Clearing Off the Desk

Hit the North!

Must be the heat - I've been pretty dead this summer. Two hours a day on the road, often over 100 on the way home, hot enough that the air conditioners never catch up at home . . .

Was up in Michigan over the fourth of July, spent the next week there, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Went to the beach once, dropped Sharri in Fishtown & stayed in the car, never spent any time in Traverse City except for a quick trip to the Meijers. Never took the speedboat all the way down into the southern lake. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Did hit up Dog Ears used books in Northport and scored a copy of John Cage's M, though I probably overpaid for it. Other than that, I read the last installment of Larsson's Millennium trilogy, got a good start on Zizek's latest, and was never late for cocktail hour.

We're going to try to sneak up there again in about a week. Bonus time out of the heat!

* * * * *

Speaking of Which

This summer has been brutal. Just sayin'.

* * * * *

In Rotation, Part One

Tom Verlaine: Warm and Cool
Brainbombs: Obey
The Minutemen: Buzz or Howl, Double Nickels
Pandit Pran Nath: Ragas of Morning and Night
Brahms: German Requiem
Rangda: False Flag
Kinit Her: Divine Names
Body Collector: New Eden
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Yellow Swans: Bring the Neon War Home


* * * * *

A Modest Proposal

So I don't have a problem with an Islamic cultural center near (not at, near!) "ground zero", but it seems that some people are sensitive to the issue. I suppose I can see where they are coming from, so I have an idea that could help solve the problem without singling out those of the Muslim faith: let's have a complete moratorium on the construction of all churches, mosques, synagogues, ashrams, temples, etc., as well as all buildings with religious sponsorship or intent, such as cultural centers, schools, universities, soup kitchens, youth centers, etc. Let's just not license any of these and related-use buildings in the entire United States and all its territories for the next ten years.

Not only will that solve the problem of hurt feelings between religious sects, but it will make all those secular humanist haters put there money where their collective mouth is: okay, bitches, time for y'all to shut up with your damn moral superiority & start running the soup kitchens!

Whatsa matter, Ayn Rand got yer tongue?

* * * * *

Something I've Never Been Clear On

I know that many Libertarians (and maybe this is just the new wave of pre-Tea Party Ron Paul boosters, not the actual "intellectual core" of the movement) support the party because they oppose centralized power. The reasoning here seems to be that if the government is severely reduced, then centralized power disappears.

"Nature abhors a vacuum." - does anyone really believe that if government moves away from centralized power, then nothing will move toward centralized power? Does anyone believe that Libertarianism, no matter how dreamy the concept of "leave me alone to do my own thing" may be, is anything other than an expressway for the chiefs of capital into the corridors of power? Oh wait, they're already there. And Libertarianism solves that . . . how?

* * * * *


Bobby Jindal Phone Home; or, Another Reason to Get Off Facebook

So an old high school classmate of mine posts this nice little quote:

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the ...prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I was initially somewhat taken aback by this quote, given the person who posted it: an Indiana farm girl who never made it out of town for any length of time, and never (as much as I knew her which, admittedly, wasn't/isn't much) prone to any kind of political progressiveness in any direction, left or right.

And then come the comments: from one, "that's called socialism". What the hell? What's being critiqued here is exactly the opposite of socialism, it is the influence of capital and the bosses of capital on governance. When I politely pointed out that socialism is not being critiqued (at the time, I thought my classmate understood and believed in the quote, so I was more or less siding with her), someone else gave a hysterical response along the lines of "not socialism - open your eyes! judgment day is coming and we will all have to answer to the lord!" - actually, that is much shorter and not nearly as hysterical as the actual comment, but I'm not going back through two months worth of Farmville on her wall to find the exact words.

And then I got it. Abraham Lincoln . . . red, white, and blue American hero . . . "Corruption in high places" . . . Obama . . . socialism. A direct line of (Glenn) Beckian logic. I don't know for sure if my classmate really understands the quote or not, but it's clear that a chunk of her social group (and, by extension, mine too) doesn't have a clue.

Look: I am not, and will never be, an Obama apologist. I like him just fine. I voted for him because he wasn't George W. Bush, and so far he hasn't magically transformed into George W. Bush, so I've got to say he has fulfilled all the expectations I had of him. The fact of the matter is that corporations have been enthroned, and the government that our constitution created, the government that has defined itself according to that document down through the years, is incapable of changing that. Whoever makes it through the system is complicit in its crimes. Some, including Obama, will make the moral compromises, reasoning that the only way you can change the system is from within. The question remains: is he fooling himself, us, or both?

The maddening thing is, though, that the mainstream of those who oppose Obama want more corporate control, not less. And now, Glenn Beck has whole segments of the nation participating in Orwellian doublespeak for fun and for profit. Hence, the Lincoln quote that means exactly the opposite of what Lincoln himself intends it to mean.

Just like Bobby Jindal doesn't think the federal government has a function. Until, that is, it does. And then, it just sucks. Until he's in national office, then it doesn't.

Nice to know people don't feel the need to make sense any more.

* * * * *

While I'm on the Topic

Bobby Jindal really, really, REALLY needs to shut the fuck up. The only thing I want to know from him is what the state of Louisiana is doing to clean up the BP disaster. If he contradicts himself one more time, his brain will collapse onto itself, and he will morph into Sarah Palin.

* * * * *

Lincoln Part 2

I'm waiting for the first Tea Party politician who dons a stovepipe hat and says "I'm a gonna free this country like Lincoln freed the slaves." My money's on Palin, since she's always running her lemon, you got to figure she's an odds-on favorite to say damn near anything. Bobby Jindal's on the board, but this one's Palin's race to lose.

One thing you can be sure of is that politician won't come from the South. Most of the good ol' boys in the South remember the dirty secret that the average Faux News viewer glosses over: Lincoln stood for everything the Tea Party is against. If the Tea Party were to cast Satan as president, his template would be Lincoln.

You want centralized power? Lincoln was willing to go to war to enforce that. You want limits on local autonomy? Lincoln said "no slaves". You want to play fast and loose with the constitution? Lincoln considered the Bill of Rights a much more important document. You want a federal income tax? Yup, blame Abe.

But still, we have Beckian logic to contend with. Someone is going to try it.

* * * * *

In Rotation Part Two

Hasil Adkins: Moon Over Madison
AMM: The Crypt
Billy Childish: The '82 Cassettes
Calexico: Live in Nuremburg
Dandelion Abortion: Complete cassettes
Jeff Simmons: OST - Naked Angels
Queen Victoria: "Auld Lang Syne" 7"
The Body: All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
Borbetomagus/Hijokaidan: Burning at Both Ends

* * * * *

The Media is Killing Me

There have been all kinds of discussions about privacy and the media age, specifically about how younger people don't have the same privacy issues that anyone from the pre-text message generations does. Like that tattoo that's going to look like shit in about twenty years, the text generation doesn't seem to care about the red-ringed eyeball, vacant stare, plastic cup full of who-knows-what pictures that get posted online. I guess they figure they'll deal with it when it comes around.

Or, maybe they just have a different way of dealing with media in general.

The rantings here are, I believe, partially a product of media fatigue. I generally am not affected as much as some, but I think it's clear that it's getting to me.

Like . . . recently, there was a story about rivers & property rights in Colorado on NPR. Essentially, one group of people thinks that Colorado laws about the status of rivers means that, like roads, they are public. The property owners on the river think, on the other hand, that only the water is public property, and that all the land and rocks under & around the river are private property. Therefore, if you are floating down the river and pull off to the side, you are on private property. If the river is shallow and you are standing in it, you are standing on private property. If you are rafting and you hit a rock in the middle of the river, you are trespassing (I'm not exaggerating this at all).

Now, obviously there can be a reasonable middle ground reached. The state could define the rivers as public with thorough safeguards for landowners. If the landowners played their cards right, they could totally have lost the battle and won the war.

But that's not the way it gets played these days. Every issue is a moral issue, and not in and of itself: it is moral in the sense that you are on the proper side of the issue, and not caving in to the immorality of base atheistic/humanist culture (i.e., those on the other side of the issue). The issue and facts of the issue are irrelevant (see Beckian logic, above); the only thing that matters is that you are on the side of God.

Let's not believe for one second this applies only to "conservatives". The other day, I commented on a post attacking the US government for trying to stop the latest Wikkileak. My point was simply that not only did the US government oppose the leaks, but some human rights organizations (such as Amnesty International) opposed them as well . . . the reason being that it was possible that Afghani collaborators with the US could be exposed and subject to brutal retaliation courtesy the Taliban. The poster replied that, while of course he didn't want to see people die, that it was only normal that enemy collaborators should be punished, and that he supposed the collaborators should be shipped to the US, but that there were already too many "weasels" in the US and we didn't really need any more.

Ah yes . . . "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". It has been pointed out that the worldwide Islamic insurgence is the closest thing to a proletariat revolution that we have right now. That may be the case, but if indeed that is an acceptable shape of revolution, then we are right to reject Marxism. Islamic revolution does represent change, but for the better? Obviously not, especially if you are the one underneath the burqa.

The poster was on "us v. them" autopilot as much as any Republican senator. I am constantly trying to break these codes here, to maintain my partiality with open eyes and active mind. I am appalled when codes take over, no matter what the code is.

And yet, media fatigue is pushing me to the limits as well. After the Colorado river story, my response wasn't "what a bunch of assholes - can't they just work out a compromise instead of showboating to their constituency on some vague 'property rights' routine?" My response was to question the very nature of private property - as in, maybe property itself is the problem, and not the ability to compromise.

Or maybe I'm one step behind on the evolutionary media-digesting wheel. Maybe the kids will be alright.

* * * * *

Was That Donnie Walsh On the Other Line?

Just when I was about ready to resign myself to another miserable Pacers season with dreams of 2011 dancing through my head, Larry Bird goes and makes a move that makes the Pacers . . . well, not exactly playoff-ready, but more interesting than I thought they would end up being.

The Pacers managed to snag Darren Collison and James Posey in a four team deal that sent Troy Murphy to the Nets. Why the fuss? The Pacers, who haven't had a decent point guard since Mark Jackson, may finally have a decent point guard. Collison, who made quite an impression last season filling in for Chris Paul, is generally regarded as the fastest guard in the NBA, though his lack of size and strength make him somewhat of a defensive liability, especially against half-court offenses. And Posey, though overpaid, will be very useful around the basket.

Okay, not D-Wade and Bron action, not Stoudemire action, but better than Matt Barnes by a fair amount. The Pacers made an immediate upgrade at their weakest point (pun intended), and Collison gets one full season to audition for the position on a more permanent basis. If he passes the audition, and if Roy Hibbert continues improving, then the Pacers can go spend money in 2011 with the knowledge that they are solid at the one and five, very good at the three with the additional comfort that Granger can play two if necessary, have a good prospect at 2 - 3, big upside at the backup one, and plenty of aggressive, spirited fouls coming off the bench (Tyler, get well soon, will ya?). It sounds for all the world like the Pacers are finally becoming good chicken stock just waiting for the main ingredient to be added.

Props, Larry. I didn't see this one coming. It's almost as if you had an angel whispering in your ear . . .

Shut Up and Show Me the Ring(s)

In amongst all the LeBron mania, it's easy to look past what the Lakers have been doing this summer. They tried hard to get Raja Bell, but ultimately failed. They re-signed Derek Fisher, who, in spite of his limitations, is money in the playoffs. They signed Steve Blake, a good half-court quarterback, to back up Derek Fisher. And now, they've added Matt Barnes.

Sure, not as sexy as Bron-Bron and Wade and Bosh (or even Mike Miller), but I like the method to this madness. Think about it: when the Lakers titled in 2009, they knew that they couldn't stand still, so what did they do? They added Ron Artest who, even at his worst, is going to cause problems for the opponent's 2 or 3, and sometimes even the 1 and 4. Turns out that the mercurial Artest was just enough to push the Lakers over the top for 2010.

Unlike LeBron, who decided he was going to use his influence to put together a fun-time he-man's club with all his friends, Kobe decided to go after the players that pissed him off the most (on the court, at least) - last year Artest, this year Bell and Barnes. Kobe figures that if a player is annoying (and good) enough to get under his skin, then he can do the job against anybody. LeBron, Wade, and Bosh are big kids, Kobe is an assassin.

When you're champions, you don't rebuild, you tune up. What the Lakers have done is to make the NBA's best team even better. Right now, they can go with lineup of Fisher, Bryant, Artest, Gasol, and Bynum, and then sit them all down and run out a lineup of Blake, Vujacic, Odom, Barnes, and Theo Ratliff. Now, that second platoon in and of itself isn't going to scare anybody, but mix it up a bit, get a scorer on the court (maybe leave Gasol out on the court as a pivot with the second unit, put Odom out with the first unit and use Bynum in the middle), and with the exception of Bryant, there's not a hell of a lot of drop off.

The other thing that bothers me about the whole LeBron thing is that, in basketball, a team is never the sum of its parts. Both LeBron and Wade need the ball to be effective, and last time I checked, there's only one ball on the court when the whistle blows. Now, I take all of the Miami Three at their word when they say they will check their egos at the door, but that's not the same as meshing together as a team. Bosh won't be a problem, since he can get a fair amount of action cleaning up underneath. If I'm the point distributing the ball at crunch time, I'm looking for Wade first, LeBron second. As a matter of fact, force of nature though LeBron may be, Wade is easily the better offensive player. The question is this: will LeBron step aside to become the second option on the offensive end? Can he be a role player? More to the point, willing or not, does he even know how to be a role player? It's not like he's ever had to before.

From the beginning, I thought James and Bosh made sense. Or Wade and Bosh. Or James and Stoudemire. Or Wade and Stoudemire . . . well, you're starting to get the idea. Think of a modular basketball team: players have roles defined to varying degrees, but if two players with similar tendencies trying to do the same things are on the floor at the same time, then they're going to get into each other's way. And, as referred to earlier, scorers (as opposed to pure shooters) need the ball to score, and there's only one ball on the court. Both James and Wade make their living the same way: ball in their hands on the wing, creating, moving in to the rack and finishing, or dumping off to the big (Bosh, in this case), or kicking it back to an open shooter on the wing. Who's going to be the creator? Neither Wade or James is going to be the shooter on the wing. James could be one of the orbiting bigs, but Bosh has to be the main offensive focus underneath. There is no clearly defined role on offense for James. It would seem to me to be best if he became an offensive opportunist, maybe a pick and roll guy a la Karl Malone (with Bosh as the low post back-to-the-basket guy).

Whatever . . . they may be able to make this work, but it won't be easy, and at least one player is going to have to move far out of his comfort zone, and ego or no, that will be difficult. It is much easier with clearly defined modular roles, like maybe a slasher and an inside scorer . . . like Bryant and Gasol. The Lakers have a clear blueprint with two top notch scorers, and it is demonstrably hard to kick them off the track. There's not only one solution to the problem, or even a best solution, but the Lakers' solution is clearly effective.

As US National coach Mike Kryzewski has pointed out, one place where Miami will be immediately dominant is on defense. This will give them time to figure out the offense, and ultimately be the key that opens the door to a championship for them. Ironically, if Miami does win it all this year, it will most likely be in an ugly, Detroit Pistons-style championship team, not the super flashy Dream Team-style team. If you remember, the most recent superstar trio (the Celtics' Pierce, Allen, and Garnett), was also a defensive grind-it-out unit in spite of the offensive talents of all three.

But until the confetti falls, don't talk, show me the rings. Kobe has them, LeBron doesn't. Right now, if forced to bet, my money's still on the Lakers.

* * * * *

Don't take this to mean I'm down on LeBron for his free agent soap opera. While the whole TV special was appalling, and while I value a certain hometown fidelity, I am glad to see a player in control instead of the owners for a change.

But I've never been a Miami fan, and now I want them to loose every game. And I'm pissed at them for turning me into a Lakers fan again, no matter how marginally.

God III

from the Tom Stoppard play, Jumpers:

George: To begin at the beginning --
Dotty (off. Panic): Help! Murder!
(George throws his manuscript on the desk and marches angrily to the door.)
(Off.) Oh, horror, horror, horror! Confusion now hath made its masterpiece . . . most sacrilegious murder! -- (Different voice.) Woe, alas! What, in our house?
(George, with his hand on the door handle, pauses. He returns to his desk and picks up his papers.)
George: To begin at the beginning, is God? (Pause.) I prefer to put the question in this form because to ask 'Does God exist?' appears to presuppose the existence of a God who may not, and I do not propose this late evening to follow my late friend Russell, to follow my good friend the late Lord Russell, necrophiliac rubbish! to begin at the beginning: is God? (He ponders a moment.) To ask, 'Is God?' appears to presuppose a Being who perhaps isn't . . . and thus is open to the same objection as the question , 'Does God exist?' . . . but until the difficulty is pointed out it does not have the same propensity to confuse language with meaning and to conjure up a God who may have any number of predicates including omniscience, perfection and four-wheel-drive but not, as it happens, existence. This confusion, which indicates only that language is an approximation of meaning and not a logical symbolism for it, began with Plato and was not ended by Bertrand Russell's theory that existence could only be asserted of descriptions and not of individuals, but I do not propose this evening to follow into the Theory of Descriptions my very old friend - now dead, of course - ach! - to follow into the Theory of Descriptions, the late Lord Russell --!
(He continues smoothly, improvising off-script.)
-- if I may so refer to an old friend for whom punctuality was no less a predicate than existence, and a good deal more so, he would have had us believe, though why we should believe that existence could be asserted of the author of 'Principia Mathematica' but not of Bertrand Russell, he never had time, despite his punctuality, not to mention his existence, to explain, very good, keep to the point, to begin at the beginning: is God? (To Secretary.) Leave a space. Secondly! A small number of men, by the exercise of their intellects and by the study of the works both of nature and of other intellects before them, have been able to argue coherently against the existence of God. A much larger number of men, by the exercise of their emotional and psychological states, have affirmed that this is the correct view. This view derives partly from what is known as common sense, whose virtue, uniquely among virtues, is that everybody has it, and partly from the mounting implausibility of a technological age as having divine origins - for a while a man might believe that the providence of sheep's wool was made in heaven, he finds it harder to believe the same of Terylene mixture. (He leans into the mirror intently.) Well, the tide is turning his way, and it is a tide which has turned only once in human history . . . there is presumably a calender date - a moment - when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when, quite suddenly, secretly, the noes had it. (And squeezes a blackhead in the imaginary mirror. The he straightens up and is the lecturer again.) It is now nearly fifty years since Professor Ramsay described theology and ethics as two subjects without an object, and yet, as though to defy reason, as though to flaunt a divine indestructibility, the question will not go away: is God?
Dotty (off): Rape!
George: And then again, I sometimes wonder whether the question ought not be, 'Are God?' Because it is to account for two quite unconnected mysteries that the human mind looks beyond humanity, and it is two of him that philosophy obligingly provides. There is, first, the God of Creation to account for existence, and second, the God of Goodness to account for moral values. I say they are unconnected because there is no logical reason why the fountainhead of goodness in the universe should necessarily have created the universe in the first place; nor is it necessary, on the other hand, that a Creator should care a tuppence about the behavior of his creations. Still, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, nothing is heard either of a God who created the universe and then washed his hands of it, or, alternatively, a God who merely took a comparatively recent interest in the chance product of universal gases. In practice, people admit moral values to give a point to the Creation. But when we place the existence of God within the discipline of a philosophical inquiry, we find these two independent mysteries: the how and the why of the overwhelming question: --
Dotty (off): Is anybody there?
George (pause): Perhaps all mystical experience is a form of coincidence. Or vice versa, of course.
(Dotty screams. It sounds in earnest. Of course, nothing can be seen.)
(Murmurs.) Wolf . . .
Dotty (off): Wolves! --Look out!
(George throws his manuscript down furiously.)
(Off.) Murder -- Rape -- Wolves!
(George opens his door and shouts at the enclosed Bedroom door.)
George: Dorothy, I will not have my work interrupted by these gratuitous acts of lupine delinquency!
(The Procession Music, which had been allowed to fade out, is brought up by the opening of the Study Door.)
And turn that thing down! --you are deliberately feigning an interest in brass band music to distract me from my lecture!
(He closes his door, and from behind it produces a quiver of arrows and a bow. These he brings downstage and places them on his desk.)
(Pleasantly.) Does, for the sake of argument, God, so to speak, exist?
(He returns upstage and finds an archery target, which he leans up against the upstage bookcase, resting on the day-bed.)
(To mirror.) My method of inquiry this evening into certain aspects of this hardy perennial may strike some of you as overly engaging, but experience has taught me that to attempt to sustain the attention of rival schools of academics by argument alone is tantamount to constructing a Gothic arch out of junket.
(He extracts an arrow from the quiver.)
Putting aside the God of Goodness, to whom we will return, and taking first the God of Creation - or to give him his chief philosophical raison d'etre, the First Cause - we see that a supernatural of divine origin is the logical consequence of the assumption that one thing leads to another, and that this series must have had a first term; that, if you like, though chickens and eggs may alternate back through the millennia, ultimately, we arrive at something which, while perhaps no longer resembling either a chicken or an egg, is nevertheless the first term of that series and can itself only be attributed to a First Cause - or to give it its theological sobriquet, God. How well founded is such an assumption? Could it be, for instance, that chickens and eggs have been succeeding each other in one form or another literally for ever? My old friend - Mathematicians are quick to point out that they are familiar with many series which have no first term - such as the series of proper fractions between nought and one. What, they ask, is the first, that is the smallest, of these fractions? A billionth? A trillionth? Obviously not: Cantor's proof that there is no greatest number ensures that there is no smallest fraction. There is no beginning. (With a certain relish he notches his arrow into the bowstring.) But it is precisely this notion of the infinite series which in the sixth century BC led the Greek philosopher Zeno to conclude that since an arrow shot towards a target first had to cover half the distance, and then half the remainder, and then half the remainder after that, and so on ad infinitum, the result was, as I will now demonstrate, that though an arrow is always approaching its target, it never quite gets there, and Saint Sebastian died of fright.
(He is about to fire the arrow, but changes his mind, and turns back to the mirror.)
Furthermore, by a similar argument he showed that before reaching the half-way point, the arrow had to reach the quarter-mark, and before that the eighth, and before that the sixteenth, and so on, with the result, remembering Cantor's proof, that the arrow could not move at all!
Dotty (off): Fire!
(George fires, startled before he was ready, and the arrow disappears over the top of the wardrobe.)
Help - rescue - fire!
George (shouts furiously): Will you stop this childish nonsense! Thanks to you I have lost the element of surprise!

If You Name the Tune . . .

. . . be ready to dance.





The BIG LIE, available everywhere cable television reaches.

brought to you by the If the Shoe Fits department of propoganda.

God II

If you say atheism is faith, what's your definition of science? Is the force of gravity a concept of faith or science? I suppose you hold that atheism is based on the absence of proof, as opposed the observation of proof. I somewhat buy that, but I think the practical difference is not that much. If I've understood your post correctly, then it seems you'd be fine with "intelligent design" taught inside a science class--but maybe I'm misunderstanding.

June 25, 2010 1:15 PM

This was Clark's response to my last post "God". I responded that he "took the bait" because these are subjects I rant about constantly, sometimes to the chagrin of my family and friends.

Easy question first: I do not think that intelligent design should be taught in science class because, as I understand it (and I could be wrong about this), intelligent design takes God as a given and moves from there. Until there is a proof for the existence of God that is internally consistent with the parameters of science, then discussions of God belong in religion class, not science class. Although, are the discussions of the existence of God really all that different from discussions of the existence of dark matter?

As a quick aside, I never understood why religious types were always so eager to attack science. Quite a few scientists are religious . . . I used to have an Irish priest as a professor who said "I absolutely believe in evolution: I believe the world evolves according to God's plan". The two are not mutually exclusive, they are just different ways of seeing.

The concept of gravity is a concept of science, which requires a commitment of faith, as does any thought system. It is not a question of "faith" or "science", as if science is fact and faith is fiction. Science, like any other way of seeing the world, is a system of metaphor. What makes science special is that it is limited to the quantitative, or that which can be measured. This limiting of science makes it a very utilitarian metaphor system and, as such, a very useful system in a concrete way. This does not, however, make science more "true" than any other system of thought: think about the ocean, example. I would argue that Moby Dick tells you as much about the ocean as the description H2O along with a list of its other constituent minerals and all the organisms that inhabit it. On the other hand, if you want to make a diving apparatus or a deep water drilling platform, you are much better off consulting depth charts, geological surveys, etc. . . . you are much better off using science to design your tools.*

Even conceding this understanding of science v. other metaphor systems, we still tend to think of science as objective fact, which is where Clark's citation of gravity comes in to play. If science dealt exclusively in objective fact, then a fact, once discovered, would be forever immutable. We know that is not the case. Science continually perfects its metaphor, as any good thought system would: for example, it has not been that long ago, relatively speaking, that a geocentric universe was scientific fact. Sure, we have an understanding of gravity that is clear to anyone with even a minimal understanding of science, but do we feel the earth spinning? No, we need to have a certain level of faith to commit to science as a system of metaphor. Someday, the theory of gravity may seem as quaint as "humors" in the blood. Even now, with concepts such as chaos theory, fractals, and the uncertainty principle, the complex metaphorical nature of science is becoming more apparent.

* * * * *

Yes indeed, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And yes, the difference is not much above the trivial when it comes to atheism.

It is conceivable to me (though perhaps not likely . . . but that is another discussion that I wouldn't even want to get into) that science may someday discover a creator. But even if science does discover a creator, God is outside of its realm. There are things that science is not designed to do, and crowning a God is one. In this sense, atheism cannot be based on science since it has nothing to do with science, since science neither proves nor disproves God.

I think it is perfectly logical to say "I see no evidence of a God, and therefore I believe there is no God." I think it is also perfectly logical to say "I see evidence of God in everything around me, and therefore I believe God exists." Like I said, neither statement is particularly interesting to me in and of itself. What is interesting is what actions are enacted on behalf of those beliefs. Given the huge destructive power that religion has demonstrated on the world stage, I tend to be sympathetic to atheism, even if I am not an atheist.

And yet, we have to be aware that atheism has its pitfalls as well: it is not accidental that all this Randian Objectivist bullshit has atheism at its core. And as much as the atheist would like to use science to escape the mythology of theism, the objective fallacy that underlies scientific positivism has a Western monotheistic model at its core - "one truth, one law, one word, one God".

All of which comes down to my fundamental problem with atheism: atheism, being solely defined by religious principles (even if in the negative), is just another religion. And not a very interesting one at that.

__________

* Though perhaps an understanding of Moby Dick (specifically, its fundamental hubris motif) would have been useful to BP and the other operators of the Horizon platform.

God

Anyone even remotely versed in current theories of knowledge is aware of the difficulty of knowing anything, objectively speaking. For this reason, I become impatient with the "scientific" arguments against the existence of God: it is nothing but arrogance to declaim that "God does not exist" and expect that to be understood in any definitively factual way. For that reason, atheism is as much a leap of faith as theism, and should be understood and treated as such.

Again, via Nietzsche, the important questions: what is the root force of this faith? What are the implications of these beliefs?

Of course, it should be assumed that whenever someone says "There is no God" that he is actually saying "I believe there is no God". Positivism is its own destruction.

All that said, I've got no problems with atheism . . . as long as it understands itself as faith.

*****

I still read the Bible occasionally . . . though, after 12 years in Catholic schools, I usually feel there are a lot of other things to catch up on. I don't object to the idea of God, it is just my current belief that the question of his existence is uninteresting and irrelevant. I did not leave the Catholic Church because of some crisis of faith (that came before I actually left), I left it because I object to its political structure.*

I do believe that the Christian God we see often in the Bible (the "jealous God") is worthy of our rebellion. It occurs to me that the behavior described therein would not be tolerated from a human being.**

I've been thinking about Buddhism lately.

__________
* Incidentally, I believe the answer to the Church's current problems with pedophilia is not to allow priests to get married, theoretically allowing them some sort of sexual release (since when is marriage, or any kind of sexual relations between adults, a solution for pedophilia?). The best answer would be to ordain women and let them get into the power structure: if women had been in the power structure when the problems started to surface, there is good reason to believe that the cover-ups would have been nipped in the bud.

** I want to write on this more, but not before I revisit C. G. Jung's Answer to Job.

Best Sports Press Conference Ever

People who know me how much I love Ron Artest. I'm genuinely happy that he has a ring. This video is the best sports press conference I have ever seen.



Do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing. Not only is it vastly entertaining, it is genuinely touching at points. Among other things, it's really interesting how his years with the Pacers are always close to the front of his mind.

As one of the comments to the video said, how can you not love this guy?