music right now: 'all night (don't stop)' by janet jackson

at the bookstore we currently have this book 'plateforme (platform)' by michel houellebecq behind the cash on the wall because apparently all the hardcover copies have been stolen. why? apparently it's been called pornographic, racist, xenophobic, immoral, etc. i find this interesting, and yet another reason why i want to read it. i'm not into racist literature or anything, but a book like that which has been so maligned that critics of it have to resort to stealing all the copies of it obviously deserves some sort of attention from me. i've been too complacent in recent years in terms of where i stand moralistically in the world. at our age we can easily do that. there is so much out there in the world to see and experience, that to place ourselves in any moral sphere immediately cuts us off from great sectors of society.

i've been re-evaluating where exactly i stand on things. this year, this summer is the ten year anniversary of two major things in my life: a) it's been ten years since i first became a vegetarian, and b) it's been ten years since i officially stopped believing in a god. i've been an atheist for almost half my life. i never really felt like organised religion was something open to me. i grew up in a fairly free-thinking household. my mum taught us to be open-minded, to accept everyone regardless of race, religion, creed, size, shape, age, sexual orientation, what have you. but at school i saw the complete reverse. going to catholic school for thirteen years made me realise that my mum was somewhat an idealist, but on the right track. i don't know how she can still have faith in religion when all i saw for those years was the hate that religion caused. when i freed myself from the confines of that one religion, of the thought that there was a god i was able to better see that there are so many realities out there.

what am i getting at? in regards to the book, i think those people who stole the copies of the book are reinforcing those racist tendencies. by not responding to criticism in print but instead attempting to silence the critics, they are merely showing that religion itself (in this case islam), is not responsive to anyone. religion is supposed to give people answers to their most fundamental questions. but when you have millions of people each with different interpretations of the same answers, by stifling any sort of dialogue they are merely proving that perhaps religion is not the be all and end all that it appears to be, but is solely a means of control.

... posted at 10:12 p.m. by gleefully gloomy. ...

back from an extended hiatus

Reading:
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Christopher Hitchens
Copenhagen
Time Out City Guides

Seeing:
Juno
Jason Reitman
Annie Hall
Woody Allen
There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson