The New Republic

Gay and secular fascism.  Holy cow!

The Kulturkampf is all they have.  Every year we have to endure the Christmas/Happy Holidays wars.  Time for those emails from your retired Aunt Essie reminding us that "He is the Reason for the Season".  Yeah, gay fascism is imposing its will on everyone, that must explain Prop 8 and every other anti-gay marriage amendment/proposition/referendum.  

Why is liberal and secular government for Middle Eastern nations a good thing, but for the United States, it's the handiwork of the Devil and "the relentless effort to drive God out of America's public square" .  Why is an "independent judiciary" a requirement for China and Russia, but in the U.S., it's derided as "judicial activism"?

The GOP will distill itself down its fundamentalist, anti-intellectual, un-curious, anti-scientific, and xenophobic core.  It's standbearer and shoe-in for 2012 is Sarah Palin.

- dubyadoubte

December 3, 2008 at 1:13pm

Is this the same Newt Gingrich who had divorce papers delivered to his wife's hospital death bed so he could finally marry the gal he'd been fooling around with for many years?

Talk about family values!

- desertdog

December 3, 2008 at 1:22pm

Desertdog:

Yeah, that would be the one.  He also cheated on Wife #2 "the gal he'd been fooling around with" .  Young staffers seem to have that effect.

Multiple marriages, multiple divorces, no kids, infidelity,  "youthful indescretions" and restroom forays are the hallmarks of the Family Values crowd.

- dubyadoubte

December 3, 2008 at 1:40pm

Gotta love those family values folks.  They really know how to throw a toga party!

- desertdog

December 3, 2008 at 1:49pm

I'm a pastor of a good sized, mostly Republican, church in central Kansas.  Kansas, as you may know, is a conservative state.  My church members are hard working, intelligent, capable people who represent the best of the Republican tradition, and they typically find this kind of right-wing conservative Christian stuff to be, frankly, weird.  They are put off by rabit anti-choice, pro-creationist, homophobic pandering.  They want lower taxes, a balanced budget, secure borders, and good schools.

Why is Newt alienating what should be the core of the future Republican party?

- Andrew Davis

December 3, 2008 at 1:53pm

Right you are, Andrew.  My sons live in Topeka, and I know KS.  If Bill Snyder can come back, why not Bill Graves - a moderate, sensible conservative.  The inmates are running the asylum.

- butchie b

December 3, 2008 at 2:06pm

I know a pretty hardcore Evangelical who is hitting the roof over DeMint's objections to the Capitol Visitor's Center. And not the roof you'd expect him to hit. "It's the entrance to the U.S. Capitol, not a narthex," was his pithy response to DeMint's complaint.

- rhubarbs

December 3, 2008 at 3:20pm

How can you take seriously anyone who posits the belief there is but one God and their own God just happens to be The One.

[Not to be confused with Barack Obama, of course.]

I always pose three questions when confronted with one or another True Believer.

If God is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent how does one reconcile this with the belief that God gave us free will? Either God is everywhere, knows everything, and has the power to stop everything [including everything we will ever say and do] or human autonomy is an illusion.

If God is loving just and merciful how does one reconcile this with the butcher shop that is human history and nature? Now, if they point out it is our own free will [our sins] that cause human pain and suffering, I ask them to explain "acts of God" like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, floods, epidemics, the occasional asteroid collision that wipes out entire species. Indeed, it is estimated by science there are over 3,000 genetic defects a baby can come into the world afflicted with. And what of miscarriages? In the United Kingdom alone there are nearly 20,000 miscarriages a year. What can these be discribed as but God's own abortions?

Finally, I ask them to imagine Christian missionaries going into the Amazon to witness for Jesus Christ. They find one tribe and are successful in converting them to Christ. They find another tribe, teach them about salvation through Christ but fail to convert them. A thrid tribe they fail to find at all. Now suppose a week later a member of each tribe dies. Will the member of the first tribe go to Heaven having converted to Jesus Christ as Lord? Will the missionaries have put the soul the deceased man from the second tribe in jeopardy having witnessed for Christ and been rejected by him? And what of the dead man in the third tribe. He dies having absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the Christian God. Surely, a just God would send someone to Hell who, by no fault of his own, never heard of the missionaries God.

george walton

- iambiguous

December 3, 2008 at 3:33pm

IMHO, in future, please title any peice referring to newtie with the following words: Hypocritical, Draft-doging, Adultering, Govvernment Pension Receiving Asshole, Newt Gingrich.

- tec619

December 3, 2008 at 4:15pm

How long do you think it will be before the GOP changes its name to the Christian Republican Party?  Might as well make explicit what's already implicit.  

- zardoz67

December 3, 2008 at 4:23pm

Michelle,

Gingrich's entire, um, career has been marked by bombastic erputions.  In one of his first speeches, to the Georgeia College Republicansin, 1978, he declaimed:  

"In my lifetime, literally ["literally"  and " frankly" are Gingrich's two favorite intensifiers], in my lifetime [Gingrich repeats himself on the excellent chance you are not listening], I was born in 1943, we have not had a competent national Reublican leader.  Not ever! ["Not ever!" is added for those who don't understand what he just said, literally.]

In the same speech he said that the average age of his campaign team -- he was running for Congress -- was "thirteen and half."  

Frankly -- or perhaps literaly - he was referrng to his own emotional age, which does not seem to have budged over the decades.

In 1985, during House debate over a disputed election in Indiana, Democratic efforts to seat its candidate were likened by Gingrich to the Holocaust.  

"We have talked a lot in recent weeks about the Holocaust about the incredible period in which Nazi Germany killed millions of people, came close to wiping out European Jewry," Gingrich said, apparently suggesting that the entire Republican House membershio would be shipped off to ovens if the Democratsd were not stopped.  [Read the entire statement, Congressional Record, H2524, April 24, 1985.]

Dan

- dbuck

December 3, 2008 at 4:26pm

iambiguous,

Not to go Tillich on you, but simply substitute "Ground of All Being" for God and you have the same problems.  In other words, what you listed are problems whether one believes (or whether there is) a god or not.  Taking God out of the picture doesn't make human suffering suddenly palatable, does it?  And, if it does, that might be an argument right there for belief:  that those with faith must at least be bothered by human suffering, while those without faith can shrug it off as natural and normal.  Faith in God forces me to encounter the suffering of creation -- the cross stands central -- yet my faith in God points me to a place beyond human suffering -- the promise of the empty tomb.

You are right, theology isn't mechanistic.  Faith in God isn't a ticket to heaven or an anaethetic to suffering on earth.  Rather, faith is a trust  and openness to God's continued acts of creation and redemption in our time and beyond time.  It takes faith to see what cannot be seen and to live in realities that aren't yet real.  It is to be guided by a prophetic vision of the heavenly banquet where all are fed, the blind see, the captive freed.

Being a liberal is an expression of my Christian faith.  We liberals enact realities not yet real, and have faith in a future not our own.

- Andrew Davis

December 3, 2008 at 4:38pm

For those who doubt that mainline Protestant churches care about social justice issues, please follow the link below to the news brief that was just posted on my denomination's web-site:

www.pcusa.org/.../08897

- Andrew Davis

December 3, 2008 at 4:45pm

iambiguous's questions are easily answered by people of faith. They are not answerable at all by people who have strong doctrinal beliefs instead of faith. Unfortunately, believers outnumber the faithful by a significant margin in our country.

- rhubarbs

December 3, 2008 at 4:59pm

Good to see the CIW still making progress, painfully slowly as it may be.  But Andrew, I'm pretty sure Bernie Sanders isn't a Florida senator!  Louisville messed up on that one big time.  

Rhubarbs, you've got a knack for putting things just right...

- cspencef

December 3, 2008 at 5:35pm

desertdog said:

Gotta love those family values folks.  They really know how to throw a toga party!

They're wearing sheets alright, but those aren't togas... (and they ain't ghost costumes either.)

- BryanRDC

December 3, 2008 at 6:09pm

Please anyone knows that without the economic meltdown and if there was a real conservative nominee for President instead of that amnesty pusher McCain the Conservatives would have won. My look how Sarah Palin energized this country people. Heck only if Bush hadn't spent so much money and violated the basic laws of isolationism then I tell you this Conservative nation surely would have done the right thing. Praise Jesus

- gflibCDL

December 3, 2008 at 7:19pm

Andrew Davis writes:

iambiguous,

Not to go Tillich on you, but simply substitute "Ground of All Being" for God and you have the same problems. In other words, what you listed are problems whether one believes (or whether there is) a god or not. Taking God out of the picture doesn't make human suffering suddenly palatable, does it? And, if it does, that might be an argument right there for belief: that those with faith must at least be bothered by human suffering, while those without faith can shrug it off as natural and normal. Faith in God forces me to encounter the suffering of creation -- the cross stands central -- yet my faith in God points me to a place beyond human suffering -- the promise of the empty tomb.

You are right, theology isn't mechanistic. Faith in God isn't a ticket to heaven or an anaethetic to suffering on earth. Rather, faith is a trust and openness to God's continued acts of creation and redemption in our time and beyond time. It takes faith to see what cannot be seen and to live in realities that aren't yet real. It is to be guided by a prophetic vision of the heavenly banquet where all are fed, the blind see, the captive freed.

Being a liberal is an expression of my Christian faith. We liberals enact realities not yet real, and have faith in a future not our own.

George responds:

Ground of all being?

Is that something from Buddha? Sihrley MacClaine? Sam Harris? Blaise Pascal? Spinoza?

Tillich extrapolated God from the manner in which he intertwined Revelation and existential introspection. It just doen't work that way for me.

What I have come to accept, instead, is that the very meaning of existence itself may encompass something the human mind is simply not hard-wired to grasp----either ontologically or teleologically.

After all, how does the mind of a mere mortal experience, explore and then express metaphysically the nature of either temporal or spacial infinity? If we are to believe all that we call "the universe" began X number of billion years ago from a "Big Bang", that just begs the sort of question a child might ask about God: Who or what created Him? And why not something else? Are we to believe that all we call something [or everything] erupted out of nothing at all? This is, in my view, a psycholism----a state of mind that reaches a point where it stutters and sputters trying to make something more clear.

And taking God "out of the picture" in at least one respect might have actually saved countless millions of lives. And that, of course, is because some of the faithful [like Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush] use God as a fist or a bomb or a room for torturing the infidels and the enemy combatants.

And there is no definitive, empirical evidence that reiligionist are more compassionaite in the face of human suffering than humanists. The one exception, of course, being when a humanist seeks to cleave into existence an earthly paradise by hammering all around him into a secular, ideological salvation. Or else.  That admittedly has surely caused as much horror and human suffering as all the stuff the crusaders and the anticrusaders have done [and still do].

Are you trying to suggest that the suffering of Christ on the cross is in any way even remotely as heartrending as, say, the 680,000,000 children [aged ten years and younger] that died a horrible and protracted death by starvation in just the 20th century alone? Every 24 hours that passes today adds about 18,000 more to this stain on...God?

And, really, how much did Jesus Christ suffer on the cross? For one thing he was absolutely certain of His own salvation, right? Can you imagine yourself instead sitting in front of a dying child, a child suffering beyond most of our imaginations, from starvation? What would you do, stroke her face and tell her how are absolutely certain you are that Heaven and the Lord will soon envelop her?

Meanwhile, in more "enlightened" and "civilized" nations like America, we have obese children whining at their birthday parties because they wanted three playstation games and only got two

And God sees all?

And surely you must suspect at times that words like, "faith is a trust and openness to God's continued acts of creation and redemption in our time and beyond time" is just another manifestation of hope---like Pascal's wager. It is frame of mind you will to exist because it is the only psychological defense mechanism that allows you to bear the terrible truths of human existence that unfold each and every morning when the newspaper arrives.

Like everyone else, liberals "enact realities not yet real" because each day must be lived; it must be rationalized and conquered in order to prepare oneself for the next day's challenges, punishments and [hopefully] rewards.

But I do respect your liberal values. I share them myself. Which is to say I value the openness, the tolerance, the willingness to care for and about the plight of others less blessed existentially.

And most liberals are less spiritually desiccated or drearily dogmatic. But then most conservatives are too. It is the extremists on both end of the human spiritual continnum that try to stuff one or another God down our throat....or stick Him up our ass.

george walton

- iambiguous

December 3, 2008 at 7:53pm

Rhubarbs writes:

iambiguous's questions are easily answered by people of faith. They are not answerable at all by people who have strong doctrinal beliefs instead of faith. Unfortunately, believers outnumber the faithful by a significant margin in our country.

George:

Yes, it is true that deeply introspective faith and blind faith are not same thing. In juxtaposing the two I am always reminded of the faith Colleen McCullough embedded in the character Father Ralph de Bricassart from her novel, TheThorn Birds. His was a faith he struggled with every single day of his life.

And he died no less burdened.

Still, if you know people of faith who can answer my questions, by all means, bring them into the discussion.

george walton

- iambiguous

December 3, 2008 at 8:43pm

Andrew - I know grew up with those folks too, only California style. My Dad and Uncles are vets and I grew up with a bunch of engineers,  weapons and airlplane builders, various shipping types, doc workers, academics, all pragmatic Republicans who have been alienated from thier party for years.  I ended up in the belly of the beast itself (Upper West Side) and the people here are much more like the people I grew up with than different.  

We had a George Bush One vibe around religion. Its impolite, undignified and vaguely embarrassing to discuss something so private, especially in such a vulgar manner.  Barry Goldwater was adored, by me too and I am a very liberal Democrat on social issues) In other words, members of a dying tripe.

Dad's a cheerful heathen and Mom's is a progressive evangelical.  She was an electrical engineer who helped design and build the Apollo projects.  Education and science are big in this world.

In other words, I hear you on the variety of people that identify as Republican - many of whom have always been open to Democrats.  I feel bad for the people I know out West, they are very betrayed and embarassed. I'd say in no particular order of importance that Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin and Prop 8 were the last nails.

- Wandreycer1

December 4, 2008 at 9:07am

oops I forgot the obligatory Newt bashing.  There is not a bigger tool in Washington, please make him the new leader.

- Wandreycer1

December 4, 2008 at 9:07am

iambiguous, you write like someone who is really pissed off at God for the fact that misery and injustice exist in the world. Which may be projection on my part; that was me from about the age of 12 until a few years ago. What faith I have, which is so unorthodox that most doctrinally orthodox Christians would dispute with me my claim to be either a Christian or a theist at all, came oddly enough through a long attempt to apply the lessons of Camus on the matters of moral goodness in the absence of God. (And I still say that Camus had more true insight into the basis and requirements of goodness than pretty much any other person in recent history, even if my thoughts about the sacred ultimately diverged from his.)

Anyway, I would simply point out that most of your objections actually assume the most fundamentalist and dogmatic of Christian doctrines. But none of those assumptions are necessary to lived Christian faith. They may be necessary to active membership in certain Methodist, Pentecostal, and other nonaligned Evangelical congregations, but there is the difference between doctrinal belief and faith. The simple answer to nearly all of your objections, which I must repeat I used to share and still do to the extent that I encounter believers whose doctrines require the conclusions to which you object, is that I don't assume what you assume I assume, and so your objection does not apply. What it boils down to is you're saying, "But God made the sky blue, when it should have been green," and my response is, "The sky is not blue. The sky is not a discrete thing that can have a color, and anyway to the extent that there is such a thing as the sky, it has no inherent color; the blue we see is a trick of the light, not an inherent property of the thing itself." See what I'm getting at? If a person does not share your assumptions -- in this illustration, that there is an actual thing that we can identify as the "sky" and that this thing has a particular color as a characteristic, like a painted wall has a particular color -- then to that person your objections don't apply. Most of your objections to God only make sense within a context that assumes all the doctrinal crap that many faithful Christians just don't assume.

But to the extent that many people do hold the assumptions that make your objections valid, I think they are important objections, which is why I'd rather not attempt a slew of specific responses but rather let you have the substantive last word. Because the questions you ask are important tests for any personal belief system; and a belief system that cannot address the questions you pose is a poor faith indeed.

- rhubarbs

December 4, 2008 at 9:12am

Some words to live by:

1)  Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

2)  Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

3)  Never get involved in an argument about faith in Talkback.

- drdannyu

December 4, 2008 at 9:42am

George. You're barking up all the familiar trees and down the familiar rabbit holes. Your convictions of unquantifiable don't differ all that radically from those whom you suppose to cross swords with. You also entertain the idea that truth is a viable pursuit as evidenced by your own evangelisms. Even amidst all of this implied darkness prescribed and described you seem to be willing to attempt to shine a light. How then are you so different than all imbeciles you berate? It seems to me given the depth and magnitude of impossible embrace that such relative distance is not so profound. I tend to think 'closer to home' lessens the inherent disassociation of such a journey for both believer and non. Less disjointed caprice and more ownership of the participating loan.

- boxofrox

December 4, 2008 at 9:44am

George. Rhubarbs posted his reply to you while I was writing my own. I had no intention of piling on or elaborating in conjunction with. Just one of those things. Just so's you know.

- boxofrox

December 4, 2008 at 9:49am

great to see you Box, Dr. D. nails it as usual.

- Wandreycer1

December 4, 2008 at 9:59am

GINGRICH WANTS TO TURN BACK THE CLOCK.... Newt Gingrich no doubt remembers his heyday, back in the halcyon days of the 1990s. He led a House GOP army, he became Speaker, and he gained national notoriety. All the while, Gingrich...

- Anonymous

December 4, 2008 at 10:10am

I am uncomfortable with anyone justifying their actions in reference to God.   When I hear or see it in a politician, I am thinking, "What about us, don't we matter?"  Also, I am leery of someone who is malicious and anticipates religious redemption, i.e. "The Square it with God Later" code of conduct.  Nevertheless, I see the legal advantage of monotheism: "There is only one God and these are God's commandments, so follow them."  But when someone says, "God wants me to be president" or "intelligent design is just a different point of view," it spells Trouble with a capital "T" And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for Palin (See Music Man).

- Nusholtz

December 4, 2008 at 10:42am

A Few Good Women: Obama ushers in a feminist revolution in national security. by A.J. Rossmiller Don't

- Anonymous

December 4, 2008 at 10:43am

The real explanation for Gingrich's behavior is simple.  He is a raving megalomaniac who can't abide the thought of not being the center of gravity.  This, after all, is the man who shut down the federal government in a fit of pique after being forced to ride in the back of Air Force One.  The fundies are the only game in town now.  Where else is he going to go?

- WayneJM

December 4, 2008 at 10:45am

The only human qualities that Jesus is on actually on record as demanding are charity and fierce humility (see: Sermon on the Mount).  "Religious" phonies who claim to know what God thinks and feels are exactly that - power happy charlatans, every last one of them.

- Wandreycer1

December 4, 2008 at 11:38am

"There is no attack on American culture more destructive and more historically dishonest than the relentless effort to drive God out of America's public square." (Rediscovering God in America. )

                                                                                  --Newt Gingrich

Was Newt pondering the above-referenced state of affairs when Callista Bisek ( a woman not 'then" his wife) was blowing him? Or did it only occur to him when he criticized Bill Clinton's adulterous acts?

- tec619

December 4, 2008 at 11:55am

At the risk of coming off like a mutual admiration society, I couldn't agree more with wandrey's concise take on Jesus, and those who claim to know the mind of God.

- drdannyu

December 4, 2008 at 11:59am

Utah state senator Chris Butthole, er Buttars, introduced a bill to encourage retailers to express "Merry Christmas." (It's ironic that a man who is a member of a religion that a majority of Americans don't even consider a Christian denomination, is so concerned about Chritianity's fictional birthdate for Jesus.)

But is it more idiotic than a Kentucky Homeland security law? I don't know. It is apparent that the evangel/fundies have the ability to out do all previous records for imbecility?

From the Washington Post:

About Under God

The God of Homeland Security in Kentucky

Another day, another "off the wall" skirmish along America's uneasy church-state border. This fight is flaring in Kentucky, where a 2006 law requires the Office of Homeland Security to declare that the "safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

God was added to the law by state Rep. Tom Riner, a Democrat and Southern Baptist minister. "This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky," Riner told the Lexington Herald-Leader last week. "Government itself, apart from God, cannot close the security gap. The job is too big for government."

American Atheists Inc. and 10 brave Kentucky residents have decided to object. Tuesday they sued the commonwealth in court, asking that the law be overturned. They're also seeking damages for "anxiety from the belief that the existence of these unconstitutional laws suggest that their very safety as residents of Kentucky may be in the hands of fanatics, traitors, or fools."

As we know, fools and their money are soon parted, but it's hard to see any judge or jury being able to separate the fanatics and the fools in this case.

- tec619

December 4, 2008 at 12:26pm

Hey Wandrey. Thanks for the howdy!  Right back at you, young lady. Per Jesus I suppose we could further explore other implied dynamics but it is beyond my purposes presently. Got stuff to do don't ya know. That said I hope your world is turning to your satisfaction and that all good things find a comfortable abode by which to abide accordingly.

Though Dr. D's advice is well considered I must allow as to some interesting discussions once upon a yonder. Go ahead and risk that mutual admiration, Doc. It's all good.

- boxofrox

December 4, 2008 at 12:32pm

rhurbarbs writes:

iambiguous, you write like someone who is really pissed off at God for the fact that misery and injustice exist in the world. Which may be projection on my part; that was me from about the age of 12 until a few years ago. What faith I have, which is so unorthodox that most doctrinally orthodox Christians would dispute with me my claim to be either a Christian or a theist at all, came oddly enough through a long attempt to apply the lessons of Camus on the matters of moral goodness in the absence of God. (And I still say that Camus had more true insight into the basis and requirements of goodness than pretty much any other person in recent history, even if my thoughts about the sacred ultimately diverged from his.)

Anyway, I would simply point out that most of your objections actually assume the most fundamentalist and dogmatic of Christian doctrines. But none of those assumptions are necessary to lived Christian faith. They may be necessary to active membership in certain Methodist, Pentecostal, and other nonaligned Evangelical congregations, but there is the difference between doctrinal belief and faith. The simple answer to nearly all of your objections, which I must repeat I used to share and still do to the extent that I encounter believers whose doctrines require the conclusions to which you object, is that I don't assume what you assume I assume, and so your objection does not apply. What it boils down to is you're saying, "But God made the sky blue, when it should have been green," and my response is, "The sky is not blue. The sky is not a discrete thing that can have a color, and anyway to the extent that there is such a thing as the sky, it has no inherent color; the blue we see is a trick of the light, not an inherent property of the thing itself." See what I'm getting at? If a person does not share your assumptions -- in this illustration, that there is an actual thing that we can identify as the "sky" and that this thing has a particular color as a characteristic, like a painted wall has a particular color -- then to that person your objections don't apply. Most of your objections to God only make sense within a context that assumes all the doctrinal crap that many faithful Christians just don't assume.

But to the extent that many people do hold the assumptions that make your objections valid, I think they are important objections, which is why I'd rather not attempt a slew of specific responses but rather let you have the substantive last word. Because the questions you ask are important tests for any personal belief system; and a belief system that cannot address the questions you pose is a poor faith indeed.

George responds:

I lost my religion in the jungles in and around Song Be, South Vietnam. But I also picked up a political and a philosophical curiosity there as well.

That's why I started reading newspapers when I got back home....and Dostoevsky, Kafka, Nietzsche [and especially] Schopenhaur. The great pessimist.

But like most others my religious scaffolding was [and still is] constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over and again at the intersection of theory and practice. Now, however circumstance, context and contingency have intertwined into a perspective that is simply fractured beyond what I am able to convey to others.  

Given the enormously vast and varied experiences I have accumulated over the years, I don't see God half full or half empty anymore; instead, I see him shattered on the floor in a thousand pieces.

For Camus, circumstance, context and contingency came to an end in January, 1960. So, Is he up there in Heaven now still debating fiercely with God about God's existence? I don't know. He hasn't come back yet to tell us who won.

And yes, a deeply thought out Kierkegaardian leap to faith is experienced by many. I wish I was one of them.

But what I say is that 18,000 children will die from starvation in the next 24 hours; and a loving just and merciful God....a God that is said to be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent....would have to be some sort of sadistic monster to do nothing to stop it. And so too are the leaders of the world until this horrific suffering [by the truly, truly innocent] is put to an end.

The blue sky stuff, however, is just a psychologism, in my view. It's a way for your mental, emotional and psychological "self" [here and now] to bridge the ineffable gap between mine.  I'm not saying that as a criticism, of course; I'm saying only what I can think to say...here and now.

In the end [whatever that means] existence itself is problematic beyond anything I have ever heard so far from many very, very wise people trying to explain it.

A few days ago my cat died. I think of all the billions of years [and embodied relationships] that had to pass in order for her to be born. In order for me to be born. She was above the ground for 16 years and now she will be below it for....eternity?  And one day, of course, I will be under the ground as well.

What in the world can that possibly mean?

george walton

- iambiguous

December 4, 2008 at 12:55pm

Box writes:

George. You're barking up all the familiar trees and down the familiar rabbit holes. Your convictions of unquantifiable don't differ all that radically from those whom you suppose to cross swords with. You also entertain the idea that truth is a viable pursuit as evidenced by your own evangelisms. Even amidst all of this implied darkness prescribed and described you seem to be willing to attempt to shine a light. How then are you so different than all imbeciles you berate? It seems to me given the depth and magnitude of impossible embrace that such relative distance is not so profound. I tend to think 'closer to home' lessens the inherent disassociation of such a journey for both believer and non. Less disjointed caprice and more ownership of the participating loan.

George:

You have given me words that define and defend other words. The argument is true only to the extent that the meaning of the words you use is what you think it is. It is a tautology. It's like someone saying, "I believe in God because it's in the Bible; and the Bible must be true because it's the word of God."

And besides, I don't have a clue as to what you are talking about. Try connecting the words to something more substantial like the life you actually live.

In other words, you need a clearer understanding of epistemolgy. Epistemology revolves not around what you think you know; it revolves instead around groping to understand what can be known.  

george walton

george walton

- iambiguous

December 4, 2008 at 1:18pm

So are you admitting faith in epistemology?

iamtard

- boxofrox

December 4, 2008 at 1:51pm

Hey George. I shouldn't be flip with your entreaties. I truly don't have the time to put forth in a way that you might find suitable. ie. fleshing out all definition to the nth. I took a shot with the idea that mayhaps common allowance might be found. Not so apparently. At least not enough to forego wrestling the list of polemic particulars into submission. Maybe another time. Perhaps this new year 2009. Be well and Merry Christmas..... or whatever you may keep this holiday season.

Sincerely, Box

- boxofrox

December 4, 2008 at 3:56pm

Box writes:

So are you admitting faith in epistemology?

George:

I once read in a science magazine that you could put a grain of sand in the world's largest cathedral and there would more volume of sand in that church than there are stars in the known universe.

I also read that an atom is the same on the other end of the scale. It is by far, just empty space.

And NASA once released a photograph of two huge galaxies, each composed of billions and billions of stars, colliding into each other. They speculated that not a single star would make contact with another one.

Epistemology must somehow reconcile the relationship between this discussion and all of the above. And then reconcile that with....God?

I don't think so. Not in our life span.

So, for me, epistemology is merely a narrative we make up as we go along. But this is true to a much greater degree when the discussion revolves around evaluating and judging human moral and political behavior. Knowledge here is overwhelming existential. But David Hume went even further. He speculated that even the laws of science....natural law....was merely a sequence of correlations, and not necessarily an ontological or teleological cause and effect.

george walton

- iambiguous

December 4, 2008 at 7:26pm