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January 11, 2007
Robert Anton Wilson R.I.P
sad but unflappable to the end - his last blog entry
Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.
RAW
Posted by dottie at 9:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 6, 2007
Ice storm in the U.S.
Absolutely incredible images of the aftermath of an ice storm taken by Mike at ExtermeInstability.
Mike is a professional 'storm chaser' and has many many fantastic images on his site. Hopefully he won't mind me using the image above to link to his site - but Mike if you read this and want me to take it down - let me know! Good job on capturing these beautiful images.
Also be sure and visit another site with some more fantastic shots - Windswept Chase Tours
Posted by dottie at 5:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Where does it all lead?
Where does a lack of faith lead for society?
I am beginning to believe that a lack of religious faith is in essence a 'gateway thought' that leads ultimately to true democracy.
In my mind the truest form of democracy is what I understand as Anarchy (dictionary definition that I refer to - 'a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society' - there are other defiinitions which in this context do not apply, so says I).
I think anarchy's best examples are exemplified by small-hold farmers and their communities (probably better examples existed in the pre-Victorian or even pre-Georgian era, possibly even the middle ages but todays exemplars are pretty good examples to give you the idea...), the kibbutz's of the very early days in Israel and the society that sprung up in Christiania.
The bugbear of modern society, to my mind, is the lack of social contract / civic pride / accountability. Each of those terms fall short of what I mean but express some aspect of what I am trying to define - social cohesion, individual accountability, altruism, mutually beneficial competition - basically the idea that everyone has their own needs and demand respect for those but at the same time everyone is in the same boat and one person falling to his knees can bring the rest of the society to its needs. This should be a two-edged sword though - slackers cannot be tolerated!
Many of todays ills stem from the fact that there is no social cohesion - many people dont know their neighbours - and this anonimity can lead to a feeling that the individual is not accountable.
Getting back to the point. People often argue that religion lends social cohesion to society. My mother has a great phrase that sums up my reaction that - 'they bite chunks off the altar rail on Sunday only to turn around and bite chunks off each other the rest of the week'.
That is a partisan point of view, but then I don't agree that religion is a valid, socially cohesive glue. It works to an extent but to my mind its faults outwiegh its benefits.
Religion is a caste system at heart. It is aparthied - us and them - the faithful and the heathen.
Any society that is based on a caste system is top-heavy and oppressive. Any merit system is open to abuse and regardless of its origin it will be subverted to create a caste system. We must remember that the U.S. constitution was formed by atheists or at best deists (see the Wikipedia article regarding Deism).
We must also remember that Thomas Jefferson spoke of the constitution they were forming as almost temporary in nature. He claimed that the framers of the constitution had no right to tell the future inhabitants of the U.S. how they should live their lives - the constitution was formed by the people of that time for the people of that time with a view to guidelines on how people should act to avoid the perils of imperialism - which was the greatest monster to them at the time. I think that Thomas Jefferson was an anarchist! :)
So, back to the original question again - where does a lack of faith lead?
The ideal would be open-mindedness.
Posted by dottie at 3:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Adverse reactions to humanism/atehism/non-faith
I had a very interesting pseudo-debate with a mate of mine about faith. Specifically, relating to Richard Dawkins latest book 'The God Delusion'.
My friend told me that after reading Dawkins book he would lean more toward faith and religion than toward Dawkins point of view.
I asked him to think about what it was that made him think about this (and I have to admit to being a little confrontational trhoughout the 'debate' - which in light of my mate's statement is perhaps {depending on your point of view of course} not a bad thing!) and to remain open to a proper chat about those reasons because I am genuinely fascinated how someone could read the book and reach that point of view!
One mark against him though, I have to point out, he left me with this little gem and I am somewhat paraphrasing here, but I di get hi to repeat the phrase so that I got the meaning of it clearly:
'I think that people of faith or religious people would generally tend to be more selfless'
Take the corollary of that statement - you understand this is me being the devils advocate in relation to analysis of my friends statement:
'I think that people without faith or religion generally tend to be selfish'
I would love to know where that opinion comes from as I am, frankly, surpirsed that this particular person made such a statement.
And yes, I was yet again being boorish - having had a couple of pints and having just finished 'The God Delusion' leaving me with a lot of conflicting or leading or satisifed (many) or continuing questions regarding especially the role of religion, dogma and god (small g please...) in our society.
I do agree with my friend that Dawkins book does not properly address the notion of what it is that will replace god, and religion in our society - but I do think that that was an implied marginalia in Dawkins book - 'proof given elsewhere' - if you excuse the allusion to the famous last theorem of Fermat.
Posted by dottie at 1:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 3, 2007
Transubstantiation
On the whole 'this is my body eat of it, this is my blood drink of it' thing:
Maybe they were tired of bread and fish, bread and fish. Every night it's bread and fish... Christ dies. They come back three days later and the body's gone.
Posted by dottie at 11:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack