The lamentations of their women
When one goes on the customary "religion is responsible for most of the wars in history" rant, instead of arguing with them, agree wholeheartedly and state your admiration of their brave, contrarian support for Mel Gibson's idea that the Jews are responsible for all the war in the world.
And once the atheist starts backpedaling, ask him
which religion he means and take it from there. Especially in light of
the twentieth century, atheists should really give up the whole
"religion causes wars and if everybody was an atheist then we would
live in peace" canard. Throughout the history, wars have stemmed from
the simple fact that it has been easier to take than to make, to
consume than to produce, and this simple truth has then been
sugarcoated with nobler-sounding rationalizations fo rally the troops
to attack the neighbouring tribe.
I haven't checked out the always-excellent Agoraphilia for a while. New posts "This Is How Cynical I've Become" and "Adverse Selection in the College Cafeteria" point out certain perverse incentives related to college education.
I
always hate it when somebody posts a video on Windows Media format
embedded on a web page, because what just happens is that the Windows
Media player object on the page starts loading the clip and then
nothing happens. Sometimes it works, but it just silently fails so
often that I don't really even get disappointed any more. This in
contrast to Quicktime or YouTube clips, which always just work. Why can't all things always just work? Speaking of YouTube, I noticed that Valleywag has an article "Why YouTube is about to die" that makes the same points that I made in the post "Bang for the buck"
and more. When the end comes it will be abrupt, but I give it up to a
year simply because the whole thing is now so big and well-known that
no venture capitalist wants to take the risk of YouTube magically
becoming profitable and then everybody will laugh at him for being the
modern equivalent of "Nobody will ever want a personal computer in
their homes" or "Talkies have no future". What is a million bucks or
two each month for a serious VC, after all?
Checking out the
news from the old country, I can see that some polka outfit named
"Loituma" has become an Internet celebrity. The video was included on
the site, but of course it didn't work for me. Fortunately there is
always YouTube that offers a whole bunch of videos. Perhaps after this sudden rise to fame, Pizza Enrico
will become the next Internet superstar from Finland. In fact, people
of all ethnicities should try to dress up as people of other
ethnicities and even use makeup to change their skin tone accordingly,
and then try to imitate their stereotypical mannerisms for a comical
effect and finally post the results to YouTube to entertain others. I
am certain that there is great untapped potential in this genre.
While religions rarely cause wars in themselves, exceptions proving the rule, religious differences between groups can inflame existing conflicts and, as said, provide noble-sounding excuses for extreme solutions. With different group identities, conflicts turn into a matter of Us vs. Them. Inequalities of wealth, for example, seem to become a lot more galling if haves and have-nots belong to different religious groups (or ethnic, for that matter). It is simplistic to claim that religion causes wars, but no doubt it has made many wars possible that would not have occurred otherwise.
Off the topic and into the always amusing complexities of feminism. I'd recommend Daphne Patai's and Noretta Koertge's excellent book "Professing Feminism". Written by two former, now rather disillusioned Women's Studies professors, the book chronicles the degeneration of academic feminism and dissects its rhetorical and ideological follies with dry, ironic precision. Pity those two women who actually wanted to do proper academic study on gender roles... The dawning of harsh reality must not have been pleasant. Anyway, the book benefits from insider's perspective; the writers certainly now what their stuff and, since they're still feminists, they aren't tempted to demonize what's sufficiently ugly in itself.
Vacuuming is a transgressive act of liberation co-opting the symbolic objects of phallocratic domination!
Posted by Anonymous | 8:13 PM
I am always perplexed how people arrive at atheism. Atheism claims to know of the non-existence of God. But since God, if he/she/it exists, cannot be examined by scientific data, proving that there is no God is as problematic as proving that there is one.
The atheist and the believer both make there own leaps in faith, just in opposite directions.
Posted by Dan Morgan | 2:53 PM
"Atheism claims to know of the non-existence of God.:
Wrong. One cannot prove the non-existence of anything. You cannot prove a negative.
Atheists conclude that there is no God because of a complete lack of positive empirical evidence of God's existence.
Posted by Peter L. Winkler | 8:48 PM
I think it's sometimes possible to prove non-existence. I suppose one can prove the non-existence of a number that is both even and odd.
Posted by Matti | 1:55 PM
Well well, the null argument of the so called "agnostics" is back.
I would like to point out that not one of the two billion one-eyed midget-astronauts that rule the universe from the dark side of various moons in the various near-by solar systems, has been proven not to exist.
Therefore belief in the nonexistence of any single one of them is a "leap of faith".
Posted by Tiedemies | 1:52 AM
"two billion one-eyed midget-astronauts that rule the universe" -
Hmm, I can't say for sure they don't exist. In fact, this might explain a few things here on earth.
Likewise, I don't know that God does not exist either. You can believe that there is not a God based on a "lack of empirical evidence", but that is different that saying "I am certain that there is not a God".
Besides, a "complete lack of empirical evidence" is going a little far. The fact that we are self-aware creatures roaming the planet wondering about our origins, seemingly programmed to ponder supernatural explanations, seems like some evidence to me.
Sure, we could be here due to some random cosmic hic-up, but there could also be some type of intellect behind it.
Posted by Dan Morgan | 11:01 PM