People are dumb

I went to a debate last night that was being held at UNSW in CLB7. The debate was titled "did God create man, or did man create God". It started at 6:30 on a Friday night, which was perfect for me because I don't have friends. As soon as I entered the debate I noticed the intense security - 2 bouncers at each of the 3 entrances. The crowed was filled with at least 80% Muslims wearing burqas, dish dash's etc. There were 4 main speakers: 2 well respected Muslim writers and 2 Atheists (a journalist and the president of the Sydney University Atheist society).

Now I know you probably don't want to hear about philosophy or religion very much, so to make this a little less painful, I'll stuff in the occasional racist joke.

The first speaker talked about a supposed proof of the existence of God. His first line was "Allah Exists because it's obvious he exists and it's common sense. And the 'atheist narrative' is patently immoral." Later through his speech, he made arguments for the proof of God which were essentially a pretty reworking of Thomas Aquinas's first cause argument and also countless of examples showing the inner evil of atheism.

At that point, I figured the debate couldn't get any worse. I was wrong. The Sydney Atheist leader stood up to make rebuttal speech and I couldn't have been more disappointed. There were so many gaps in the previous argument that I thought could have been refuted that would have been relevant to the question. Instead, he stood up and rambled on about the immorality of religion and relied upon analogy to 'prove' his points.

I left the debate shortly afterwards because I knew this was just going to be another debate where both sides would completely miss the question. This is the 3rd religious debate I've attended in Sydney and they all end up the same way. All speakers come in to address a certain question, but then get side tracked and go down the morality path. Whether God is moral or not is a completely separate question.

What frustrates me most, however, was how the people who attended these debates don't go for the sake of acquiring knowledge or new ideas - they go to hear what they want to hear. The Muslims who were bursting out "insh'Allah" to the accusations that atheists were immoral weren't attending the debate to get their ideas challenged. They were going to reaffirm their belief that Allah is the one and only God. This is a scary thought and it leaves me quite pessimistic about humanity as a whole.

I think this goes further than religion though. I'd suspect it's human nature to want to reinforce cultural bias. The election coming up between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd is a pretty good example. I think we're all sick to death of seeing the ads on TV about how Tony Abbott is an evil criminal out to destroy Australia or how Kevin Rudd is trying to destroy jobs etc. But these ads are on TV because this shit actually works!

I was talking to a roommate a few days ago and he/she told me that he/she could never vote for Kevin Rudd because he's too smug. Whilst that may be true, it's so totally important NOT to judge someones ability to serve as prime minister based off their character traits! Vote for the party, not the person. Vote based off the political policies the party plans to implement, and ignore the irrelevant character traits and awkward photo shoots. Fuck.

Alright alright, I've you're still reading this then you've been really patient with me, so I feel like I need to reward you with a racist joke.

Question: "What is the difference between a couch and an Asian you see on the street?"

Answer: "Nothing. They're both made in China.