== World Heritage Sites ==
: Fine, thank you! --[[User:Joaquín Martínez|Joaquín Martínez]] 09:40, 24 January 2012 (EST)
== DICK HEAD ==
==Blast from the Past==
Karajou, my voice will not be censored any longer. I want to respect you, and I wish you could respect me, but that will never be possible if you don't directly communicate with me. Please send me and email, or a message on CP if you don't want to disclose your email address. I am not demanding instant change or personal gratification; I merely want people to start working together instead of fighting. I will not make any mainspace edits if you will agree to give me a voice. Please do not ban me; I will find a way back on with the below message again and again. I would love to talk to you about this; I simply disagree with the direction that Conservapedia has taken, and I would like to help it become a positive resource again. Also, please don't label me using pejorative smears. Thank you.
Hello, Conservapedia. My name is Jared Hoeft, and I became a user on this sight under the name of ForeverPeace with the hopes of being able to reverse some of the hateful partisanship I saw flooding through almost every page. I wanted to display my opinions as one man's ideas, while at the same time respecting the rules and the opinions of others, in the hopes of showing my fellow users kindness, open mindedness, and love. It pains me to admit this, but I now see that this mission is impossible. Please, read this entire essay before erasing it, and please, talk to me about it before banning me. I apologize in advance for sounding angry in this essay, and I apologize to anybody who feels personally offended. Please email me with your concerns. My email is hoeftfam@hutchtel.net.
Allow me to begin with a brief self-explanation. I was born into a Christian and moderately Liberal family 17 years ago, and I was immersed in the Methodist Church from my earliest infancy. When I was in middle school, I began to reconsider my religious beliefs. It's not that I didn't love my family, for they are wonderful people. I simply wanted to start thinking for myself. For a while, I was Atheist because it was the cool thing to do in my group of friends. Then I became a self-aware Christian for a short time, before becoming something of a directionless Agnostic. My thoughts on this matter are this: God did not create man, man created God. I look back to ancient civilizations like Ur, Rome, and Egypt, and I see barbaric religions bluntly based on control and tradition, often maintaining influence through fear. Today's religions are much more thoughtful than those, but at their core, they are no different. Religions, like the sciences, are the product of human beings attempting to explain the world around them. I can't put my faith in either of the two, but I have to say I prefer science because true scientists go out into the field in order to establish a hypothesis or piece of knowledge, while religious science goes out with a preconceived notion it wants to defend.
When I look at Religion, I generally see control and the suppression of thought. I was born into a Christian family, and therefore I was a Christian. However, had I been born in India, I probably would have been Hindu. We as a species so easily accept what is dumped into our brains as the truth without thought or honest observance and self-examination. I do not self-identify as a Conservative, a Liberal, or any other ideological categorization. I recognize that many of my ideas are Liberal in nature, and because my family tends to be Liberal, I must always question whether the things I believe are my ideas or the ideas of my parents. I simply haven't decided what makes the most sense to me philosophically; to me, and to the pastor at my church, spirituality is a journey, not a static choice. I'm on a search for a truth I may never find, but my solace is that I am open to every different opinion to some extent.
Sorry about that! I just had to get it off my chest. When I first became a user at CP not too long ago, I entered with the plan of creating and editing only non-controversial pages, mainly involving music. I decided that I would not make any controversial mainspace edits, but I have contributed my thoughts to several talk pages, which leads me to the reason that I am writing this manifesto. Conservapedia was founded with the perceived intention of providing an alternative to Wikipedia written from a family-friendly, Pro-American, Conservative, and Young Earth Creationist viewpoint. I am not here to argue about the validity of any of those matters; they are all unfalsifiable viewpoints that generate useless, endless bickering. I am here to say that CP has become something that's almost the exact opposite of what it aspired to be.
Conservapedia is fascism disguised and promoted as Christianity. Fascism is defined as a political system of thought aimed at controlling a nation under a single-party system with a dictator, who eliminates thoughts and actions that he/she and the ruling party view as detrimental to the society (see answers.com for my source). This is precisely what Conservapedia is: When somebody disagrees with the dictator (Andrew Schlafly) and his political party (Extreme Conservatism), he or she is eliminated from the site. If you so much as admit to holding liberal thoughts, you run a high risk of being permanently banned, your thoughts and words forever suppressed. THIS IS FASCISM. Allow me to present some examples.
First and foremost is the page that originally drove me to join CP, the talk page to an entry lovingly titled "Mystery: Why do Non-Conservatives Exist?" Here's the link: http://www.conservapedia.com/Talk:Mystery:Why_Do_Non-Conservatives_Exist%3F On this page, I watched in horror as people were banned left and right for pointing out that the "Statistical Analysis" was complete bogus, having no legitimate citations or factual backups. Conservapedia states in its page on deceit that Liberals are the prime practitioners, but this page presents the opposite message. This is a prime example of the opinions of some being expressed blatantly as the absolute truth. It's truly disgusting.
For another prime example, see the page on Barack Obama. Once again expressing opinions as the absolute truth, alternative ideas are suppressed. Furthermore, there is no sense of clarity or writing ability on the page, which meanders meaninglessly from one hateful opinion of Obama to another. Site admins claim that it is up to the reader to decide what they think, but the reader has no choices to make when all they are presented with is one viewpoint. An encyclopedia's job is to present the various opinions of many as just that: opinions. Their prime function should be to strive for the underlying truth, if there is any, but Conservapedia refuses to remove the fish-eye lens. I found this gem by Mr. Schlafly himself in the talk page on Obama:
"Myles, one can tell you're a liberal just by observing how many words it takes you to say nothing. Your non-American spelling of "honor" is also a giveaway."--Andy Schlafly 22:43, 29 January 2009 (EST)
See the subsection entitled "Real Koran NOT Bible" to check the context of this quote. Basically, Myles was saying that we should wait until Obama has been the president for a while before we throw our hatred at him, and I couldn't agree more. Our duty as Americans is to help our President do the best job he can of leading our nation, and fighting amongst ourselves doesn't help at all. Instead of addressing Myles's points, Andy simply gripes about foreign spelling and accuses Myles of being Liberal. And that brings me to my next piece of evidence.
First sentence on the entry entitled Conservative: "A conservative is one who adheres to principles of limited government, personal responsibility and moral values."
First sentence on the entry entitled Liberal: "A liberal is someone who rejects logical and biblical standards, often for self-centered reasons."
"Per capita atheists and agnostics in the United States give significantly less to charity than theists even when church giving is not counted for theists." (Taken from Conservapedia's Main Page)
Non-POV? That's a complete farce. These opinion-drenched "definitions" show Conservapedia for what it is: A political propaganda machine bent on demonizing Liberals and removing them from positions of power, regardless of their intelligence or ability. The Main Page itself contains an abundance of "News Articles" that focus on making Liberalism look bad, without showing any faults within Conservativism. Wikipedia does indeed have a Liberal bias, in my humble opinion, simply because many of the lead editors are Liberal. Conservapedia was founded to eliminate that bias, but it has become the ultimate example of the very thing it wanted to destroy. Jesus said in Matthew 7: "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother,—Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
Conservapedia is the embodiment of hypocrisy, accusing Liberals of the very things it does best: Demonize, deceive, poison, undermine unity, control thoughts, and etcetera. It's not an encyclopedia at all; it's a place for immature "Christians" to go and foster hatred for those who disagree. It violates its own rules and morals left and right through a system of selective enforcement; only those who disagree with the site's preconceived notions of truth are subject to such things as the 90/10 rule.
The only hope for this site is to be destroyed and begun anew. I support Philip J. Rayment as the leader of Conservapedia for his calm, calculated, and mature approach to a site that should be advocating loving, Christian values, open-mindedness, and thoughtful self-exploration. Although I disagree with many of the Conservative ideas, I value openness and acceptance of others over all else; I believe that the solution to many of our world's problems and advancement standstills is for everybody to at least try to open up to the opinions of others. I am NOT perfect. I struggle with open-mindedness, too. All I'm asking for is peace and understanding, love and a sense of reason. Is that so much to ask from a site that claims to strive for those virtues to begin with? Why can't human beings try to love one another again?
You can delete this page and block my account, but I will do whatever it takes to get this message out. Conservapedia has become an amoral, horrendous monster that strives to tear our "One Nation, Under God, Indivisible" into several barbaric ideological tribes. It presents to Liberals the message that Conservatives are generally hateful, hypocritical bullies out to start wars of thought. I know that the true Conservative line of thinking has a great deal of good, loving ideas within it that can benefit our society. But the bottom line is, no human is perfect, and no human thinking system is absolutely better than any other, including my own. We have to learn to work together in peace, and get past our differences. I believe Conservapedia can do that and then some, but the abomination it currently is does nothing but destroy and close minds.
JeremyJCH 22:36, 12 February 2009 (EST)
