George Aar

The very nature of miracles is the inability to replicate them - miracles defy "reason". That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, it's sorta convenient that all the good ones happened at a time and place that makes verification well beyond impossible.

Oh, to be on Bourbon Street about now...

You gotta love this. Too bad Buddy D. wasn't around to witness it:

http://www.nola.com/superbowl/index.ssf/2010/01/photos_buddy_d_dress_parade_pa.html

Hell, it's been spring since the first week of January around here. Record warm month of January, and today it's in the 50s again, as will tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's global warming, hell in a handbasket, and all that, but it's still not too bad to walk around in shortsleeves in the dead of winter...

But George, WHY did religion become a part of human culture in the first place? I could expand on that, but believe I could ramble on almost endlessly. That question, however, is (IMO) quite poignant.

I see it as a sorta forerunner to science and the scientific method. Life was a short and brutal affair when most religions came about. Real knowledge about how the earth worked was very sparse and so superstition immediately filled the void.

Your brother got eaten by a lion on his way to work one day, so you, in a desperate attempt to avoid a similar fate, devised some code to help minimize your exposure to that danger. You noticed that when you wore a garland of garlic, or your chartreuse toga, or paid homage to The Lion King, that you DIDN'T get eaten, so you start doing that every time you need to travel near lion country. Pretty soon it becomes mandatory for you and yours to do it all the time. And so it goes. Then you have to devise a regimen to avoid poisonous food, diseases, and dangerous sociopaths. Some of it may even have a trace or two of wisdom in it.

Before too long you and your decendants have cooked up a whole plethora of rituals and beliefs to subscribe to. Then it's a matter of which clan has the most power and influence or maybe just writes the most eloquent mantras to have your particular mythologies carried on.

That's how I imagine it having happened anyway. Maybe not quite poignant, but I think it makes sense...

I think THE major component of why people buy into religion is because it's HERE. It's been here a long time, it's widely accepted, seldom questioned, and just established in the fabric of culture. It's been around so long that we don't really ever entertain the notion that any of it should be questioned, we just accept.

Once one DOES step outside the bounds of accepted, established thought regarding church tenets, the logic of same often becomes something less than overwhelming...

We've been in the 50s and even 60s all month in Seattle.

I've gotta say, I prefer that to the slush. Each to their own...

In rez [under LCM], we were banned from reading anything non-Way. I was in Plurality Palace one day and someone had put some books, including some novels, in there. Relieved at finding something different for a change, I plonked myself down and started to have a quiet read. What do you know but a few minutes later, one of my Corps sis came in - saw me reading whatever-it-was - and said if I didn't put it down immediately, she'd report me to the Corps Coord.

Gawd! Can you believe it? Tell me we weren't in a farking cult. You're READING and some gimp comes along and says the equivalent of "UMMMM! I'm telling!" The Orwellian comparisons are obvious.

It's so disappointing to realize how easily manipulated people are...

For anyone who listens with any regularity to NPR's "Morning Edition", you're familiar with this guy and his family. I felt like I kinda got to know the guy just from his little spots on the radio of how he and his family were doing with their recovery from Katrina. He seemed like "real" people to me. A downhome, salt-of-the-earth, plain folks kinda guy with a real heart for his home and neighborhood.

He passed away this past week from a heart attack at age 53.

Too damned sad...

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=122863517&m=122937667

Cool.

Just remember, I've got your back if/when she gets uppity...

Yes, thanks for posting that David.

I just loved it. What a great way to shake everybody out the typical day-to-day funk that we all seem to walk around in. Make everybody experience life for a few minutes.

Yes, BRAVO!

Clarence Darrow takes the place of the absent Christ.

I'm not sure who takes HIS place...

Do you practice being obtuse for a living, or is this just a hobby?

I have provided the framework for this new cult. I ask that you keep your comments positive or don‘t leave one.

Um, do you want honest discussion or just mindless validation?

But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

Priceless...

I think more than "Reunion" the cruise and the whole WC site is much more about "Denial".

Sorry, that's what it smells like to me. Maybe I'm horribly mistaken? Yeah, that could happen...

I guess because he's having a difficult time making reality conform to his theology, Rev. Robertson indulges in a really disgusting game of "Blame the Victim", simultaneously betraying - I think - his own brand of unvarnished bigotry and xenophobia. What a thoroughly repellant personality...

For me the turn to a non-theist mindset was not so much a reaction to Wierwillism, but simply a return to what made the most sense to me. I'd pretty much determined The Bible - and religion in general - to be wishful thinking run amok long before I ever got involved with WayWorld. If it hadn't been for the girl with the nice butt (and a green card), I could've lived out my apathetic agnostic lifestyle with impunity.

The only attraction I had to WayWorld dogma (other than the urge to fornicate with the young lady who was pitching their line to me) was the idea that they had a unique take on The Bible, some special knowledge that nobody else had, and they had PROOF that it was indeed God's Word and was the final authority on any farking thing. Once it FINALLY dawned on me that they were as full of B.S. as any other religion, well, the course was obvious.

And a rhetorical question: If you were to give up on the notion that The Bible were indeed GOD'S PERFECT WORD, and view it simply as the collection of really diverse writings that it most surely is, don't all those perplexing questions of "why doesn't that agree with this, or that with that, or Old with New, etc., etc." just vanish? Why do the simple, obvious answers have to be wrong?

While we probably don't agree on what all that means in the real world, I think it was a wonderful way for one to make their exit from this life - for her as well as her loved ones.

Good for her! May she R.I.P. ...

I remember always waiting with bated breath for the Gumby episode on "The Pinky Lee Show". The rest of the show was pretty lame, but I loved Gumby.

Sheesh, his own mother dumped him for a new boyfriend? Boy, there's a healthy family unit. I'm glad he made it out of that mess, and went on something better.

R.I.P. Mr. Clokey (I'd like to see that x-rated clip though)...

I think just about everyone who embraces some sort of religious/superstitious notions continually suffers through those moments where "belief" meets "reality". Eventually - if they're honest with themselves and don't let dogmatism reign supreme in some sort of misplaced sense of loyalty - the lessons of life will take a foothold...

The increase in human life span is primarily due to the development of antibiotics and our ability to treat infectious diseases.

An incidental point here, but really the increase in lifespan has more to do with clean water and improved sanitation than with medical science. If you're looking for someone to thank for our length of years, your plumber deserves more credit than your doctor...

Almost, but we saw "Sherlocke Holmes" instead. Not for the purist, but it was entertaining enough...

Have any of you since came to believe that Jesus is indeed God since leaving the Way?

I've come to believe that Jesus is just another - and likely entirely fictitious - in a looooong litany of superhuman God/men that have been espoused in just about every culture known in history. I can see nothing either unique or compelling in the so-called "witness" of the "scriptures". It strikes me that one must spend an incredible amount of effort explaining away the obvious if one is to keep his "faith". I tired of the game, eventually...

BTW, this isn't just the opinion of one economics professor. There are many economists who hold this view. There are also many who hold the opposite view. And it's not a matter of one side's right and the other side's stupid. There are many factors to consider when it comes to economics.

That's why we're still on the hunt for a one-armed economist (uh, to have less of the "on the other hand" type of philosophizing)