As long as ICP tonez down the cheese factor slightly.Ill be happy with the album

scruffy said

RobTidwell said  
I’m going to go in reverse if that’s OK?    

i dont make the rules.  same token, im gonna chop up what you said a lil, since i only wanna respond to some of it, and the rest is, as you say,  

At least, that’s my understanding of what he was saying.    

 

You don’t have to get behind the idea. You can complain about the idea all you want.    

thats good, cuz i dont.  and yeah, most likely ill be complaining.  i wouldnt, but im expecting to hear shit slung.  more shit slung.  

I specifically just wish people would stop reading it as some attack on atheism when it seems clear to me that he isn’t saying that. It also doesn’t say that you’re a bad person for being an atheist.    

im not half as worried about j attackin me as i am about other juggalos attackin me.  lucky charged in without a second thought, so random juggalos who dont know me could easily end up bein more of a frustration than they already are.  

he’s saying if you’re a bad person (or if your life is hell) then you need to find your link. He says you gotta ask yourself if your link is found. He isn’t calling out people. he isn’t naming off people who he is calling “lost”    

we wont know that til it drops.  or he spells it out earlier.  

and the MOMENT a juggalo tries to call me lost for not believing in god as a literal truth, I will drag them like a mother fucker because that is not the point.

what if eighty percent of the juggalos around you think that is the point?  

there was plenty of shit slung around after shangrila.  and, in my opinion, it cost us a lot of cool juggalos, and all we got for it was ten years of family kid bullshit.  that herd hasnt gone anywhere, just gotten older.  

He’s saying that cynical people (and I believe he is misusing the term to be people who are hateful) 

perhaps.  he is not noted for his strong command of vocabulary.  

Not exactly. What I’m saying is that J is basically saying that if you feel down, look at what you’re doing and try to bring positive energy around you.  

  …  
I don’t think J thinks that there is some automatic equation and that religious people are always happier, either. The LINK isn’t religion. The LINK isn’t “god”. It’s whatever helps you NOT feel lost. 

that, is definitely an interpretation;  and it doesnt really jive with js statements.  hes pretty obviously talkin religion.  higher power, faith, salvation, even hope, are not terms that find themselves next to each other outside of spiritual context.  

note…

If you live in the dark without faith, “The Missing Link” will ignore you. Your link will be missing, he won’t come to you because you live without hope. He will hide from you behind his mask. He will avoid you. Your link will be missing, you will not be grounded, you will not be complete. Instead you will be lost, in a freefall going nowhere. But if you can somehow find faith, truly in your heart, if you can find salvation somehow in today’s day and age… if you can find faith in a higher power, of any religion, if you live with hope, he will come to you, he will come to you and complete your link. You will be found. You will be grounded.  

no faith = lost, ungrounded, and incomplete.  

faith in a higher power [of a religion, specified] = found, grounded, and complete.  

however he meant it, he is certainly not simply saying, ‘dont worry, be happy’, or ‘look on the bright side’.  

im a cynic, a stone agnostic, and i feel faith is extremely overrated.  hes literally tellin me that those things mean im hopeless and unhappy.  but, if i do something i know i dont wanna do [and which would be miserable to me], then ill be ‘grounded’ [if not happy].  

  

religious folk always think they are doin someone a favor, tryin to ‘bring them to god’.  but i consider that more of a harassment, than a favor.  cuz i dont want it.  

all well and good, i can just not bump the album, right?  but what if this becomes, as i said before, the company line?  what if juggalos start havin an expectation that all juggalos should be ‘found’?  dont brush that off;  remember, family kids are still fuckin constantly tellin their ‘family’ how to be juggalos.  they are nothin but expectation.  this could be even worse.  

 you know, about the only expectation ive ever had about my fellow juggalos, is that they should not be racist.  and im regularly disappointed.  not only are there way too many racist juggalos out there, some of them are real hyper-racist pieces of ratshit.  

meanwhile juggalos have expected an awful lot of ridiculous shit from me.  i gotta whoop back, or im not family.  i gotta let em bum smokes, or im not family.  i gotta take a juggalos side for everything, no matter how obnoxious they act, cuz they are family.  

that aint family, thats institutionalization.  i wouldnt wanna be a part of a family that thinks like that.  

  

I feel you on so much of this. I’m not going to reply to everything, but I wanted to say I get the general fear you have of juggalos trying to turn the shit into a hierarchy within the scene about who is and isn’t a “real” juggalo, especially based on their religious stance. I think those types would have a hard time understanding how I can be an atheist and a sunday school teacher because so many americans think of religion as christianity (or at least abrahamic traditions) and don’t really acknowledge that there’s a lot of other shit out there. I can make one promise and one promise alone: I won’t ever be part of a family that WOULD have an expectation of religiousness.

OK. That was the bolded stuff. Here comes the italics.

I remember the shangri la days. I remember a lot of juggalos who were “family kids” and chased off some of the old school kids. And I remember a lot of juggalos stopped repping simply because of the religious message. They were mad that it was even there as if they hadn’t noticed it before? At the time, I was running with KGP (repping that straight up satanic shit) and hadn’t found my religion but was closer to an agnostic than an atheist. People from outside the family started calling ICP christian and it bugged the shit out of me. Maybe because I never went to gatherings, I never saw too much proselytizing from within and when I did, mostly it fell flat on it’s face. 

I think the biggest problem is as I said before. Too many people take what he’s saying to be strictly literally how he feels. You can’t do that with J. You never could. He contradicts himself repeatedly. He uses the best words he can to express what he’s really trying to say but our greater dialog in this country about religion is limiting. Someone later in the thread posts a video where they get asked if they’re christian and shaggy says “I don’t know” and j mumbles and basically says “yeah” with an implied “kinda”.

On Bizaar Bizzar, in the intro, they talk about a dark cloud sweeping the globe and how the only light that leaks through shines on houses of worship of all faiths and denominations. I didn’t take that as an attack on those without religion, but rather as saying if you’re feeling like you’re in the dark, faith can help you. You’re absolutely right that it’s not “don’t worry, be happy” or “look on the bright side.” it’s deeper than that. It is spiritual. It is about a higher power. I just don’t think he meant to imply that you have to believe in order to be happy. How can he if he also says he believes in his version of “god” and often feels like he’s lost? He’s talking about something deeper than simply being part of some “raise your hand if you believe in god” shit. He’s talking about living and doing the works that demonstrate a dedication to a higher purpose. 

Hey, me and my real family disagree. We’re not fuckin’, agreeing on everything and whatnot. 

Miklo Velka said
RobTidwell I was with you until you referenced a tweet from Mindy Kaling

 still everything you said about J is pretty much bang on, well done

But she’s so right lol. Thanks.

Radam said
Yeah J is a deep thinker but he isn’t the smartest guy in the world which I’m sure he’d be first to admit.

In these interviews when he uses the label Religion, I think he means spirituality and there is a big difference. It seems he is agnostic and doesn’t know it.

I’m gonna leave it at that fuck debating…

For real. I have a similar problem. I dropped out of high school because I’m dyslexic and I’m always walking that line. “what do you mean you don’t know your multiplication tables, your so smart?” shit man I don’t know. I never memorized that shit and now i need a calculator. Get off my dick. lol.

scruffy said

Radam said  
In these interviews when he uses the label Religion, I think he means spirituality and there is a big difference. It seems he is agnostic and doesn’t know it.    

an interesting theory.  

of course, 94% of people who arent agnostic dont know what agnostic means.  so, they will likely say thats impossible.  they will be incorrect in that assertion, but theyll assert anyway.  

  

wait, gotta limit the hyperbole.  call it a more realistic 75%, three outta four.  mmmaybe two of three, depending on where you are.  

There’s this test online from a website that covers many religions and it tells you which religious view you mostly line up with. I think if ICP took it, it would land them somewhere between agnostic, quaker, and baha’i faith. It matched me 100% to my religion and I didn’t even know what that shit was. When I eventually became religious i was like WOW THAT WEBSITE WAS SO RIGHT.

If anybody is interested: http://www.beliefnet.com/Enter…..Matic.aspx

It asks questions like “How many gods are there” and you answer “1, none, many, 1 god who is part of a trinity” and then how important the question is to your faith so 1 god who is part of a trinity with the most important gets you like baptist but 1 god who is part of a trinity with least important gets you mainline christianity which is slightly more liberal. It’s a fun test if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

The Dark Carnival is a faith. Faith is important, it doesn’t matter what religion or culture or whatever. We are curios about death and god and we either learn to fear or learn to love. Faith comes from having unconditional love, which will grant you happiness. Fear comes from hate and separation which grants you depression. ICP aims to bring us closer to Shangri-La (happy) and away from Hell’s Pit (sad) through the magic of the Dark Carnival. They can give a fuck less about being rich and famous, in their hearts they believe their mission in life is to help the Family (which expands beyond the juggalo title. ex, Zef movement from Africa, Sucios movement from LA, Beast Coast, Bax War, WOKE, Techn9cians etc. ) we are one big family. Its all about acknowledging a higher power that exists within us. Religious institutes make money and have power because the masses are not yet able to work out their spiritual problems on their own. The family is uniting to find GOD within ourselfs and to dispose the need for a middle man. Its a process. The family is so big you wouldn’t believe it. I am so close to the truth its not even funny. You dont have to believe me but just know this comes deep from my core, its what I truly believe. The Dark Carnival is my faith.

Mad clown love = unconditional love

Whutuptho said
The Dark Carnival is a faith. Faith is important, it doesn’t matter what religion or culture or whatever. We are curios about death and god and we either learn to fear or learn to love. Faith comes from having unconditional love, which will grant you happiness. Fear comes from hate and separation which grants you depression. ICP aims to bring us closer to Shangri-La (happy) and away from Hell’s Pit (sad) through the magic of the Dark Carnival. They can give a fuck less about being rich and famous, in their hearts they believe their mission in life is to help the Family (which expands beyond the juggalo title. ex, Zef movement from Africa, Sucios movement from LA, Beast Coast, Bax War, WOKE, Techn9cians etc. ) we are one big family. Its all about acknowledging a higher power that exists within us. Religious institutes make money and have power because the masses are not yet able to work out their spiritual problems on their own. The family is uniting to find GOD within ourselfs and to dispose the need for a middle man. Its a process. The family is so big you wouldn’t believe it. I am so close to the truth its not even funny. You dont have to believe me but just know this comes deep from my core, its what I truly believe. The Dark Carnival is my faith.

Mad clown love = unconditional love

I agree with most of this. There’s a theory about story telling and how all myths and stories follow the same patterns. It’s a book written by Joseph Campbell called A Hero With A Thousand Faces. It’s fascinating if you’re into the mechanics of story telling.

Anyway, he talks about how our brains follow certain patterns. I certainly think we developed religion out of a certain necessity and it helped us evolve and that’s why we’re stuck with it, but it’s the process by which we conduct religious or spiritual activities that matter, not the results. God is a chemical reaction in our brains. We know for a fact that people who pray get a rush of brain chemicals similar to those of people who are using drugs. The ritual also helps those with certain mental health disorders like OCD (true OCD I’m slightly more organized lol so ocd). 

The family, ICPs music, the Gathering, it all feeds into those same tendencies and makes us feel good, makes us feel closer. It makes us feel like we have the answer but other people don’t. It’s literally like being in a religion without the requisite participation in a belief system. 

I agree with most of this. There’s a theory about story telling and how all myths and stories follow the same patterns. It’s a book written by Joseph Campbell called A Hero With A Thousand Faces. It’s fascinating if you’re into the mechanics of story telling.

Anyway, he talks about how our brains follow certain patterns. I certainly think we developed religion out of a certain necessity and it helped us evolve and that’s why we’re stuck with it, but it’s the process by which we conduct religious or spiritual activities that matter, not the results. God is a chemical reaction in our brains. We know for a fact that people who pray get a rush of brain chemicals similar to those of people who are using drugs. The ritual also helps those with certain mental health disorders like OCD (true OCD I’m slightly more organized lol so ocd). 

The family, ICPs music, the Gathering, it all feeds into those same tendencies and makes us feel good, makes us feel closer. It makes us feel like we have the answer but other people don’t. It’s literally like being in a religion without the requisite participation in a belief system. 

Exactly. I dont get a “high” from going to church like some people, I feel that love at shows and bumping the wicked shit. To each his own. I understand a persons religious needs but most of the time when I express my own im told things like “well thats cool but until you accept jesus christ as your lord and savior you’ll burn in hell” and im like wtf? My faith does its job just as good.