Thursday, December 21, 2017

Would Someone Please Explain This To Me...

...and why I'm fascinated by it?

11 comments:

Steven Satak said...

I think that, like humor, it combines two totally unexpected extremes in a sudden package, and does it with humor and not a little talent and looks. Kinda like Pink Lady and Jeff, only more like Alice Cooper meets AKB47.

I also think it spoofs an aspect of Japanese culture that tends to worship sexualized childhood.

Or you're just weird, like the rest of us old men.

Teddy e. said...

I frequently read this site (I disagree with you on virtually everything, but finding and reading your arguments for the way you think and arguing against them is fun.)

Just wanna say that you are quite literally the last person of the planet I'd ever have expected to post Babymetal stuff and that it made laugh myself into a tizzy for five minutes straight.

Thanks for that. (This wasn't intended as a insult, mind.)

Steven Satak said...

Ah, by way of explanation, that is "LadyBaby". The male lead is an Australian wrestler with a gimmick and goes by the name of LadyBeard. LadyBaby lost this guy a couple years after they formed and he is now a member of Deadlift Lolita, a team-up of him and a very cute Japanese girl who is a bodybuilder.

The genre of music is known as "Kawaii-core". Kawaii is Japanese for 'cute', and it's a mesh of J-pop (for the clean vocals) and hardcore metal, complete with death growls.

Very unusual. Never even knew it existed until this morning. Thanks, Stan!

Stan said...

Teddy e... Make your disagreements here, and we'll discuss them. Unless of course you are merely one of the trolls, but even then we could give it a go.

Stan said...

I was a metal head decades ago, then I got responsibilities and grew up. I must say that I think the satire of these guys is wonderful, and I love the well-placed growls. And yeah, I laughed all the way through it.

User100 said...

OMG a new person! Teddy is NOT the troll. There is just one, well 2 if you count Steven, and you know that! Welcome Teddy!

Teddy e. said...

Hey! Thanks for responding. Not a troll, just a young person who has been thinking about this a lot. For a very time recently I've been thinking about atheism/religion a lot and have probably come close to adopting religion as I ever have, and examining your arguments have helped me to restrengthen my own by arguing against them (not with you before) and reading your old comment chains.

There are numerous things I disagree with you about (politically/philosophically/etc), but the main problem I have is probably your central argument about the burden of proof as you discuss in your top "Challenge to Atheists" post, which (I assume) is foundation to most other of your beliefs. I've read a lot of your responses to it, and I feel (respectfully) that the entire argument for give is essentially a dodge not to have to prove a claim. Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong, but this is where most of your arguments on that page seem to generally go:

You: Atheists must prove there isn't a God.

Atheist Commenter: I can't, but you are making the claim; the onus is on you to prove it. (Generally invoking Russel's Teapot or their own version of it).

Y: Well, you are an atheist and a materialist, yes?

AC: Yes.

Y: And only materialist evidence could prove God, right?

AC: Generally speaking, yes.

Y: But there is no materialist evidence that could prove God that would satisfy you, as he is immaterial, so I will provide none, and thus I can reasonably conclude that there is a God due to personal revelation, unless you can explicitly disprove it. (You occasionally vary on this by providing examples of proofs I feel were very weak, like a study that prayer worked for monkeys that I think that a sample size of 22 or the Miracle at Lourdes, etc.)

I feel like this argument doesn't work for a number of reasons, but mainly that you strawman atheists. There totally are gnostic atheists who will say "There is absolutely no God", but most (myself included) generally seem to think "I see no reasonable evidence that God (especially a God of Christianity/Islam/etc) exists", not that they can completely disprove him. I'd love to go further into this if you would be willing to. If I am wrong, I'd deeply appreciate being proven so. An objective universe is very tempting, at any rate.

(If you wouldn't want to argue about this again, I completely understand, as it seems you've gone through it quite a number of times, and I'm sure that could get tiring-- just tell me if that's the case. Also of course worth noting that many of the comment chains I read I think were over five years old.)

Steven Satak said...

As usual, our lurking troll dips in and contributes something old, something new, something borrowed and something derpy.

Sometimes I think commenters like "User100" are 'bots. The blah 'nym, the random spew, the almost accidental insults... all point to a poorly-written kiddie-script.

Stan said...

Teddy,
I am happy to go through all the issues again, as well as any new ones you might bring up.

For starters I’d like to point out that the use of the prayers for monkeys (iirc) was a response to someone who claimed that no empirical studies ever showed prayer working, therefore prayer doesn’t work… so I give him that study, not as proof of deity, but as disproof for his contention.

The same goes for Lourdes; the contention there is that there is no proof for a miracle ever actually happening. So I present Lourdes as a contrary to that contention with the request that they prove, materially and empirically that it did not happen. That usually results in a lot of bluster, but no proof. I do not present it as a proof of deity, but as a disproof of their contention which they made as absolute truth.

You say that you "see no evidence..."; what sort of evidence do you accept, and what sort do you reject? And what demarcates the boundary between accept and reject?

I suggest that we move this conversation to the “Atheism Discussion Zone” on the Left Side Bar. That is always available for access, while posts like this disappear from view rapidly.

Now, what objections or specific disbeliefs would you care to discuss?

User100 said...

Stan, is there really any doubt now that Steven is just trolling too?

Teddy e. said...

I will post my reply in that section. Thanks!