AXN: I already had the carlin youtube up...allof my failed youtube posts camein 36 hours late but I'll leave this up because it has your comments on it.
I got to disagree with you here, partly. When it can be shown to me that there is a super-natural, I'll CONSIDER believing. I'll never believe in religion as the books of organized religion have it. The way they have it is a trade: we take away your fear of death and the meaningless of your life and you give us money and obediance. You'd condemn a drug dealer for that but not the church?
Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Kelso and George Carlin merely present a different point of view than that which is heard EVERYWHERE else in America. Are we worse than the baseball player who attributes his game winning double to his lord and savior jesus christ? Or Lauryn Hill who manages to thank her lord and savior jesus christ for her grammy award between thanking her laywer and accountant?
We "radical atheists" are MUCH, MUCH,MUCH better than the fundamentalist christians, muslims, jews, etc. We HAVE NO ANSWERS. ALL WE HAVE IS QUESTIONS. IT'S YOU FUCKERS WHO HAVE ALL THE "ANSWERS." We have no desire to oppress you. You folks still want to oppress US.
And you believers have plenty of problems when other folks who have different sets of RELIGIOUS beliefs want to practice them. Look at the bloody histories of your forebears and mine in the struggle for relgious supremacy.
If you want an olive branch, I'll offer up this: Hitler and Stalin were both atheists, athough both made common cause with many totalitarian religious states to help them achieve their malign ends.
Otherwise, no sale. Just consider yourself lucky that you KNOW that a personal buddy god is looking over you and sending you to heaven and let me just face the abyss my way.
And not for nothing, but these videos and opinions of mine were and are part of a bloggers against theocracy thing. That's a cause I believe in even though I don't live up in Holy Sammy anymore and even with a state religion here in Panama -- and it's neither Atheism nor the religion practiced by my ancestors, it's ROMAN CATHOLICISM -- it is forbidden by law to have any role in politics at all.
I still care though what happens up in Holy Sammy. But I'm real, real close to hoping China pulls the stopper out of the drain.
I will give organized religion the world of credit. Whoever thought that dodge up was a genius. I've got half a mind to brush up on my bible and public speaking and come back and open a mega-church of my own.
But the really, really good part is that despite being an atheist, do you realize what contacts I have with any number of priests, rabbis and muslim scholars down here?
the entire blog against theocracy was not about religion. it was about using religion as a political tool, a coercive mechanism, a means of driving out one group of thinkers versus another. i maintain that there is a huge difference between RELIGION and IDEOLOGY. the conflation of those two terms has got to stop. yes, of course, there are way too many people who have, as fairlane has so aply put, drunk the kool-aid of the ideological application of religion. THAT IS WRONG of course.
and, of course, religion has been brought into a sphere is does not belong, and of course it is true that there is always, always the danger of one ending up as an outgrowth of the other but that is NOT ALWAYS necessarily so. IDEOLOGY and RELIGION are two different things. Also, SUPERNATURAL does not equal religion either.
you are putting waaay too many people in the category of 'you folks'. i am not one of them ... i am not religious. but i know many religion people, i've read the works of many, (but certainly not enough) writers on the subjects of religion and of the role of religion in societies who are 10 to the 10th power smarter than you or me, kelso. and their thoughts are worth considering.
in putting 'religion' into a big sinkhole of your own doubts and therefore your cynism and sometimes hatred, and you consistently trash the people who practice 'religions' based on peace, on enlightenment, on doing, yes, good, not harming, believing all people are brothers and sisters ... the average 'religious' person wishes not to oppress you but to practice his or her beliefs without being barred any way or another. the average religious person has no desire to convert you. the 'average' religious person is not a prosyltizer.
my point is not about the people who feel they have to "thank god" for the grammy they just won or whatever. but, in fact, if they truly feel that they need to give thanks to a force greater than themselves, who the fuck gives you the right to deny them their experience of having an understanding of that force in his or her life, or, more to the point, what gives you the right to think YOU are so much smarter than they are and therefore feel the right to trash their personal beliefs?
the fact is that the existence of a "god" or intelligent or pervasive force in the universe has neither been proven nor disproven proven. is the universe random, well, darwin deduced that quite well. others are finding order in the chaos, as you well know.
also, the prominent atheists seem only to consider monotheistic religions when they go on their benders. what of the buddhists and hindu's and taoists? do they deserve the wrath of carlin as well? i think not.
and by the way, what do you gain from the fact that it so "great" that you have contact with so many "priests, rabbis and muslim scholars" if you think religion is "bullshit" ???
1) I'm going to stipulate at the outset that I am of average intelligence. There's an outside chance my IQ is even BELOW 100. There is not a single Jesuit or Talmudic scholar, for example, on the face of this earth who isn't more intelligent than I am. Everything I've written or said and will write or say must be viewed in that light. Done. Said it. Admitted it. QED. Are those scholars' thoughts on tithing particularly progressive? Just checking. I don't know much. The last time I checked I haven't heard of atheists tithing anyone. But I could be wrong. You are dealing with a person in me whose IQ is somewhat north of Mike Tyson's and somewhat south of John McCain's so bear with me.
2) I'll endeavor to deal with most of Paragraph 4 with, again, a mind and a pen which are hardly the most agile. I don't care for organized religion. That does not mean I don't appreciate the teachings of many of its avatars. I like the words of Jesus. I like much of Revolution Theology. I appreciated the Berrigans. Malcolm X. Dr. King. The Reverend W.J. Sloane Coffin. Pope John. I could go on. I have a great deal more cynicism and hate in me than maybe I should but I'll let a "higher power" judge me.
I trash the tax-free status of organized religion. I trash those who would use religion in what I THINK are malign ways. I've never written anything negative about Tutu on this blog, for example. But if you require that I extend the same courtesy to Pat Robertson or William Donahue,the answer no, no, HELL, no.
The average AMERICAN person would love to oppress me because by letting reason be my guide and by accepting that my life is finite and meaningless, the AVERAGE person would feel about me the way I would feel if someone took my drugs away. The elites in the USA don't care because the numbers of non-believers and skeptics are irrelevant. The average person is a de-facto prostelytizer because the reed he holds on to is so thin it requires NUMBERS like him or else a condition of cognitive dissonance sets in and then something has to give.
3) Here, I'll deal with your paragraph 5. I don't have any right to trash anyone's beliefs except those granted to me by whichever governing body applies. "Freedom of expression" is more or less the rule in the developed world. Do you feel the Chinese or Saudi or Thai standards of "freedom of expression" with regard to religion or lack thereof are preferrable to the Western standard? There's no right answer to that question. I'm merely curious to know your preference. As to the question of denying a baseball player or singer's right to believe in a higher power, I am not capapble of achieving that. So, the question is moot. I think I have the right to write that it's silly.
I've already told you that I am NOT smarter than the average believer and there's a good chance I'm quite a bit dumber.
4) On to your Paragraph 6. In my admittedly "Highlights For Children" level of scholarship, I have come to the understanding that cosmologists can trace the known universe back to three minutes before the space-time continuum began. Unanswered questions remain. What caused the promordial ball of hydrogen to exist? What created "gravity"? What is nothing? What is infinity? Is the space-time continuum a one-off event horizon or is it and infinite series of expansions and contractions? There may be some of what you call "God" in those ultimate questions. There may not be. I admit I don't know. I'll go further than that. I'd make a decent sized bet that more than 3/4of the American religious population know far more and have read far more about astrophysics and cosmology than I have. I got a pretty condensed version at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. But I try. Give me credit for trying. As to the question of randomness, order and chaos...I actually managed to get the little book in the Cracker Jack box and get a Bazooka Joe cartoon about the subject, too. So, be careful. The existence of randomness neither proves nor disproves "a higher power". It does, however, strongly suggest that such a higher power has no interest in any particular draw from a random bag. There are too many fallacious traps one can fall into trying to prove the opposite: B follows A, therefore A caused B; Correlation is caustion; a string of similar results from a system of independent events suggests that the last event will affect the next...I could go on, but I can't find any Cracker Jacks or Bazooka.
5) Let's go on to your Paragraph 7. I am not a prominent atheist. I am an insignicant atheist. I've got to go back to my level purple "Highlights For Children" but I believe Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Nietzsche and Russell all dealt with polytheism. Considering how much loot the Dalai Lama has and how many broads he fucks, I'd say Carlin missed the boat on him! Maybe if Carlin revisits the subject, he'll deal with the Lama.
6) I'll deal with your final paragraph. What I think is great is that I've banked a lot of favors along the way despite being open with the clergy about my atheism. If I've banked none with you, I'm sorry about that, but I think I'll eat three square meals today one way or the other. The person who uploaded the video put that tagline on it. I didn't. But I saw no reason to take it off even though as a blanket statement it fails a certain test.
That's the best I can answer you, Anita, but I'll tell you a story having to do with prayers and randomness. As a rule of thumb, given a sufficent starting bankroll a proabilist who can impose 2% of order onto the chaotic system of his specialty can earn a living. One who can impose 6% order on said system can live very, very well. One who can impose 9% can have a villa in Lucerne and a private jet. I once dated a woman who was very religious. I asked her if God hears her prayers and answers them. She said "HE (sic) does." I asked her to estimate at what rate God answered her prayers. She responded "around 9 out of 10 times." I said "so essentially you are imposing 40% of order onto a chaotic world let alone a system you study...by the way do you feel you have enough money to take care of your children in the manner you'd like to?" She answed "No." I asked if she ever prayed for more money and did God give it to her. She said "yes, I did but I didn't get the money." I askd if she thought that there was a reason for that. She had no answer. I asked her if she every prayed for eternal life on Earth and for some kind of proof that it was forthcoming. She answed "yes I did and no I didn't get an answer." I stopped at that point. And said "since you're obviously a good person and 90% of your prayers are answered but I picked three significant ones at random which were not answered don't you find that strange or at least coincidental?" She said "well, maybe it's really like 50/50 and I exaggerated."
That was in the Carlin monologue, "50/50", si o no?
I will say this if belief in the supernatural or a God as decribed in the major religious texts brings comfort to those who enjoy it, I am very happy for them. They know a peace and happiness and calm I'll never know. Two quesitons arise though:
NUMBER ONE: "Why do so many religious people seem so pissed off at non-believers"? [I know why non-believers are pissed-off at believers!]
NUMBER TWO: "Don't you think, Anita, that a lot of this religion keeps an awful lot of brokerage houses, casinos, and insurance companies in business?"
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When did I get extra-stupid? I shouldn't be encouraging reason. I should be encouraging FAITH.
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OK, I gotta tip now. I want to watch some TV and eat some Cracker Jacks. That's what we dummies do.
But Anita, my views on this subject seem to trouble you so. I won't pry but I will make you an offer. You know very well that every right contains an extra value in the embedded option to surrender that right. I am willing to surrender my right to blog about religion for the right price.
I'm just going to put down a number that giving up this particular right is worth to me. It's not negotiable. It's the firm price. Give me $50,000 in cash or marketable securities by an agreed to date and I will never blog on the subject of religion again. Should you pay me and I subsequently default on my end of the bargain I will pay you or any specified heir the future value of $100,000 on the date of the agreement at a rate of interest of 5% compounded quarterly. We have a deal?
By the way, ANITA, I don't know the exact word in forensics for what we've been doing here but I know how to play chess. You are a very strong chess player, indeed. Your knight play in the center was strong and I liked your pawn attack, but the problem was you were too aggressive with your bishops and rooks and left your honors exposed.
I believe that the ferocity of your attack may have been class-based, which perhaps prevented you in your reasoning on prospective move short.
Worked good. You bit on both. With regard to money and social standing, it's like the Old West there's always someone who can draw their gun faster. So, find a tougher opponent than a middle-class atheist who means you no harm. Or maybe an easier opponent. With regard to your calling my modesty "false" you lend credence to my words.
Comes down to this...
What model of "freedom of expression" do you favor? The "Western" or "Eastern" one?
Why does atheism and anti-clericism bring out so much fire in you if NOT for a social-class mirage? [Certainly the ills of organized religion while meriting your disapproval don't touch the same nerve.] So, to quote the great Burgess, "what's it going to be then, eh?" Is it bad because it harshes the buzz?
Or is it bad because it's a point of view you associate with them you don't like?
Whatever it was, I didn't do it. Like Ben Folds sez "I just came in here for some Preparation H."
Is religion necessary? I happen to think sociologically it is. I just want no part of it myself.
Cynicism ia merely one way of viewing things. It has only a normative value if the accused cynic feels it and this one doesn't.
Hatred is an emotion everyone feels. Be sure it's hatred you mean, though, and not "anger," "disappointment," or "sadness." I feel non-specific hate, angre, disappointment, sadness,dread, you name it. I'm curious to meet the person who hasn't.
Philosophy is a banquet. You pick and choose. I pick and choose.
"One man listens to preacher in black. Another buys a nickel sack. The third one buys a Cadillac." We're all headed to the same place. That's what I think. You may think differently.
Where are the exits? Which is the best one?
If push comes to shove and shove to worse, do you understand the consquences and have you thought through how you would optimally respond?
Is love possible? If so can it exist in the absence of hate? Or if so can it only exist between a human and a supernatural folkloric entity?
Have you personally seen, or can you in any way prove, that the Dalia Lama is personally enriched and having sex with women as you claim? Just wondering...
LIBS: I cannot prove it but I have decent reason to believe it and I won't go any further than that. Or maybe I just made it up for grins. I'll leave that up to you.
Anita, you say that "The real issue is not people having faith or being members of any particular organized religion. It is extremism, radicalism, and fundamentalism that are the enemy here. not religion."
I agree with you, TO A POINT! BUT, that ex, rad and fund could not exist and prosper without that basic fabric of religious belief. I am grateful, of course, that most believers, of whatever stripe, are not maliciously radical.
Kelso, I think your sentence here sums up the appeal of religion, quite nicely: "we take away your fear of death and the meaningless of your life and you give us money and obediance." Personally, I do not "fear...death," and am not presumptious enough to think that my teensy little life should have any "meaning." And I would never, EVER, give any of my hard-earned money to purveyors of superstition and ignorance; AND I haven't given "obedience" to anyone since I left my parents' home.
Only one more comment. You and Anita are two of the smartest people in the blogosphere, no matter how modest and self-effacing you try to be. ;)
Z: Get to know ANITA. I won't speak for myself other than to say that my intelligence really is pretty average. I bluff pretty well because I have a weird cognitive gift called "synesthesia" which is like a confusion of senses and gives people who have it great ability to remember detail. My parents were both writers and editors so I learned how to read and write very young. So, whatever seems like "intelligence" is something more like trickery. I always did great in school because of the memory and my writing and I had a great gift for test-taking like SATs and GMATs and stuff but my scores on those online and in-flight IQ tests are pretty dismal. I guess you could say I'm one of the dumbest smart-guys you'll ever know!
ANITA on the other hand is SICK, like in an appreciative Canadian hockey-fan way. I don't mean she's diseased! Sports is the ONLY subject which she doesn't know pretty cold. She's the most intellectually curious person I've ever met and is a wonderful thinker. I'm just a better games player is all.
(1) "At one time, I thought you were slightly intelligent, though too dumb to know that you bore the fuck out of people...I don’t give a damn about KU. I like the people, not their sports teams. There’s a difference, ya know. Either study some business, finance, law, and interntioanl politics…You’re a fool Kelso.With this statement, you said it yourself. Learn to read before flapping your gums. You are empty wind, with a foul smell.Where I come from, we have a name for that..."
[PROP NOTE: AFTER THE RESULT OF THE 2008 NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP, THE ABOVE STATEMENT HIGHLIGHTED IN RED HAD TO BE ONE OF THE ALL -TIME CLASSICS. MIND YOU THIS WAS WRITTEN BEFORE KU HAD EVEN HELD OFF NC. WHOEVER WROTE THOSE WORD IS THE CONTRA-INDICATOR OF ALL TIME. TRY TO GET HIS OPINION ON ENERGY FUTURES.]
(2) "...Peerhaps (sic) it was that fabrication was your specialty in your study of business, finance, and law..."
(3) "What I love most is the way you sum up your opinion so succinctly.Regards,Tengrain"
AN AWARD FROM "FAIRLANE"
"'Meme/Award,' in honor of those who are not afraid to Be Honest, to Speak Out (With words, pictures or both), and who are even willing to Lose “Friends” if keeping them means Compromising what They Believe."
15 comments:
AXN: I already had the carlin youtube up...allof my failed youtube posts camein 36 hours late but I'll leave this up because it has your comments on it.
I got to disagree with you here, partly. When it can be shown to me that there is a super-natural, I'll CONSIDER believing. I'll never believe in religion as the books of organized religion have it. The way they have it is a trade: we take away your fear of death and the meaningless of your life and you give us money and obediance. You'd condemn a drug dealer for that but not the church?
Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Kelso and George Carlin merely present a different point of view than that which is heard EVERYWHERE else in America. Are we worse than the baseball player who attributes his game winning double to his lord and savior jesus christ? Or Lauryn Hill who manages to thank her lord and savior jesus christ for her grammy award between thanking her laywer and accountant?
We "radical atheists" are MUCH, MUCH,MUCH better than the fundamentalist christians, muslims, jews, etc. We HAVE NO ANSWERS. ALL WE HAVE IS QUESTIONS. IT'S YOU FUCKERS WHO HAVE ALL THE "ANSWERS." We have no desire to oppress you. You folks still want to oppress US.
And you believers have plenty of problems when other folks who have different sets of RELIGIOUS beliefs want to practice them. Look at the bloody histories of your forebears and mine in the struggle for relgious supremacy.
If you want an olive branch, I'll offer up this: Hitler and Stalin were both atheists, athough both made common cause with many totalitarian religious states to help them achieve their malign ends.
Otherwise, no sale. Just consider yourself lucky that you KNOW that a personal buddy god is looking over you and sending you to heaven and let me just face the abyss my way.
And not for nothing, but these videos and opinions of mine were and are part of a bloggers against theocracy thing. That's a cause I believe in even though I don't live up in Holy Sammy anymore and even with a state religion here in Panama -- and it's neither Atheism nor the religion practiced by my ancestors, it's ROMAN CATHOLICISM -- it is forbidden by law to have any role in politics at all.
I still care though what happens up in Holy Sammy. But I'm real, real close to hoping China pulls the stopper out of the drain.
AXN: I'm not quite done yet, actually.
I will give organized religion the world of credit. Whoever thought that dodge up was a genius. I've got half a mind to brush up on my bible and public speaking and come back and open a mega-church of my own.
But the really, really good part is that despite being an atheist, do you realize what contacts I have with any number of priests, rabbis and muslim scholars down here?
How great is that?
the entire blog against theocracy was not about religion. it was about using religion as a political tool, a coercive mechanism, a means of driving out one group of thinkers versus another. i maintain that there is a huge difference between RELIGION and IDEOLOGY. the conflation of those two terms has got to stop. yes, of course, there are way too many people who have, as fairlane has so aply put, drunk the kool-aid of the ideological application of religion. THAT IS WRONG of course.
and, of course, religion has been brought into a sphere is does not belong, and of course it is true that there is always, always the danger of one ending up as an outgrowth of the other but that is NOT ALWAYS necessarily so. IDEOLOGY and RELIGION are two different things. Also, SUPERNATURAL does not equal religion either.
you are putting waaay too many people in the category of 'you folks'. i am not one of them ... i am not religious. but i know many religion people, i've read the works of many, (but certainly not enough) writers on the subjects of religion and of the role of religion in societies who are 10 to the 10th power smarter than you or me, kelso. and their thoughts are worth considering.
in putting 'religion' into a big sinkhole of your own doubts and therefore your cynism and sometimes hatred, and you consistently trash the people who practice 'religions' based on peace, on enlightenment, on doing, yes, good, not harming, believing all people are brothers and sisters ... the average 'religious' person wishes not to oppress you but to practice his or her beliefs without being barred any way or another. the average religious person has no desire to convert you. the 'average' religious person is not a prosyltizer.
my point is not about the people who feel they have to "thank god" for the grammy they just won or whatever. but, in fact, if they truly feel that they need to give thanks to a force greater than themselves, who the fuck gives you the right to deny them their experience of having an understanding of that force in his or her life, or, more to the point, what gives you the right to think YOU are so much smarter than they are and therefore feel the right to trash their personal beliefs?
the fact is that the existence of a "god" or intelligent or pervasive force in the universe has neither been proven nor disproven proven. is the universe random, well, darwin deduced that quite well. others are finding order in the chaos, as you well know.
also, the prominent atheists seem only to consider monotheistic religions when they go on their benders. what of the buddhists and hindu's and taoists? do they deserve the wrath of carlin as well? i think not.
and by the way, what do you gain from the fact that it so "great" that you have contact with so many "priests, rabbis and muslim scholars" if you think religion is "bullshit" ???
ANITA:
1) I'm going to stipulate at the outset that I am of average intelligence. There's an outside chance my IQ is even BELOW 100. There is not a single Jesuit or Talmudic scholar, for example, on the face of this earth who isn't more intelligent than I am. Everything I've written or said and will write or say must be viewed in that light. Done. Said it. Admitted it. QED. Are those scholars' thoughts on tithing particularly progressive? Just checking. I don't know much. The last time I checked I haven't heard of atheists tithing anyone. But I could be wrong. You are dealing with a person in me whose IQ is somewhat north of Mike Tyson's and somewhat south of John McCain's so bear with me.
2) I'll endeavor to deal with most of Paragraph 4 with, again, a mind and a pen which are hardly the most agile. I don't care for organized religion. That does not mean I don't appreciate the teachings of many of its avatars. I like the words of Jesus. I like much of Revolution Theology. I appreciated the Berrigans. Malcolm X. Dr. King. The Reverend W.J. Sloane Coffin. Pope John. I could go on. I have a great deal more cynicism and hate in me than maybe I should but I'll let a "higher power" judge me.
I trash the tax-free status of organized religion. I trash those who would use religion in what I THINK are malign ways. I've never written anything negative about Tutu on this blog, for example. But if you require that I extend the same courtesy to Pat Robertson or William Donahue,the answer no, no, HELL, no.
The average AMERICAN person would love to oppress me because by letting reason be my guide and by accepting that my life is finite and meaningless, the AVERAGE person would feel about me the way I would feel if someone took my drugs away. The elites in the USA don't care because the numbers of non-believers and skeptics are irrelevant. The average person is a de-facto prostelytizer because the reed he holds on to is so thin it requires NUMBERS like him or else a condition of cognitive dissonance sets in and then something has to give.
3) Here, I'll deal with your paragraph 5. I don't have any right to trash anyone's beliefs except those granted to me by whichever governing body applies. "Freedom of expression" is more or less the rule in the developed world. Do you feel the Chinese or Saudi or Thai standards of "freedom of expression" with regard to religion or lack thereof are preferrable to the Western standard? There's no right answer to that question. I'm merely curious to know your preference. As to the question of denying a baseball player or singer's right to believe in a higher power, I am not capapble of achieving that. So, the question is moot. I think I have the right to write that it's silly.
I've already told you that I am NOT smarter than the average believer and there's a good chance I'm quite a bit dumber.
4) On to your Paragraph 6. In my admittedly "Highlights For Children" level of scholarship, I have come to the understanding that cosmologists can trace the known universe back to three minutes before the space-time continuum began. Unanswered questions remain. What caused the promordial ball of hydrogen to exist? What created "gravity"? What is nothing? What is infinity? Is the space-time continuum a one-off event horizon or is it and infinite series of expansions and contractions? There may be some of what you call "God" in those ultimate questions. There may not be. I admit I don't know. I'll go further than that. I'd make a decent sized bet that more than 3/4of the American religious population know far more and have read far more about astrophysics and cosmology than I have. I got a pretty condensed version at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. But I try. Give me credit for trying. As to the question of randomness, order and chaos...I actually managed to get the little book in the Cracker Jack box and get a Bazooka Joe cartoon about the subject, too. So, be careful. The existence of randomness neither proves nor disproves "a higher power". It does, however, strongly suggest that such a higher power has no interest in any particular draw from a random bag. There are too many fallacious traps one can fall into trying to prove the opposite: B follows A, therefore A caused B; Correlation is caustion; a string of similar results from a system of independent events suggests that the last event will affect the next...I could go on, but I can't find any Cracker Jacks or Bazooka.
5) Let's go on to your Paragraph 7. I am not a prominent atheist. I am an insignicant atheist. I've got to go back to my level purple "Highlights For Children" but I believe Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Nietzsche and Russell all dealt with polytheism. Considering how much loot the Dalai Lama has and how many broads he fucks, I'd say Carlin missed the boat on him! Maybe if Carlin revisits the subject, he'll deal with the Lama.
6) I'll deal with your final paragraph. What I think is great is that I've banked a lot of favors along the way despite being open with the clergy about my atheism. If I've banked none with you, I'm sorry about that, but I think I'll eat three square meals today one way or the other. The person who uploaded the video put that tagline on it. I didn't. But I saw no reason to take it off even though as a blanket statement it fails a certain test.
That's the best I can answer you, Anita, but I'll tell you a story having to do with prayers and randomness. As a rule of thumb, given a sufficent starting bankroll a proabilist who can impose 2% of order onto the chaotic system of his specialty can earn a living. One who can impose 6% order on said system can live very, very well. One who can impose 9% can have a villa in Lucerne and a private jet. I once dated a woman who was very religious. I asked her if God hears her prayers and answers them. She said "HE (sic) does." I asked her to estimate at what rate God answered her prayers. She responded "around 9 out of 10 times." I said "so essentially you are imposing 40% of order onto a chaotic world let alone a system you study...by the way do you feel you have enough money to take care of your children in the manner you'd like to?" She answed "No." I asked if she ever prayed for more money and did God give it to her. She said "yes, I did but I didn't get the money." I askd if she thought that there was a reason for that. She had no answer. I asked her if she every prayed for eternal life on Earth and for some kind of proof that it was forthcoming. She answed "yes I did and no I didn't get an answer." I stopped at that point. And said "since you're obviously a good person and 90% of your prayers are answered but I picked three significant ones at random which were not answered don't you find that strange or at least coincidental?" She said "well, maybe it's really like 50/50 and I exaggerated."
That was in the Carlin monologue, "50/50", si o no?
I will say this if belief in the supernatural or a God as decribed in the major religious texts brings comfort to those who enjoy it, I am very happy for them. They know a peace and happiness and calm I'll never know. Two quesitons arise though:
NUMBER ONE: "Why do so many religious people seem so pissed off at non-believers"? [I know why non-believers are pissed-off at believers!]
NUMBER TWO: "Don't you think, Anita, that a lot of this religion keeps an awful lot of brokerage houses, casinos, and insurance companies in business?"
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When did I get extra-stupid? I shouldn't be encouraging reason. I should be encouraging FAITH.
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OK, I gotta tip now. I want to watch some TV and eat some Cracker Jacks. That's what we dummies do.
But Anita, my views on this subject seem to trouble you so. I won't pry but I will make you an offer. You know very well that every right contains an extra value in the embedded option to surrender that right. I am willing to surrender my right to blog about religion for the right price.
I'm just going to put down a number that giving up this particular right is worth to me. It's not negotiable. It's the firm price. Give me $50,000 in cash or marketable securities by an agreed to date and I will never blog on the subject of religion again. Should you pay me and I subsequently default on my end of the bargain I will pay you or any specified heir the future value of $100,000 on the date of the agreement at a rate of interest of 5% compounded quarterly. We have a deal?
By the way, ANITA, I don't know the exact word in forensics for what we've been doing here but I know how to play chess. You are a very strong chess player, indeed.
Your knight play in the center was strong and I liked your pawn attack, but the problem was you were too aggressive with your bishops and rooks and left your honors exposed.
I believe that the ferocity of your attack may have been class-based, which perhaps prevented you in your reasoning on prospective move short.
My last comment would be "Check."
Te toca a ti. Your move.
sorry, kelso, once again you're trying pull the "class card" with me and it ain't gonna work this time.
and your false modesty doesn't work with me either.
Worked good. You bit on both. With regard to money and social standing, it's like the Old West there's always someone who can draw their gun faster. So, find a tougher opponent than a middle-class atheist who means you no harm. Or maybe an easier opponent. With regard to your calling my modesty "false" you lend credence to my words.
Comes down to this...
What model of "freedom of expression" do you favor? The "Western" or "Eastern" one?
Why does atheism and anti-clericism bring out so much fire in you if NOT for a social-class mirage? [Certainly the ills of organized religion while meriting your disapproval don't touch the same nerve.] So, to quote the great Burgess, "what's it going to be then, eh?" Is it bad because it harshes the buzz?
Or is it bad because it's a point of view you associate with them you don't like?
Whatever it was, I didn't do it. Like Ben Folds sez "I just came in here for some Preparation H."
Is religion necessary? I happen to think sociologically it is. I just want no part of it myself.
Cynicism ia merely one way of viewing things. It has only a normative value if the accused cynic feels it and this one doesn't.
Hatred is an emotion everyone feels. Be sure it's hatred you mean, though, and not "anger," "disappointment," or "sadness." I feel non-specific hate, angre, disappointment, sadness,dread, you name it. I'm curious to meet the person who hasn't.
Philosophy is a banquet. You pick and choose. I pick and choose.
"One man listens to preacher in black. Another buys a nickel sack. The third one buys a Cadillac." We're all headed to the same place. That's what I think. You may think differently.
Where are the exits? Which is the best one?
If push comes to shove and shove to worse, do you understand the consquences and have you thought through how you would optimally respond?
Is love possible? If so can it exist in the absence of hate? Or if so can it only exist between a human and a supernatural folkloric entity?
Please don't answer. Just ponder them.
Have you personally seen, or can you in any way prove, that the Dalia Lama is personally enriched and having sex with women as you claim? Just wondering...
LIBS: I cannot prove it but I have decent reason to believe it and I won't go any further than that. Or maybe I just made it up for grins. I'll leave that up to you.
;0 no, say it ain't so
Yeah, sorry, there, Libs...sad fact of life that money, power,ambition and sex are all wound together
Anita, you say that
"The real issue is not people having faith or being members of any particular organized religion.
It is extremism, radicalism, and fundamentalism that are the enemy here. not religion."
I agree with you, TO A POINT! BUT, that ex, rad and fund could not exist and prosper without that basic fabric of religious belief. I am grateful, of course, that most believers, of whatever stripe, are not maliciously radical.
Kelso, I think your sentence here sums up the appeal of religion, quite nicely: "we take away your fear of death and the meaningless of your life and you give us money and obediance." Personally, I do not "fear...death," and am not presumptious enough to think that my teensy little life should have any "meaning." And I would never, EVER, give any of my hard-earned money to purveyors of superstition and ignorance; AND I haven't given "obedience" to anyone since I left my parents' home.
Only one more comment. You and Anita are two of the smartest people in the blogosphere, no matter how modest and self-effacing you try to be. ;)
Z: Get to know ANITA. I won't speak for myself other than to say that my intelligence really is pretty average. I bluff pretty well because I have a weird cognitive gift called "synesthesia" which is like a confusion of senses and gives people who have it great ability to remember detail. My parents were both writers and editors so I learned how to read and write very young. So, whatever seems like "intelligence" is something more like trickery. I always did great in school because of the memory and my writing and I had a great gift for test-taking like SATs and GMATs and stuff but my scores on those online and in-flight IQ tests are pretty dismal. I guess you could say I'm one of the dumbest smart-guys you'll ever know!
ANITA on the other hand is SICK, like in an appreciative Canadian hockey-fan way. I don't mean she's diseased! Sports is the ONLY subject which she doesn't know pretty cold. She's the most intellectually curious person I've ever met and is a wonderful thinker. I'm just a better games player is all.
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