#and yes I am a dionysus apologist

[just-an-enby-lemon]

If you are an "Odysseus deserves to be crying every day in Calypsos island for seven years." fuck you. No he didn't. Yes, Odysseus is a fucked up guy. No he didn't deserve that. Even if he wasn't my babygirl, pet liar, he would not have deserved that. I wouldn't have said that even to Theseus and I hate that bitch so fucking much. No one, no one, deserves to be a victim!

[lastoneout]

Okay I'm finally sitting down to properly watch the PJO series so here's an episode-by-episode live blog I guess. (Fair warning, I haven't read the books since I was a teenager, I am a smidge of an apologist for the films, and my favorite adaptation so far has been the musical.)

Episode One:

All of the actors are doing a really good job, I especially like Sally.

The costume design for both the monsters and the humans is pretty killer. I want Percy's sweater.

I also love the little seaside cabin and want to live there!!!

This is such a mild gripe BUT as someone with dyslexia I wish there was a better way to visually depict it without like, doing the swapping letters thing cuz that's just not what it's actually like at all.

Gabe maybe feels a little too funny. Like I'm supposed to hate him and think it's justified that he deserves to be turned into stone at the end, this version of him is really.....toned down, and his banter with Percy and Sally was fun to watch. I should hate him, but really he just came across as unpleasant. Less abusive asshole and more "old married couple who share interests but can't communicate without shouting" you know?

Loved Grover's little "I'm 24 actually" lmao that was great.

Not a fan of Percy immediately recognizing the Minotaur within a millisecond of it appearing before the audience even got a good look at it. Like, I just sat there thinking "how can he even see it?" rather than feeling scared of a big monster barreling at them.

The action is uh....fine? Feels a little lackluster. Or kinda....divorced from the rest of the show weirdly?? Idk it makes me feel like I'm watching a movie of a movie if that makes sense?? But we'll see where they go with it. (I know banter during a fight isn't realistic and people make fun of Marvel for it, but like...it helps to have at least a little talking. We don't wanna be Man of Steel.)

I feel like there's been a few "slightly out of sync ADR" moments but they weren't too distracting.

Pacing into Sally saying goodbye felt a little long, kinda took the shock of her dying out of the scene, but the actress REALLY sold all the emotional beats so I'll forgive it.

I LOVE the credits sequence!!! Reminds me of the designs on that one box set of the books in a really cool way.

Episode Two:

Oh yes the ugly ass neon orange shirts are here bless!

FUCK YES THAT'S DIONYSUS BAYBEEE!! My ONLY note is that he def could have turned up the energy a little, but that's probably just bcs I love how loud and unpleasant he is in the musical and I also know how unhinged this actor can be.

Chiron is such a delight <3

I like the cabins too, way better than how I imagined them as a kid reading the books lol

Oh, I can see why the new fans fell for Luke so hard.

Grover assuming a human being squished would be like an old banana is very funny. Felt very book-humor in a good way.

Clarisse!!

Oh damn actual disabled half-bloods, very cool!

Minor but I can't actually tell what Percy did wrong with the bow? Weird editing I guess.

Aside from that I actually love a good "fuck up" montage, I honestly wish it were a little longer.

Probably doesn't matter but I don't get having them burn the food after they've started eating? I thought that was a before you sit down type thing.

Percy burning the blue candy to try to talk to his mom was sweet tho T_T

"real friends" hahahaha.....yeah.......about Luke.......

yay! hazing!

Oh I love Annabeth already >:D

Thalia.....is pronounced differently than I thought....?

(I'm sorry I'm too much of a fan of 'Tree on the Hill' for this exposition dump. That shit hits harder when coming from Grover.)

Percy giving Annabeth the "actually I suck and my self esteem is riding on this so like pls don't ask me to do anything hard T_T" talk is just, so good lmao

ofc he doesn't know what's going on Annabeth you didn't tell him anything

Okay the action is a lot better when it's between the actual characters and doesn't involve a 3D monster, though I still had trouble following all the hits Percy was taking.

Oooh I can see why people did so much art of Percy being claimed that was a good shot.

FUCK YEAH TELL HIM YOU'RE SALLY JACKSON'S SON

(I hope they kept the Oracle in the attic...)

Okay I have to go do some things and then I'll be back for more!

[arospecsyourblockdudes]

a. all?

Aether- Name?

Kylie

Anteros- Sexuality?

Lesbian

Apollo- Gender?

Girl

Ares- Favourite movie?

I have literally no idea

Artemis- Favourite time of day?

I like either sunset or when the sun’s gone down and you can see all the stars

Asclepius- Favourite animal?

Probably wolves

Athena- Favourite thing to learn about?

I love little forgotten bits of history, like Callie House

Atlas- Favourite myth?

The myth of Medusa, even though it makes me sad

Cerberus- Dog or cat person?

CAT

Cronus- Favourite food?

My mom’s mac and cheese

Cyclopes- What’s your favourite joke?

Rickrolling is still pretty epic

Dionysus- Favourite drink?

Appled juice

Eros- Are you in love?

I dunno

Hades- Greatest fear?

Someone slowly going from thinking of me as a friend to hardly feeling any connection to me, especially if I play a part in it without knowing. Being forgotten by people who are important to me. Clowns

Helios- Night or day person?

Night

Hephaestus- What is your favourite form of art?

I like statuary a lot! I mean, it takes a lot to carve really detailed stuff from like,,,a rock

Hermes- Do you like traveling? Where is one place you want to travel to?

I do! I think I’d like to go back to Paris

Hypnos- On average, how much sleep do you try to get every night?

I try to sleep, yes

Icarus- How would you describe yourself?

The second I’m asked about myself, I forget everything I am

Labyrinth- Do you have a good sense of direction/do you get lost easily?

I’m great at directions

Medusa- Do you have any pets?

Dog,,

Odysseus- Do you finish tasks quicker, or does it take time for you to get through them?

It takes me forever to do anything

Pandora’s Box- What is a mistake you’ve made that you regret?

I don’t know

Pegasus- What is your relationship with your parents like?

It’s pretty good

Persephone- What is your “type”?

Girl

Phobos- Do you think it’s okay to be afraid of things?

Why wouldn’t it be

Poseidon- Do you like to swim?

Not anymore

Prometheus- If you could have any one ability, what would it be?

I’d like to be invisible

River Styx- What do you think happens when we die?

I think our energy goes somewhere else, so reincarnation 

Titans- If you could go anywhere in time, when would you want to go?

Queen concert. 

Zeus- Favourite weather?

Not to be a Zeus apologist but storms

[dieverdediger]

Has Science Buried God? - Krauss vs Craig

I’m writing this while my memory is still fresh.

This debate between William Lane Craig and Lawrence Kraus was on the topic, Has Science Buried God? 

When the debate started I was amazed to hear Krauss’s qualifications. That he studied at Yale and had those prestigious positions made me think: “Craig has met more than his match when it comes to cosmology. This ought to be interesting”. As far as I’m aware, Craig has no official education on cosmology, but rather studies it on his own time. Therefore I concluded that whatever Krauss said on the topic I have to take seriously.

As such I was amazed that Krauss spent more than half of his presentation poisoning the well against Craig, showing the audience the videos I saw a while back where Craig “misrepresented” Dawkins and Krauss. He then went further by telling how bad Craig is for defending the expulsion of the Canaanites. Yes, those are important topics. But surely you have a more intellectual, objective use for your time? Such as proving that science buried God? I’ve never in my life seen any debate, not by Carrier or Dawkins or Ehrman or Hitchens (the last three who have or had a lot of passion), or some more reactionary Christians, not any, in which one participant so emotionally attacked his opponent.

In the discussion, for the first half Krauss barely gave Craig any time to answer his questions, interrupting him constantly. At one point he even screamed (1:31:50). I respect Ehrman, a lot. I respect Hitchens for his civility. I respect Carrier for his down to earth tone. I even (dare I say it?) respect Dawkins for generally being civil in his debates. But this emotional, childish reactions of Krauss and his tactic of muddying the water - in spite of him saying he detests any misrepresentations - I cannot respect. 

Yet one should not lose focus of the (lack of) arguments he gives, so let’s continue.

The other half of his time was spent talking about the similarities between Christianity and other religions. Seeing him compare Jesus to Dionysus was quite funny, actually. If you still believe in all these similarities, I really urge you to look up these pagan religions on Britannica Academic. That’s not my only source (I studied a little bit of Greek religion a while back), yet I believe it to be an objective, respected one. Besides, arguing that because those pagan mythologies are false that therefore Christianity is false is a very elementary non-sequitur. He said that science has disproved 999 gods, so why should the God of Christianity be any different? I will ignore (will I?) the obvious: all those gods are part of nature and most of them have not existed for eternity. To say that polytheism is false that therefore monotheism, which has always posited an eternal creator of the universe - in contrast to the temporal, mortal, limited gods who did not create the universe which most ancient mythologies posit - , is false, quite clearly does not follow.

On his slides, Krauss said:

Knowledge about the physical world has buried almost all the gods.

Nothing different about Jesus or Christianity

It is my wish for these debate reviews to be in a more neutral tone, in the line of the one I did for the debate between Craig and Atkins. Yet every time I hear an argument of the Christian God being the same as all the other gods, I am reminded of a Biblical story. It concerned the time when the Assyrian empire devoured the Middle East. They were, as far as I know, the first major empire in the Middle East. The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, wrote a letter to the people of Judah, which an emissary read to them in Hebrew. He said:

(2 Kings 18:32-35)

“Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?  Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?"

It seems Krauss is not so original in his thinking. 

Krauss also repeated the now very old genetic fallacy, that in America people are Christians because they are raised this way and that the same applies to every other religion. Interestingly, and I doubt he knows this, Craig was not raised in a Christian home. I might as well just say that someone raised in Communist Russia is simply an atheist because he was raised that way and that therefore atheism is false. That doesn’t follow. It also doesn’t explain conversions.

Krauss said, in his slide, that we “need to bury God to produce a better moral and ethical world”. He said that you can say something is wrong because it causes pain (50:51). Craig asked why it is wrong to cause pain. Krauss simply said that it is based on “rationality”. Craig pushed the point by asking him if he really thinks that whatever is best for the greatest number of people is therefore good. Instead of giving a direct answer, he went on a rant about what’s best for society and production. The moderator (perhaps out of line) pointed out that what Krauss is espousing here, is basically utilitarianism, which is not just “based on rationality” but is highly contentious. Krauss constantly tells people what his utilitarianism is “based on rationality”, not bothering to explain that that is a highly debatable position. The moderator said, and I quote, “I am wondering if you’re not trading a little bit on the philosophical and moral ignorance of your usual audiences by throwing out themes like that as if they are non-contentious, simply rational given topics?” Is Krauss misleading people? Is that not one of the things he despises of Craig? Hypocrisy? Krauss did not respond to the accusation directly, but he did say that the moderator is “well aware of my [Kraus’s] opinion of the utility of philosophy”. What is he saying here? That philosophy is not that useful? Way to go to dismiss the moderators question. How useful. On a side note, it’s interesting how atheist apologists in the debates I’ve watched, such as Atkins, Hitchens, Dawkins and now Krauss tend to dismiss philosophy out of hand. The only debate I’ve watched where the atheist did not do so, was (coincidentally?) the one between Craig and the atheist-turned-deist philosopher, Antony Flew.

On the origins of Western scientific thought, Craig stated (32:18) that there are certain assumptions undergirding science which are grounded in philosophy and theology. These are: the laws of logic, that our cognitive faculties are reliable in knowing the world, that the physical world is orderly structured, the validity of inductive reasoning and the objectivity of the moral values used in science. This was stated in his presentation, yet the main discussion on this happened in the second half of the debate, so one may excuse Krauss missing the point. When they discussed it Krauss said that the reason - and he has a good point - that Western science was intertwined with religion was because the scientists of the day had to have had connections with bishops and popes to secure their futures. That otherwise they would not have gotten far. But now it is now no longer necessary to appeal to religion. However, as true as that is, he missed the fundamental point which Craig posited: that, consciously or not, scientists do have these assumptions which are grounded in philosophical and theological considerations and which cannot be proven by science but are taken as given.

Interesting quotes by Lawrence Krauss is that he, personally, believes it to be more probable than not that the universe had a beginning (1:31:38), and also that he believes it to be child abuse to teach children religion (1:23:29) (I’m writing this for future references where these statements can be very important).

All what bothered my from Craig is that he stooped down to Krauss’s level in the last ten minutes (1:29:00) by making a personal attack on Krauss. I can defend him by saying that Craig was probably tired of one and a half hours of interruptions and accusations by Krauss, yet I won’t. He should have been the better man. He said that Krauss misrepresents - contrary to the latter’s hatred of misrepresentations - the notion of what “nothing” is. Craig is right, but he should have put it more tactfully.

Although, on the one hand, I appreciate the moderator’s point on Krauss taking advantage of people’s lack of philosophical knowledge, I do think it unprofessional for him to have taken a side. 

The debate itself was rather a disappointment. It seemed to have focused more on morality and the issue of the Canaanites than cosmology.

Here's a poem to end with.

The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.  Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.  For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!  And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.  And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail: And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.  And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!