George Aar

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...

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...

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?

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

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 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...

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...

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...

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)

Oh, and I meant to mention, Up until 1973 when Northern State Hospital was closed due to budget cuts, Sedro-Woolley was synonymous "Mental Illness". The town itself relying on the Mental Hospital for about 25% of it's income. The common insult when I was a kid was to claim somebody should be moved to Sedro-Woolley, insinuating that they had some sort of mental malady. Uh, yeah, politcal correctness was never a failing for me or mine. Not sure how that relates to anything, but being a history fan, I had to mention it...

Sedro Woolley is just up the road from me 30 or 40 miles. It's basically just a wide spot in the road. A few farms, a little bit of logging, and a few inbred hillbillies. The remnants of the "Love" family are close by as well (another cultish group of hippie/spiritualists that's seen it's star rise and fall already). It doesn't strike me as the kinda place where there's going to be fertile ground for garnering a large group. Seems more likely the plan is to hunker down with a small group of the faithful and await some terrifying fate. Really, do any of these splinters ever grow enough to do anything more than provide a comfortable income for their chosen MOG? Doesn't seem like it. What a dreary farking existence...

Hey, O.E., We never got anymore updates on your Japan expedition. Do dedange ka?

I wasn't at that meeting, but I was friends with someone who was. I remember him telling of the incident, and being all "Wow, this is so like 'Doctor' to do this". I THINK the point was to show how detailed the maker of that eye was in his work, and how we should be like that "working the WURD", yeah,yeah, sure, sure. Still, pretty farking creepy. Would he do the same for a girlfriend who had breast implants? Come to think of it, he probably did."Looky how nice THESE babies came out, huh?"...

I second what Rocky said, avoid it or wallow in it? Rupert is long on sleeze, short on anything approaching journalism, take a look at the Wall Street Journal since his takeover for example. I occasionally catch one of the promos for the "entertainment" news shows, and I can't get over what they're pitching. Gawd, five nights a week of that crap, who's humping who (or is it "whom"), who found out their S/O is bedding down with Zsa Zsa's German Shephard, who's in rehab, who's punched out a paparazzi, who's driving around without underwear, and other incredibly important stuff. It troubles me no end that there's evidently a large segment of society who actually cares about any of that crap. Jeezus...

Yah, you bet... Ever consider the kind of intellect that would think that soaking food in LYE was a good idea? Yah, vell, dere ya go... (actually, according to my late father, "good" lutefisk was light and flakey - never gooey. But in the fifteen or so Christmases that I had to endure that yearly treat, I never once saw the fish in that consistency. "It's just not GOOD anymore!" was my father's constant lament) Sorry, I digress...