Mephistophilez

There are no words.  The world lost a great musician today.  Way too fucking soon in his life too.  Even people that don't listen to metal listen to Slayer.  I'm not sure any band had as big an impact on the metal and rock world, and Jeff's shredding was at the center of such revolutionary sounds.  Fuck the "National Day of Reason", today should become International Slayer Day to commemorate such a legend.



Thank you Jeff Hanneman for all you gave us, you will live on in your music.

I already have a very low tolerance for conspiracy theories.  Not because I don't get it, but actually because I do get it quite well.  Paranoia is not a difficult concept to understand, nor is patternicity or assigning a sense of order to chaos to be able to grapple with difficulty or events beyond your control.  Wanting to believe something (I imagine Mulder from X-Files with his "I want to believe" poster in his office) is a powerful thing, it's potentially comforting and gives a sense of purpose or drive, even if that belief is fucking insane.  I get these things because I was not always a skeptic, I not only believed in god and demons and spiritual nonsense, but was interested in learning about secret societies and even UFOs to some extent (probably comes from growing up around hippies).  But there comes a point when curiosity and interest, and taking things more humorously, crosses a line into irrational belief and can eventually lead to obsession.  Conspiracy theorists are not mildly curious or just asking questions, they live in a world where everything is out to get them.  A bug flying by suddenly isn't an insect but an advanced spy robot that's following this particular person at this exact moment in order to hear every mundane detail in their ridiculously non-eventful life.  A distant light isn't a car or plane or the planet Venus but a government aircraft armed to the teeth ready to take this one inconsequential individual out at a moment's notice.  Suddenly there are no coincidences, everything is part of a plan, and usually a very sinister one.  Things as ordinary as the fucking weather now are a secret government plot to push some insidious agenda (seriously people believe this shit, including some in my family pakistanmediawatch.com/2010/11… ).  Clouds become chem trails, medicines become poison, anyone within a mile of a public figure becomes a criminal suspect and any normal human interaction suddenly is "proof" of a plot against the world.

But then it happened, humanity reached an all new low.  Should it be surprising that these people who have no understanding of reality, who can't separate fact from fiction, would go here?  I suppose not, especially given the level of hysterics in politics today and the amount of venom the issue of gun control brings in america, but it still makes me wish "death panels" were a real thing.  Yes, I am of course referring to the new conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook shooting was fake.  If you're not aware that such a conspiracy exists, well I'm sorry I have to be the one to inform you that yes there are people so sick and idiotic as to believe the terrible deaths of 20 children was staged by the US government www.salon.com/2013/01/09/the_w… .  And they're breeding like rabbits www.alternet.org/why-we-cant-i… .  Essentially they seem to believe this because they love their guns more than they love other human beings, so in their pea brains it makes more sense to demonize victims of a tragedy than to have any sort of gun restrictions.

Part of me gets where this mentality comes from.  There was just a recent poll on conspiracy theories, showing 63% of registered voters in the US buy into one or another www.scribd.com/doc/120815791/F… .  The US is a society built on paranoia, distrust for government, suspicion of your neighbor, irrational beliefs and religious thinking, and reinforced by us vs them mentalities, horrendous 24/4 media influence, and embarrassingly piss poor math and science skills.  Throw the internet into the mix and the bullshit storm hits level 5 on Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale (look out, it's HAARP!).  Having seen just how much on a hair trigger some of the Big-Brother-Obama-is-out-to-get-them types are on issues of gun control youtu.be/_XZvMwcluEg I should have seen this particular conspiracy theory coming.  But that doesn't change the level of disgust I have for these people.  If you want to wear your tin foil hats and hide in your mommy's basement rambling about the Illuminati as you use the bible to jack off into your gun, by all means knock yourself out.  But accusing parents who just lost their 6 year old child in a horrifying massacre that their grief is "fake" because how they grieve doesn't meet up to your expectations, to dismiss their terrible loss as an elaborately orchestrated hoax and then even call for their imprisonment...it's beyond words how fucking disgusting and inhuman some morons can be.  To believe something silly or to doubt something any rational person sees are one thing, but to publicly accuse, belittle, and cause more pain and anguish in the midst of someone grieving over their child, and not allowing them to be able to grieve, it's a whole other level of low.  

And what really pisses me off about people who believe this NONSENSE is that they spend so much time and energy promoting their asinine woo, trying to get others to believe in order to justify their irrationality because they themselves are so insecure.  Yet they could so easily use the same tool of the internet to find believable and rational explanations to the bunk they're putting out there.  They could educate themselves in the real world of fact and science, or be engaged in politics in a rational way if they wanted to promote change.  If they were actually interested in the truth, if they were seriously concerned about things which didn't make sense to them, they could find any number of sites which would go through bit by bit piece by piece why their conspiracy theories are bogus.  Skeptic.com www.skeptic.com , Skeptic Dictionary skepdic.com ,  Skeptoid skeptoid.com , Rational Skepticism www.rationalskepticism.org/ , Committee for Skeptical Inquiry www.csicop.org/ (great podcast btw www.pointofinquiry.org/ ), Skeptic Project conspiracies.skepticproject.co… and many many more.  I found an excellent point by point from snopes.com www.snopes.com/politics/guns/n… via the James Randi Foundation forums forums.randi.org/ .  Hell just find debunkers on youtube as a place to start.  But that's the thing, these people (like any believers) are not interested in the opposing views which challenge their beliefs, they're not interested in rational explanations and living in reality, they're just interested in pushing their beliefs and living in lala land and reinforcing their delusions with yes-men sheeple and more absurd theories to waste their lives with.  They like feeling special, and thinking god is their father or the government is out to take their guns or assassinate them because they "know too much" is the only validation they can get, because if they looked critically at the garbage coming from their mouths they would realize they're anything but special, that they are in fact the lowest form of scum on the planet.  Being chained in delusion and fear of every shadow is not something to be proud of, swallowing what some random nutcase on the internet said rather than doing actual research does not make you informed or free, it makes you a tool.  In the face of violence and death, pointing the finger at victims and accusing them of being in on it with the evil government because you're misinformed and have a political belief based agenda to push just puts you in the same category of lowlifes known as Westboro.

Victims of gun violence don't need your prayers, they certainly don't need quotes from a violence filled book like the bible, they need stricter gun laws!  "God" didn't save 20 little kids today, or the 7 other victims, he didn't spare the other students as some form of "mercy" (seeing your classmates and teachers getting shot in front of you is not merciful), he's not consoling the 40 parents who will now be celebrating Christmas without their children.  Going to this nonexistent being, who would be an asshole even if he could hear you, for comfort during tragedy is like trying to dig up imaginary gold in an empty field when you need money.  Get off your fucking knees and do something.  Let's start by having serious national discussions on gun control, and suggesting 6 year olds arm themselves is not a reality based solution.

32 years ago today one of the most influential musicians and activists of all time was taken from us in the prime of his life.  We miss you John.  We sure could use someone like you around today.  But your message lives on, through your music and through all the countless lives you touched and inspired.

Fundamentalists are so laughably predictable.  When a natural disaster comes, you can always count on hearing them blame it on homosexuals or liberals or some "sin".  And then you can always count on some others saying something to the effect of "not all of us are like that...but homosexuality is a sin".  You can always count on religious people to back up other religious people, the lack of real accountability is really quite sad.  And since this election is (finally) about to end, you can count on who the fundamentalists will vote for (despite calling that candidate's religion false, whether Romney's Mormonism or Santorum's Catholicism), and if their candidate loses then you can count on the cries of apocalyptic rage and fear.  For the past 2000 years, as horrible or excellent leaders have taken the reins of some government Christians have been screaming about something and promising the very near end of the world.  You can count on fundamentalists to rant and rave over just about anything.  And when caught in argument you can be sure they will immediately dive into personal attacks and be in complete denial with reality and have no evidence or fact to back up anything they say other than point to their silly superstitions and bronze age religious book.  On dA you can guarantee they will bitch and moan about anything they find offensive, and immediately block anyone to keep from having their fragile little feelings hurt and their poor easily confused brains from hurting.  That's why they all have their isolated insulated bubble communities, where only righteous things are allowed and only those who think exactly like them (and look exactly like them and act exactly like them) are let in.  You can always count on fundies making horribly lame rip offs of anything in the oh so scary "secular world".  They take something someone else created and jesusize it, not only essentially stealing it but destroying its integrity by making it awful, because of course they're not really capable of using their own creativity to make something unique, that would require imagination and independent thought.  I always thought this was especially ironic given they claim to have the god who made the universe living inside them, yet these days especially (not necessarily historically) Christians just rip off everything in such cheesy ways that even most Christians don't think it's cool.  I used to work at a book/music/entertainment store when I was young, I've seen a lot of ridiculous Christian knock offs, some of it I have to wonder how it's even legal and not just plain plagiarism or copyright infringement.  Even as a Christian at the time I was embarrassed by the quality of some of this shit.  The Christian music is the worst, it's been called "contemporary" since the 70s and hasn't changed much since then, the "Christian rock" really is nothing more than ripping off popular modern poppy rock songs (three chords) and giving them lyrics about getting fucked by jesus or something.  The "Christian metal" especially is almost hilarious in its absurdity, I almost can't believe how bad it is, not just how stupid it is to use a form of music which is notoriously rebellious and edgy to use as propaganda for conforming, but the quality of the "music" is total shit.  Which shouldn't be surprising, they're just ripping out the essence of what makes this art form what it is, because they find the real cutting edge stuff too scary (there are plenty of fundamentalists who say metal, or any rock music, will bring about demons and satan and hellfire. I was once even told I was going to hell for listening to The Beatles of all things...cause that "all you need is love" message sure is antiChristian ).  It goes from embarrassing and amusing to really irritating when Christians have not only attempted to steal music, but their having to use everything as a platform to preach has resulted in the bastardizing of large chunks of music, look at the hardcore scene full of all the Christian jocks who have to make shitty music about being straight edge.  It doesn't end at music, and any genre of music at that (there's Christian gangsta rap haha), they rip off books and movies (oh those are really bad).  There are Christian t-shirts and hats, bookmarks and posters, boardgames and card games and video games, anime and comics, kids toys and home decor, if you can sell it then Christians are ripping it off, and not creatively but obviously just using someone else's work and essentially sticking a cross on it to call it theirs.  So when I saw this group , my immediate reaction was "of course they did"...followed by much laughter and shaking of my head.  I especially love the puny list of super jebusy links, that Answers in Genesis is almost right at the top is particularly great and so predictable   And as this group of fundies on dA love to lick each others assholes, I guess this was a reminder that they hate me so there were renewed attacks and much whining and crying, which brings us back to beginning.  I'm really not the most confident person to say the least, I do not think highly of myself or take much pride in anything I do in life, so the personal attacks really are quite ironic and ridiculous to me.  I love how my personal creative outlet, using an intentionally hyperbolic and exaggerated tone as a form of release, has resulted in such blatant shit slinging from Christians.  But again, if there's one thing we can count on with Christians, it's hypocrisy especially when it comes to acting like they preach.  And their acting so childish and bitchy has just confirmed to me that I must be doing something right.  Any time a fundie blames bad weather on homosexuality, I get a boost of confidence that I'm on the right side, and any time teenager fundies with a stick up their ass attack me here I get a similar boost and I get inspired to do more.  So thanks fundies, not just for the laughs but for inspiring me, keep on showing the world what you are