Except John, hormones don’t work all by themselves, they are assisted by irrational emotions to, as you say, create a temporary insanity (a mental not physical condition) and I hardly think marriage cures it, just check the rate of divorce in this country.  Thinking about life can be pretty banal and mediocre in which case it is hazardous.

Since love is an emotion, John, while propagation is not, love is hypothetical in that you can love anybody, and your physical body doesn’t tell you who it must be.  Whenever you meet someone that could be a lover or mate, your mind starts imagining all kinds of things based on pheromones and mentation (thoughts about life) and eventually decides on which characteristics fit your image.  All hypothetical up to that point when it becomes a theory, then if a relationship occurs, whatever that might be, a brief encounter, or one that is lasting, it moves beyond the theoretical and becomes a reality.  So glad you have such a clear perspective on right-wing propagandist, which more or less matches my own, but those, both yours and mine, are also hypothetical constructs.

Ratso the popo should get back to sodomizing alter boys.  What a fuckhead.  Ya like the catholic church has ever done any good.  Crusades? Inquistion? Suppression of science in the Middle ages? These were ideas for human progress?

Atheism is the ONLY hope for a free world.  It is the only hope for justice, equity, and in the end joy.  Religion has caused far too much guilt and suffering, it is time to put such a childish thing away, and to move forward into humanities adulthood.  Please understand, I have contempt equally for judaism, islam, hinduism, most forms of budhism, almost all aboriginal spiritual traditions, etc - in short ALL religion (even communism and marxism).

The pope as a moral, ethical, and intellectual guide for the world, what a joke.  Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t he the head of a religious organization that refuses to give women an equal voice and role?

I have news for Ratso: - your god is and illusion! jesus did not exist!  the new testament is a fiction ! (Ok so is the old testicle)

Right, last word is my middle name.  Low grade attacks are the most effective for small brains.  Get a dictionary before you move anywhere else and keep it on you everywhere you go as it might help your immature thoughts.  Post your aunt’s address and I’ll look her up, she may be the only other one in Texass that has a mind.  And John, love is a hypothetical construct.

NPD= Enlightenment? Fascinating! Talk about “pulling the wool over your own eyes!” You do know that NPD is practically-speaking untreatable, right? And that it’s a “disorder?” No matter; anyone else reading this can make up their own minds about which perspective they prefer, not that it matters. Since low-grade personal attacks are your style, and you see things that aren’t there “Sorry you take offense” (I never expressed such), this has become (guess what?) tedious.

BTW genius, I asked you about where you live because I think you might actually BE my aunt (she lives somewhere in Texas; I didn’t want your address for chrissakes). She has lots of intellectually elite imaginary friends too, who also tickle each other with their vast repertoire of Big Words, but they don’t actually DO anything except engage in those tedious academic circle-jerks. I can walk away from that and return years later and she’ll still be sitting there exercising her mouth but nothing else. Perhaps I should try that here… Yes, that’s a good idea.

Since I won’t be returning to respond to the comments of this story as it’s clearly time to move on, I demand that you craft one more pointless personal attack (remember, you poked me first- for no reason) because I require it in order to support my prediction that you will absolutely never walk away from anything without having the last word, just like my crazy aunt.

Come on now, make another post, have that last word; you know you want to (and can’t help it)…

Sorry, if this gets posted twice, computer must know it is important to let VI know where he stands.
I can see why you chose the appellation, Village Idiot.  It is perfect.  You cannot make distinctions and that is because you are unable to, obviously.  Sorry you take offense and are so offensive.  A sign of a bruised ego.  Do keep running around the village as that is your forte.  And what kinds of different wool are you aware of, sheep, alpaca, goat?  Ah yes, the perennial goat herders.  Yup, those who are cognizant of the world do find it pitiful that the rest are not.  Those around me are just as tickled with my intellectual abilities to the degree you are not, but then they are intellectual themselves, where you are not.

Sounds like you have an enlightened aunt.  At least you have that!  She is only tedious to those who can’t keep up.  None of your business where I live as only predators would want to know.

I can see why you chose the appellation, Village Idiot.  It is perfect.  You cannot make distinctions and that is because you are unable to, obviously.  Sorry you take offense and are so offensive.  A sign of a bruised ego.  Do keep running around the village as that is your forte.  And what kinds of different wool are you aware of, sheep, alpaca, goat?  Ah yes, the perennial goat herders.  Yup, those who are cognizant of the world do find it pitiful that the rest are not.  Those around me are just as tickled with my intellectual abilities to the degree you are not, but then they are intellectual themselves, where you are not.

Sounds like you have an enlightened aunt.  At least you have that!  She is only tedious to those who can’t keep up.  None of your business where I live as only predators would want to know or care.

Wow, shenonymous, talk about loving to hear yourself type… good luck with that, and your need to distinguish yourself from inferior minds. It must be quite the burden, what with idiots like me running around the village laughing at all the different types of wool everybody choses to pull over their eyes, and at how strongly they feel that their peculiar type is special, and has “meaning.”

I offered my condolences to those around you from personal experience, because you sound EXACTLY like my aunt, another old pseudo-intellectual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and a chip on her shoulder that the group of inferior minds known as the rest of her family find… tedious. I mean, it’s uncanny… Where did you say you lived again?

Village Idiot, you are oblique, and often a biff bam thank you mam, without the thank you mam.  Nothing is “just” a statement, either you are saying something coherent and meaningful or you are a blathering fool, you choose.  Yes, I would say that the effete do find me tedious as they are inferior. while all humans are have an equal right to happiness, all minds are not equal.  But maybe you cannot fathom that in the strata where yours lies???  Save your condolences for yourself.  When everything has the same description, ala ‘ordinary,’ there is no way to make a distinction, hence loss of all relevant meaning.  It is called the entropic effect.  It has nothing to do with a perjorative meaning of the word.  You are the one that lacks understanding of logic.  I have no need of anything Catholic, double entendre or not, obviously you are quite attached which prevents you from seeing clearly.  I doubt you are happy, nonetheless I am ecstatic.  I celebrate life and sing praises of the universe.  Take care, sleepy one.  There are those who look out for you, double entendre intended.

Shenonymous:
Logic? What logic? It was just a statement. Then, like other pseudointellectuals around here you immediately focused on my name in a typical pointless stab that required no sophistication at all, which is fortunate for you as you don’t appear to have any. Being you all the time must get tedious for those around you in the real world (if there are any); my condolences to them.

Now here’s some more: You don’t know what “ordinary” means, apparently. There is nothing about everyone being “ordinary” that takes anything whatsoever away from its meaning. There’s also the Catholic Mass double-entendre that you apparently missed, but was admittedly too obtuse anyway. You’re just fixated on “ordinary” in the pejorative sense, but I was going more for the “let’s not pretend we’re better than somebody else, because we’re not” sense. That’s why you earn “pseudo” intellectual status, but thanks for playing.

And it’s “just” our chosen fantasy because in the grand scheme of things, the fictional models our brains create of the vague sensory perceptions that are all we have for apprehending the Universe are, if all added together, about as relevant as a gnat’s headache. The way you or I may express our disagreement with that statement is “just” the peculiar nature of our fantasy or self-delusion. This is good to know, as it means we can then create our own delusion instead of getting someone else’s off-the-shelf version, and thereby can we pull the wool over our OWN eyes for a change. It’s much more comfortable than when “they” do it, but rest assured it gets done one way or another.

Everybody laughs at the village idiot running around pulling the wool over his own eyes, but remember: He’s happier than you are!

No acquaintances here, they are a bit too bland.  But of the ones you mentioned, how many are still alive?  Hmmm Bill Moyers is about the only one, he’s one of my heroes, but we don’t run in each other’s social circuses, and I don’t think Cronkite still lives here, try Martha’s Vineyard.  So your list is a bit short.  Should you and I ever meet in other possible world’s, perhaps we could have a cup of tea and discuss civilly the nature of the world?  I think we would mutually have a good cup of tea.

Way…ell, since we are a tolerant soul, we have to put up with idiots like the Village one.  By your logic, ordinary loses all its meaning.  And what’s with the word “just?”

All Americans are ordinary, as is everybody else, everywhere. Our self-perception is just our chosen fantasy.

No darlin’ Ah em in the heart of the mindless state of Texass.  It’s been sed on a numba o places.  But all that aside, I am an ejudmacated denizen transplant from California, that most enlightened state of all.  I am rude, and I am conceited, with excellent credentials.  I so enjoy insulting you as you are so insultable.  You are faceless that is true but also cold and heartless and humorless far as the invisible Internet shows.  I am not a coward, and if we met face to face, I would not hesitatete a tete to say the same things to you.

No there isn’t any “one” ordinary American, it always takes a bunch to qualify as ordinary, it’s called a normative collection and usually they are banal and uninteresting as Conservative Yankee proves.

About the amateur video - So goes mythologies.  But enjoying the charms of the instinctive is like standing before a Grandma Moses and a Raphael and enjoying one while swooning over the other.  I am quite able to see through the eyes of the naïve, having initiated many of them myself to the artfulness of the arts.  Sentimentality is what it is, simple and while there is a beauty of a type in the pubescent even in the art of film, there is a majesty awaiting those who dare to enter.  We mustn’t stay fixed on our gaze of the mundane and immature.  No, I do not know Russian or a Russian.  I used to though, who taught me volya naroda, The will of the people!  (spelled phonetically is the best I can do)

Zardoz, yes definitely, one of my favorite movies about the renegades and the apathetics, the story is amazing.  I own it and watch it periodically just to center myself.  And I do love that Sean Connery in his loin cloth. Now that was a hunk.  And he did several excellent films not of the Bond genre.  But sometimes reading a classic piece of literature does the heart and mind a lot of good.

#120350 by Shenonymous on 12/15: “Walter Miller’s, “A Canticle for Lebowitz” instead....”

Well, Shenonymous, “jejune theatricality” was hardly what I had in mind but as regards “a post-apocalyptic science fiction” do look at these two short trailer clips from the 1970’s:-

Play this first - Zardoz (prologue): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNhWN0ietVw&feature =related

- and then see if you can recognize the main actor in Zardoz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVIdA3dx0 - strangely, it was his best movie.......

#120350 by Shenonymous on 12/15: “...I like your sentiments: But black dress with circular spread is somewhat pretentious, symbology...”

Oh, Shenonymous, try to see this through the eyes of the people who made it and acted in it. IrgeTas is based in Russia, not the USA. This is Central European melodrama - as it really is!

It is about the Caucasus - from whence all Caucasians supposedly derive their origins. It is set in Norther Iran/Southern Azerbaijan according to the poster of the clip on Youtube.

I haven’t had a reply to my emails to either IrgeTas (perhaps if you know someone who speaks Russian?) or to Pammukale university in Turkey about the origins of the clip - but a comment on that page is informative:-

“… video is about a turkic legend that young mothers are constantly being threatened by the evil spirits...but the angels always protects them...”

Sounds like you are just another ordinary American, John.

Good morning Douglas Chalmers, I like your sentiments: But black dress with circular spread is somewhat pretentious, symbology: we are in a black hole and just don’t know it? Ah, but we do.  We recognize all our faults, our blame, our transgressions.  Then the white dress, histrionic angel/devil business pretty hokey, especially since all women actresses. Where are the men?  Spilt milk?  Music is nice. A Brahms’ rhapsody is more my cup of tea.  Dog fight , black and white dogs, circle of fire?  Hmmmm very melodramatic, White dog wins???? What is that supposed to mean, as if we don’t know.  Woman shows affection for baby, a natural phenomenon.  Too artificial, histrionic.  Sophomoric.  If this is to be a real metaphor, then the pieces have to work without jejune theatricality. Read Walter Miller’s, “A Canticle for Lebowitz” instead.  Much more memorable meaning available there and a lot more enjoyable.  You will never forget it.  But thank you anyway Douglas.  Very thoughtful

120203 by Shenonymous on 12/14: “...do not celebrate Xmas .....life is a bitch, then you die......there is such turmoil and sadness in the world at this time..... celebrate the universe, the planet Earth, and yourself, your consciousness by jubilating in the Winter Solstice....”

Agreed, Shenonymous, and do remember that the Mother Earth not only provides a biological environment on the surface as our “space refuge” but a gigantically powerful magnetosphere as well which is a kind of protective cloak lest all life on the surface would be fried by the enrgy of the cosmic rays and the solar wind.

However, as for the “turmoil and sadness in the world at this time” , I re-post this clip for it contains a message for us all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5PoedKBq-Y&feature =related

There are a lot of folks who post here that do not celebrate Xmas for some reason or another.  I don’t because I am atheist.  I hope that doesn’t put anyone off but if it does, sorry, life is a bitch, then you die.  Whether or not you might consider this trite or too sentimental, I don’t really care what you think.  But if you do happen to appreciate the spirit in which it is posted, then here’s to your laudable credit. Because there is such turmoil and sadness in the world at this time, and because there are so many different people with various beliefs that are often at odds with each other, I am proposing something to you, that a few others and I will participate in, that is to celebrate the universe, the planet Earth, and yourself, your consciousness by jubilating in the Winter Solstice.  What some of us are doing is on December 21 or 22, depending on where you are at in the world, the solstice happens, we will raise a toast to remember the love we have of the universe, the Earth, others, and of course, ourselves.  If you don’t know what the solstice is, I am directing you to a couple of websites that explains it much better than I could ever. 

http://www.candlegrove.com/solstice.html

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/wintersolstice1.html

Some of it refers to your regular variety religious holiday associations, and pagan events.  For me none of these are interesting as there are the perennial selling efforts that is anathema to my mind.  And I do not subscribe to any religious order of any stripe.  But I do have always in my consciousness the wonderful experience I am having with this life I have found myself in and the lovely people I have had the pleasure to learn of and some even to know.  And I honor it at this time since winter solstice is the beginning of a new year, and with it the possibility of a better being in the world.  We can celebrate the world, and ourselves with all our warts and beauty marks, can’t we?

8 days to solstice

You may see this invitation elsewhere as I hope to be ubiquitous with it.

Knowing how to play the piano, I would say that moralism and perfection is only as fulfilling as playing the piano.  Religion and god are fictions and have nothing to do with the thyroid, or the tonsils and adenoids, which are the two seats of all allergies.  You have to see better John Hanks.  As the Buddha said, “if you meet me on the road, kill me.”

Love the Baez, gad hadn’t heard that for decades!  That was beautiful and a joy to hear.  Thanx Doug, and she sings my sentiments so well and sang like a bird.

Yes, indeed dance, dance, and more dance, and laughter (my constant companion is Ho Tai) on the Way.  I just don’t care about any religion, orthodox or unorthodox.  I only believe in the Great Unyun.  Check out Abida the greatest Sufi singer in the world.  I won’t hold my breath for the sick of mind and recalcitrant to give up their swords of shame and cowardice.  I see no honor in these primitive nescients who are blinded from ignorance and capitulate to an imaginary Man Upstairs, and are incapable of understanding the concepts of universal inalienable rights.  Have a good holiday.

#118932 by Shenonymous on 12/08: “...prefer to find my energy through intellectual education about the world and my fellow citizens.  I feel closer to them as human beings....”

Thanks for checking that interesting link, Shenonymous. I’ll add this for “all the married people”, ha ha http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cmNRVL1drA&feature =related

But music and dance are also ways of moving towards Enlightenment (more Tantra!) and it is so disappointing that orthodox religions have either usurped or repressed much of this in so many ways.

Some of the Arab women have far better singing voices than any of the men yet they are rarely heard in some countries....... this is Turkish about Yemen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoCuyGclzc4&feature =related

Too bad, though, that some of the women still have to appear in “black tents” to be allowed to sing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVjdR3nnTEo&feature =related

Perhaps when the men finally are willing to give up their “daggers of honor” in these lands - and in the minds of all men everywhere!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX16vofC-LI

I meant to say seeking “through” chakras and they appear in both vedic Hinduism and tantric Buddhism. I also didn’t mean to focus on just one. Looks like we may both be right.  I prefer to find my energy through intellectual education about the world and my fellow citizens.  I feel closer to them as human beings.

#118880 by Shenonymous on 12/08: “Your seeking Chakras is .....a consciousness about the connection between the body and the mind..... humans need to find mental and physical strength outside of all religion, find it within themselves through learning, and learning to truly love .....It is only in this latter state I believe one can be fully human...”

I was not making a statement about Hinduism, Shenonymous, although you seem to have managed to. As a religion, it is as culpable as any as regards bigotry and dogma and you are correct to point that out - but they don’t “own” chakras, we do.

The “age-old mire of the oppression of women” is something which ALL MEN will have to address in full if we are ever to actually progress on this planet. It is ultimately THE PATH out of that mire of ignorance and ape-like behaviours which continue to hold humanity back.

Education becomes just yet another boys’ club if it is allowed to - and that has already happened just as with religions in the past. How men can tell women anything is a constant source of amazement yet they continue to struggle to do so.

Only when the higher “chakras” are fully developed can the human mind be balanced or fully functional in intellect as well as its emotional and spiritual faculties. After all, we think through what we feel with and that is essentially the nerve ganglia attached to the spinal cord as well as the brain at the end.

Everybody has these body parts, man and woman, and they are thus able to energise and sensitize the higher as well as the lower centres of “consciousness”. Once they are able to do so, they are then free of the negativities of the grasping sub-conscious mind and all the resultant vices and weaknesses which plague unenlightened man (and woman).

In the end, there is only one path to enlightenment and this is it. Learning is a part as ignorance is not enlightenment and freedom from manipulation or control by others is essential. The rest is karma and that is why service to others and unselfish love are so important.

We do not live each on an island unto ourselves - although most people try to do so (and only go out for shopping, ha ha). One person’s path to enlightenment touches everyone and the creative force of the Universe works through us to help each other if we will open ourselves to our intuition and inspiration.

Essentially “the Force” is the same energy we think with and It lives through us. We can either co-operate with it and progress or not. In the end, what we have done for others and the Mother Earth is as important as what we have done for ourselves. No amount of prayer or meditation or chanting or fasting or even intellectual effort will produce a lasting enlightenment alone.

As a mother, of twins to be exact, and who had parents who suffered physical illness, and I as well suffered various conditions and physical injuries in my lifetime, I have a keen understanding about pain.  I can claim to be relatively healthy and make an effort to keep it that way.  But, if it is possible to make the comparison, just as bad as physical illness are the illnesses of the mind brought on by the cacophony of every day life in America.  I am only human on that score as well.  Yes, I am quite familiar with Hinduism, and have read and studied most of the religious books, the Vedas, Upanishads, Baghavad Gita, Tantras and some familiarity with the Puranas, and so forth, and have indelibly learned the best lesson of Mind Poise where one learns to control the source of unhealthy thinking and promote beneficial thought.  Where these thought originate is in the mind, not the organs, the throat, and so forth although the health of the organs and other bodily places contributes to successful well-being and hence healthful thought.  They become centers of thought, focus assistants, if you will, to distract the mind from the dissonance of ordinary life allowing it to be free for nourishing introspection.  Caring for the body, without becoming radical about it, since that also brings about illness, and avoiding harmful excesses is the way, the Way, to a happy life, accepting whatever vicissitudes comes your way. Your seeking Chakras is one way, but not the only way. The Hindu way of life is of all religions, in my mind, the most beautiful, but not matchless.  Much in Native American approach to life can equal Hinduism, as do those other cultures that have a consciousness about the connection between the body and the mind.  But religions, all religions, have dogma, and dogma hinders the mind.  The difficulty with Hinduism as I see it is its usual religious vulnerability to misanthropic behaviors by its priestly class, which is akin to the same found in Christianity.  The further vulnerability to the Indian caste system may not be strictly supported by the religion, but it accompanies the practice and is therefore seen, appears to be, part and parcel of the practice.  The Hindu view of women is also problematic and reflects the age-old mire of the oppression of women.  The muck is with religion itself.  It is my belief that humans need to find mental and physical strength outside of all religion, find it within themselves through learning, and learning to truly love their fellowman which is why education is the most important human endeavor and why religion teaches dogma in order to preclude the fully developed human mind.  It is only in this latter state I believe one can be fully human.

Sorry about the link typo, but try this one (I’ve double check it and it seems to work from my computer)

http://peacecenter.berkeley.edu/greatergood/

#118839 by Shenonymous on 12/07: “True justice or compassion or mercy must also be generated from hypothetical positions and have no meaning outside of human behavior....”

Uhh, your link failed, Shenonymous, could you try again, please? 

But what could “true” justice be?  Well, to answer that, lets forget about the Vatican and the Abrahamic religions for a while and focus on Eastern mysticism - and Hindu Tantra in particular.

Compassion and mercy are traits of “higher mind” and that is essentially the energized “higher Chakras” in the body from the heart, the throat, the “third eye” and the crown of the head.

None of this is “academic” in any way as it is only accessible by real experience. If you haven’t suffered enough in life, you could never understand such qualities. Ask any mother......

That is why I say that academics cannot possibly be spiritual people - based on their academic knowldege, their academic experience or their academic life alone .

This is all about what “spirituality” really is. Most people function minimally, or are suppressed, in these “centres of consciousness”. Instead, they live their lives through the emotions of the base chakras (at the base of the spine and the sex centre) and somewhat through their bellies.

It is NOT possible to attain any real spiritual understanding through these basic levels of consciousness. Nor is it possible to attain any spirituality - or compassion or mercy - except by restricting the base desires and finding ways in which to be of SERVICE to others for the better and that includes self-sacrifice and LOVE.

In short, that is why Islam will soon become a more significant religion in the world along with Buddhism. It embraces the concept of sacrifice in a way that Christianity has utterly failed in its mission in the world - and that is certainly NOT the fault of Jesus in any way!

True justice or compassion or mercy must also be generated from hypothetical positions and have no meaning outside of human behavior.  But what could “true” justice be?  A Platonic ideal, and if so, how does it come to be known or used in any beneficial way such that all other justice may be compared to it? I don’t think it is at all based on fear, control, and manipulation.  I think if true justice exists, it is necessarily based on the notion a reciprocity to be altruistic, ethical, and otherwise virtuous because in the long run this strategy does better in a community (such as America is).  I would submit the Vatican uses a pseudoreciprocal game plan and that they delude themselves that it is altruistic when in reality it is the self-serving and self-centered, greedy, hostile, envious path (the approach the pope takes against atheism is the elementary fear you suggest that acts as a survival mechanism to preserve the Catholic fortress, the church.) It has been shown that a strategy based on cooperation is more successful than one based on tit-for-tat (the pope’s accusations).  We can refer to the War-Peace game as a model that deals with strategies of cooperation and aggression.  Benedict, the beguiled, has obviously come out swinging and with belligerence.  Unbecoming a man of god.  Certainly not in imitation of the benevolent god that Jesus is claimed to be.  Another case of militant Christianity?  And what could possibly be “excessive” faith in atheism? 

What is the role of justice, true or otherwise, although the latter is hard to imagine?  The same with compassion and mercy?  You seem to think there is no cash value in these behaviors (gathered from your reference to dribble-down economics), yet, it is at the basis of all successful communities.  Religion is irrelevant except to the degree that it promotes one or more, or an antithesis, of the behaviors. Then it becomes morbidly intrusive into the community.

It has been shown, that male baboons (our monkeys) form coalitions so that they can distract the top guy (the Alpha-male who dominates the entire group of females and is akin to your judges who sit on high branches and only their asses may be seen) so that the cooperative pair may engage female baboons in reproductive encounters in a reciprocal payback agreement.

What is magical about the number 5 as in 5 steps up?  I would think instead that the number of steps was arbitrary and the distance relative to the judges’ agreements (a more anti-community form of reciprocity) with other Alpha-males in our human society, also known as corruption paid for with wealth and power.

May I refer you to the Greater Good Science Center, based at the University of California, Berkeley that promotes the study and development of human happiness, compassion, and altruism, and can be found at http://www.peacecenter.berkeley.edu

#118740 by Shenonymous on 12/07: “...when the monkies on the bottom branches look up, all they see are monkies’ asses...”

In economics, its called “the dribble-down effect”, uhh! But note how judges usually sit perched about 5 steps up from everybody else in the room, too (the “upper-branch” effect?).......

As you quoted, “Justice is a human construct”, thus the lack of either true justice or compassion or mercy...... its all based on fear and control and manipulation, uhh.

#118705 by John Hanks on 12/07: “When we think we have the answer we are hanging by a branch.  We have to take a leap away from every answer to grow....”

Good example, John Hanks, but Buddhism (correctly practised) is the exception. It even teaches how...... by learning what the mind and the emotions really are and how to control them - as well as how to live successfully together.

If the Christian religion ever had that information (and it was available), it has been excised intentionally. The other Abrahamic religions have some greater wisdom but they have become pre-occupied with their political agendas.

Yup, and when the monkies on the bottom branches look up, all they see are monkies’ asses.  I just couldn’t help myself.

Here comes Shenonymous.  You knew she was bound to show up on this topic given the atheist she is.  She has already posted her sentiments at the Open Parachute site by Ken Perrott on the same topic, which appears to be uninterestingly merely a dialogue between Perrott and a guy named Dale Campbell.  There are many more engaged minds here at TD to make a comment worthwhile.  So with that I shall jump in with my own pontification on justice. 

Justice is a human construct as Perrott states.  It is not a physical given such as human blood, although human blood has historically been shed on behalf of justice through the encouragement of religions, just as we witness today the ghastly bloodshed going on in the Middle East by both sides of the war zone.

But, justice is a “hypothetical” construct, meaning it requires a test to prove.  However, there are no tests since it is a relative term, and therefore not absolute.  Justice is a concept that has to do with the “proper” ordering of human actions within a society and thereby subject to the communal nature of that society, and since we have a variety of societies, justice is relative to those societies.

That we are an intelligent species is questionable by opinionated degrees, and indubitably relative to other animal species.  Counter to what some people like to claim, it is a fallacy to say that humankind “all of a sudden” evolved to have respectful and peace with one another.  30,000 years of evolution of brain development that has learned to reason the hypothetical constructs of love, morality, beauty, and the good, the ancient virtues is not all of a sudden. 

It has been asked, and I think with honest sympathy, if violence, fighting, killing and death are not a natural part of life?  Yes, of course these behaviors are genetically in all of the animal kingdom’s species including humans, but humans are differentiated by their critical thinking skills and have reasoned altruistic and selfless concerns for others, i.e., the Golden rule of ethics regardless of Nietzsche’s proposal of amoralism.  We call it egalitarianism and there are just as powerful arguments for this point of view including the rational basis of the foundations that established this very country in which we live.  I suggest an article by Marc Hauser, Harvard psychologist whose thesis is that the human animal is hardwired to know right from wrong.  Also, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene examines the scientific basis for morality, as well as a whole bibliography listed at http://www.Wikipedia.org/wiki/evolutionary_ethics. 

It just takes a bit of research.  It can be called brain stretching.  I know it is hard work and many are just simply lazy thinkers. So it goes.  We simply have to shrug at those individuals.

The problem has been succinctly put by Arthur C. Clarke when he said, “The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.” The dismissing of justice by the current pope is unconscionably irrational and unimaginably parochial (which is ordinarily descriptive of the religious anyway).  His browbeating religious provincialism can be chalked up to intentional protectionism due to the inexorable migration of educated minds away from his kind of religious dogmatism.

I ask the counter question: why we should not act differently to the merely survival instinct of natural violence of animal behavior? 

The pope postulates a world that seeks to create justice is a world without hope out of his acute fear that the world will see into Catholic injustice.

#117832 by diditagain on 12/03: “Whether religions are purely mythical is not relevant to one seeking, and also not relevant are foolish dogmas - the reference point is the philosophical center instead.”

That would be true if there were only ONE seeking. However, there are billions out there trying to figure it all out, and when a few get together and try to sell their own ideas as “gospel” to the masses (by force if necessary), then the seeking of the multitude is vectored away from the path of direct experience and toward someone’s arbitrary, narrow path designed to promote an agenda rather than further understanding, which is VERY relevant to the rest of us who have to interact with these people. That kind of belief system is not a myth; that is an outright lie. A myth is a metaphor designed to further understanding, so myths should evolve as understanding evolves. Religion halts one’s spiritual development by hijacking the myths and deifying the characters, making them endpoints instead of guides along the way.

Also, these dogmas would merely be “foolish” if they did not result in the amount of suffering and death that they cause. Dogma that causes real damage is a disease that should not be underestimated by terms that diminish its very real threat.

Quote: “It is today’s reality that there IS religion - alot of it too - just calling it evil and false creates more polar extremes - how’s that going to help?”

They started it!!!

And it is also today’s reality that there IS religious extremism, a lot of it too, and just calling it evil and false creates more polar extremes, so we should be polite and reason with them instead, is that it? Surely some well-spoken, reasonable logic can convince a radicalized teenager to take off their bomb vest, right?

117731 by sad old german on 12/03: “...what it really looks like is a German pope’s idea of what a hat should have looked liked in the American Wild West..... Karl May was a con artist who wrote adventure stories .....becomes the blood brother of Winnetou, the noblest of them all.....but not before uttering the immortal words: “Winnetou is a Christian.”

There was this weird German film character “Krismopompas” some years back. My German’s not good enought to trace it - anything on that? Maybe that’s who he reminds me of???

RE#117651 by still confused on 12/03 at 5:20 am:

What an absolutely wonderful nom de guerre!  I have yet to see a more appropriate one!

Well, ‘still confused’, (that is just so precious!) I DO have it all figured out.  At least about that filthiest of religious filth: the catholic government.

Do humanity two favors, ‘still confused’, (too sweet!) one: get sterilized; two: go to a library (li-bra-ry, go ahead, you can say it!) and study the origins of catholicism to understand why it’s really a government and not a church.  Then study some more and find the ONLY original bit of the Jesus myth.

Hint: it’s not the one god with the one son from a human mother and who was sacricificed for the sins of mankind on a cross.  Surprised?  If you weren’t so busy being ‘still confused’ you might learn something.

Or is it just that like so many magical thinkers, your parents were related?

#117588 by Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD on 12/02 at 6:04 pm
•
I take it most of you don’t like the Pope.  Most media accounts I’ve read about him say he’s an intellectual.  I’m conflicted.
=================

Gee Doc, whatever gave you THAT idea? (sorry, after catching up on the comments, I couldn’t resist);)

Actually, as a former Catholic, I never really had any serious problems with the late Pope, John Paul. At least not as far as popes go. Although, I know he HAD to know about all of the pedophilia and molestation, and he never got around to making any public statements on the evils of that. Still, he seemed OK in most respects. Again, as far as Popes go.

And, I thoroughly admire and respect Bishop Desmond Tutu, but that’s IN SPITE of him being a clergyman. In that vein, I obviously felt the same way about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

That said, I’m guessing that most of us have figured out by now, that religious ‘faith’ is NOT the same as spirituality, and that organized religion has been at the root of multiple evils, too numerous to count. (though our fellow commentators have certainly provided an excellent outline.)

As for the red-hatted pope here, I do believe that he is an ‘intellectual’ of sorts, if only because he’s possibly read and written more than the average cleric. Still, that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of the political endgame. Dr. King and Oscar Romero were intellectuals as well, but theirs was a Liberation Theology, which is how/why they were assassinated.... Trying to liberate people in THIS life, not prepare them for a next that nobody has even known to exist.

Big difference there.

Love the hat.

Re: #117255 by Logician on 11/30

I’m not sure whether I should congratulate you on your heroism or your truthfulness, just the same..thanks for telling “it like it is”.  I think you just may get “treasures from heaven”.  Hmmm…

To everyone else: “DITTO!”...hang tough...enjoy..the neocon empire is rocking....and that isn’t rock n’ roll I hear.

I take it most of you don’t like the Pope.  Most media accounts I’ve read about him say he’s an intellectual.  I’m conflicted.

BTW, purplewolf, thanks for the Boys, oops, Toys R Us recommendation for finding a RR Hat.

# 117486 Dr. Knowitall,Phd,Phd:

If you really want a hat like that check out Toys-R-Us. That’s where I found the Mickey Mouse ears hat for a Rocky Horror Picture Show to go with the costumes in one of the scenes. They probably have the Red Ryder hats also.