Showing posts with label QAnon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label QAnon. Show all posts

April 29, 2023

This weekend the Satanists troll the Christians Bigly in Boston

 

By Hal Brown

Click image above to enlarge. Note Lucifer is devouring a child.

Satanic Temple
You may have missed the news about their planned 10th anniversary celebration in Boston this weekend and that several Christian groups are going to “ambush” the event.

Click above to go to webpage

From the Wikipedia entry.

The Satanic Temple has seven fundamental tenets:

  1. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
  2. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
  3. One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
  4. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
  5. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
  6. People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
  7. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Newsweek reports the following:

Click above to read article

Excerpt:

The Satanic Temple's 10-year anniversary celebration in Boston, Massachusetts, this weekend is facing counter-events from several Christian groups, including revivalist demonstrations designed to "ambush" the group's SatanCon convention.

The temple, unlike the Church of Satan, does not worship the biblical Satan as a deity, but instead has historically used its religious association to "reject tyrannical authority," according to the organization's website. Friday kicked off the group's second annual SatanCon at the Boston Marriott Copley Place, roughly 25 miles south of the organization's symbolic home in Salem, Massachusetts.

The group's organizers have dubbed the three-day event as the "largest Satanic gathering in history," and the convention will include presentations, rituals and a "Satanic Marketplace."

Raw Story covered this (here). Many of those who commented (300 as I write this) included images. Below is a sample:


What grabbed my attention as I looked at the website of The Satanic Temple (or TST as they sometimes call themselves) is that while they say they don't profess belief in an entity called Satan they use images of him on their website and at their conventions. 

Satan is used as a metaphor and symbol: 

  • No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. The Satanic Temple believes that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things. Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world — never the reverse.

    • Satan is a symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds. Satan is an icon for the unbowed will of the unsilenced inquirer – the heretic who questions sacred laws and rejects all tyrannical impositions. Our metaphoric representation is the literary Satan best exemplified by Milton and the Romantic Satanists from Blake to Shelley to Anatole France. From the website FAQ .

    • If you read the various positions of TST and compare them to those of The Freedom From Religion Foundation you will find they overlap. This is the foundation promoted in TV ads by President Reagan's son Ron:

Herein lies the difference between the two groups: The Satanic Temple  without paying for advertising gets attention from the media for free by being attached to the Devil who they say they don't believe in.

I'm about as far from being a religious scholar as one could be. In fact, growing up as a Jew I never even went to Hebrew school or got bar mitzvahed. Despite my ignorance about Biblical texts it seems to be a no-brainer to draw the conclusion that if someone believes in Satan they also have to believe in God. (See "Do Jews believe in Satan?) I'd suggest that claiming to be a godless Satanist is an oxymoron.

The Satanic Temple using the mantle of religion is nothing short of brilliant marketing. They even have a way one can become a minister so they can officiate at weddings which is much more involved than just becoming a Universalist Life Church minister with a few clicks. 

The Satanists may be as successful in getting media coverage as some of the non-religious organizations and religious groups who promote progressive positions.

They do so by trolling the Christians. Their trolling actually has a troll of sorts, in fact their troll is far more terrifying than trolls who are kind of cute, he is the ultimate horror, the Devil himself.
Troll from Wiki Commons, Devil from Facebook

If the members of TST really believed in the Devil incarnate they'd be just a version of the QAnon believers who are certifiably insane, albeit they'd be crazy people that have beliefs consistent with democracy, equal justice for all, and tolerance of all people. 

My impression (as someone who was a psychotherapist for 40 years) is that most members of TST who are active in the temple/organization are no different in their mental health status than, for example, people who go to ComicCon or Trekkies who go to Star Trek conventions. 

You can rest assured there isn't a MAGA cultist member of The Satanic Temple.


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October 16, 2022

Trump Junior praises conspiracy theorists for pattern recognition ability

 /

Trump Junior praises conspiracy theorists for pattern recognition ability

by Hal Brown

I took the above photo, and the one below, at Little Harbor Beach on Buzzard's Bay in Wareham, MA.
Click above to enlarge

This story was prompted by these Truth Social posts by Donald Trump, Jr. who is turning ever more 
orange and unhinged as he embraces the lunatic beliefs of his bigly brained blowhard daddy.



Clicking above will enlarge image but will not go to Truth Social

In the Truth Social post series above Junior references "pattern recognition" and lauds conspiracy theorists for having the ability to see nefarious patterns others miss which prove Democratic conspiracies.


I don't know which of Trump's older sons is the bigger idiot. What I do know is that coments like this are a good example of projection:



Junior thinks he is so very smart and throws out the term "pattern recognition" using it in a colloquial way. Actually this is what it means:


Pattern recognition is the ability of machines to identify patterns in data, and then use those patterns to make decisions or predictions. This guide provides an overview of the most important techniques used to recognize patterns and real-world applications. Reference.


The way Junior uses the term was part of the theme of a novel by that name:



"The novel's central theme involves the examination of the human desire to detect patterns or meaning and the risks of finding patterns in meaningless data
."


He thinks that believing what we know are his and other fellow residents of Magaland are delusions are the result of the result of the brilliant ability to see patterns others are too dumb to recognize. In fact he and these MAGA delusionists might as well be seeing the patterns they want to see in the clouds. 




Seeing patterns of behavior that actually reveal a not readily discernible truth of a matter is something investigators, whether good journalists or detectives, are adept at. 


Actually seeing patterns that don't prove anything, but rather support a person's delusional beliefs suggest their reality testing is impaired at best and buying into delusions supporting a political agenda, or have a paranoid disorder as a worst case.


I don't know where the majority of those who believe in the ludicrous claims of QAnon fit on some sort of continuum between merely being gullible and having a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. I expect this now or will be the subject of research studies.


One of my dear childhood friends and neighbors (Hi, GWC...) and I still reminisce about how we used to lay on the grass in her yard and loved it when we found patterns in the clouds. We might point and say "that one looks like a bird" or typically "that looks like a face." 


My partner and I  always enjoy looking at the sky whether at home or rides in the beautiful Oregon countryside. Generally we just just appreciate the way the clouds take the bland pallet of a blue sky and turn it into an artistic display. Occasionally a pattern jumps out at us.


We don't think that the pattern has any other meaning than the fortuitous accident of upper atmospheric weather, but then again we're not delusional.


Note: 


Junior still is on Twitter where he posted the same message and had supportive and critical replies, one apparently from Elon Musk.

Clicking these will enlarge them but not go to Twitter.

 

Is is the reply I posted on Twitter:



Now, for you enjoyment, here are some cloud photos I took. Click each one to enlarge it.


Above and below, Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts

Below, photos taken in Oregon.










Above and below, Portland.





September 24, 2022

QAnon lunacy about harvesting live children plus the world of incels

QAnon lunacy about harvesting live children for  fictional super-powerful psychedelic, adrenochrome which came from Hunter S. Thompson, plus the world of the wacky incels.

by Hal Brown

Comment on stories from the bottom of this page, or you can make them on Facebook here, or re-Tweet or reply with your opinions on Twitter hereClick to enlarge images that aren't links to stories. Archives are in right column.

Breaking news will be posted on the bottom of page.





.
Photograph credited to "Cashman Photo Enterprises, Inc." Published by Random House. - Originally published on the back of the dust jacket for the 1972 first edition of Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published by Random House. 

We now know where a belief central to the QAnon list of certifiably insane claims comes from. 

Thom  Hartmann, American radio personality, author, former psychotherapist, businessman, and progressive political commentator took a deep dive into the "dangerous mental illness" of Donald Trump and how he has spread it to his followers. In doing this he reveals where one of the most bizarre claims coming from QAnon originated. 

It came from the mind of American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement, none other than Hunter S. Thomspon.

The following is the portion of this long Thom Hartmann article which explains this.



When I was young my favorite writers were Ernest Hemmingway and Hunter S. Thompson, and my favorite Thompson novel was his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Which is why a caller last year who started on a rant about Democrats harvesting “adrenochrome” from children caused me to both cut him off the air and go back to my copy of the novel to see if my memory was right.

Sure enough, there it was. Thompson was bemoaning running out of hashish and being almost out of opium when his “fat Samoan” sidekick offered an alternative: 

“As your attorney,” he said, “I advise you not worry.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “Take a hit out of that little brown bottle in my shaving kit.” 
“What is it?” “
QAnon lunacy about harvesting live children came from Hunter S. Thompson,” he said. “You won’t need much. Just a little tiny taste.” 
I got the bottle and dipped the head of a paper match into it. 
“That’s about right,” he said. “That stuff makes pure mescaline seem like ginger beer. You’ll go completely crazy if you take too much.” 
I licked the end of the match. “Where’d you get this?” I asked. “You can’t buy it.” 
“Never mind,” he said. “It’s absolutely pure.” 
I shook my head sadly. “Jesus! What kind of monster client have you picked up this time? There’s only one source for this stuff…” 
He nodded. 
“The adrenaline glands from a living human body,” I said. “It’s no good if you get it out of a corpse.”

When Thompson pushes his “attorney” about where the adrenochrome came from, the fictional character tells the fictional tale of having once been hired to represent a child molester/murderer who’d presumably extracted it from one of his victims:

“Christ, what could I say?” Thompson’s sidekick told him. “Even a goddamn werewolf is entitled to legal counsel. I didn’t dare turn the creep down. He might have picked up a letter opener and gone after my pineal gland.” 

That little seed, entirely fictional, planted in the national subconscious back in the early ‘70s, has now blossomed into a full-blown flower of a belief held by literally millions of Americans. 

As Rightwing Watch documents, uber-Trump cultist and “journalist” Liz Crokin explains in one of her many videos:

“Adrenochrome is a drug that the elites love. It comes from children. The drug is extracted from the pituitary gland of tortured children. It’s sold on the black market. It’s the drug of the elites. It is their favorite drug. It is beyond evil. It is demonic. It is so sick.”

People who have been ensnared by the

 QAnon cult and are gullible enough to believe this kind of thing are the explicit targets now in Trump’s crosshairs....

There is another group being courted by Trump which is every bit as weird as the QAnan cray-cray. These are young men who consider themselves to be proud and superior Incels. 

You probably heard this term and know it has something to do with attitudes towards women and may even know that the letters stand for involuntarily celibate. This article explains that at least many of these men aren't involuntarily celibate. Rather, they embrace their celibacy and eschew any intimate relationship with women.

This is explained in this Salon article:

Excerpts:

The affidavit blandly describes America First, an ardently pro-Trump group, as motivated by "a belief that they are defending against the demographic and cultural changes in America." The deeper truth is this group — whose members call themselves "groypers" — is among the most shamelessly fascist of the many far-right gangs that invaded the Capitol that day. Their leader, Nick Fuentes, has declared that "Trump was awesome because he was racist," engaged in Holocaust denialism and heaped praise on various historical dictators, including like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Indeed, he did the latter at a conference attended by Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, signaling how far Fuentes' fascist worldview has crept into the Republican Party. 

.....

It's not just that Fuentes and other groypers identify as "incels," a nickname for the virulently misogynist online movement of "involuntary celibates." Fuentes has tried to reinvent "incel" as an aspirational identity, telling his followers that pursuing sex with women is degrading and will only distract groypers from their true calling as warriors for the brand of white nationalism (mixed with far-right "trad" Catholicism) he's peddling. As Tess Owen at Vice reported in July, "Fuentes has called himself a 'proud incel,' urged his supporters to abstain from sex, and made bizarre assertions like 'all sex is gay.'"

No, seriously, this is his argument for why heterosexual sex is "gay": "Think about it this way: What's gayer than being like 'I need cuddles. I need kisses … I need to spend time with a woman.' That's a little sus."

Wikipedia hasn't been able to copyright the term Wiki so it isn't surprising that there are lots of websites using the word, and there's even this one:


Vector Stock royalty free

Two from the BBC: 

The woman who founded the 'incel' movement

By Jim Taylor
BBC Radio 5 Live

I do not know where members of this group stand on male masturbation. If they are adamantly against it. For all the material about healthy masturbation there is a cottage industry of books giving advice on how to stop this supposedly terrible addiction:


One might say that if a movement can harness the frustrated normal strong impulse to masturbate in post pubescent males , it would be akin to discovering how to create cold fusion to safely fuel the plant, and thus these groups would be unstoppable.

Instead what will inevitably happen is that almost all of the men in the group of incels will eventually go stark raving mad with pent up sexual frustration unless they decide to pursue healthy sexuality whether it is with solo sex or with a partner.

Rioting on January 6th might have been a temporary sexual release, but how many of these men went to bed that might and had a wet dream about storming the Capitol and experienced an orgasm when they marched like maniacs carrying their stupid Trump flags?

Click above to enlarge
Search Google for Trump flag images.

Perhaps is is ironic that Trump is a serial molester of women and adulterer. He is their titular leader if not their divine gift from God or the Second Coming and may or may not be currently involuntarily celebrate depending of what sexual favors Melania deigns to bestow on him. 

I have an impression that he likes golfing because using his little putter is for him a phallic symbol which he  believes demonstrates his sexual prowess whenever he sinks a ball.





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