Soen - Cognitive (Review) A Hard Album to Talk About.

Ok, this is a great album but a hard one to talk about and you already know the reasons why.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="346"] Everyday without the sun[/caption]

I think that the problem lies in people who are always looking for something new, something that they haven't heard before or something that doesn't remind them of anything. And that's completely ok, I even share some of their thoughts honestly. The reason for this is that it's not only about the music, but about the identity and style of the music also. The identity and the style of the music are equally as important. Why? Because if a band doesn't create their own identity or style and they borrow it heavily from other bands, a lot of people are not going to appreciate their music for what it is because they are going to be too busy comparing it with those other bands. And I think that's exactly what's happening to Soen.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="562"] Does your singer has to be bald to?[/caption]

But in all honesty, Cognitive is a great album and it has a lot to show for. It's not an original album by any means but it does an amazing job at capturing key elements of the bands that influenced them, combining those key elements in a perfect harmonic and balanced way. Believe me, that is not as easy as it looks. Sadly, a lot of people are not going to be able to realize this because of the reasons that I already described, but thinking about it, I cannot really blame them either.

With all that said, Cognitive is a perfectly balanced album, entertaining and a living proof of what the genre of progressive metal is capable of doing, combining key elements of their most important bands nowadays. It's not an album that is going to change your life, unless you have never been exposed to this kind of music before. If you haven't, this album is going to be the magic door that will introduce you to the iconic bands that influenced them and to the genre itself.

In this sense, I like to compare Cognitive with Flying Colors. They are not the greatest and most original ground breaking albums in existence but both of them are a great way to introduce yourself to the genre. Flying Colors with Progressive Rock and Cognitive with Progressive Metal. If you don't care that much about styles or identities you will also enjoy this album a lot and for those who do; It's completely OK to dislike this album but you cannot say that it's a bad album, it's not original, it doesn't create anything new, but is not bad music in any way. I care a lot about the style and the identity of the music, but I was still able to appreciate the elements that they were able to compose in a lot of the songs.

Drums, Bass and Guitar were perfect. Vocals pretty well but I felt like they needed something else to create a different and more original identity. The exact same goes for the artwork and music videos.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="515"] Not the most convenient art direction to take, just saying.[/caption]

The themes that the album explore are also interesting to analyze, they mainly revolve around the conflicts of reaching cognitive freedom and the struggles to protect it.

These are the most influential songs, in my opinion.



I specially love the ending, reminiscing of April Ethereal.



If you liked them, and if you keep an open mind, you will definitively like the album and draw your own conclusions.

Thanks for reading :)

Read More

The Stupidity Of Debating The Existence of God

Look, I love debates. They are fun, exciting, entertaining and if they are done in a correct and in a deep manner, they always leave you with something to think about. In a debate there's no winners, well, that's actually not true, there's no official winners, you're the one who must decide who the true winner is at the end on the day, based on the arguments presented by each of the opponents and how well they defended them and formulated them.

So, debates exist because they allow us to examine challenging questions looking at both sides of the coin.  They expose us to all the arguments and counter-arguments regarding that question and at the end of the day you are the one who decides what's the triumphant argument or what is the triumphant point of view regarding that challenging question and the  current status in which that question is viewed or perceived.

In seems like something ethereal.

Now bearing that in mind, is easy to assume that if we try to apply this phenomenal activity, this beautiful exercise into one of the most challenging questions ever imagined by philosophy or theology (that been the existence of God) We are going to witness  the greatest exercise of human intellect and expression in history.



But the funny thing is that the answer is a complete NO!

The act of debating the existence of God is one of the most fruitless, repetitive, time-consuming and  non-progressive things ever imagined. If you are ever entangled in a debate about the existence of God, I don't care if you're a theist, an atheist, an agnostic, a pantheist, an ignostic, whatever. Get the hell out of there, because let me tell you, that discussion is going to lead you nowhere and I will give you my reasons.

The reason why almost all the debates discussing the existence of God fail (and I'm not only talking about those mundane arguments that you get yourself into with your friends, relatives or so, I'm also talking about professional debates with academics, audience members and everything.) is because the debaters almost never define what the hell are they discussing about, they never defined what God is in the context of this particular debate. As I expressed before, "God" is a term that could express a myriad of completely different things. The term "God" is an ocean that englobes any kind of deep meanings in which a person could relate to or appreciate. God could be the beauty that you perceive in nature, God could be the essence and the rules in which we discover how this universe works, God could be your inner self that is always demanding you to transcend, God could be this world when this world favours you, God could be the love or the strong emotions that you feel for someone else.

Now, you realize how many meanings that word could carry and if you're going to get yourself into a debate about this vague term, the first thing that you must do is to define what are you discussing about specifically , the first thing that you must do is to define God in the most specific way possible, if you're not able to do this then this debate will be completely meaningless and a waste of time.

Don't believe me? Take a look at this debate.



I know, the debate is too long, and the most probable thing is that you're not going to be able to watch the whole thing. When you have the time watch it, to make a long story short Hitchens basically wipes the floor with these dudes single-handed. Nevertheless is a really bad and poor debate, because nothing is clearly defined, nothing is clearly defined by the apologists, nothing is clearly defined by the moderator (which in my humble point of view is the worst moderator in the history of debates) and nothing is clearly defined by Hitchens (although he sometimes try).

And by this, you get a debate that goes nowhere, debaters that don't move forward and that keep spinning around in the same arguments and counter-arguments that they already established.

If you look deeply the debate doesn't move forward because of how these apologists portray the Christian God. After watching this debate and making a few observations, I realized that must of people are actually wrong when they assume that religion never changes, religion chances to and their Gods chance with them. By this I've realized that the Christian God has truly evolve.

The concept of God that these apologists are defending is vague also, but for what I saw I can say that their views of the Christian God are formulated by the combination of 4 key distinct aspects:

1.- The God of Jesus Christ (every time they say "Yeah, but Jesus Christ said... ").

2.- The Cosmological God ( every time they pull out the "fine tuning" card or when they say "but look how everything is in order in our universe... ")

3.- The Hardcore God of the Old Testament ( Yahweh, this is a dangerous card but they only use it when it seems convenient, generally saying "Yeah, but in Genesis says..." ignoring pretty much everything else that this God did. They know this is a dangerous move and they don't use this card very often anymore.

4.- The Personal God  (every time they say "Yeah, but it doesn't matter what you say, ever since I started to believe in God I have found my purpose and I've been living in happiness everyday of my life" etc, etc.)

They start with the God of Jesus, when Hitchens refutes that, they go with the Cosmological God, when Hitches refutes that they go with the Personal God, when Hitchens refutes that, they go with the Old Testament God, when Hitchens destroys that, they go back to the Cosmological God once again. Hitchens is trapped in a debate that he will never absolutely win because the concept of God is not clearly defined and these apologists keep bringing different concepts into the table. He is in reality debating about 4 different Gods (which are not really that bound to each other, except the God of Jesus and the God of the Old Testament) and if one of those is true, all of them are true to.

That is what happened here and that is what will happen in pretty much every debate like this.

And even if you're able to endure a debate like this, at the end of the day is that pretty much nothing will change, the christian will still be a christian (almost all christians that engage into debates are strong christians that will not change their beliefs) the theist will still a theist (maybe he chances a little bit his perception of God but he will still a theist) and the atheist will still be an atheist  (almost all atheist that engage into debates are strong atheist that will not change their lack of beliefs).

Note: I'm not saying that we should never debate about religion, if the subject is focused on religion and religious values in society, then go for it, there's a lot of substance and a lot of stuff to talk about. But if the whole debate is only focused on proving or disproving the existence of God, then everything becomes meaningless, a waste of energy and a waste of time.

Read More