case against gene therapy quite sensibly. And in the latter case while I still to this day disagree with the fellow I do at least respect him.

Having glanced over the responses to that question it seems to be split between people who are just picking animals that they like and therians which is an interesting development.

[(Anonymous)]

Catholic schools do have a good reputation; it's just that anything pertaining to religion apart from the occasional mass is silenced, because more often than not the school looks rather daft; I could tell you many things about religious 'tolerance' that would make my teachers seem like utter nutcases. And as for affable staff, we have a good-natured nun, around whom strange things keep happening. Bless her.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

There’s always one nun, isn’t there? I do recall one absolutely lovely one which was a good counterbalance to all the other ones I’ve ever been educated by who were absolutely horrid.