As an atheist I tend to get a lot of existential questions from curious or and crititcal religious people alike. One of the most common being "how can you NOT believe that there is an afterlife?" after a lot of gibberish about souls along with a few comments about how cynical it is to believe that you're the food of worms once you're dead.
Well first of all let me get one thing straight, regardless of my beliefs I do not plan to end up as worm food. That's what happens when you get buried in a coffin, underground, in a cemetery, which is the last thing I want. Burn me, use my body to make a fancy skeleton to teach biology classes, pilfer my organs or hell, donate the corpse to the local club of necrophiliacs. Just do me the favour of not having my body be part of religious traditions and add to their false sense of legitimacy. So there, I said it.
As for death itself, what does an atheist think death is like? Well I thought about it for a while and I’ve come up with a simple answer. Think back, waaay back. What did you experience during the tenth century? Were you alive? I think not. So what was it like? Do you have any memories of the time you spent not being a part of existence? The time before you were born? Try hard and you might get a glimpse of what I am pointing at-it’s called entropy.
Simply put you didn’t feel anything because you didn’t have a body to feel, you don’t remember any of it because you didn’t have a brain to remember with, you weren’t aware of your current state of non-existence because you didn’t have an awareness to be aware of. A blank slate, a transparent nothing. That’s what you were then, and that’s what you will be when you die. No memories, no personal quirks, no stress, no worries, no planning, no nothing. That’s what it means to be dead and that’s what you will likely believe as someone free from delusions of heaven. It may sound like a harsh or even sad truth, but honestly, once you’re dead you won’t care because naturally there’s no sadness there either. You’re just… gone.
With that in mind I think it’s obvious that it doesn’t matter what happens to your body, all you really have to do is perhaps take those still alive into consideration. Perhaps THEY would like to see a proper burial? Well that’s what your last will is for, give them the piece of mind to tell them what you really want and be done with it, it’s not like you’ll ever be able to do anything else ever again.
9.26.2008
5.18.2008
5.13.2008
If it ain't physical it ain't scary
Psychic powers is probably one of the most re-ocurring elements of all gaming and film, that is if you live in Japan. We got characters like Bison (Street Fighter) and Athena Asamiya (King of Fighters) using psychic powers in fighting games, we've got one of the most recognizable cyberpunk anime movie adaptions in the west Akira featuring psychic powers prominently throughout the movie, there are body horror live action movies like Tetsuo that does the same and hell we've even got a US made Japanese horror-styled game called FEAR that makes it a vital plot element.
So anywar I don't really think the whole psychic thing even belongs in the whole sci-fi genre, I mean the whole idea is to get away from stupid folklore like that right? Putting psychers into sci-fi is like putting werewolves in a world war two documentary, so let's just skip the whole genre and fast forward to the part about horror.
In the west I guess we've got uh the Screamers movies and I guess Freddy Krueger is a borderline effort, and that's about it. Especially when it comes to horror we do body horror instead. Why? Because mind ghosts aren't fucking scary. I'm not exactly afraid of having a psycher will blow my head up in a fit of rage because even if we were to bend the rules of reality quite a bit it still won't fucking happen. Aliens are more likely to happen.
FEAR made quite a good example, all the ghosts featured in the game are pretty much mind distortions see? They cannot hurt you so why should be afraid of them? Because they provide an unsettling mood and creepy music? Please, I've had scarier scenarios than that daydreaming!
I am writing this because I just had one of those cultural clash episodes watching the new demo of Siren on the PS3 not to mention Asian import horror flicks were shit hot a while back and I really like steampunk, especially in anime. So anyway, the game is Siren and mere seconds into the game the first guy gets slaughtered by some random zombie (all good) then comes back from the dead almost instantly (kinda ruined the mood but sure) and goes to work by digging into the ground (uh...) and has this eerie voice because he was possessed by an evil ghost...
Okay hold it right there! This is exactly what I am talking about. This isn't the meaty body horror that I am into, this is some psychic thing involved there I just know it. It's some fucking random "ghost" taking over a corpse and walking around. For the record, ghosts or demons (or whatever you'd call them) aren't scary either because it's simply not plausible for them to exist. They can work for action games like Onimusha because they can look cool, or funny as hell like in Mario or Sonic Adventure 2 (certain boss) but seriously, ghosts have about the same impact in the horror genre as the fucking easter bunny. Not only do they not exist, make no sense from any scientific perspective (at all) but they need to be fucking designed by HR Giger before they even start looking somewhat intimidating.
So why "body horror" and what is it you may ask? Well it can be anything from a viral outbreak causing people to turn into ultra violent zombies (like in 28 Days Later), an alien parasite that takes over the bodies of humans to do their bidding (like in the classic Body Snatcher movies) or simply having some killer robot from the future disguising itself as a human (kinda like Terminator) in order to assassinate someone. Basically ANYTHING that's at the very least semi-realistic from a fucking modern world perspektive and have something to do about what it means to be "an organic being" as opposed to being a fucking semi transparent CGI. Make more movies like that and less movies about random symbols appearing on TV screens (Ringu), psychic powered robots (Cyber City) or unstoppable super powered ghosts with no known form of weakness for no reason (Grudge).
Eastern Asia needs to get over their fucking fascination for the supernatural, ghosts and psychics in particular, start living in the real world and produce more quality horror and sci-fi that doesn't build around fucking impossible premises. Lay off the whole psychic power thing, fuck ghosts, fuck spirits, fuck demons and fuck everyone who still thinks being photographed will make you lose your soul. We live in an extremely developed world where science rules the day, I simply cannot relate to mysticism anymore.
So anywar I don't really think the whole psychic thing even belongs in the whole sci-fi genre, I mean the whole idea is to get away from stupid folklore like that right? Putting psychers into sci-fi is like putting werewolves in a world war two documentary, so let's just skip the whole genre and fast forward to the part about horror.
In the west I guess we've got uh the Screamers movies and I guess Freddy Krueger is a borderline effort, and that's about it. Especially when it comes to horror we do body horror instead. Why? Because mind ghosts aren't fucking scary. I'm not exactly afraid of having a psycher will blow my head up in a fit of rage because even if we were to bend the rules of reality quite a bit it still won't fucking happen. Aliens are more likely to happen.
FEAR made quite a good example, all the ghosts featured in the game are pretty much mind distortions see? They cannot hurt you so why should be afraid of them? Because they provide an unsettling mood and creepy music? Please, I've had scarier scenarios than that daydreaming!
I am writing this because I just had one of those cultural clash episodes watching the new demo of Siren on the PS3 not to mention Asian import horror flicks were shit hot a while back and I really like steampunk, especially in anime. So anyway, the game is Siren and mere seconds into the game the first guy gets slaughtered by some random zombie (all good) then comes back from the dead almost instantly (kinda ruined the mood but sure) and goes to work by digging into the ground (uh...) and has this eerie voice because he was possessed by an evil ghost...
Okay hold it right there! This is exactly what I am talking about. This isn't the meaty body horror that I am into, this is some psychic thing involved there I just know it. It's some fucking random "ghost" taking over a corpse and walking around. For the record, ghosts or demons (or whatever you'd call them) aren't scary either because it's simply not plausible for them to exist. They can work for action games like Onimusha because they can look cool, or funny as hell like in Mario or Sonic Adventure 2 (certain boss) but seriously, ghosts have about the same impact in the horror genre as the fucking easter bunny. Not only do they not exist, make no sense from any scientific perspective (at all) but they need to be fucking designed by HR Giger before they even start looking somewhat intimidating.
So why "body horror" and what is it you may ask? Well it can be anything from a viral outbreak causing people to turn into ultra violent zombies (like in 28 Days Later), an alien parasite that takes over the bodies of humans to do their bidding (like in the classic Body Snatcher movies) or simply having some killer robot from the future disguising itself as a human (kinda like Terminator) in order to assassinate someone. Basically ANYTHING that's at the very least semi-realistic from a fucking modern world perspektive and have something to do about what it means to be "an organic being" as opposed to being a fucking semi transparent CGI. Make more movies like that and less movies about random symbols appearing on TV screens (Ringu), psychic powered robots (Cyber City) or unstoppable super powered ghosts with no known form of weakness for no reason (Grudge).
Eastern Asia needs to get over their fucking fascination for the supernatural, ghosts and psychics in particular, start living in the real world and produce more quality horror and sci-fi that doesn't build around fucking impossible premises. Lay off the whole psychic power thing, fuck ghosts, fuck spirits, fuck demons and fuck everyone who still thinks being photographed will make you lose your soul. We live in an extremely developed world where science rules the day, I simply cannot relate to mysticism anymore.
4.28.2008
Speak like the Devil
So humanity has this bad habit of finding wrongs in everything it does, even when the intentions are good. We invent ways to produce cheap quality food so that starvation in the western world is brought to an absolute minimum, then we stab ourselves in the back as we find out the consequences of our own actions. You see we've been breeding chickens to the point where they grow to full size seemingly over night and be ready for slaughter before we even managed to sell off the last batch. Now if you look into this further you will find that this breeding program where only the fattest and fastest growing birds are allowed to mate you will find that not only does it prove that our theory of evolution is indeed true but that our "God" has no control over it since it is humans calling all the shots.
Regardless of religious theories however it brings up an important question. Would it be better if we were to breed these chickens to the point where they are nothing more than sacks of meat with holes in them? You would simply have fill it up with corn and watch the sack of meat expand. Would it be easier to forsake our sympathy for something that no longer has eyes to see, a face to recognize, limbs to break or a brain to register pain? What if the animals we used to produce our meat actually kinda resembled that burger you see on display at your local joint? Only they add some photo shopped salad, cheese and a slice of bread.
If science was completely unchained by the morals of religion, vegetarians and money we could most likely actually do this. So speak like the devil if you want your meat to be an "it" that can be devoured with no sense of guilt. That is, if you can live without that emotion.
Regardless of religious theories however it brings up an important question. Would it be better if we were to breed these chickens to the point where they are nothing more than sacks of meat with holes in them? You would simply have fill it up with corn and watch the sack of meat expand. Would it be easier to forsake our sympathy for something that no longer has eyes to see, a face to recognize, limbs to break or a brain to register pain? What if the animals we used to produce our meat actually kinda resembled that burger you see on display at your local joint? Only they add some photo shopped salad, cheese and a slice of bread.
If science was completely unchained by the morals of religion, vegetarians and money we could most likely actually do this. So speak like the devil if you want your meat to be an "it" that can be devoured with no sense of guilt. That is, if you can live without that emotion.
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