Big Think

Ash commented on Where are we? on January 19, 2008, 1:16 AM

I like the way she challenges Islam. All religions should, if they are to survive, evolve and question themselves.Nothing is easy about the challenges that face Muslims all over the world, and non-Muslims trying to understand them in a post 911 fear-and-myth-obsessed culture. I appreciate the way Hirsi Ali showed the contradictions in the situation, while at the same time being brave enough to offer her own (perhaps controversial to some) opinions on what should be done.

Ash commented on Do we own the land or does the land own us? on January 19, 2008, 12:20 AM

i don't think you are over-thinking things. i think you are on the right track.if you look at many of the conflicts that have been waged in history, they have primarily been over some piece of land. whether that land is physical in the case of territorial and border conflicts, social in the form of battles over the OWNERSHIP of human property (slaves, colonial subjects, First World Nations virtually "owning" the destinies and labor of Third World Nations who are in debt to them), or abstract in the form of ownership over intellectual property etc. Our beliefs that we could own physical plots of land extended to more and more abstract beliefs that we could own intangible things as well. so i think that this question is very important in our world today.the way we abuse the environment speaks volumes about our attitude towards the poorest people in society, and the way we treat a prime piece of manhattan or beach-front property can perhaps explain our attitudes to ownership over different abstract ideas/art/philosophies etc.I haven't done enough research about this subject, but i feel that if we can begin to understand why and how human beings came to believe they were entitled to owning land, we can begin to understand and hopefully correct some of the major problems (that don't seem to be related to property ownership at all) in society.

Ash commented on What is wrong with homosexuality? on January 18, 2008, 11:46 PM

i think that sex-negativity has a lot to do with the reason some people believe homosexuality is "wrong." i think society vilifies almost all sexual minorities, and i think it has more to do with sex than other perceived differences. perhaps the reason sexual minorities are "punished" by society is because they manage to live out the "fantasies" and behaviors that mainstream society has severely repressed in itself.unfortunately (or perhpaps fortunately?) in our society, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning) people have been portrayed as being over-sexualized beings of uncontrollable urges and unnatural lusts, or simply people who are more open about sex. Since judeo-christian traditions have historically only condoned sex as an act of procreation, LGBTQ people have suffered because in the limited view of such reigning traditions, the fact that LGBTQ people weren't having sex to procreate meant that in some way their sex was inferior to heterosexual sex and was actually sinful because it served no evolutionary purpose. i honestly believe that if society was more sex positive and open to the idea that sexual behavior and sexual pleasure is healthy and for more than just pumping out babies, maybe society wouldn't have vilified homosexual people as harshly as it did and still does. "don't be offended, this is all my opinion, ain't nothing that i'm saying law"-India.Arie "Video" lyrics

Ash commented on What do you think happens to you when you die? on January 18, 2008, 11:18 PM

i think people care a lot about life after death because they are afraid to live life now and hope they will have a second chance at happiness. however that said, i do believe that there is an essential human awareness - a "soul" or spirit - that perhaps continues after we die.due to years of childhood indoctrination, i cannot completely forget the idea of heaven, and i have to say that when people i love die, the idea of a heaven where we will meet again is comforting. but then i think about religious fundamentalists and their belief that only people like them get into heaven, and i have to say that if heaven is full of people like them, they can keep it. i like the idea of reincarnation - it makes biological sense since everything in nature is recycled (dead animals become fertilizer for new plants etc etc). maybe we just change form after we die.it doesn't matter because i think questions like this detract from the real questions like why are we alive and why are we here? those are questions that we can possibly hope to answer.