Tax Returns trod on
the W-2 cracks my forehead
static in the night
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Perplexed?
 |
| This is a pic I took of a caged Arctic Wolf in Nova Scotia. |
E.F. Schumacher's philosophy was more than mere mental masturbation. Practical Action, a forward thinking development group, monitors parasites on Peruvian alpaca tits to determine the relative health and sustainability of the farmers. That's the ticket and it all started with Schumacher's philosophy and now it has a budget of 26 million pounds. That's like a billion dollars. And they manage to apply around 85% to the actual operation programs. For comparison, The Red Cross is spending 40% to pay people to decide how to spend the other 60% in places like Haiti.
I came upon this book in the Goodwill and since I'm as perplexed as I have ever been with the state of the world I shoplifted it in the hopes that I could learn something.
It's philosophy like this: MXYZ represent Minerals, Life, Consciousness, Self Awareness. Man is represented by MXYZ. A Wolf is represented by MXY. A plant is MX. A rock is M. Schumacher says calling mankind "a naked ape" is like calling a wolf "a tree that runs." E.F. Schumacher would've been a real hit with T.E.D Talks because that's a real solid statement. I've called humans naked apes before and my reasoning was that I feel that apes have self-awareness. Isn't that obvious? I've seen drunk kids less self-aware than a chimp. But I won't say it anymore.
And hold onto your hats, campers,he goes on to say that the first task in progressing as a human being is to "learn from society and "tradition" and to find one's temporary happiness in receiving directions from the outside.. The second step is a process called individuation, becoming self directed. The third and final step is seemingly to surrender to ones instinct and become God-directed or free from outside and internal direction"
I'm still perplexed.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
America Corporation
I can not ethically speak in detail about my IRS gig and my eyes are almost blind from looking at 2011 and 1040a and 1040ez but I do want to pass on the meditations that I had while bundling 26 tax returns in a pile that is supposed to be 25.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Open Letter To CNN
I feel that while CNN does not make the news you do decide what to report on and clearly a decision has been made to report on divisive events and then to divide sides even further with subsequent reports. Of course that's a contemptible decision but a profitable one that won't soon be put to rest. The comment section is another matter and I must bring to your attention my opinion.
I have read your terms of service guidelines and I believe that you have made an honest effort to foster the expression of opinions on news items and you have made available this comment forum in good faith. However, I believe that it would be in the best interest of your audience if this comment forum was suspended. I say this in good faith after having studied the general trends in the comment sections of news articles. I think the majority of comments are negative, hateful, incite violence, are not beneficial or well intended, would not be said to each other in person, would not be said in front of one's mother, are not well thought out, are not spell checked, are politically biased rhetoric and serve no positive purpose but instead fan the flames of anger and hate and fear. At best, most comments are a hateful attack on someone else for being hateful. In a recent story about a town near my own hometown I read this tasteless remark regarding a police chief killed in the line of duty:
Now, this user, luckylemmons, is implying that this police chief is "bad rubbish" and that (erroneously) the tax payers in coastal New Hampshire are going to save money because they don't pay his retirement benefits. Of course you have provided the option of reporting this remark as inappropriate but I feel that does not begin to quell my disgust for luckylemmons. His remark is not merely inappropriate, it is cold blooded, pathological, cowardly, heartless, disgusting, and ignorant. Here is a short exchange between three of your readers that chills my heart:
Obviously, if this speech were overheard IN A KINDERGARTEN CLASS there would be immediate action taken. But CNN allows for what? Flag as inappropriate? Three readers casting hexes on each other? Is Voodoo inappropriate? That doesn't begin to describe the depth of hatred between GDINY2 and matism. I would say that a rational, humanist institution devoted to fostering goodwill and kindness would not allow either of them to voice their opinions on their hosted forum. Wouldn't you?
I truly believe in the sanctity of free speech and I believe everyone has the right to publish their own newspaper full of their opinions but I do not believe it is your responsibility to provide a forum where anyone may express a hateful or violent opinion. Yes, you provide an option for someone to flag inappropriate comments and those comments will be reviewed by a moderator. I believe you provide this option in good faith but after my study of the comment section I feel it is safe to say you would have to employ an army of moderators to work full time in moderating/censoring those who express inappropriate opinions on your site. I do not believe it would be possible to moderate the volume of villainous/hateful comments. No. Furthermore, that puts you in an unpleasant position of censoring some but not all individuals. I could and may write a much more comprehensive brief to highlight the vile comments found on your forum but I invite you to look for yourself. I assume that no one on your staff is voluntarily moderating the comments section or else these cowardly and divisive comments would never be allowed to remain public. Obviously this enlightened opinion of...
...would be immediately removed if anyone with the power to do so had read it. I'm not alone in saying that if AppleOrange was standing in front of me then I would karate chop him in the trachea. To mock and belittle and minimize the death of a police chief and to do so using the cowardly anonymity of your comment section is beyond repulsive. This does not exalt America's love of free speech. No. It does not compliment our position as free people. Your comment section is not a reason to respect America. Do not delude yourself. You report news articles; the opinions of your audience members ARE NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to publish. Comments such as this have no defense:
I feel that even though Realdirect wrote that comment, CNN has been the one to provide a platform for him and by default you approve that message. Is that how you feel? That more police should die to pay for the criminals they killed? I feel that the forum administrator is partially responsible for the content of the forum and that would suggest you approve of Realdirect's scorecard concept. Consider the policy of sports broadcasts to refuse to show pranksters streaking naked across a field because they don't want to encourage or elevate that behavior. The CNN forum basically provides a national audience for the sub literate to voice their petty attacks from behind the protection of untraceable digital avatars. Some feel genuine sorrow for the policeman and post their condolences. Some are indifferent but post viciously hateful remarks to see what kind of response it gets. Some are sincerely hateful and stop at nothing to hurt those who are already hurting by writing truly ignorant things like this:
The only thing missing is a rude comment asking if the perpetrator also shot the deputy. Obviously you can not expect there to be a breakthrough in the debate on police violence and crime on the comment section of your website. So, please, the only people who benefit from this comment section are those who seek to wound others with their spiteful remarks. I say deny them this platform. They can start their own blog that they can promote as they are able but do not give them a brick wall and a can of spray paint and expect them to be courteous. And do not rely on neutral users to inform on others. Those who are truly courteous will understand the removal of the comment section. Those who are not courteous will feel bitter at being denied a public audience for their filth but I feel that is the best decision. Please review your comment section and reconsider a post-moderation policy. If you wish to change to a pre-moderation policy where every comment is previewed and approved first then I gladly volunteer to be moderator.
(I recently went through a CNN article and flagged any comment I felt was inappropriate. I flagged 30 comments of 60. Many were blatant hate speech. Of the other 30 maybe 4 were not volatile and inflammatory. The remaining 26 were mildly annoying and frivolous but tolerable.)
Comments about a story of a Jewish woman who survived WWII by playing piano were peppered with hateful holocaust deniers saying the woman wasn't telling the truth.
From CNN: 4/17/12
Greetings,
Thank you for contacting CNN. Occasionally, during breaking news or moments when we experience unexpected spikes in the amount of comments, it may take longer than usual to process them all. We have forwarded this message to our team of moderators and can assure you that appropriate action will be taken.
Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.
Regards
Jamaal
CNN.com Technical Operations
I have read your terms of service guidelines and I believe that you have made an honest effort to foster the expression of opinions on news items and you have made available this comment forum in good faith. However, I believe that it would be in the best interest of your audience if this comment forum was suspended. I say this in good faith after having studied the general trends in the comment sections of news articles. I think the majority of comments are negative, hateful, incite violence, are not beneficial or well intended, would not be said to each other in person, would not be said in front of one's mother, are not well thought out, are not spell checked, are politically biased rhetoric and serve no positive purpose but instead fan the flames of anger and hate and fear. At best, most comments are a hateful attack on someone else for being hateful. In a recent story about a town near my own hometown I read this tasteless remark regarding a police chief killed in the line of duty:
luckylemmons
Now, this user, luckylemmons, is implying that this police chief is "bad rubbish" and that (erroneously) the tax payers in coastal New Hampshire are going to save money because they don't pay his retirement benefits. Of course you have provided the option of reporting this remark as inappropriate but I feel that does not begin to quell my disgust for luckylemmons. His remark is not merely inappropriate, it is cold blooded, pathological, cowardly, heartless, disgusting, and ignorant. Here is a short exchange between three of your readers that chills my heart:
- Tomjw
- matism
- GDINY2
Obviously, if this speech were overheard IN A KINDERGARTEN CLASS there would be immediate action taken. But CNN allows for what? Flag as inappropriate? Three readers casting hexes on each other? Is Voodoo inappropriate? That doesn't begin to describe the depth of hatred between GDINY2 and matism. I would say that a rational, humanist institution devoted to fostering goodwill and kindness would not allow either of them to voice their opinions on their hosted forum. Wouldn't you?
I truly believe in the sanctity of free speech and I believe everyone has the right to publish their own newspaper full of their opinions but I do not believe it is your responsibility to provide a forum where anyone may express a hateful or violent opinion. Yes, you provide an option for someone to flag inappropriate comments and those comments will be reviewed by a moderator. I believe you provide this option in good faith but after my study of the comment section I feel it is safe to say you would have to employ an army of moderators to work full time in moderating/censoring those who express inappropriate opinions on your site. I do not believe it would be possible to moderate the volume of villainous/hateful comments. No. Furthermore, that puts you in an unpleasant position of censoring some but not all individuals. I could and may write a much more comprehensive brief to highlight the vile comments found on your forum but I invite you to look for yourself. I assume that no one on your staff is voluntarily moderating the comments section or else these cowardly and divisive comments would never be allowed to remain public. Obviously this enlightened opinion of...
I feel that even though Realdirect wrote that comment, CNN has been the one to provide a platform for him and by default you approve that message. Is that how you feel? That more police should die to pay for the criminals they killed? I feel that the forum administrator is partially responsible for the content of the forum and that would suggest you approve of Realdirect's scorecard concept. Consider the policy of sports broadcasts to refuse to show pranksters streaking naked across a field because they don't want to encourage or elevate that behavior. The CNN forum basically provides a national audience for the sub literate to voice their petty attacks from behind the protection of untraceable digital avatars. Some feel genuine sorrow for the policeman and post their condolences. Some are indifferent but post viciously hateful remarks to see what kind of response it gets. Some are sincerely hateful and stop at nothing to hurt those who are already hurting by writing truly ignorant things like this:
The only thing missing is a rude comment asking if the perpetrator also shot the deputy. Obviously you can not expect there to be a breakthrough in the debate on police violence and crime on the comment section of your website. So, please, the only people who benefit from this comment section are those who seek to wound others with their spiteful remarks. I say deny them this platform. They can start their own blog that they can promote as they are able but do not give them a brick wall and a can of spray paint and expect them to be courteous. And do not rely on neutral users to inform on others. Those who are truly courteous will understand the removal of the comment section. Those who are not courteous will feel bitter at being denied a public audience for their filth but I feel that is the best decision. Please review your comment section and reconsider a post-moderation policy. If you wish to change to a pre-moderation policy where every comment is previewed and approved first then I gladly volunteer to be moderator.
(I recently went through a CNN article and flagged any comment I felt was inappropriate. I flagged 30 comments of 60. Many were blatant hate speech. Of the other 30 maybe 4 were not volatile and inflammatory. The remaining 26 were mildly annoying and frivolous but tolerable.)
Comments about a story of a Jewish woman who survived WWII by playing piano were peppered with hateful holocaust deniers saying the woman wasn't telling the truth.
Greetings,
Thank you for contacting CNN. Occasionally, during breaking news or moments when we experience unexpected spikes in the amount of comments, it may take longer than usual to process them all. We have forwarded this message to our team of moderators and can assure you that appropriate action will be taken.
Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.
Regards
Jamaal
CNN.com Technical Operations
Friday, April 13, 2012
Religion or Not?
I listened to a NPR debate on religion.
The motion was: "The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion"
Let me say that I once worked with a guy who talked of a construction contractor in an awed tone, "I admire and respect him because we think exactly alike," he said. He meant that they had the same practical approach to problem solving. And I would add that they both went out of their way to solve problems for other people. In fact, they made a living from finding someone's problems and fixing them by design. The world is their graph paper and they concentrated on the problem until it was solved. Consequences or philosophy never entered their process of reasoning. Physics and supply chains and budget were the only things that mattered to them. They are both huge successes in the eyes of the modern world, while I'm a complete asshole who is a burden to all.
Now, I have to say that I don't feel the same way about contractors. I admire them but I feel no affinity with them. I study them objectively, from afar, knowing that they operate in a realm (physical and immediate) that is not my home. All efforts to embrace this realm have led to problems for me. The Merchant Marines was truly 6 months of comedic misadventures. My home improvement problems have left hundreds of DIY forum participants vowing to never help a novice again. My vehicle maintenance efforts involve the oldest daily driver in America. I literally drive the oldest car I've seen on the road. From Mexico to Labrador I've one encountered one truck that was older. It was a 1967 Ford Bronco that was buried on a beach. Hell, my 1974 Vespa Ciao moped is older than every other car on the road. I'm an isolated anomaly chugging along with points and condenser on a lobbed spark distributor, one step above steam.
But hearing this debate on a totally theoretical topic revealed members of my own tribe. And I don't only mean the two secular humanists who argued in favor of the motion. The one Rabbi and the Christian president of King's College London were as convincing as any and as comforting as most.
This topic is not practical and only a philosopher/rabbi would bother engaging someone else in a debate. I am that philosopher. These panelists, especially Dinesh D'Souza, reminded me of myself. His twist on the whole "hypocrite" accusation was the best I've heard. "Failing to meet high ideals is different than pretending to strive for high ideals." If you are already bored with what I'm writing then you are on the contractor side of the world and I mean no disrespect when I say that you and a hammer and a carpenter's level should become well acquainted. I am on the side of the fence who is asked to hang a picture level with a window and I ask, "Why?" My heroes are the hermit Thoreau, the martyr Socrates, the writer Hesse and the fictional character Ignatius Reilly. Henry Thoreau built a house but only after 30 years of debating whether he should. Socrates rationalized his own suicide. Hermann Hesse wrote lovingly about two different celibate monks and Ignatius Reilly longed for a return to Feudal Secularism and lute music.
On the topic of religion these four people could literally entertain me for centuries. If food and shelter were not a factor we 5 would happily debate this topic for eternity. And I mean eternity. I would never tire of examining the theoretical angles involving religion's meaning and application. NEVER. Considering all 5 of us are basically secular humanists I guarantee that for the sake of the debate all 5 of us would become passionate Christians.
Listening to the four live NPR panelists debate this topic was like watching philosophy porn because they attacked and defended the topic exactly like I do, with a range of humor and rhetoric and denial and exclusive definitions and selective history and rewriting facts and metaphors and stories and some facts and appeal to reason and faith and anger and passion.
Not content to listen, I placed myself in the panel and asked myself the following question: What human endeavor/activity is 100% devoid of religion. If I could find this activity then I could examine it to see if this activity is "good" Because if the world would be better without religion then all activities would be devoid of religion and if I could find something that is currently devoid of religion then that would help my examination. See? So, I've narrowed it down to two activities.
Electrical Engineering. Cosmetic Surgery.
Maybe there are more but I can't think of any off the top of my head. It seems every other endeavor has some trace of religion in it. I'm smiling because this really is climbing a philosophical mountain that should seem totally fruitless to those who are tradesmen. But you are projecting your values onto me. I realize that shelter and food and not philosophy are the staples of man, but I'm defective because I have it reversed. I'll trade 80 years with an architect's ruler for five minutes writing a sloppy philosophical treatise. That's me. Call me an asshole but first define "asshole."
Anyway, let's focus on Cosmetic Surgery. I can't think of anything less related to religion but I haven't dissected it for very long. I'll probably make a connection between religion and cosmetic surgery later but unless I want to write this essay for five years then I'm going to move forward. I mean the actual application of a face lift or breast implant or ass flab suction is so humanist/human/vain/egotistical/culturally derived that it's my choice as the activity that is purely human. When you listen to those who desire cosmetic surgery and those surgeons who do the surgery, there is never ever an appeal to Jesus Christ or Muhammad or Buddha. It's also a relatively recent activity and is a western endeavor. Yes, religious people must get cosmetic surgery, but I haven't seen any religious people justify it with religious arguments. It's a very human thing to be impacted by the body image/superficial values of modern cultural spin doctors. One religious argument in favor of cosmetic surgery could be that since we were made in God's image and if you have your nose blown off by a grenade then you are no longer the image of God so you need to have a plastic nose installed on your face to bring you back to the image of God. But that's a stretch because mostly it's about being publicly accepted. Like when I wear my bell bottom pants and every other person calls me an asshole or throws an aluminum can at me then it's safe to say God didn't wear Bell Bottom pants...and I should wear normal jeans to blend in. But that's crazy. My desire to fit in outweighs my desire to dress in the image of God...who probably was allergic to polyester.
Maybe we should focus even further on breast implants. That would help me move on and since I'm making the rules I get to say that the single activity that humans participate in that is devoid of religion is breast implantation. It's purely about meeting a personal ideal appearance in this earthly realm. I'm not arguing with this desire but I'm merely trying to find the one thing that we can expect to see a lot more of in a world without religion...because one could conclude that since this is an activity devoid of religion in a world with abundant religion then in a world without religion then there would be a dramatic increase.
(If you listen to the NPR debate then my insane philosophizing will sound comparatively tame)
Can we agree that breast implantation is an activity devoid of religion? Maybe I'm missing something. If we can agree on this fundamental premise then can we then say that the world would be better with more breast implantation? Somehow that statement didn't come out like I expected. What I mean to ask is if the world would be better with more of the impulse that leads to breast implantation? Philosophically, the impulse is conformity and vanity. Women want to be a standardized shape and size, like they are parts of an automobile. This is an ungodly desire...and if Larry Flynt wrote the bible it might be in accordance with his tenets but the King James bible says nothing about breast size. So, the impulses of conformity and vanity are what we can expect more of in a world without religion.
One of the best arguments I heard in favor of the calming influence of religion was that for every murder you can attribute to some fundamental religious argument, you can find ten murders that were committed by an atheist. In other words, California prisons, the state with the most criminals in the world are not in the business of persecuting the devout. No. Not at all. The crimes they committed were not fundamentally religious in nature; their crimes were departures from their faith. You look at the Iraq war...is it an attack on infidels by armed Christians? No, it's an attempt to secure more oil because we don't like to walk to the grocery store. The Spanish inquisition killed 2000 heathens total. In the name of atheism Pol Pot killed 3 million Cambodians. Hitler's persecution of the Jews was actually a political campaign to win the votes of the Bavarian Catholic. Hitler didn't really care for either religion but you wouldn't know it by his speeches. So was it religion that caused the Holocaust or was it an extremely selfish political campaign, the product of democracy? Did democracy cause the Holocaust?
Hell, go to your local court and count how many religious crimes were committed. In fact, the only religiously motivated crimes I can think of are the attacks on feminist health care clinics by fundamentalist Christians who believe abortion is murder because the bible suggests it. Politically, it was murder only 40 years ago and even then the number of abortions performed compared to the number of doctors killed because of it was probably 100,000:1. Now it has to be 500,000:1. It's definitely a purely religious murder but it's such an incredibly small fringe group of fundamental Christians who will actually kill to defend their religious beliefs that it's more of an example of how weak and insignificant religion is instead of how strong and influential it is. Of course, I'm not a doctor at a feminist health care clinic so that's easy for me to say.
Maybe it's wrong to quote from one of the most shabby excuses for a website (that is the philosophical equivalent of Oggy trying to replace a window sash) but here's one Pro-Life "argument"
This quote makes me wonder if a miscarriage is an abortion caused by God? Maybe that's a subject for another essay if only I could get Jeremiah on the phone. Seriously, this argument using Psalm 139 is pitiful...totally circular reasoning. This book says God knew and sanctified a fetus so the fetus was already a human and since this book is true and that's proven by the book itself, therefore... Hahahaha. First of all, the quote specifically talks about the pre-Jeremiah, NOT EVERY FETUS IN THE FUTURE. Jeremiah might've been sanctified by God but He pretty much ignores every other fetus. Second of all, Psalm 139 is the most manipulative flim flam bullshit crock of shit and has no relevance in the earthly realm at all and definitely has no sway on modern health and justice affairs. To quote A.C. Grayling, the new testament quotes "literate goat herders" and should be treated as such.
Hey, that makes me think of another activity that is purely secular and humanist: abortion. No one would say that God told them to abort their baby and no one would say that God decided it was their calling to abort babies. So, abortions and breast implants are the two activities that are devoid of religion and I feel it's safe to say that the world would not be 100% better without religion. It wouldn't have lasted so long if it were 100% bad. And to those who say that there is at least a small fraction of negative influence from religion I answer that there is an equivalent fraction of negative influence from atheists and I'm unconvinced that the removal of religion, the obliteration of the notion of God would improve the world. Isn't there room for opposites: God and Reason; Prayer and The Scientific Method; The Bible and Lolita; The Sistine Chapel and Hustler? Darwin and Galileo thought so and so do I
Of course, this does not address the question of the existence of God. That's a separate question. Santa Claus doesn't exist but kids are still positively influenced by his myth and religion may be a completely manufactured hoax but it still has some positive effects. You don't have to know how your car works for it to get you to the custard shop.
AUDIENCE RESULTS
Before the debate:
52% FOR
26% AGAINST
22% UNDECIDED
After the debate:
59% FOR
31% AGAINST
10% UNDECIDED
I should point out that in the pre and post poll of the audience absolutely no one flip-flopped from in favor to opposed. Only 7% of the undecided people sided with those in favor of the motion. And 5% sided with those opposed to the motion. In other words, if you are on the fence then you can become convinced one way or the other but if you have already decided then you will not change your mind. What do you think?
I could go on all day but unfortunately only Rabbis and presidents of colleges get paid to pontificate on philosophical matters so I'm going to go finish fucking up the stain on the fence.
I leave you with these words of comfort from Mr. D'Souza:
The motion was: "The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion"
Let me say that I once worked with a guy who talked of a construction contractor in an awed tone, "I admire and respect him because we think exactly alike," he said. He meant that they had the same practical approach to problem solving. And I would add that they both went out of their way to solve problems for other people. In fact, they made a living from finding someone's problems and fixing them by design. The world is their graph paper and they concentrated on the problem until it was solved. Consequences or philosophy never entered their process of reasoning. Physics and supply chains and budget were the only things that mattered to them. They are both huge successes in the eyes of the modern world, while I'm a complete asshole who is a burden to all.
Now, I have to say that I don't feel the same way about contractors. I admire them but I feel no affinity with them. I study them objectively, from afar, knowing that they operate in a realm (physical and immediate) that is not my home. All efforts to embrace this realm have led to problems for me. The Merchant Marines was truly 6 months of comedic misadventures. My home improvement problems have left hundreds of DIY forum participants vowing to never help a novice again. My vehicle maintenance efforts involve the oldest daily driver in America. I literally drive the oldest car I've seen on the road. From Mexico to Labrador I've one encountered one truck that was older. It was a 1967 Ford Bronco that was buried on a beach. Hell, my 1974 Vespa Ciao moped is older than every other car on the road. I'm an isolated anomaly chugging along with points and condenser on a lobbed spark distributor, one step above steam.
But hearing this debate on a totally theoretical topic revealed members of my own tribe. And I don't only mean the two secular humanists who argued in favor of the motion. The one Rabbi and the Christian president of King's College London were as convincing as any and as comforting as most.
This topic is not practical and only a philosopher/rabbi would bother engaging someone else in a debate. I am that philosopher. These panelists, especially Dinesh D'Souza, reminded me of myself. His twist on the whole "hypocrite" accusation was the best I've heard. "Failing to meet high ideals is different than pretending to strive for high ideals." If you are already bored with what I'm writing then you are on the contractor side of the world and I mean no disrespect when I say that you and a hammer and a carpenter's level should become well acquainted. I am on the side of the fence who is asked to hang a picture level with a window and I ask, "Why?" My heroes are the hermit Thoreau, the martyr Socrates, the writer Hesse and the fictional character Ignatius Reilly. Henry Thoreau built a house but only after 30 years of debating whether he should. Socrates rationalized his own suicide. Hermann Hesse wrote lovingly about two different celibate monks and Ignatius Reilly longed for a return to Feudal Secularism and lute music.
On the topic of religion these four people could literally entertain me for centuries. If food and shelter were not a factor we 5 would happily debate this topic for eternity. And I mean eternity. I would never tire of examining the theoretical angles involving religion's meaning and application. NEVER. Considering all 5 of us are basically secular humanists I guarantee that for the sake of the debate all 5 of us would become passionate Christians.
Listening to the four live NPR panelists debate this topic was like watching philosophy porn because they attacked and defended the topic exactly like I do, with a range of humor and rhetoric and denial and exclusive definitions and selective history and rewriting facts and metaphors and stories and some facts and appeal to reason and faith and anger and passion.
Not content to listen, I placed myself in the panel and asked myself the following question: What human endeavor/activity is 100% devoid of religion. If I could find this activity then I could examine it to see if this activity is "good" Because if the world would be better without religion then all activities would be devoid of religion and if I could find something that is currently devoid of religion then that would help my examination. See? So, I've narrowed it down to two activities.
Electrical Engineering. Cosmetic Surgery.
Maybe there are more but I can't think of any off the top of my head. It seems every other endeavor has some trace of religion in it. I'm smiling because this really is climbing a philosophical mountain that should seem totally fruitless to those who are tradesmen. But you are projecting your values onto me. I realize that shelter and food and not philosophy are the staples of man, but I'm defective because I have it reversed. I'll trade 80 years with an architect's ruler for five minutes writing a sloppy philosophical treatise. That's me. Call me an asshole but first define "asshole."
Anyway, let's focus on Cosmetic Surgery. I can't think of anything less related to religion but I haven't dissected it for very long. I'll probably make a connection between religion and cosmetic surgery later but unless I want to write this essay for five years then I'm going to move forward. I mean the actual application of a face lift or breast implant or ass flab suction is so humanist/human/vain/egotistical/culturally derived that it's my choice as the activity that is purely human. When you listen to those who desire cosmetic surgery and those surgeons who do the surgery, there is never ever an appeal to Jesus Christ or Muhammad or Buddha. It's also a relatively recent activity and is a western endeavor. Yes, religious people must get cosmetic surgery, but I haven't seen any religious people justify it with religious arguments. It's a very human thing to be impacted by the body image/superficial values of modern cultural spin doctors. One religious argument in favor of cosmetic surgery could be that since we were made in God's image and if you have your nose blown off by a grenade then you are no longer the image of God so you need to have a plastic nose installed on your face to bring you back to the image of God. But that's a stretch because mostly it's about being publicly accepted. Like when I wear my bell bottom pants and every other person calls me an asshole or throws an aluminum can at me then it's safe to say God didn't wear Bell Bottom pants...and I should wear normal jeans to blend in. But that's crazy. My desire to fit in outweighs my desire to dress in the image of God...who probably was allergic to polyester.
Maybe we should focus even further on breast implants. That would help me move on and since I'm making the rules I get to say that the single activity that humans participate in that is devoid of religion is breast implantation. It's purely about meeting a personal ideal appearance in this earthly realm. I'm not arguing with this desire but I'm merely trying to find the one thing that we can expect to see a lot more of in a world without religion...because one could conclude that since this is an activity devoid of religion in a world with abundant religion then in a world without religion then there would be a dramatic increase.
(If you listen to the NPR debate then my insane philosophizing will sound comparatively tame)
Can we agree that breast implantation is an activity devoid of religion? Maybe I'm missing something. If we can agree on this fundamental premise then can we then say that the world would be better with more breast implantation? Somehow that statement didn't come out like I expected. What I mean to ask is if the world would be better with more of the impulse that leads to breast implantation? Philosophically, the impulse is conformity and vanity. Women want to be a standardized shape and size, like they are parts of an automobile. This is an ungodly desire...and if Larry Flynt wrote the bible it might be in accordance with his tenets but the King James bible says nothing about breast size. So, the impulses of conformity and vanity are what we can expect more of in a world without religion.
One of the best arguments I heard in favor of the calming influence of religion was that for every murder you can attribute to some fundamental religious argument, you can find ten murders that were committed by an atheist. In other words, California prisons, the state with the most criminals in the world are not in the business of persecuting the devout. No. Not at all. The crimes they committed were not fundamentally religious in nature; their crimes were departures from their faith. You look at the Iraq war...is it an attack on infidels by armed Christians? No, it's an attempt to secure more oil because we don't like to walk to the grocery store. The Spanish inquisition killed 2000 heathens total. In the name of atheism Pol Pot killed 3 million Cambodians. Hitler's persecution of the Jews was actually a political campaign to win the votes of the Bavarian Catholic. Hitler didn't really care for either religion but you wouldn't know it by his speeches. So was it religion that caused the Holocaust or was it an extremely selfish political campaign, the product of democracy? Did democracy cause the Holocaust?
Hell, go to your local court and count how many religious crimes were committed. In fact, the only religiously motivated crimes I can think of are the attacks on feminist health care clinics by fundamentalist Christians who believe abortion is murder because the bible suggests it. Politically, it was murder only 40 years ago and even then the number of abortions performed compared to the number of doctors killed because of it was probably 100,000:1. Now it has to be 500,000:1. It's definitely a purely religious murder but it's such an incredibly small fringe group of fundamental Christians who will actually kill to defend their religious beliefs that it's more of an example of how weak and insignificant religion is instead of how strong and influential it is. Of course, I'm not a doctor at a feminist health care clinic so that's easy for me to say.
Maybe it's wrong to quote from one of the most shabby excuses for a website (that is the philosophical equivalent of Oggy trying to replace a window sash) but here's one Pro-Life "argument"
Psalm 139 again makes clear that the fetus (unborn baby) is a human whom God loves. And God told the prophet Jeremiah, “before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). God had plans for Jeremiah even while he was in his mother's womb.
This quote makes me wonder if a miscarriage is an abortion caused by God? Maybe that's a subject for another essay if only I could get Jeremiah on the phone. Seriously, this argument using Psalm 139 is pitiful...totally circular reasoning. This book says God knew and sanctified a fetus so the fetus was already a human and since this book is true and that's proven by the book itself, therefore... Hahahaha. First of all, the quote specifically talks about the pre-Jeremiah, NOT EVERY FETUS IN THE FUTURE. Jeremiah might've been sanctified by God but He pretty much ignores every other fetus. Second of all, Psalm 139 is the most manipulative flim flam bullshit crock of shit and has no relevance in the earthly realm at all and definitely has no sway on modern health and justice affairs. To quote A.C. Grayling, the new testament quotes "literate goat herders" and should be treated as such.
Hey, that makes me think of another activity that is purely secular and humanist: abortion. No one would say that God told them to abort their baby and no one would say that God decided it was their calling to abort babies. So, abortions and breast implants are the two activities that are devoid of religion and I feel it's safe to say that the world would not be 100% better without religion. It wouldn't have lasted so long if it were 100% bad. And to those who say that there is at least a small fraction of negative influence from religion I answer that there is an equivalent fraction of negative influence from atheists and I'm unconvinced that the removal of religion, the obliteration of the notion of God would improve the world. Isn't there room for opposites: God and Reason; Prayer and The Scientific Method; The Bible and Lolita; The Sistine Chapel and Hustler? Darwin and Galileo thought so and so do I
Of course, this does not address the question of the existence of God. That's a separate question. Santa Claus doesn't exist but kids are still positively influenced by his myth and religion may be a completely manufactured hoax but it still has some positive effects. You don't have to know how your car works for it to get you to the custard shop.
AUDIENCE RESULTS
Before the debate:
52% FOR
26% AGAINST
22% UNDECIDED
After the debate:
59% FOR
31% AGAINST
10% UNDECIDED
I should point out that in the pre and post poll of the audience absolutely no one flip-flopped from in favor to opposed. Only 7% of the undecided people sided with those in favor of the motion. And 5% sided with those opposed to the motion. In other words, if you are on the fence then you can become convinced one way or the other but if you have already decided then you will not change your mind. What do you think?
I could go on all day but unfortunately only Rabbis and presidents of colleges get paid to pontificate on philosophical matters so I'm going to go finish fucking up the stain on the fence.
I leave you with these words of comfort from Mr. D'Souza:
Nietzsche once said that if we get rid of God, we’ve got to get rid of shadows of God. In other words, the ideas that Judaism and Christianity brought into the West and into the world, those will begin to erode as well. Dostoevsky said a long time ago, “If God is not, everything is permitted.” And Dostoevsky’s point is that when we get rid of transcendence, when we create a world without religion, we license terrible calamities.
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