The Godless Fundamentalist

Interesting idea on the “what to do?” question:

A political system based on empathy

Posted by barkless1 on Dec 22, 2006 at 3:27 PM

Hey!  Somebody’s been thinking and searching instead of just barking reflexively.

The idea’s not new, but it would be nice if the ‘survival of the fittest’ crowd could get up to speed.

“No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.”

-- John Donne

Maybe the discovery of Mirror Neurons will allow scientists to ‘get a grip’ on ideas that religion has only been able to transmit intuitively through layers of mythological meaning for thousands of years.

What they’ll do with it is anybody’s guess.  The ‘brain in a vat’ scenario doesn’t sound too appealing to me.  To everyone their own, I suppose.

I like Mike too. There I go ... defying logic again. (Just kidding!)

Barkless, thanks for the link.

Luminous Beauty, thanks for the other link.

Peace Everyone!

I accept your apology, Non-beauty and I’m glad that we agree your a total
asshole.
You should have conceded earlier but I’ll graciously accept your concession now.
Have a nice life but you probably have other plans........................

You too, David.

Neither a form of the other, both perfect doubt and profound belief are performance art. To wit:

The polymath and I stood talking with the guide. I kept dropping my pen with one hand and catching it in the other, enthralled. “That is gravity for you”, said the guide.

“Yes, gravity,” I said, mystified.

“Gravity,” murmured the polymath.

“Gravity,” I repeated, wondering why the pen insisted on falling every time, like a frantic puppy that never tires of retrieving a tossed ball, quitting only when you do.

“It is a form of magnetism,” said the guide.

“Yes, magnetism!” I cried, delighted, wondering if maybe now the pen might not fall. I dropped it again. It fell just like before. “Exactly like magnetism.”

The guide started, “The thing that amazes me about magnetism is---”

“What is magnetism?” the polymath mused.

“---it only works on metal,” the guide finished.

“And other magnets!” I blurted out without thinking. Embarrassed, I added hastily, “But not on people.”

“Even though we have all that iron in our blood”, said the polymath. “What is iron?”

The phone rang. “I’ve got to take this call,” said the guide, so the polymath and I wandered off.

You too, David.
Me too what ??? asshole or peace? or you like me too?
All of the above ???  =)
Sorry Mike, but at this point in our friendship I have to ask.

Lumnous Beauty, the Mirror Neurons essay was great! It touched on so many of the ideas we have discussed over the past several days and even mentioned Richard Dawkins (the original topic here on this thread).

- excerpted from MIRROR NEURONS AND THE BRAIN IN THE VAT

The possibility of multiple “minds” in a single brain is not as bizarre as it sounds. It often happens in dreams. I remember having a dream once in which another guy told me a joke and I laughed heartily even though the “other guy” was my mental invention, so I must have already known the joke all along!

The question of whether “you” would continue in multiple parallel brain vats raises issues that come perilously close to the theological notion of souls, but I see no simple way out of the conundrum. Perhaps we need to remain open to the Upanishadic doctrine that the ordinary rules of numerosity and arithmetic, of “one vs. many”, or indeed of two-valued, binary yes/no logic, simply doesn’t apply to minds - the very notion of a separate “you “ or “I” is an illusion, like the passage of time itself.

We are all merely many reflections in a hall of mirrors of a single cosmic reality (Brahman or “paramatman"). If you find all this too much to swallow just consider the that as you grow older and memories start to fade you may have less in common with, and be less “informationally coupled”, to your own youthful self, the chap you once were, than with someone who is now your close personal friend. This is especially true if you consider the barrier-dissolving nature of mirror neurons. There is certain grandeur in this view of life, this enlarged conception of reality, for it is the closest that we humans can come to taking a sip from the well of immortality. (But I fear my colleague Richard Dawkins may suspect me of spiritual leanings of “letting God in through the back door” for saying this.)

Will you choose the vat or the real you? This exercise might not provide an obvious answer, but fortunately none in this generation or the next will have to confront this choice. For those in the future who are forced to answer, I hope they make the “right” choice, whatever “right” means.

Think not existence closing your account and mine
Shall see the likes of you and me no more
The eternal saki has poured from the bowl
millions of bubbles like you and me, and shall pour

- The Rubiyat of Omar Khayam

No, peace to you, David and Happy Holiday Season.

Excuse me, I have to return to my 19th reading of Atlas Shrugged.
United States Posted by blondemike on Dec 22, 2006 at 2:05 PM

Excuse me!
Nineteenth reading, hey?  Whew! I didn’t realise I was addressing such a full blown Objectivist.

I’m so sorry.

I s’pose I won’t be spoiling it for you by telling you it ends with John Galt and his clones, holing up in Galt Gulch while civilization comes crashing down.  Basically standing around like cardboard cut-outs and gloating about what selfish assholes they all are.

The subtext, if you haven’t figgered it out yet, is “Ayn sublimates her unrequited infantile sexual attraction to Uncle Joe, by fantasizing her self as a total slut”.

I confess, I read “Stranger In A Strange Land” fourteen times.  But that was before I was eighteen.  “I was so much older then...”

Read much Heinlein, Mikey?  He’s right up your alley. Better science, more appealing characters, compelling plot and action narratives and plenty meat for your libertarian jones. He’s got a great sense of humor, too.

Not that I’m hinting, y’know, ya might wanna develop your sense of humor a bit.  No, nothing like that.

Vonnegut obliterates pretension. Reread “Sirens of Titan”.

And re-play Stagnation:

Here, today, the red sky tells his tale
But the only listening eyes are mine
There is peace amongst the hills
And the night will cover all my pride

Winter solstice again, eh?

Oh, and speaking of Dawkins, this is funny if you make it to the third paragraph:

Let’s all stop beating Basil’s car

Are you in my karass?

Vonnegut is always worth a re-read.  I just went through “Mother Night”

“I want a drink. - I want a drink,
To take all the dust and the dirt from my throat.
I want a drink. - I want a drink.
To wash out the filth that is deep in my guts.
I want a drink.
THEN LET US DRINK - THEN LET US SMILE. - THEN LET US G0.”

I’ll drink to that!  Wassail!

“If a leaf has fallen
does the tree lie broken?
If we draw some water
does the well run dry?”

Wasn’t that said here already?

“A pawn on a chessboard,
A false move by God will now destroy me,
But wait, on the horizon,
A new dawn seems to be rising,
Never to recall this passerby, born to die.”

I think something like that was said here too.

It will be a pleasure to read Sirens of Titan and Stranger in a Strange Land once again. I like them both because of the religious themes they have. Hopefully I can find my copies. My best books always seem to get loaned out to a friend, and that friend loans it to another and I never see them again. Vonnegut was what brought me here to In These Times years ago and Heinlein is a favorite too.

John Cleese (Basil Fawlty) is brilliant. I have the Fawlty Towers series on DVD and know the episode well.

Winter solstice again, eh?

Yeah, eh. I’m going to a solstice party tonight. We are bringing solstice salt. And a flask of vodka (God bless the designated driver).

Wassail!

Wasn’t that said here already?

Luminous Beauty said ...

Time passes you say.
Ah, no!
Time stays,
We go.

I think something like that was said here too.

I said ...

The sun doesn’t rise and fall ... it is we who rise and fall.

Very much like.

Thirsty for more Vonnegut, that is why I am here, too.

Seems to me like any other crowd
That are waiting to be saved

True story: I was accompanying the doctor’s roommate, who was an attorney and a judge’s daughter, around the village, mesmerized by how she locked her knees before each foot plant. This is how ladies like her from Arizona walk, I thought, but what does it all mean? We were almost back to their place east of sixth when she said, “You know who that was, don’t you?”

“Who?” I said.

“Vonnegut,” she said.

“Really? Where?” I said looking around, flabbergasted. As usual there were people everywhere.

“He was back there standing on the corner,” she said, still walking. “He’s often there, smoking.”

“Are you kidding? Who knew?” I said, instantly starting a false memory of him, lounging in a doorway. “Let’s go say hi, smoke with him.”

“No, God no,” she said. “Don’t be silly. He doesn’t want people going up to him to talk.”

Really? I wondered as we headed in. I excused myself soon afterwards, but he was gone. Long ago. True story.

Back to the topic, remember the crucial post-hypnotic suggestion in Sirens of Titan? Hypnosis is real. It has been shown to block nerve signals from reaching the brain, from even leaving the hand in the bucket of ice water. I find that amazing. So even if those mirror neurons exist, how hard is it to suggest them away? “I cannot feel other’s pain, I cannot feel other’s pain.”

In Sirens of Titan I remember a spaceship powered by the Universal Will to Become (prime mover) which rang bells in my head and brought to mind I AM THAT I AM of Exodus 3:14 which can also be translated as I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.

I will be what I will to be.

So even if those mirror neurons exist, how hard is it to suggest them away? “I cannot feel other’s pain, I cannot feel other’s pain.”
Canada Posted by barkless1 on Dec 22, 2006 at 9:02 PM

If history is any judge, then not too hard at all.  Your paraphrase of Heiddeger got me thinking of Arendt (they were lovers before the Third Reich started making a mess out of so many people’s lives), which led me to this provocative essay connecting Arendt/Eichmann to Sartre/Baudelaire.  It ends with this interesting and somewhat ambivalent conclusion:

Instead of insisting, like others, that evil is radical, Arendt and Sartre attempted to counter the stupefaction which they saw descending like a fog over Europe after the war. Their books are reflections on the moral crisis prompted by World War II—a crisis they acknowledged but feared would lead to a revival of the notion of radical evil that would “defy the possibility of human judgment.” This crisis results in large part from a wholesale loss of faith in divinity as controlling human existence. Arendt shrewdly noted that in response to the debunking of the divinely anchored model of the universe, there needed to follow a process of de-demonization of evil. “What has come to light,” she wrote in response to the controversy over her book, “is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality.”

To take your premise a little further; how much does our socially justified repression of our own suffering leave us less than sensitive to the suffering of others?

Heinlein’s a Bircher but not bad, read Moon but science fiction just not
my bag, LB.
You totally missed the point of Atlas and I totally fail to understand the
sexual remark about Ayn and Stalin but I’m limited to human language.
I could say something about Arendt and Heidegger & the whole vastly
overblown Third Reich but I need to run some errands.
I’ll try to return and reread your remarks again.
Any info about Ayn from either Brandens needs to totally discounted.

A mother, whose daughter was about to be married, was surprised to see her distraught daughter return early from a date with her fiance.

“Nina, what’s wrong?”, said the mother.

“Mike just told me he’s an atheist.”, exclaimed Nina.

“Oh, mother, he doesn’t even believe in hell!”

“Marry him anyway.”, said the mother.  “Between the two of us, we’ll show him how wrong he really is.”

“ ... doesn’t even believe in hell!”
“… show him how wrong he really is.”

So true ... I like stories.
I like true stories the best.
But will settle for good stories.
Or good lies.

= )

As Rumsfeld said about the failure to find any evidence of WMD in Iraq ...
“Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!”

Three people, a rabbi, a priest and an atheist, were about to be executed in the Terror, during the French Revolution.  The executioner drags the rabbi to the guillotine and says, “Have you any last words for the crowd, before I cut off your head?” The rabbi says, “I believe in the god of Moses and Abraham, who will not desert me in my hour of need.” So the executioner throws him on the platform, locks the collar around his neck, raises the blade and releases it.  The blade screams down the length of the guillotine and stops, just above the neck of the rabbi.  “Ooh,” murmurs the crowd.  “A miracle.” And the executioner, according to custom, releases the rabbi.  Then he grabs the priest and instructs him to likewise speak his piece.  The priest says, “I believe in the Holy Trinity and trust the Lord will save me from this outrageous, unjust fate.” Once again, the executioner raises the blade and releases it, and once again it stops just short of its intended victim’s neck.  “Ooh,” mutters the crowd.  “Another miracle.” Finally, the executioner siezes the atheist and commands him to address the crowd.  The atheist, sweating, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, simply stares at the guillotine.  The executioner pokes him in the ribs.  “Aha,” says the atheist.  “I see your problem.  There’s an obstruction in the gear assembly.  Right there!”

Good one, Major!

In the darkening evening, three men, a drunkard, an opium addict and a smoker of hashish, approach the gates of the town, only to find them already barred and locked against the encroaching night.

The drunkard ran up to the gate and banged it loudly with his arms and fists.  He wildly shouted his demands to be admitted.  When no one replied, he continued to scream and shout; alternating pleading and threats, then curses and insults.  Finally exhausted, he slumped against the unyielding wall, sobbing and wailing and cursing the unfairness of his lot, eventually lapsing into fitful slumber. 

The opium addict just sidled up against the side of the gate, and settling himself into a small hollow there, said, “Wake me up when they open the doors in the morning, will ya, dude?  I’m just gonna nod out right here for while, man.  ‘Zat cool, man?” And he was out like a snuffed candle.

The hashish smoker stepped up the gate, put his hands on his hips and said, “What’s the matter with you guys?  The keyhole there is big enough to drive a camel through”, and he just walked on into town.

Another!

Mike,

It’s difficult for me to believe anyone of moderate intelligence could miss the point of Ayn Rand’s novels.  Subtlety was not her strong suit.  Truly the one ton gorilla of didactic fiction, wielding an eleven pound sledge of opaque prose.

Buying her crap is another story.

Sorry.

As for Bob Heinlein being a Bircher, you are sadly misinformed (nothing surprizing about that, is there?).  He began his public carreer as a campaign worker for Upton Sinclair’s Democratic Socialist bid for the California governorship.

He was a life-long left-libertarian with a penchant for marrying Hollywood lefty activists.  One thing he wasn’t was simple-mindedly unambiguous.  His late life alliance with Reaganite Space Defence post cold warriors was more utilitarian than ideological.

LB, he was a member of the John Birch Society in the 60s and 70s in
the Santa Cruz area, I knew libertarian types who knew him in the JBS.
As usual, you are full of sheist. None of this contradicts that he may
have been a socialist in the 30s.
I don’t agree at all with your analysis of Rand and why would you think
I’d be in the slightest impressed by your comments on her great work ?
You strike me as a faux fraud farty old queen pretentious poseur.
You may be Stephen Schwartz in drag.
Major, David, et al, guys get off the crank, it’s destroying your brain cells.
And David, you & LB have the classic Canadian inferiority complex.

“I don’t agree at all with your analysis of Rand and why would you think
I’d be in the slightest impressed by your comments on her great work?”

I suffer no delusions in that regard.  If it comforts you to believe the sun shines out of Ayn Rand’s ass, more power to you.  It’s a free country, still, somewhat.

I do think the persuasive power of your presentation is telling in terms of the strengths of that pseudo-philosophical pile of tripe that is ‘Objectivism’.  That you lack the objectivity to comprehend the irony of your own lack of irony is irony squared.  If I am making fun at your expense, you have every right to take it personally, but be fore-warned, the more you fuss and fulminate, the more fun for me.  Thank you so very much for that.

I don’t expect to change your way of thinking at all.  You are a character, and I like characters.  If they should suddenly become self-reflective and actually consider that someone besides themselves is entitled to their own point-of-view and may even have reasons for it, they lose all their rough charm.

So, please, don’t ever change.

“Irony squared”, that is pretty funny.

Tragedy plus time equals comedy?

Again, you call names but no reasoned argument.

Names?  What names?  I named thee no names!

Better go back and look at all your postings, LB. You resorted
to the ad hominem fallacy on several occasions.
Anyway, let’s move on.

Better go back and look at all your postings, LB. You resorted
to the ad hominem fallacy on several occasions.
Anyway, let’s move on.
United States Posted by blondemike on Dec 26, 2006 at 3:44 PM

I was refering specifically to your response to my post of 26, 2006 at 12:33 PM, pinhead. 

It would be a fallacy more if you didn’t insist so on demonstrating it as a self-evident truth.

But, go on!

I did call you a few names but not in lieu of argument. You were much
more likely just to call names along with the spurious psychobabble.
But I’m wearying of your nonsense which seems to be an endless
variation of the same nonproductive theme.
Do you want to have the last word ? Ok by me because I’m tired of
repeating myself.

“Ad hominem”? But the person is the argument. The author made that clear by attacking Dawkins’ manners, in defense of contradiction, ambiguity, and compromise.

“As innately human endeavors, religion and science are therefore as unreasonable, noble, immoral, kind, tyrannical, odious, compassionate—in other words, irredeemably human—as the people who literally embody them… Taken together, they express our need to both submit and to control, to know and to believe, to be in the visible world and to transcend it.

That the vast majority of us would find it difficult to choose between the two should be hardly surprising. The antidote to fanaticism is not a new puritanism of reason, but the contradictory, ambiguous, compromised reality of ordinary human experience.”

Please help me to understand how ‘puritanism of reason’ relates not to Dawkin’s ideas about religion, but only his ‘manners’?

Not to say that Chaudry’s rhetorical and polemical style doesn’t slyly portray him as an arrogant, self-righteous buffoon, but isn’t that more a consequence of her political criticism of his ideological stance, and not the pillar of reason upon which she hangs her argument?

Knowing and believing are controlling and submitting, respectively? Nonsense. Knowing is submitting to reality. Believing is controlling fantasy.

The scientific method is only as good as the character of the people engaged in it? OK, fine.

The author’s only valid point is that Dawkins is unreasonable in his approach to promoting reason. He is a lousy ambassador for science and therefore the diplomatic masses opt out. He should apologise and heed his own advice. Stop beating the broken car. Figure out what is wrong with it, and fix it.

Why do students reject (or embrace) the practice of math? Because math itself is immoral, unreasonable, non-transcendent, too controlling, too submissive? No, because the math teacher was not (or was) a math whisperer.

The manners are the meaning. The package is the product. The medium is the---well, you know.

It’s not just that Dawkins is unreasonable in his approach to promoting reason.  He is irrational in making literal interpretation and superficial understanding his criteria for judging the entirety of a vast and complex subject for which science has a very soft and inconclusive portfolio, of which he, as a scientist, is manifestly inexpert.

It’s interesting you should connect Chaudry’s disjointed examples of the ambiguity of human experience to create an unambiguous set of magical associations.  How very religious of you.

Speaking for myself, and a handful of truly nerdy compatriots, I enjoy math because of the challenging, mind-bending, puzzle-solving aspect of it.  The reality transcending character of pure abstraction is also the source of some on-going fascination.  Even practical application is often a fundamentally mysterious subject.  How many ways are there to skin Schrödinger’s cat?  You really don’t want to get me started on my own area of interest in the complexities and ambiguities of modeling single-track steering and stability.

Certainly not because of the spirited and inspirational presentation by most of my teachers. 

My understanding of the motivations of most of my fellow students who liked math was that they liked the fact that math problems give unambiguous answers.  Unlike, say, History, the Arts and the Humanities.  A choice of aesthetic parsimony more than critical reason. 

Most students (all the ones I tutored) seemed to hate math, and saw it as a dry, tedious and incomprehensible horror to be struggled through in order to graduate.

Which brings to mind the old joke about how prayer can never be eliminated from the classroom as long as these three words remain a part of the educational lexicon; “Pop Math Quiz”.

The learning is the knowledge.

“The learning is the knowledge.”

Well, I, too, could fuss and fume and say that is ‘nonsense’, but, of course, it isn’t.  It’s just a particularly and peculiarly constrained point of view.

To borrow from McLuhan’s description of conservatism, it’s like sitting in a maglev train looking backward while riding into the dawn.

I would put it like this; it’s only when we recognize the unfathomable depths of our ignorance that learning is possible. 

It is this oddly paradoxical fact, when one strips away the detritus of dialectical argument, that leaves spirituality and science ultimately standing on the same ground as a new born babe.  That of limitless awe and wonder.  An abiding curiosity for which each piece of knowledge found is only a stepping-stone on our endless and beginningless path of seeking. 

It strikes me as the height of absurdity that indiscriminatingly iconoclastic secularists, who are blindly indifferent to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and strictly tradition bound religionists, whose error is mistaking the bathwater for the baby, believe anything is accomplished by infantile fighting for dominance over what is, after all the commotion subsides, an insubstantial, transitory and mutable, metaphorical territory defined only by its lack of definition.

The self is a conceptual chimera?

heavy, eh, barky ? not often that someone from a parallel universe gets to show us the contents (?) of their mind but the luminous beauty looks like the first of a dying breed. those of us whose education is limited to human language are at a disadvantage here..

Learning is finding out what you already know. 
Doing is demonstrating that you know it. 
Teaching is reminding others that they know it just as well as you. 
You are all learners, doers, teachers.
- Richard Bach

heavy, eh ...

Jack, It might be heavy but if a simple country boy like me can lift it, so can you.
Regardless of what universe you may find yourself in.

david, those who muddy their waters to appear deep.....

Jack, It’s clear to me. Where’s the mud? Please be specific.

a teacher per se knows more than his/her students by virtue of the fact that they are the teacher. if they do not they should not be teaching. i haven’t heard this seventies crap for years ! now i know where some of the old hippies went and they are nothing if not consistent because they made no sense back then and make no sense now. no one here has yet rebutted dawkins’ major premise that there is no entity called god. i
read a lot of incredibly self-indulgent mindfuck and public mental masturbation but the rational arguments are, shall we say, rationed. i hate to break to the hipsters here but there is only one universe and one objective reality and one right and wrong way of doing things. time to put away our inner childs and grow up because in the end none of us are getting out. pol pol, kenny lay, you, me. we’re all going to the same place so let’s grow up and put away the make-believe crutches that we are all being watched by some benevolent guy in the sky who cares about us when the universe, the totality of all that exists, doesn’t give a
hoot. and, no, we are all not all the same, we are all different and very unequal. i have nothing in common with a ghetto thug or a communist mass murderer or some liberal dipshit who admires those kinds of “people.” subhuman scum. let’s don’t waste any more scarce public resources trying to educate the uneducable, just have a working supply
of electric chairs. we are not brothers or sisters, it’s a harsh darwinian world and i want mine, buster. don’t get in the way of my trying to make an honest buck. i plan on opening a combination gun & liquor store soon. free enterprise is the law of the land.

david, that’s like standing in the middle of a cesspool and asking where’s the shit ? have you been reading this thread ? your question answers itself.

Posted by hawaii jack on Dec 28, 2006 at 5:41 PM

I liked ‘first of a dying breed’.  Funny!

He who dies with the most toys, wins!  Eh?

Seems kinda pointless to me, but if that’s what floats your boat…

Thanks Jack. Much better. Now you are participating by sharing your opinion rather than just slinging mud at the opinions of others and we can make a mud pie together. It will be fun.

And if the water is muddy, I don’t think that anyone is really trying to muddy it with the intention of making it less clear or to seem deep. Sometimes playing in a mud puddle is just fun.

Since you are so wise, in the matters of mud and otherwise, perhaps you would care to offer some more instruction as I do have a few questions.

a teacher per se knows more than his/her students by virtue of the fact that they are the teacher. if they do not they should not be teaching.

Do teachers ever really quit learning? Does anyone? And don’t some students eventually surpass the learning and knowledge of their teachers?

no one here has yet rebutted dawkins’ major premise ...
have you been reading this thread ? your question answers itself.

I have been reading this thread. It has been very instructional and I have learned alot. But I have to ask you if you have you read the commentary here? Do you really not see any rebuttal, rational or otherwise, to the major premise of Dawkins?

I agree with you that it is a harsh world but I am hopeful that we can make it less harsh. Even peaceful.  And I think there is nothing wrong with trying. I would also agree with you that we are all different. And that we are not equal in all things. You may be better at something and another may be better at something else. But we should all have equal rights to follow our dreams and that includes opening a combination gun & liquor store. I was at both today and it would be nice to have one stop shopping.

I not others see clearly so out of my way or as Peter Plowart at the end of Hopkins’ iconic 1957 novelThe Divine and the Decay says, “I’m indestructible, you fools!"*?

*see Colin Wilson, 1965, Beyond the Outsider, pp. 228-40.

the major premise of dawkins is that supernatural knowledge is not possible, that there is no evidence of a god. where has that been refuted on this thread or elsewhere ? i see a lot of poetry and metaphors, some of them intellectually stimulating and some just pretentious crap but i don’t see a reasoned rebuttal of the atheist premise. it seems like people here are talking around it. i never said a teacher stopped learning but if a teacher doesn’t more about the subject matter he/she is teaching than the students who are being taught, why are they teachers ?
david, i like the one stop shopping idea, glad we are in sync here.
Beauty, so what’s wrong with making money ?
david, i didn’t mean to imply that i saw no rational arguments here, i did, but i haven’t seen a rebuttal of dawkins main atheist premise.
now if dawkins is saying something really stupid like the postivist ideology that knowledge is only learned by lab science methods or that there is no such thing as consciousness then he has been refuted here and elsewhere in spades. but i didn’t think he was saying that but that dennett was in his atheist book. ultimately i believe consciousness derives from existence and not vice-versa but that was so far back in the mists of antiquity that it is pointless to pursue and why should anyone care. frankly i don’t care if the universe or existence was ever created and wouldn’t give a damn it was. it would be like worrying about what will happen to my great grandchildren, i won’t be around and could give a shit less.
that’s the enviro-commie conservation movement is sooooo stupid, every succeeding generation in the last 500 years has been better off thanks to capitalism so why should i sacrifice for the sake of my better off descendants ? screw the bastards. don’t give me that running out of
resources crap, the earth is a solid packed ball of resources, ozone, schmozone, we’ll invent another one when this runs out and i’m looking to make a kill in greenland real estate when the ice cap melts. god bless global warming ! too bad you libs won’t be around since you’ve aborted your descendants. oh well, choice is great !

… that there is no evidence of a god. where has that been refuted on this thread or elsewhere ?

Well ... I think there is evidence of God but you probably won’t like it because it is circumstantial and subjective. The words rebutted and refute might not be the best terms to describe the points that have been made. The premise of there is no evidence of a god has been addressed at least.

Having read the thread you will be familiar with this statement of mine;

I have faith, faith being defined as a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence, that there is a God.

For me it’s simple and I understand that it’s not so simple for others. People crave answers and sometimes the answers are not as cut and dried as they would like.

i see a lot of poetry and metaphors, some of them intellectually stimulating and some just pretentious crap ...

I am glad you enjoyed some of the poetry at least.
Enjoy what you can and take the rest with a grain of salt ... or a mouthful.

ok, david, you have given your honest opinion. i respect you and your right to do so but i can’t honestly respect the content of your opinion but nothing personal against. you. it’s the a little bit pregnant argument, you are or you aren’t. our difference is plainly epistemological, i think the one asserting the positive proposition has the burden of proof, not the “denier.” it’s not a case of being simple minded and ruling out nuances but this assertion of a supreme being is such a profound contradiction to daily existence that it really needs to be proven or rejected.

Thanks Jack. I respect your opinion too, here on this thread at least.

i think the one asserting the positive proposition has the burden of proof, not the “denier.”

Sure, but if I acknowledge that my proposition doesn’t require a burden of proof to be true, for it to be true to me at least, and that leaves at an epistemological impasse that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I hope. And pray.

So Jack ... given our epistemological differences but mutual respect ...  I am curious and have to ask you why you are acting the way you are over on The Caracas Consensus thread?

Is it an act? Is it satire? Or tragedy?
Sorry for bringing it up here but the only thing I would want to say on that thread would be shame on you all and yet I would really like to know; What’s up with that?

But I digress ... back to the matter at hand ...

it’s not a case of being simple minded and ruling out nuances but this assertion of a supreme being is such a profound contradiction to daily existence that it really needs to be proven or rejected.

Good question!?

How is the existence of God (supreme being) such a profound contradiction to daily existence?

No, I’m deadly serious on the other threads as regards racist blackass
nationalists and the debunking of the conventional “holocaust” story, I
have found redhorse and shitcago cabbie all too typical of anti-white and anti-gentile leftists. I believe blondie did a very good job of demolishing these assholes but after a while one gets tired of slogging through the same shit. Your tone is much different hence my much different tone with you. Everything about “god’ contradicts what we know about reality, his alleged nonidentity, omnipotence, omniscience,
all seeing everywhere, alleged ability to do anything at any time. Frankly
it’s the craziest crapola I’ve ever read and I can’t see why any serious person would waste time on this idiocy or believe any part of it.
That you say shame on me when I’m presenting the best arguments and giving sources while not uttering a peep about redhorse or shitcago tells me more than I care to know about you. There’s no hidden motive, I’m stating facts which a lot of assholes on the left and
even center-right don’t want to hear. Tough, not my job to carry coals to Newcastle. And I have never been impressed with the Beauty either here or over on the new Chavez board. She comes off as a farty old bitchy pretentious poseur queen as Blondie labeled her even she claims she’s a he.
Ok enough.

Jack,

I never said there was anything wrong with making money.  I merely expressed the opinion that as a raison d’etre it is a bit shallow and pointless. 

You are entitled to your own opinion, of course.

It is a bit of a red herring to assert the central question of this discussion is about Dawkin’s atheism.

Your tone is much different hence my much different tone with you.

That’s nice.

That you say shame on me when I’m presenting the best arguments and giving sources while not uttering a peep about redhorse or shitcago tells me more than I care to know about you.

Read carefully, Jack. I said that my only possible comment on that Caracas thread, not to be confused with the Chavez thread, would be shame on you all. Keyword being ALL.  All of you are treating it like it is a showcase for who can say the most incredibly rude thing to one another. I did not single you out but I hoped you might explain it to me as you seem to be fairly reasonable. I have peeped up before but as you say one gets tired of slogging through the same shit.

Everything about “god” contradicts what we know about reality, his alleged nonidentity, omnipotence, omniscience,
all seeing everywhere, alleged ability to do anything at any time.

So you would like it if God used his omnipotence and omniscience to interfere with reality? Are you tired of having freewill ?

Ok enough.

Does this mean our discussion is over? You don’t have to respond if you don’t want to.

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

- Robert Burns

All the Best in the New Year!

Health.

jack’s back ! david, you haven’t really written anything to respond to.
beauty, you never cop to anything so why continue here ?

actually the central theme of the article was about dawkins atheism, then the wacko religious gong show set led by not so luminous nonbeauty and her sometime boyfriend david the canuck turned it into a whirling dervish of orchestrated insanity.  scorp isn’t the only one hijacking threads with nonsequiturs. good god, you two old queens need to get your enemas now. maybe bro redhorse will stick his size 13 combat boot up your respective butts........or was 13 the horse’s IQ ?

You really want to continue this discussion, Mikey… er… ah… I mean Jack?

Show me one of my non-sequitors.  I dare ya.  Huh… huh… huh?  Show me your stuff, big boy.

You are half-right about the review having a theme associated with Dawkin’s atheism, but you really are missing the central point.

“Dawkins’ fondness for sweeping generalizations reflects his own deep-seated fundamentalism, a virulent form of atheism that mirrors the polarized worldview of the religious extremists it claims to oppose.”

Does that help?

If not, you might try to get a scrip for thorazine.

The human brain processes fuzzy logic. Partial truths and contradictory conclusions flourish.

like coming to the shore here on oahu and saying Show me the Pacific Ocean ? Go look them up yourself. what discussion ? you’ve made no contribution. nothing to discuss.

I have always found Richard Dawkins`s works to be extremely informative and thought-provoking. I especially like his “Ancestor`s Tale,” and the compelling case he makes for his beliefs in science. I don`t agree with everything he says in “ The God Delusion,” but I commend him for having the guts to write the book.

What do you disagree with in The God Delusion?

Everyone has guts. Try* Hardy’s books --- for instance, his 1909 collection of poems, “Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses,” with its ode “To Sincerity”:

Life may be sad past saying,
Its greens for ever graying,
Its faiths to dust decaying;
And youth may have foreknown it,
And riper seasons shown it,
But custom cries: “Disown it:
“Say ye rejoice, though grieving,
Believe, while unbelieving,
Behold, without perceiving!”

*from The New Yorker

It is said here everybody is neutral or not. It is an inspiring observation but why so? how else? and what then?

“everybody is neutral or not.

Where is ‘here’ exactly, barky?  I can’t help but wish you were a little more explicit and a little less cryptic, but I must admit you create a few sparks.  And that’s a good thing.

Neutrality implies a certain disinterested ambivalence, don’t you think?  A ground very difficult to gain traction upon when considering the question of life’s essential meaning.  I think?

The great wonder of poetry is instead its ambiguity.  The cosmic universals we, from the finite particulars of our own being and experience, read into the finite particulars of the personae and circumstance of the poetic narrative.  A certain connectivity to which we can say of the life of some unknown other, ‘I can relate’.

A genuinely religious sentiment quite removed from the supervenience and superstitious externalities that Dawkin’s rightly, but nonetheless quite superficially, criticizes.

Plenty of room there for Hardy to be eulogized as a ‘true Christian and a Churchman’.

After all, so the story goes, Jesus and his early followers were persecuted by the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Romans alike for being ‘atheists’.

Consider this quote attributed to D.T. Suzuki, “If you believe in God, I don’t.  If you don’t believe in God, I do.” Eh?

Consider, too, how Wilde’s caution to, “Take care when casting out your demons, you don’t lose the best part of your selves” may be construed to apply to literalists and poetasters of all stripes who pretend to the absolute certainty of truth in what, after all is said and done, is merely some conditional and partial set of beliefs.  Either the stern and damning Churchmen of his day, or the equally stern and damning presumptuousness of Dawkins and his ilk.

We do seem to circle much like Yeats’ falcon around these (seemingly?) imponderable and ineffable ambiguities without much resolution, but that does not necessarily mean we cannot reach some reconciliation.  Not with certainty beforehand, but hopefully, with faith, before it is too late.

Believe, while unbelieving,
Behold, without perceiving!

... beautiful. How about changing it up a bit ...

Believe, without perceiving,
Behold, while unbelieving!

Barky, I enjoyed the poem, thanks for sharing it.

Where is here? There?

When is now? Then?

What is it? What was that?

Why is it? Why is it that?

Great questions. Thanks for reminding me. 
I too wish you were a little more explicit and a little less cryptic .
And I do enjoy your questions. I have many myself. But ...

Any answers? They don’t even have to be great.
I will settle for wild guesses. Or suspicions.

Questions and answers ... wise and otherwise ... all are well come.

poetasters—A writer of insignificant, meretricious, or shoddy poetry.

Thank you, Luminous Beauty, that will be my new word for the rest of the day. And tomorrow too.
And meretricious for the day after that.

The Suzuki quote made me laugh. I am a contrarian sometimes too.

What rhymes with circle ?

Of all the malignant viruses in memospace, the omnipotent god and his true offspring memetics remain the most virulent and contagious ‘issues.’ I support Dawkins wholeheartedly in his attempt to lead the scientific charge against all such superstition. There are no theists in Tierra.

Arpie,

Tierra = Terra = Gaia = Goddess

Removing the God meme from human consciousness means a radical lobotomy.  Like removing consciousness.

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy”

----Tom Waits

I’m all for ending superstition, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There are no theists in Tierra.

Artificial Life and Cellular Automata. This Tierra?

Who made who?
We’re watching Blade Runner here tonight.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
I think everyone imagines killing God at one time or another.
Some do and others don’t.

malignant viruses ... virulent and contagious ‘issues.’ ... scientific charge against all such superstition.

Strong words, Arpie.
But you’re a friendly atheist, right?
You don’t want me ‘cured’ of this virus against my will?
Or a more ‘final solution’?
Do you?

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
-- Roy Gatty

All those moments ...

Now that I’ve had time to read a lot more of the posts on this site, my thoughts regarding it are far more discombobulated than when I began. How I wish there was some system in place where one could send private messages to ask some questions of other users here, though such venues also have huge drawbacks.

The best explanation I’ve encountered regarding the widespread success of the god meme came from Desmond Morris, another Zoologist. (“something tells me it’s all happenin, at the zoo”) In his first book “The Naked Ape,” he explains that most primate groups are quite hierarchical, with one dominant male who has absolute authority. As our ancient ancestors ventured out across the savannas and became hunters, smaller independent units were required and this structure became impossible to maintain. But from a paleoanthropological perspective, the evolution of we Cro-Magnons is a relatively recent event.

Likely the innate drive for an all-powerful male (or female) arbitrator is the ongoing itch on an amputated limb. It’s buried deep in the mass psyche, as our DNA spent 100 times as long developing pre-CR, and it then took thousands of years for that migration out of sites like the Olduvai Gorge.

The many myths of religion once served a useful purpose to that ‘selfish gene’ that demand’s solely its own propagation. Our formerly larger jaws once easily accommodated the 4 extra teeth required for grinding raw nuts and meat. What it says is our evolution isn’t always in perfect sync in transition. Our DNA still hasn’t caught up with our learning to control fire and cook things 40,000 years later, or with imprinted instincts such as seeking deliverance and protection from an ultimate source. Omnipotent beings engender absolute realities, which are inevitably contradictory and far more problematic than ‘wisdom’ teeth. Taxing religions would be a good start. The camps will come later in the pogrom, David.

The many myths of religion once served a useful purpose to that ‘selfish gene’ that demand’s solely its own propagation.

You sure your name isn’t really Recursive Professor?

My religion , such as it is, encourages me to deny the ‘selfish gene’ .
I haven’t propogated yet either.
How are you going to tax my thoughts?

I like camping.  Do we get to go fishing?

Remember the Kilgore Trout plot about how mankind’s true genesis was the result of an alien spaceship ‘seeding’ the brighter apes with the gene that could enable them to procreate beyond the limits of their environment? It was sort of the same way we create fish farms. When the population reached about 12 Billion they would return and begin the harvest of top-of-the-food-chain protein. Seems the message they left about “serving mankind” had been misinterpreted. It would explain our obsession with sex and myopic view of the future.

Guess what BASMOQPNx3 is a mnemonic for, David. Lordy, I hate getting old. This is an edit-I actually spelled my menmonic wrong. Never could spell, and I typed BASMAQ originally and Ontario isn’t speled with an A. Mea culpa.

You got the right Tierra, but I have no ‘faith’ in academia. You’ll actually get a refund under my tax the churches scheme, as yours and LB’s analytical prowess is notably over-taxed already defending hope as faith. I was surprised by both of your positions here, but ‘knock on wood’ won’t let it distract from my appreciation of the ‘quality entertainment’ you both provide. So here’s a story for you.

In Isaac Asimov’s science fiction short story “The Last Answer,” a theoretical physicist, quite renowned and a long time atheist, is astounded to find himself still aware after dying on an operating table from a heart attack. He also senses the presence of another mind, which can communicate with him without words. Could this be “God?”

Amused by this assumption, the presence informs him that while the physicist may think of him in that way, it has nothing to do with the concept of God in any of the religions. He has merely created a nexus of the doctor’s brain synapses, so that he may keep coming up with interesting thoughts. He had done this many thousands of times, and every now and someone came up with something novel.

An incredible dialogue ensues, and the upshot is that the man is dismayed by the prospect of doing nothing but contemplation for all eternity. He explains that in life he had rewards, and the press of limited time to spur him on. Told that he had no choice, as he didn’t know how to begin to not think, the physicist retorted that he would then put all his thinking toward the goal of mental suicide. To this the presence replied that a few had managed to do this. But he had merely constructed another neurological nexus, and eliminated that possible exit in the new one. After pondering this dilemma for an undeterminable period of “time,” which no longer existed in a dimension with no physical change, the man told the presence that he would then put all of his mental energy to the task of destroying the presence itself.

Ah, you come to that very early. I knew you were a good choice, the presence answers, actually seeming pleased. And then came the true epiphany of our narrator. This was the real reason he and others had been resurrected. For what greater goal could a conscious being aware of its own eternal existence have, then not to exist? I really have to laugh at folks who get bored silly on Sunday afternoons during whatever off-season imagining what they’d do with eternity in front of them.

Several recent posts in this thread mentioned the ancient Buddhist koan: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! What greater service could you render? And is death his gift to us? An act of God’s-or whatever we choose to call all unknowns-mercy? Wouldn’t a never ending flow of individual conscious thought eventually become hell under any circumstances? Is the sound of one hand clapping one of applause, or instruction? Or both?

Great post, Arpie!

I remember that Asimov story.  I’m reminded of H. Ellison’s I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (for my money, the scariest SF story, evah).  Also, about everything that Borges wrote.  Trout’s (Vonnegut’s) treatment was, of course, a bit of a refinement of Cliff Simak’s To Serve Man.  Also scary, but funny, too.  Is it our genes that make us want to sit around the campfire and tell scary stories?  Or is it our ambiguous nurture in nature?  Then there is Trout’s (P. J. Farmer?) only novel ever printed, “Venus On The Half Shell” wherein is repeatedly asked the question, ‘Why are we born, just to suffer and die?’.  On the lighter side of Ellison’s dark vision is the viridian notion that ‘information wants to be free’. Is the Internet itself becoming conscious?  Is consciousness nothing other than ‘becoming’?  Will we ever catch up with ourselves?

What is the meaning of your mnemonic?  I’m stuck on ‘every good boy does fine’ and ‘mother very easily made a jelly sandwich under no protest’.

I like the idea of taxing churches.  I used to live across the park from the Rev. Kirby J. Hensley. One of my favorite people and as close to a ‘true’ Christian as I have ever met.  A real character.  He was constantly lobbying for just that until the IRS made it true, but only for him.  I considered getting ordained ‘the Pope of Eruke’ until someone beat me to it.

Morris’ hierarchical need meme and David’s heroic denial of biologic tyranny sparks some interesting ideas, but I’ll let you guys work it out. 

Have you ever run across the ideas of Ken Wilbur?

I’m glad you brought up the confusion between hope and faith.  Hope is the projection of our present desire into the future (I just typo-ed furor for future.  Calling Dr. Freud!).  Faith is entirely in the here and now.  Faith made manifest through infinite patience (or as much as one can muster.  It’s one of those things that takes some cultivation.  Can you watch the second hand on a clock for five minutes without allowing your mind to wander?).  Putting our faith in hope is not necessarily the best use of faith, but sometimes necessarily useful.  Having the faith to let go of both hope and hopelessness is best, but much harder to communicate without being misunderstood, which is hard enough in any case. 

Right here and right now we are kissing eternity full on the lips.

Is that clear enough?  Too much poesy?

Do you, like Isaac’s fictional character, also believe it is impossible to stop thinking (without dying)?  By thinking, I mean discursive yada-yada thinking, not all brain function. If so, I’d like you to reconsider.  What if we can stop…

...dum-de-dum-dum-dum…

...thinking?  What if we do it all the time, but just aren’t aware when it happens?

The correct answer to the ‘killing the Buddha on the road’ koan is, the Buddha you believe in is not the real Buddha.  For atheists this would translate into, ‘the God you don’t believe in is not the real God (he’s a straw god).  Likewise, it is, with the small omission of the word ‘don’t’, equally applicable to the vast majority of theists.

The correct answer to the ‘one hand clapping’ koan (I’m giving nothing away in telling you this) is the sound of it whacking you upside yo’ head, fool!

Arpie,

On a side note concerning your interest in role-playing, have you ever run across this site ?

I think we all occasionally exhibit some, if not all, of the characteristics of these various personae.  I re-read them from time to time just to remind myself that, like Twain, ‘I’m God’s own fool’.  Not that I consider myself fit to shine Twain’s shoes, much less wear them.

Thanks LB. I will save the answer to what the mnemonic stands for to give David a chance to weigh in, as he is in a ‘position’ to grok it. I find I must rely on such in my dotage, and even came up with something I called “pentamnemonics.” In was on “Word Spy” all last year, but didn’t make the cut into neology. It works for me with long lists of data to be downloaded into the wetware using my 5 fingers as a kind of abacus. My usual example is “NlncisJgai.” Rolls right off the tongue, doesnt it? It represents the 51 countries with coastline on Eurasia. If you start with Portugal and go clockwise, putting up 1 digit as each country is named, you will have all extended when you reach Netherlands, and Italy at the end. If you forget a country, the right letter won’t appear with the pinky finger/

Phew. HI-jack was right. Re: the koans, I don’t believe there are actually any “correct” answers, as I’m certain upon reflection you will agree. I recall the story of one student who when asked the answer to that koan by his master, stood up and grabbed his stick and beat him to death in reply. But instead of being revered as ‘the Zen master to ‘beat all masters,’ he was arrested and charged with homicide. It was an interesting trial. Ever read this?

When I first read “Last Answer" I remember thinking about meditation in regards to the line “you don’t know how to not think." Living on the left coast, at least dabbling with yoga and meditation is mandatory, and I have read some of Wilbur’s stuff on “The Edge?" Also read The Tao of Physics and House of Leaves and Lovelace and all 1.8k pages of the all time best seller fewer than 1% have ever read. Lots of interesting concepts to ponder, but in the end I am drawn to that which can be measured, tested, and widely observed. 

Thanks for the link on role-play. Haven’t seen that one before, and was at first actually afraid I’d find a recurse to a previous cyber-life there. The great thing about the metaverse is we really can be reincarnated, eh?

“The future is fun
The future is fair
They already have won
We may already be there
Men, women, children, all
Are up against the wall
OF SCIENCE!!”

I don’t grok it, Arpie. End the suspense. What is BASMAQPNx3 ?
I am reminded of Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge . (hehehe)

Arpie, I liked your poem and thanks for reminding me of The Last Answer . I know I have read it and will look for it in my collection and read it again.

I will look for the stories you mention too, Luminous Beauty.

... David’s heroic denial of biologic tyranny ...

Me? (Who is Morris?)
I think I know what you mean but it just might be a whooshing sound.

Anyways, Luminous Beauty, I have really enjoyed what I have read so far at the Flame Warrior site.
Thanks for the laughs.
I see myself as Eagle Scout (with a few others mixed in for good measure).

Arpie,

There are correct ‘answers’ to koans, it’s just that they are essentially personal and highly individualized.  Still, there are a lot more wrong answers, obviously.  I think on reflection, you will agree.  I mean, having your fore-finger whacked off won’t cause you to be enlightened, will it?  I was being ironic, sort of.

I think science is the proper venue for things observable, measurable and testable, but I believe Dawkins’ wild charge against the immeasurable undefinable infinitude of ‘that which surpasseth all understanding’ is pretty silly.

Not that I believe that religious study is not approachable by science.  I just think it is more likely to find answers to what are at present unanswered questions through the approaches of scientists like Wilber, Charles Tart, and Joseph Cambell who actually make it their field of study, soft science though it may be, not bozos like Dawkins who a priori assume it is all nonsense from a very limited and superficial understanding.  After all, until Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and Franklin, genetics was pretty much considered a ‘soft’ science, too.

Thanks for the Twain link.  I haven’t read that since the current unpleasantness in the Middle East began.  I’m going to try and find what I remember as an A.E. Housman poem from WWI that someone sent me at that time, which I liked as much.

Usually, at this point in the discussion, I like to refer to P. B. Shelley’s Necessity of Atheism as the very best defence of atheism ever written, noting that he left this caveat, “The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.” That Shelley, in his maturity, if maturity is a the correct word for someone who died at the ripe old age of 29, became a pantheist is what I’m aiming at here, though my aim may well fall short of its mark.  I often wonder what Shelley might have written in his dotage.

HERE is something else from Percy that I was thinking of laying on scorpy on that other thread, but maybe is too much like casting one’s pearls before swine.  I don’t think I have to tell you that the word Anarchy is used here with ironic intent.

I’m happy to be reincarnated from moment to moment.  It is a great blessing.  What happens when I die I am content to have remain a mystery until that moment comes.  It is a matter of having something of which to look forward, no matter how I may dodder in my dotage.  Being reborn in a vat or as a digital file doesn’t appeal to me much, although imagining what upgrades might be possible is interesting enough.

I grok the point of the verse ending your comment is ‘WE’RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS’, which is kind of the point of the essay that this thread is supposedly about, eh?

LB-a couple add-ons to my last reply regarding hope and faith. Like most words pertaining to the human condition, they are as ambiguous as the humans they attempt to describe. This is merely my rendition. Hope makes a good breakfast but poor supper! A great line fro Tom Jones. We have faith the sun will come up in the morning, so we spend little time hoping it will. When something such as life beyond what our biology has on offer is the subject, we spend much time thinking about it. It is something totally beyond our level of experience, and so the many believers are in point of fact great hopers. We don’t tremble in fear before the crack of dawn unless we know we shall be hanged at sunrise. In the end it is always hope, not faith, that sustains us. Hope you get my point, and keep the faith.

“Each of us are all the sums not counted. Subtract us into nakedness and night, and you will see begin in Crete 3000 years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas.” This quote is from one of my all time favorite writers, and he hails from the same southern mountains where you apparently lived at least for a while, near the blue hills of Altamount. Recognize him? And I just saw your latest and will check the links and respond later. Have to make my weekly drive to town today. Now it is Sunday, and while the site appears to be having problems and we can’t post new replies, we can still edit. Strange. Anyhoo, LB when I referred to the ‘blue HIlls of Altamount” I was paraphrasing Thomas Wolfe from LHA and OTATR, his first 2 novels edited my Maxwell Perkins at Scribners, as you obviously figured out. I thought you were in North Carolina due to your reference to Kerby Hensley and learned from the link he hailed from NC.

Ah David-I’m a tad disappointed. Weren’t you sent here to live up to my expectations? Ok, B stands for British Columbia, then go on with the other provinces which includes the 3 that begin with N on the east coast. Where do you live, Baffin Island? Geesh. Speaking of editors, again my apologies to David for not recognizing my mnemonic for the provinces of Canata when I when I mispelled the one where the Capital is found, and probability is that’s where David resides also. It WAS a typo, as even I know Onterrio (heh) begins with an O. O dear.-Arpie

Desmond Morris , Dave.

Hope you get my point, and keep the faith.

Said to LB but ... I do and will.

Ah David-I’m a tad disappointed. Weren’t you sent here to live up to my expectations?

Sorry. Maybe.
I have great expectations.
But don’t get your hopes up.

To expand a little further; we may have a reasonable belief that the sun will rise in the morning, but it is faith that gets us out of bed.  Even if we know we will be hanged at daybreak.

I do believe we may be beginning to overthink this.

I know that quote… Snyder?  [Brrrrrrrt! Wrong!  T. Wolfe the elder.]

‘I thought I’d warn ya’, the hills of Altamont are most usually yellow not blue. [I just figured this out. No, never been in N. Carolina.]

Objectivist George H. Smith’s Atheism: The Case Against God is the best defense of atheism as well as demolition of the whole nonsensical god concept ever penned. Altamount is brown like all of
coastal California, not green like the east. You people above are verbiage freaks, a sure sign of a lousy writer, and all of you would give an aspirin a headache.

Quoting ourselves, are we Mikey? Either you or HJ used the asperin line before. Matter of fact I live in California, but the mountains I referred to were from Thomas Wolfe’s novels, not the ones here. Doubt you ever read him. Lots of that offensive ‘verbiage’ in his writing. Not surprising you keep your words short and simple, as you so often end up eating them.

Here’s a theory to add to the conspiracy theme that you help perpetuate on these threads. You and HI-jack are in fact both sockpuppets of LB! He uses you to show any opposition in the worst possible light. This epiphany came to me as I read your combined replies and I found myself slipping from devout atheism into insecure agnosticism. I mean, who can take the speculations of those such as Dawkins seriously when their soft science includes our acceptance of the fact that out of 450 MILLION sperm cells, you were the fastest?

And you recursive are really Scorp and Major and Redhorse.........Those sperm counts odds are true for everyone so what’s you’re nonpoint here ? Or should I say nonsequitur ? Never heard of sockpuppets, sorry. Maybe you could learn to spell aspirin too.

Right at this moment, the Coast Range is green as it gets.  Get out of the flatlands occasionally, Mikey.  A little taste of nature does wonders for one’s attitude. 

I’m wounded, Arpie.  One would hope one would expect one to create sockpuppets with a tad more panache than our not-so-dazzling duo.

As you have probably figured out, I, too, am a resident of Cali.  Just this last season driven by the ever more recessionary forces of the economy to relocate from the relatively open, scenic and rural locale of Redding back to the sprawl culture of Modesto (yuck).

It sounds like you have found some agreeable backwater.  Color me green with envy.

The tone deafness which you appear to have to the subtlies of irony never ceases to amaze, Mikey.

Irony ? Irony ? Is that what they call wordsalads now ? Beware of those who muddy their waters to appear deep......My first cousin lives in Modesto, for 42 years now, and she still hates it. This time of the year we get some greenery but from April on it’s a dreary dusty brown. Not like Marin shithouse dark brown, the preferred architectural style there. BTW, sockpuppets is a meaningless phrase. I mean what the hell is it, something people use when they do the 69 ? Actually it’s been like living in the Artic the last week here in the Bay Area. Where the hell is that global warming ? Apparently in Greenland from what I read in today’s NY Times. If Greenland’s ice caps melt goodbye London, NYC, Miami, LA, SF, maybe Oaktown, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore. I say good friggin riddance too !

LB-you knew if you created SPs with more panache we would have seen right away it was you. Didn’t you used to post under the name Chappetto? Now another follow up reply by your untermench on irony. Talk about your recursive loops. You should have named him Mr. Fey. Think periodic table. A riot having him go on about ‘muddy waters’ after all the mud he’s dumped into our verbal stream. We truly are all Bozos on this bus.

Mr. Manganese.  The exception proving the rule about brevity being the soul of wit by being just one proton shy.

Quality entertainment ! Mr. Fey, Mr. Manganese and Mr. Mustard !

(Posted by blondemike on Jan 16, 2007 at 6:45 PM
Mike, your best post ever !!!)

Thanks, David !

I LOVE this:

“Yes, the laws of nature and those of God might still exist without human beings, but there would be no one to name or know them as such, or act on that knowledge. Taken together, they express our need to both submit and to control, to know and to believe, to be in the visible world and to transcend it.

That the vast majority of us would find it difficult to choose between the two should be hardly surprising. The antidote to fanaticism is not a new puritanism of reason, but the contradictory, ambiguous, compromised reality of ordinary human experience.”

Thank you, Mike.

Ahhh .. the subtlies of irony and delectable wordsalads.

Hi Mark, where was that quote from?

David, I think I know why LB resorts to flights of fancy so often, he lives in Modesto. If I lived in Modesto I’d seek an alternative universe too. I mean Oaktown can be bad but Modesto is too white bread for me.  I enjoyed Vancouver very much when I drove up there in summer 77 to visit some Australian friends who lived there. I remember driving across the Lions Gate Bridge into some fashionable neighborhoods a la Marin County. Never got to Victoria unfortunately. Do you still have to go to a state store to purchase liquor ? Would have liked to have seen more of BC. The thirty miles between the border and Vancouver I vaguely remember as sort of flat and swampy but it was thirty years ago.

Mike, we can now buy liquor from privately owned and operated stores as well as from the govenrment operated stores. It could be the swamp you saw is Burns Bog.

Burns Bog is a raised peat bog located in Delta, British Columbia, Canada. It is the largest undeveloped urban landmass in North America. It is also the only known raised peat bog in a Mediterranean climate. Burns Bog is a treasure of a special kind, in part due to its sheer size, making it home to many beautiful and rare plants, animals and insects.

British Columbia is a beautiful place and I am very thankful to live here.
I’m sorry to hear that you don’t like Oakland or Modesto very much.
You should try a flight of fancy yourself. It would do you good.

Thanks for the informational update, David. We have a very reasonable mortgage in Oakland and Nina has serious medical problems. Eventually we are thinking of retiring to some place like New Mexico or Baja or Belize, she wants a warm climate. Right now if we sold we’d make