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Use this forum to show your viewpoint of why not having religion is okay, or good, in an artistic manner. Art can lead to understanding in a way logic cannot. Ideally, art can allow others to walk in your shoes, and you to walk in theirs.
Hopefully I did a halfway decent job on the example:
Hawk Man
There once was a hawk man who fell from a cloud, battered down in a hail storm.
He didn't know anything about a God.
He knew of the beauty of stars at night and cloud tops in sunlight.
He knew of rainbows and sunsets.
He knew of comets and Venus.
The people below, who he'd fallen in with, had the nerve to say he knew nothing of beauty, that life was meaningless without God, that the hawk man rebelled from something he had never been told about, something he had never seen, nor known about, before he fell to earth.
The ground dwellers patched his wings with bandages.
They fed him beef and fruit.
After a time, the hawk man grew strong enough to soar once more.
"Thank the Almighty," said the townsfolk.
"Indeed, whoever he is," said the hawk man. "I think I'd rather thank you folk though. I will fly with my own wings, but it was you who gave them back to me," said the hawk man, before soaring away.
I am not a homosexual, not that there's anything wrong with that.
While I appreciate the artistic worth and approach of your post, I myself tend to distrust the use of art for propaganda purposes, whether novels, fillums or poems.
If I have a point to make I much prefer to put it in rational and debatable prose form.
Art can lead to understanding in a way logic cannot.
Your mind must work in ways mine doesn't.
What did that have to do with homsexuality?
Ah, stereotypes. Also, writing short stories or poems can be intimidating. Adding humor can help dissolve that intimidation. That was my goal. I don't think this has anything to do with homosexuality. I apologize if anyone found my statement insulting.
While I appreciate the artistic worth and approach of your post, I myself tend to distrust the use of art for propaganda purposes, whether novels, fillums or poems.
If I have a point to make I much prefer to put it in rational and debatable prose form.
That sounds good to me. I'm an English major though. This is my thing. I know how to make things sound good, and would like to use what skill I hope I have for a positive cause. I won't make any more postings on this thread though, if you think it is a poor idea. I'll save it for my own stories. I doubt anyone will make postings on this anyway. They'll share your view, and if not, they'll likely find the forum too intimidating. If anyone has any good work, they won't want to post it here, but perhaps in a book of poetry or short stories.
That sounds good to me. I'm an English major though. This is my thing. I know how to make things sound good, and would like to use what skill I hope I have for a positive cause. I won't make any more postings on this thread though, if you think it is a poor idea. I'll save it for my own stories. I doubt anyone will make postings on this anyway. They'll share your view, and if not, they'll likely find the forum too intimidating. If anyone has any good work, they won't want to post it here, but perhaps in a book of poetry or short stories.
I'm not so much saying don't do it, but expressing my reservations. They are purely mine and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. It just that I would feel slightly sick at the thought of Atheist propaganda stories for tiny kiddies.
'Bobby the atheist Rabbit and the fundamentalist fox..' Just as I grind my teeth at the Atheist professor tales. Mind. I like 'Life of Brian' and 'Kissing hank's nether end' and i've posted the Holy Grail Black Knight episode a couple of times, so maybe you're right and I'm wrong.
I'm not so much saying don't do it, but expressing my reservations. They are purely mine and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. It just that I would feel slightly sick at the thought of Atheist propaganda stories for tiny kiddies.
'Bobby the atheist Rabbit and the fundamentalist fox..' Just as I grind my teeth at the Atheist professor tales. Mind. I like 'Life of Brian' and 'Kissing hank's nether end' and i've posted the Holy Grail Black Knight episode a couple of times, so maybe you're right and I'm wrong.
I am unfamiliar with the Atheist professor tales. If my example seemed similar to anything titled "'Bobby the atheist Rabbit and the fundamentalist fox" that was not my intention. My ideas are more along the lines of things like having a very noble hero who happens to be an atheist. I have another idea for a horribly deformed, mute, seven foot tall monster who makes some mistakes, but is a noble being. For him though, I never say that he is non-religious, but it is emphasized that he wants to be a noble being because of a combination of wanting to be accepted and merely wanting to be a noble being.
I have another character who states "There is no magic. There is no fate. rise to your throne and rule your earth," She is somewhat of both a heroine and a villain, and I may change her viewpoints as they encourage a stereotype of non-religious people thinking only of long term goals, but the phrase "There is no magic. There is no fate. Rise to your throne and rule your earth," along with her encouragement does act as a way of getting him to understand that he has potential. He ends up being a sort of horribly deformed white knight.
I saw the movie "The Golden Compass." It implies, in a way, that religion is harmful to children, as several of the heroines are witches attempting to save the children whos demons are being cut away by evil "gobblers." I don't want to go that far. I just think that there aren't enough atheist shining white heroes. There are lots of atheist anti-heroes, but most of the selfless folk tend to be religious.
Also, my writings can become very dark. Ideally, these won't be for little kids. Maybe teens though.
I'll attempt to keep the characters realistic. There will be nonhumans, but they'll basically be modeled after humans, and I'll attempt to keep their personalities mirrored after patterns I've seen too. I'll likely be wrong about human nature, but my goal is never to be unrealistically wrong about actions and personalities.
A wonderful children's story, which seemed to me to create as little damage as a story is capable of doing, was the cartoon series of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'm sure the writers spent a massive amount of time weeding out potential negative teachings. If I'd ever intentionally write children's books, ideally I'd like to put the same level of care into them.
Another example of my goals in being unbiased is that darkness being a reference to evil and white being a reference to good probably encourages rascism. I intend to avoid this as often as possible. Also, in the movie "The Lord of the Rings" Gandalf rode a white horse, the lord of all horses. In the book the horse was black. I'm betting J.R.R. Tolkien intended the horse to be black as a way of showing that good and evil is essentially not black and white.
The Atheist professor is an unflattering personification of science - based skepticism. He is the butt of a number of theist anecdotes where his disbelief is humbled and he (and by extension atheism) is made to look foolish.
He also appeared in a Jack Chick tract where a Creationist student demolished evolution theory with the stuff about Polystrates and Piltdown man and explaining away vestigial organs.
As to LOR, I am aware of and somewhat disapprove of his crusader mentality. That does not stop me from enjoying the book immensely. So you go for it and don't worry about my opinions.
The Atheist professor is an unflattering personification of science - based skepticism. He is the butt of a number of theist anecdotes where his disbelief is humbled and he (and by extension atheism) is made to look foolish.
He also appeared in a Jack Chick tract where a Creationist student demolished evolution theory with the stuff about Polystrates and Piltdown man and explaining away vestigial organs.
As to LOR, I am aware of and somewhat disapprove of his crusader mentality. That does not stop me from enjoying the book immensely. So you go for it and don't worry about my opinions.
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