Do you know what the worst thing is about having studied psychology? It's when you tell someone about it and they recoil in mock horror from you and look all nervous and giggle about how they bet you know exactly what they are thinking, don't you? I want so badly just to say "Yes, but that's not because I studied psychology, it's because you're a fuckwit." I hate this pathetically mindless belief that, somehow, having studied psychology gives you the power to turn someone's skull into glass and lets you read what they are thinking about on the little mindscreens inside. The world is full of these stupid, stereotyped reactions. If you tell someone that one of your hobbies is playing computer games, you are treated like a moron or a child; tell a group of lads that you don't support any teams because you hate football, and you'll have your sexuality questioned; tell someone that you do roleplaying games and you are instantly a geek, despite the fact that the person who has said this to you can tell you the lineup of Manchester United in 1995 and exactly how many goals they scored in each game they played that year without even a pause. The reason for this proliferation of automated programs is simple; most people are thick.
You heard me. They're thick. They can't handle having to actually think about anything beyond drinking a can of Special Brew, staring slack-jawed at a bunch of howling baboons on the telly voting for X Factor, and farting, so people acquire a set of standardised, second-hand responses to things - social programs, if you will. They're like a viral set of memes, passed on from idiot to idiot. Most of them are passing on opinions or statements, ad verbatim, that they then recite ad nauseum like some sort of reality-defying mantra when their single thought is challenged. How many more 'salt of the earth' cunts must I hear bang on about how the BNP is 'only representing the voters, mate, that's democracy'?
The real danger, however, comes from religion. Religion thrives on creating and passing on whole meme sets to allow the common person to cope with most situations - need to deal with homosexuality? Here you go. Someone is an atheist? Here's a bunch of statements we think are clever and that should befuddle them, yet leave you writhing like an insect on a pin when they come back with deeper questions. Religion goes deeper though. It passes on a whole second hand morality and saves you the effort of having to think your way through any morally grey situation you might come up against in your life. The side effect of this is that most of them don't fully understand these morals, which is probably why they keep fucking them up (Dubya not quite understanding the idea of loving thy neighbour, and the whole 'thou shalt not kill' thing - hint: it applies even if you don't actually do the killing with your own hands, Bush - for example). Religions pass on these ideals, these beliefs, and make imbecilic recommendations like the Catholics telling Africans that contraception is a BAD THING despite the rife AIDS epidemic there. It's based on fairy stories from the arse end of time that have somehow achieved massive validity simply because enough people around the world repeat it in the face of all of the evidence to the contrary (which is pretty much all of the evidence that's available, incidentally). And what's more, the Republic of Ireland has just passed a law that makes it a crime to say all of this, because it's blasphemous.
Let's just look at that last bit again in case your mind refused to accept it the first time.
In the year 2010, when we should all be driving flying cars, when science has unravelled the human genome, worked out what happened mere seconds after the Big Bang, made enormous discoveries about the origins of life and the processes of evolution and can send a probe out to the cold, distant worlds of our solar system to parachute through an alien atmosphere, where homosexuality is becoming more and more accepted, where rationality and logic and evidence and information are deemed the ultimate tools in the quest for knowledge, the Republic of Ireland has made it illegal to write anything that might offend a religious person, on pain of a fine of up to £20,000. I mean, have you seen how easy it is to offend deeply religious people? Just saying that you know someone who's gay and they're quite nice actually on your Facebook page is enough to send some religious idiots foaming at the mouth and chewing on furniture. Writing "There is no god and those who think otherwise are morons" on your blog will trigger a frenzied horde of offended Catholics that will burst through your door and drag you screaming to the courtroom, there to get a criminal record and a ridiculously over the top fine.
How far will it go, this law? Let's say you live in Dublin, and you're engaged in conversation on an internet forum or newsgroup, and you say to a persistent fundamentalist mentalist that they need to go and look at the evidence for evolution because their literal bible interpretation is not backed by any evidence whatsoever, and all of the evidence supports evolution. You get caught because the guy you're talking to is also Irish and he rings the police. You've blasphemed, mate. Down to the courtroom. Ker-ching! Twenty grand, please, do not pass go. What else? Will you be fined for owning a copy of The God Delusion by well-known idiot-basher Richard Dawkins on the grounds that your religious neighbour once came round for coffee and was offended when she saw it on your bookshelf as the title is blasphemous? Ker-ching! Another twenty grand, just for having a book!
I think that it is a fundamental part of freedom of speech that we are allowed to criticise everything; government, law, the media, religion, everything that tries to hold a position of power over us should be held up to the same scrutiny by the people and be prepared to stand or fall on its own merits. I'd personally go one further and say that before any religion gets to be taken seriously by anyone, they should have to actually present the case for the existence and factual basis of their religion in a court of law and have it proven beyond doubt that their religion is completely factual and is in no way based on half truths, myths or outright lies - and they're facing Dawkins on the other side of the argument. Otherwise it's bullshit and they should shut the fuck up crying to the state when people call them on it. The Irish government is basically legitimising religion's brand of mindless thought control by silencing dissent in a not dissimilar way to how Stalin silenced political dissent in Soviet Russia. When you make opposition illegal, you're on a very, very slippery slope indeed. It's quite funny to watch religious folk flap about with their fingers in their ears shouting "I CAN'T HEAR YOU! NYAH NYAH!" when faced with evidence, that proves them wrong, it is chilling in the extreme to see the atheist strapped to a chair with tape over his mouth whilst the religious stand around in front of them spewing their braindead bile about how atheism is the work of the devil, and aren't atheists all evil people, and atheism is the rot at the heart of our society - because let's be brutally frank here, atheism isn't protected by this new law. Oh no. If some pious cunt says to you that you're an evil monster who isn't fit to walk this earth because you're a vile, queer-loving atheist, you can't take them to court for offending your 'beliefs'.
Basically, the Republic of Ireland, by creating this anachronistic law, has just cemented itself in the position as Europe's Village Idiot, complete with a stupid straw hat and dogshit smeared around the mouth. It doesn't take a psychologist to work that out, either, Ireland, so stop pulling that face and telling me that you bet I know what you're thinking. Fucking dunce.
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