BMTH live in Jakarta 2024

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This time around Ravel gets it right and BMTH (Bring Me The Horizon) are headlining the Nexfest festival in Jakarta which also features Babymetal. In this format there is no seating - which makes for a much more intimate experience - although you do have to arrive really early if you want to pick a spot right up close to the stage.  We arrived about six hours before BMTH were scheduled to start their performance and bought plenty of drinks to stay hydrated in the tropical afternoon heat (mind you, some of those were Iceland vodka mix!) This was a gig I had long been looking forward to - especially after the debacle last year. Not everyone likes BMTH of course. For deathcore fans the band sold out. For metal heads the band is not purist enough. And for the wider mainstream audience, the band is too heavy. You can't please everyone of course but there are few bands in the rock world which can match the sheer emotional velocity of BMTH. To bring metal and even aspects of metalcore t...
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Are atheists racists?

There is an excellent opinion piece in the Independent about how freedoms to criticize thesist ideas are gradually being removed in the west.

The writer of the opinion piece, Johann Hari, also points out the increasing tendency for atheists to be rubbished as “racists”:

Underpinning these "reforms" (in the UN) is a notion seeping even into democratic societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism.

The allegations that atheists are racists are nonsensical of course. Because anyone can join a religion; the only requirement is that you believe. Simple as that. Membership is not based on race – even though many religious people do look down on certain ethic groups: just visit Saudi Arabia or some of the southern states in the US. And which racial groups are atheists supposed to be against anyway? All of them? Some of them? It just doesn’t make sense.

And now Geert Wilders has been denied entry into the UK.

And for what?

Well, for the crime of holding “opinions”.

Now I certainly do not agree with a lot of what Geert Wilders says, but I don’t think it’s right just to write him off as a mere racist. His rub is with a particular thesist group; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the pigmentation of skin cells.

But are secular people on the whole more racist than religious people? Well, I don’t think so; in fact if anything the opposite is probably true. It would be interesting to find out though.

So out of curiosity, and as a proud secularist, I did the racism test on this website and here are my results:

Your Test Score is: 157 In spite of our society's institutional racist/colorist conditioning, you have managed to learn to treat others - irrespective of their melanin levels or ethnicity - as you would like to be treated. Congrats! Now, take the R.Q. Test back to your family and neighborhood, hold regular forums and help heal the rest of society!

Yeah! I’m no racist!!!!!

And as for the writer of that opinion piece for the Independent?

Well, he’s been arrested for writing it!

Comments

  1. deck18 February 2009 at 09:19

    Ah, I suppose the original opinion piece isn't available online?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Sycologist18 February 2009 at 12:27

    Sorry - i missed the link - it's now up...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Krishnan19 February 2009 at 02:44

    Thats an interesting blog there buddy. Keep it going.

    ReplyDelete
  4. deck21 February 2009 at 07:27

    Whoa, the comments section on that article is a huge battlefield!

    ReplyDelete

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