| Crass Old Gag |
[Apr. 29th, 2012|04:53 am] |
I found a chat that I recorded back in 2003 while looking up some of my old blogs on the internet archive. It's pretty funny.
Rafik: Hello Please tell to BUsh to stop the war !! its unhuman !!
goatunit: I'll tell him the very next time I see him, Rafik.
Rafik: very many thanks i think he is mad , he wants to let the Americans bad seen all over the world ok
goatunit: God tells him lies and he believes them. He is out of control.
Rafik: he is fool what about the american soldiers , they are going to be killed for nothing , both iraqi and am soldiers are innocents
goatunit: I know. George Bush refuses to listen to me. I am all the time telling him that he needs to stop making out with all those fine bitches and blow up Iraq!
Rafik: How do u see the end ? for me it will be a real catastropphy that the world has never seen
goatunit: He usually finishes up with a facial.
goatunit: Oh, you mean the war?
goatunit: I saw on the news that Bush is going to use nuclear weaponry tonight, so I think it will all probably be over in the morning.
Rafik: ITs a catastropphy !! iam sure that such man is going to use everything even atomic bomb!!
goatunit: He told me he was going to, so I think you're right. Do you want me to try to talk him out of it?
Rafik: yes , please do !!
goatunit: I'll see if I can talk reason to him, but he'll probably insist on doing the facial thing. He's pretty stubborn.
goatunit: Oh, you meant about the atomic bomb. Yeah, I'll tell him to go ahead with that.
goatunit: Don't worry, man. Everything is going to blow up according to plan.
Rafik: How do u know the plan ?
goatunit: I'm looking at it right now. George gave me a copy.
Rafik: My wish is that war will stop as soon as possible
goatunit: Well, I'm going to tell him that you said to go ahead and use the atomic bomb, so it should be over pretty soon.
Rafik: nooooooo dont do ) any way whats yopur job?
goatunit: I'm the commander of the president.
goatunit: My job is to make sure that the President does what people from outside of the country tell me to tell him to do.
Rafik: If u do this job , believe me , will win 5 nobel prises , a man of peace , i'll be grateful to u !!
goatunit: FIVE NOBEL PRIZES??? CHA-CHING!!! $$$$$$
goatunit: I will tell him to use the atomic bomb right away! Thank you for the nobel prizes!
Rafik: So u are with bush !! u support this war !!
goatunit: What? You said to tell him to use the atomic bomb, right?
Rafik: i didnt say this but i sais perhaps he may use it and if he does its unhuman ok
goatunit: That's what I said.
goatunit: Look... we're going to go ahead and use the atomic bomb on Iraq because we're in a hurry to attack Algeria.
Rafik: You know after power weakness!! usa now is going to fall
goatunit: Say that to USA's face!
goatunit: I'm going to tell him you said that.
goatunit: I'm only kidding. Listen, I need to run down to this meeting we're having about whether or not to use the atomic bomb on Iraq, and I'm going to tell him that you said that was fine. Talk to you later, man. |
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| Debate |
[Sep. 22nd, 2011|12:47 pm] |
The following debate is on-going, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. This is taking place on facebook between me and my cousin. There is also a girl who chimes in occasionally. The nature of the debate is on whether scripture is inerrant. Just a reminder: I'm not religious, but I don't mind religion. I'm just into arguing for consistency in any worldview. Once a perspective is consistent, it gets a pass from me.
This is kind of a long one, so I'll break it up over a few posts probably. I'm also not going to make a special effort to edit out folks' names from the posts themselves. I trust none of the people involved will get hassled. I thought it was an interesting exchange, and I think it's always nice when people of different beliefs can come together and speak candidly and openly about their different perspectives.
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My Cousin posted this article on Facebook.
Me: I feel that the author is attributing to ignorance what is better attributed to a shift in paradigm. Previous generations were no more insightful on moral matters than this one - they just took their answers whole-sale from religious sources. The current generation, in true post-modernist fashion, seeks its answers from the self. There is an honesty to that approach, and the willingness to acknowledge one's own inadequacy as a moral arbiter is to be commended in my opinion.
Another Guy: Well said, Stan. I feel that there is still a place for a shared system of morality (like the church) in the post-modern world and it is up to the institutions, who are looking for stability, to adapt to the new reality to survive and not bemoan the change.
The question is how to do this. But these institutions have persisted over time and the world has not collapsed from the ills of "moral relativism". So, get on with the business of being relevant in the world as it is/ will be and not how we wish it would remain the same.
Cousin: I think I agree with what you guys are saying - you have to own your morality, and your own inability to live up to it perfectly. That is different than doing away with the idea that there are universal moral absolutes. A lot of the high schoolers I encounter are lost in relativism - so much so that they can't tell why they are getting in trouble for stealing another persons artwork (class project - putting their name one it).
Me: Well, I'm willing to stand in defense of relativism. One either has to be a biblical literalist, a gnostic, or a relativist in my opinion. Either the bible is infallible, you are privy to divine knowledge, or absolute notions of good and evil are unknowable. For non-religious individuals, moral relativism is the only sound position.
Cousin: I kind of agree... except I think the truth of biblical morality is on some level self evident.
Me: I'd like to clarify that, even from the biblical literalist angle, each reader walks away with his own interpretation of scripture. One must either assume that it is his reading of scripture that is exactly what was intended by God, or he must acknowledge that he is an imperfect moral arbiter.
In other words, even if we trust the Bible, we should continue to doubt ourselves. And, in doubting ourselves, we must allow for the possibility that we are wrong and others are right.
Cousin: sure - but its no easy task to read scripture - you struggle with it... and more importantly you live it out. Knowing the word of God is much more like knowing a person than knowing a text book. Even the Bible says that. I do doubt myself, but not as much as I trust God - who commends his word.
Me: To be clear, I'm not trying to educate anybody here. I don't have any answers. I'm just saying that moral relativism holds up logically. Trusting the Bible because it says it's trustworthy is fallacious logic. That's where faith comes in.
Cousin's Friend, Yvonne: Posted this article.
Me: Re: Yvonne's Article:
Alright, so for example... "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." 1 Corinthians, 34-35.
This is a good source for universal moral authority? I mean, maybe it is. I have no way of knowing.
Other verses of questionable moral value arise in Deuteronomy (22:13-14; 22:20-21; 23:2), Ephesians (6:5), 1 Peter (2:18), and so on. I have only my own subjective moral sensibility to guide me when I read scripture critically. I'm inclined to think that most people who claim to be biblical literalists are quite a bit more relativist than they realize - Ray Cotton included.
When we choose to take or leave individual verses, commandments or laws, we must take responsibility for the fact that we are making that choice. And more importantly, we must allow for others to make similar choices on similar authority.
Yvonne: "I have only my own subjective moral sensibility to guide me when I read scripture critically." John 14:15-17, 26 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you."
"Other verses of questionable moral value" - 2 Timothy 3:16
You have to take the Bible in its entirety and in context. Either you believe that the Bible is God's Word (revelation) and should be trusted as truth or you think it is false and why bother with any of it. You can't accept God's moral authority and then rely on your own "subjective moral sensibility" and authority to be your guide. Pulling verses out of context that you disagree with or find morally questionable is just human rationalization for disobeying God. There are no part-time Christians. Deut. 6:5
Me: But if the Holy Spirit helps us to interpret scripture, why then do different people have different interpretations?
I will stand by my criticism of the previous verses in their original context or out of it. To say that a child born out of wedlock must not be allowed in church is shameful. To say that a woman should be silent on religious matters is primitive. There is no context imaginable that would forgive those statements, in my opinion.
Biblical Literalism is a recent idea that is overturned by the Bible itself. When someone tells me that he's a biblical literalist, I think, "Oh, so you haven't read it then?" The Earth is not flat. It is not held up on pillars. There are not great sea monsters guarding the edges. The mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds. Many claims in the text are demonstrably false, because it is a text written by men. Inspired by God? Perhaps so. That is a matter of faith. But claims of inerrancy are just silly. Incredibly, staggeringly silly.
Cousin: To trust the Bible to the letter doesn't mean that you read every square inch of it literally. There is a difference in thinking relatively and being a relativist. When someone is learning a foreign language they have to learn what idioms are - things not meant to be understood literally. Like I said its not easy. I liked what Yvonne said "you have to take the bible as a whole and in context,". Some parts are poetic and metaphorical, and some parts have a specific context. You really have to try to understand it. If you can't think relatively, you will most likely accuse the Bible of teaching things that it actually doesn't teach. Just like people learning a new language will misunderstand idioms. What all this doesn't mean is that we can be a relativist. If you read a work of literature and decide that the symbols can mean whatever you feel like they mean then you will miss the meaning of the book. The authors context should be considered first, and then how the writing touches the readers context. That means that most often what the writer is saying is going to be literal. Sometimes the literal interpretation doesn't make sense in light of the rest of the book - so we try to see things from the point of view (time, and place) of the author. Thats not the same thing as relativism - that all meaning is up for grabs
Me: What is the metaphor in any of the verses that I listed, though? I feel like you're falling into the trap of erecting semantic apologetics. It's all well and good to say that some parts of the bible are metaphor and others are literal, but I'm asking for an actual analysis of the morality presented in the above verses, and the sense in which they should be taken as metaphor.
If there is metaphor in the scripture (which, of course, there is) but it is not laid out as such, then how does one determine what is metaphor and what isn't? "The Holy Spirit tells you" is not adequate as an answer, because Christians fail to present a consensus. They should not fail in this way if they are privy to divine revelation from the Holy Spirit.
Moral Relativism isn't about making up your own morality. People don't do that. It is about recognizing your inability to ascertain absolute notions of morality. It is about accommodating the beliefs of others because you have no more claim to moral authority than they do. Moral Relativism is not at odds with Christianity. When Christ denied the law of Moses, and said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," he established that morality is not binary, but situational - that that which is good or evil can change with time. He said that there are truths that we are not yet prepared for, which will be revealed to us in time. That's an important statement, and not one that should be glossed over and tossed aside like so many of his other statements are. He was saying that the scripture is incomplete as a moral treatise.
I don't believe in Santa Claus. No matter how hard I try, I can't make myself believe in him. Neither can you. This is because we don't choose what to believe, we just believe one thing or another. Where my beliefs come from and where your beliefs come from - those are equal. Yours has no more or less authority than mine. One or the other might be more informed, more logical, more pious, but unless we can know absolutely which metric should be used to judge, we can't come to any conclusions.
I feel like I should clarify something further, regarding your statement that moral relativism means "that all meaning is up for grabs."
That's not what moral relativism is, which makes this conversation very difficult. I'm not prepared to defend whatever concept it is that you're criticizing, because I don't know which concept it is. I am prepared to defend moral relativism, though.
Sorry to post so much in a row, but I feel compelled to add:
I am enjoying this conversation. The nature of religious debate is such that it can cause a lot of conflict, so I want to make it clear that I'm talking about this with you guys because I think it's interesting and fun to talk about. I hope I'm not being offensive or making anyone feel uncomfortable.
Marshall, you are my favorite type of religious person. You're an intellectual, with an appreciation of scholarship and reason, and that's obvious from the kinds of posts you make here. If I didn't think highly of you, I would just ignore it and move along - I'm debating with you because I find your position interesting and enlightening. I hope that feeling is mutual.
If I get tiresome, let me know. I'm happy to drop it.
Cousin: Will do. Im enjoying it too.
To be continued... |
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| Quotified |
[Sep. 2nd, 2011|05:25 am] |
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
-Richard Dawkins |
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| Dance Moves |
[Aug. 23rd, 2011|04:39 am] |
Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan show on September 9, 1956. Radio waves transmitted that night have traveled roughly 316,747,584,000,000 miles into space. Elvis has so far reached 133 stars. Eventually, inevitably, Elvis will appear on television screens on some distant alien world. The inhabitants of this world communicate through movement. His dancing will take on meaning there. His pelvis will thrust and hips will gyrate anew. It will be, at first, obscene. It will be a message of rebellion that appeals to their pupae and larvae, which the imago will despise. It will challenge the old religions and social mores. They will celebrate the wisdom in our accidental philosophy, and their linguists will argue that we must have been observing them for some time in order to have learned and mastered their language.
They will send their questions into the sky, toward Elvis: Antennae straightened, thorax bent forward, feet 1, 3 and 6 tapping aggressively, which translates roughly into English as, "What is death? Why do we die? Is there something waiting for us beyond the eternal boundary?" And Elvis, unlike our God, will answer them. He will answer them in disco.
John Travolta's hand travels back and forth with the cadence of the Bee Gees, knee wobbling in fulfillment of the Elvis prophecies, but brimming with new revelations in every consonant and vowel of his vibrating body. "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on IR5811. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother," and so on.
Some will say that John Travolta is the only begotten son of Elvis, sent to Rydell High School to date Sandy Olsen that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life. Others will keep to the old ways, convinced that Travolta's dance moves are too disparate from Elvis to be reconciled. Mandibles snapping open and shut, pedipalp swaying, telson slapping the ground. "He is a great man, but he is only a man."
The wars will be inevitable. Forgetting that at the core of both doctrines lies a message of peace, love and forgiveness, the creatures will begin to destroy one another. Apocryphal VHS bootlegs will surface, criticized as fakes by the opposing sides. Elvis kissing his cousin. John Travolta trading faces with Nicholas Cage, then trying to murder him.
In the final moments of the last war, some desperate affiliation of peace activists will broadcast a new transmission received that day, fifty years after the Ed Sullivan show first came down from on high. And every soldier will drop his sword, and rise up from the filthy trenches to stand beside his brother. And every segment of every compound eye will fall upon Dancing With the Stars, where Kate Gosselin completes the Holy Trinity. She spins, one leg lifted and cradled by Tony Dovolani.
But how? Women can't even talk. Their egg sacks are too heavy and their legs shrivel and rot once they are settled into the hive. Do they have a part in Elvis' divine plan? Tony lifts Kate into the air. Her arm rests across his shoulders. She turns away, but their fingers lock to pull them toward one another again. Together, their movements translate in a woman's voice: "Eight larvae have spilled from my eggs, and I am a husk. But I have a soul, an interiority. It just can't be expressed on my power alone. Be the legs of your queen, that she might speak her matronly wisdom."
And they will go to the queen. And they will lift her up. And they will dance with her. And she will speak through them. "Feed me," she will say. "Feed me. I am hungry." |
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| Let Those Who Love Me Follow Me |
[Nov. 9th, 2010|11:25 pm] |
Those of you who know me well, know that I spend a great deal of time trying to figure out which characters from Star Wars should be portrayed by which characters from Winnie the Pooh in the Star Wars/Winnie the Pooh crossover film I intend to make when I am rich and eccentric.
Here is my most recent list:
Winnie the Pooh - While "Poohbacca" is difficult to ignore both as a phonetic powerhouse and promising visual, I think I'd have to go with Yoda here. He's wise. He's shortish and round. He has big ears. It's perfect.
Piglet - Definitely Luke Skywalker. No doubt in my mind. Just look at him.
He's clearly trying to lift the X-Wing (portrayed in this film by a honey pot with wings, of course) out of the Dagobah (Hundred-Acre Wood) swamp.
Trespassers William - follows naturally as Darth Vader.
Rabbit - Princess Leia. Again, I really feel like this needs no explanation.
Owl - Obi Wan Kenobi. An old, questionably wise hermit living alone in a hole? Check.
Tigger - Han Solo. This is really the best fit of the entire list. "Fly the Kessell Run in less than twelve parsecs? That's what Tiggers do best!"
Eeyore - Lando. He bitches and moans until Cloud City gets washed away in a flood and he has to donkey the fuck up.
Kanga & Roo - C3PO and R2D2. Obvious.
The Heffalump & Woozle - Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett.
Questions, concerns and suggestions are all welcome. |
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| English |
[Nov. 9th, 2010|05:45 pm] |
For those of you who've been sitting patiently at your computers clicking the refresh button and waiting for a new post from me, here it is:
Today, some charismatics came to my door to preach to me. I opened up because I'm a nice guy (I'm for real nice, you guys) and figured they probably weren't getting a very warm reception and could use an opportunity to feel like they were making a difference. The missionaries were two Asian women; one from Myanmar and one was from Korea. I thought that would make them interesting, but I was wrong. Myanmar hardly spoke. I only talked to Korea.
"Are you a sinner or are you righteous?"
Hmmm. I am smoking a cigarette and wearing a Star Wars shirt. I paused Fallout: New Vegas to answer the door. And I clearly haven't brushed my teeth this morning or shaved in several weeks. Put me down for righteous.
The thing that bugs me most about talking to charismatics is that they ask questions, the answers to which are completely unknowable - EVEN TO ANOTHER CHARISMATIC! She read me some verse from her Bible (in very broken English) that mentioned getting the love and the spirit, then asked me what the spirit was. Just to be clear, I am a native English speaker. I know what spirit is. I know what is meant by the word "spirit" in that passage. I can take contextual hints and gather meaning that way as well - but not here. She has a correct answer in mind that someone told her and then asked her to tell me: Spirit is the word of God. Alright, fine.
She went on to tell me about the various covenants with much confusion. She kept getting the Sinai covenant confused with the Abrahamic covenant and stuff like that. There were some language difficulties that furthered the confusion, resulting in me answering all her hypothetical questions but not with the answers she wanted, which led to her talking more. My tactic of providing subtle evidence that I knew and understood the doctrine wasn't working to shut her up.
I tried for a different tack and just said "right" a lot. Twenty minutes later, I was free to treat myself to a shot of Johnny Walker and return to shooting people in the face and taking their stuff.
It was weird, is what I'm trying to say.
In other news, I have discovered the greatest combination of words in the English language: Gallant Stroll. I like the sound of them. I like the concept. I like the act. The gallant stroll is, I think, Man's single achievement. |
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| Why Inception is more significant than even its biggest fans seem to realize. |
[Sep. 10th, 2010|12:05 am] |
I will assume that you've seen Inception and have already put together your own theory. This post contains spoilers.
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The more I see the film and reflect upon it, the more I become convinced that there is no "top level." That's not to say that I think Cobb's dreaming the whole time or that he's awake at certain times or anything like that. I simply don't think that you can take a literal approach to the film. I don't think that there is a base logic that you can cut out and examine in the waking world.
I feel that "top level" Cobb is a Schrödinger's cat, both dreaming and awake, with evidence for both and against both. The film just cannot be broken down via real world logic, and I don't think that's because Nolan was lazy or just slapped together a nonsense plot. I think that's on purpose, and I think the film is an exceptionally well-crafted piece of self-referential, post modern work. The paradox of Cobb's being both awake and asleep mirrors the Escher-like paradox stairs and other elements littering the entire film.
You keep unraveling the puzzle, coming closer and closer, until you end up back where you started - and that's what makes this movie so great. It is, to some degree, about itself and nothing else. It is a box inside itself.
What I mean to say is this:
There's been a lot of fuss over the notion that Cobb is likely to be dreaming the entire time. That may be true. Many people have touched on the notion that even the shared dream technology could simply be part of this over-arching dream. That's also true.
The problem is that all of that misses the greater point, which is that Cobb might not even be the dreamer. There may not be a dreamer. It may not even be a dream. It could, just as easily, be that every person in the movie is equally fictional. They could all just be characters in a film. Which is, in reality, what they are.
The genius of the puzzle is that it shows us that each layer of the dream depends somehow upon the layer above it. When you are considering the top level - the waking level - in the film, you have to look to the layer above that as well. You have to approach it from the meta. You have to acknowledge that the top layer is also false, and has to be looked at in the context of a work of fiction. In this way, the fiction penetrates reality in its own clever way.
It's important to note the subtle difference between "there is no right answer" and "there is no answer." "There is no right answer" implies that either answer (Cobb is dreaming or Cobb is awake) is equally viable and it was purposely left uncertain by the filmmaker. I am arguing that this is not the case. Instead, I'm saying that neither answer can be true.
As I said above, Inception is a film about itself. That puts it in slim company as one of only a handful of truly Post Modern films. I would argue that Charlie Kaufman's brilliant Adaptation was the first. Followed closely by Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York.
Other, earlier films have taken note, at times, of the fact that they were films. In Annie Hall, for example, Woodie Allen turns to speak to the camera several times. Another Woodie Allen film, Stardust Memories keeps ending before the ending, implying that everything that came before was part of a film within the film. Even Mel Brooks' Blazin' Saddles nods to its own movie-dom, when the climactic fight spills off of the movie set and rampages around the studio lot. But in each of these cases, the films seemed to be flirting with the fourth wall. They were definitely Post Modern and definitely self-referential, but they were still only the zygote.
Inception and Adaptation represent the maturation of this approach. What sets Inception apart, though, is the obfuscation. It is the allegory of the cave, told within the cave itself. That is the true significance of the film. It does not provide the pieces to solve the mystery. Those clues are on the next level up. Those clues are out here, when you look into the fiction from outside. |
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| Video Blog |
[Feb. 14th, 2010|07:08 am] |
I'm keeping a video blog these days.
You can find it at www.cityofscholars.com |
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