For those who may be wondering, here are the answers to a few questions. They’re not FAQs in the sense of actually having been frequently asked, but they are things you may be interested in learning. Or not, as the case may be. But here they are anyway. Let’s let it stand for Facetiously Answered Questions.
Is Dwasifar your real name? Well, obviously, no. Dwasifar is not anyone’s real name, to my knowledge.
Why don’t you blog under your real name, then? Because I have to earn a living. People infected with religion usually don’t like people like me, and some of them make hiring decisions.
Why do you hate religious people? I actually don’t. Asking the question like that is like collaring someone with a pink ribbon on their car and demanding to know why they “hate breast cancer victims.” It’s religion I can’t stand; “pity” is a better word for how I feel about the religious.
Okay, then, smarty-pants, why do you hate religion? “Hate” might still be too strong a word. I find it abhorrent. The temptation is to answer this question with a recap of reasons to dislike religion, but that would be both redundant (because that’s what the blog itself is for) and far too lengthy for a FAQ item. Besides, I think when this question is asked, it does not mean, “what is wrong with religion?” but rather, “what is wrong with you?”
Yeah, that’s what I meant. What happened to you to turn you against religion? What happened to you to turn you against schizophrenia? I didn’t have an unpleasant childhood experience or anything, if that’s what you’re getting at; no pedophile priests or scary hellfire preachers. I had the ordinary childhood experience of Sunday school, church youth groups, and so forth. But it became obvious very early that the stories just didn’t make a lot of sense. I spent years thinking about that and never saw any reason to change my opinion. To “have faith” you have to decide to suspend rational disbelief, and I never saw the logic in rationally deciding to be irrational.
Are you one of those lefty pinko commie types that hates America? Admit it! I admit no such thing. I wish America could find its way back to the days when we were all presumed to be responsible grownups; and I wish the government would rediscover its mission to protect the rights of the people against big interests, instead of the other way around; but who doesn’t have a few wishes about how things could be better? It would be grossly inaccurate to call me “leftist.” My leanings have always been more libertarian than left, though the Bush administration’s overt Christian Dominionist policies have pushed me somewhat leftward recently.
If you’re not a commie, why do you use socialist software? You mean Linux and other Free Open Source software?
Yeah, that. It’s anti-capitalist and anti-American. Wrong, wrong. It’s true that free software is the antithesis of private ownership, but that’s just the spirit of cooperation in action, which is what we used to have in America before everything got to be about how much you can own. Free software is about opening up innovation and progress; proprietary companies are happy to stifle it. Legal protections for the latter attitude amount to creating a corporate Kremlin. If you like free markets, well, open source is the free market of ideas.
What makes you think your opinion has any value? Are you an expert? Did I get a degree in curmudgeonry, you mean? No. I am not a recognized expert in any of the fields in which I gripe, save perhaps for computers; and even with that, though I am a computer professional, I don’t post about my specific work (due to client confidentiality concerns). However, I am widely recognized among my friends and co-workers as a Smart Person, I am well-read, and I spend a lot of time thinking as opposed to watching American Idol or Monday Night Football. I think that stuff counts for something.
Oh, sheesh. You have an ego the size of all outdoors. Yeah, well, I’m not alone in that. But if you don’t find value in what I have to say, please feel free to visit a more appropriate site for your interests, such as this one.
You never post anything about personal relationships. Why? Because it’s none of your business.
Oh, I see. Then you’re gay, right? No, but would it make a difference if I were? It wouldn’t make anything I write any more or less valid. It’s a common misconception – especially among the religious, ironically – that if you defend gay rights, you’re one of them.
How old are you? I was born during the Kennedy administration. That should get you close enough.
What race or ethnic group do you belong to? Human.
Ha ha, very funny. I wasn’t trying to be funny. Race is a social construct, not a scientific classification, and we’d be a lot better off if we abandoned the concept.
“Dwasifar” sounds Indian. Are you Indian? How did you get all the way down to this part of the FAQ without seeing the part at the top where I declare it’s not my real name?
Why do you blog? Why not?
