Paulo Seabra

This is a classic movie to me. Not just because it's a classic movie for everyone else, but also because it's a movie that I first hated, then I didn't like but I saw its merits, and then that I loved and it easily became one of my all-time favorites. But that's just my style, initially hating something that I then come to love. What's funny about it is that there seems to be a similar thing happening with the movie itself, as in the initial perception of it isn't quite what the movie really is. You need to dig a little bit, and the more you dig the more the movie's inner nature is revealed. Or at least that's how I see things now, because The Exorcist is one of those movies that people sometimes find boring and funny, which is its own weird perception, or else they find it horrifying and brutal, which is the perception I have come to disagree with the most. Not just about the movie but about the book as well, which is a must-read for any fans of the m...

A long while back I made myself a Reddit account, mostly to try and hopefully get Jordan Peterson's attention over some stuff I wrote. It was a total long shot though, there was always a slim chance he wouldn't read it, and so that's exactly what happened. Who'd have thought, hey?... But anyway, I then decided to write a new post defending what I perceived to be, to my knowledge, his worst point as it relates to religious belief and morality. I got some interaction out of it, but enough to kinda sour my appreciation for the site. One person made the typical edgy comments on religion, as well as some wild claims that apparently didn't require any evidence whereas I couldn't say two plus two equals four without an entire university of science backing me, another person brought up a ton of random stuff I ain't never heard of and also a little beside the point, and a third person thought Jordan's worst point would have been something else to begin with. No ...

In sequence with two other essays I've written, both of them surrounding the issue of individual responsibility within secular morality, one alluding to ideas such as atheists being delusional about morality, and the other being one in which I vented about the problems of secular humanism, I began to realize why the Joker is considered one of the best characters ever created, and one that immediately appeals to all of us, even across various mediums and interpretations. I have also previously written about Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, which I could use to make my point, but Heath Ledger's version fits a bit better here, and even still, I could instead mention the countless individuals in history who have taken on the Joker's philosophy, whether they realized it or not. But just what is that philosophy? It's simply to find your own meaning in life and to enjoy it to the fullest before you inevitably succumb to death, after which you will cease to exist. In other words...

This is something new I've been noticing... It might not be something that is likely to apply to a modern atheist with a fairly solid philosophical background, that is to say, it's not likely to apply to any kind of influential person who just so happens to not believe in God and to therefore build his or her work on that claim, or lack thereof if you will, although I'd have to put a little pin on that because I'm inclined to believe that some influential atheists were and are indeed delusional about morality, perhaps Christopher Hitchens being number one and maybe Ricky Gervais being number two. However, and trying to sort of avoid that confrontation, at least for now, I'm at this present time more interested in talking a little bit about the logic and general argumentation deployed by the everyday atheists who will more or less claim that they don't need a god telling them what's right and wrong, and that whoever does need it is stupid or even evil at hea...

I wasn't really planning on writing this one now, but I figured hey, why not... The idea has been on my mind a lot lately, though it never really leaves it. And when that's the case, as with most ideas, the best is to just write them down and get it over with. I don't think you have to be a big fan of video games to understand my point with this argument, which I actually believe to be quite simple... What is a video game? A video game is essentially a closed system that contains an alternate reality governed by its own rules and values, which make perfect sense within the system itself but lack any meaning outside of it. If you know quite a bit about coding you might consider that definition to be atrocious, I dunno, but as far as I can tell, it's an accurate and simple definition for our purposes here. Let's take Fallout: New Vegas for example. It's a massive sprawling game with a vast map to explore, various ways to develop your character, countless characte...

One of the first articles I wrote for this blog was a list of ten common, or not so common, atheist arguments that I used to defend during my militant atheist phase but that, in recent times I've come to sort of abandon. At first I thought the title I chose for the article was a bit weird, but now I think it's actually quite apt. That's because, while I now see some arguments as uncharitable at best and dumb at worst, most of them are arguments I can't wholly refute but also can't quite use in a discussion anymore. I've come to realize they're full of holes, they don't often tell the whole story, and quite a few of them seem to have an underlying psychological component that atheists elect to ignore when marching under the banner of logic and skepticism. And I say that because I look back on my reasoning from those days and I find in my past self those exact same idiosyncrasies. Now, having said that, do I remain an atheist? I do, just not a militant at...