5 Popular Ideas Holding Humanity Back

[FrankDK]

>  there are some pretty glaring differences between religious extremism and sports fandom (for starters, only one is set up as a series of directives on how to live one's life and how to treat others and is absolutely unquestionable) that make it a faulty comparison.

> It's surprising (and a bit sad) that I'm seemingly alone in pointing this out.

I can't think of a sports team whose adherents killed six and a half million Jews.

There is a qualitative difference between sports fans and religious nuts.  How many laws that affect individual behavior are being advocated by sports fans?  How many political candidates are selected based on their sports affiliations?  How many people are killed by fundamentalist sports fans?

Frank

[Plu]

There is a qualitative difference between sports fans and religious nuts. How many laws that affect individual behavior are being advocated by sports fans? How many political candidates are selected based on their sports affiliations?

Now we're talking differences. These aren't really things sports teams supporters do, indeed. Nor are usually really interested in. Hadn't really considered that part yet.

How many people are killed by fundamentalist sports fans?

Sadly, more than a few.

[FrankDK]

> I get your point, but the principle is the same. Exactly the same. Same drug affect on masses, violence, money, power...everything that goes behind just to win....the whole industry. Same.

There are certainly aspects that are the same: waste of effort, time and money spent on non-productive enterprises, crazy devotion to a nebulous concept, etc.  But there are aspects that are considerably different.

Frank

[frosty]

Cracked mostly tries too hard to be trendy and appeal to a younger crowd, and that drives off a massive potential reader base found in adults aged ~25-35, and even middle aged and senior readers. That was a mistake and I think they know that, which is why their content appears to be getting more mature and valuable in the recent times.

And I get this aching feeling that Cracked is beating a dead horse here... with humans, the more things change, the more they remain the same. It's 2013 and men still beat women, we still live in tribes and people still believe in divine prophecy and doomsday theories. Evolution is a very..... slow process, and change with humans tends to move in a circle. Although I don't think Cracked intends to try to change anytning, it's good they didn't bother in the first place. Trust me, you don't want to try to change yourself and people just to realize in the end you barely changed anybody (if anybody at all), and you did change yourself but at the expense of societal approval and other opportunities you would have gotten had you followed the game, as corrupt as it is.

[Colanth]

Not a coincidence that the picture is of Glen Beck. This built in "religion is vital to our nation" and we will pay the consequences, etc. is very much with us. We have gone from "progress is our most important product" to progressives are evil, and the religion of our forefathers is all that can save us.

"Our forefathers" - who were progressives, rebels and, according to the Romans, atheists.

[Sal1981]

I disagree with #1, just because we believe in nothing, doesn't necessarily mean we'll fill the void with anything else. And some things are "it's just a...", things don't hold equal value, which the author misaligns with emotional conviction. Doing something that's logical in spite of emotions should be #1. Awe is a bad excuse if it can't be backed up by evidence and rationale.

[FrankDK]

> It's also mass manipulation, drugging societies, feeding an underdeveloped sense of nationalism, feeding sexism and discrimination for both genders, creating an inflated culture centered on physical competition only, and building a disgusting celebrity culture that defines athletes as HEROES of a society. It doesn't matter if you or some minority of individuals 'don't see it that way'.

True.  And fundamentalist religious activities and sports activities probably access the same reptilian areas of the brain.

Frank