Wednesday, June 29, 2011
China's Elite Communist Party
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan
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The Largest Biggest Best
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african missionaries to america
Africa has become so Christian, so Catholic, that they are now sending missionaries to America — we who thought we knew it all. Well it seems that we need the help and religion of those who only three generations ago were worshipping false idols, as we do now in America. We must be totally grateful for the faith of the Africans and their desire to help us maintain what is left of ours.
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Argument / debate
"At any rate, I'm with Richard Dawkins on this. When you engage in a debate you don't attempt to convince your opponent. That's virtually impossible. The object of a debate is to persuade the audience, and when pursuing that end there's nothing wrong with ridiculing a ridiculous position." However, this comment is talking about a different situation than (I think) Plait is discussing. Plait is talking about one-on-one discussions. Dawkins shines in debates before an audience. There are two different goals here. You use different tactics when you're trying to convince your opponent, than when you're trying to convince your audience.
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Monday, June 27, 2011
When God Talks to Politicians
William:
I am making a perfectly reasonable argument based upon well known facts. I seriously doubt that Bachmann SINCERELY believes that a little voice of God spoke in her head, that "still, small voice" that the prophet heard, BUT I think that she thinks it is politically expedient to say such a thing to appease the drooling Bible-belt masses. The journalist who interviewed her this morning on television (where she spoke of God's voice) also confronted her with some of her past statements which appear questionable and in some instances false. So, IF Bachmann really thinks that God is telling her to be president then this disqualifies her from office but IF she is LYING about her supernatural experience to gain Bible-belt votes then that too disqualifies her.
William: Erik, yes, really, and my wife is from the Philippines and is the most gung-ho Catholic on the face of the Earth, and Filipinos were Catholic and under 333 years of Spanish rule since around the 1500s BUT the South, Mindanao I think, was converted to Islam 200 years EARLIER by Arab merchants (just an interesting factoid to throw in.) Of course McKinley didn't know or care about that which is what makes his prayerful guidance so ludicrous. But THEN during the occupation, a bunch of good ol' Christian boys from the South wrote home about how shooting a bunch of N!g@rs was more fun than shooting rabbits. One American soldier was killed and so in retribution the Americans murdered an entire string of villages (which I suppose is GENOCIDE).
William: Someone reading this thread might easily assume that I dislike Bachmann. On the contrary, as I listened to her I was extremely impressed by how capable she might be as a president. The purpose of my post is to try and demonstrate that Jefferson really did have a good idea about "erecting a wall between Church and State" … now Americans (good Bible loving Christians that we are) truly value the FAMILY which of course is a union of one male and one female (and no adultery, prostitution, porn, self-gratification, etc) and so whoever occupies the White House MUST be married and engage in sexual intercourse BUT would it have been appropriate for the journalist to ask for details about how often they do it, and in what positions, missionary, doggie, oral… hmmm…. I guess NOT on the basis of something that someone OH, yes, I remember, some fellow named JESUS, said that when you pray you should do it in the privacy of your bedroom and what you do in secret with God will be rewarded by God openly but as for the hypocrite who has trumpeters toot their horns as they do alms on the street corner, well, they already have their reward… so IS IT NOT reasonable to extrapolate from Jesus sage advice and conclude that it would be inappropriate for her to discuss her sexual activity in her bedroom as well as her prayer…. OH but who really cares what Jesus said or thought because Jesus said that divorce is simply dreadful EXCEPT for reason of adultery in which case a spouse may be "put away" BUT Jesus did not say that one is free to remarry, so perhaps Jesus felt that those divorced people would content themselves with a life of prayer and celibacy and fasting like various saints and prophets.
William: Most scorpions, if not all, would agree that the scorpion is the chosen people, and they pray to their scorpion God, for God was so loving that God incarnated as a scorpion and crawled the earth and died and was resurrected and ascended into heaven (but a scorpion without sin who never stang, stinged, stung once in his life… of course he was a MALE scorpion… dont be silly) …. but those heretic cockaroaches claim that the cockaroach is the chosen creature and they point to all the literature on nuclear holocaust which says that only the cockaroaches survive and they dont say beans about those scurvy scorpions.
William: But, I thought God sees homosexuals as an abomination. That spiritual beacon of Catholic converts, Mr. Sparrow, back in 1968 carefully listened to rumors that I was a homosexual and then (rather than simply as to speak with me since I would have welcomed anyone's counsel on anything) he plotted with my best friend David Cicia to INVITE me to supper and I felt so honored that a Tutor whom I did not even know would want me to supper and during cocktails (about 10 minutes after I arrived) he suddenly rolled his eyes up into his skull like a mad bull and screamed to the top of his lungs "HOMOSEXUALITY IS AN ABOMINATION UNTO GOD" and I gave David Cicia a perplexed look and he looked embarrassed and I was thoroughly confused… nothing further was ever said that evening… the college had admitted Bob Kinsky straight from a mental hospital and Kinsky hit on me and I refused (because I never had sex with any male female or beast until I was age 30) and then Kinsky went about spreading rumors which of course Tutor Sparrow listened to (since idle gossip is also an ABOMINATION UNTO THE LORD) … but… karma has its justice because years later Sparrow got an anullment from the mother of his 10 or so children and had a Catholic wedding with another woman (Peter has the keys to the kingdom).. and SO Fortune why wouldnt you want a president who sees the obvious truth that "HOMOSEXUALITY IS AN ABOMINATION UNTO THE LORD" … or … is it… or is hypocrisy and idle gossip and rumor and bearing false witness an abomination unto the Lord, or perhaps the Lord doesn't really care… or perhaps Sparrow will roast in hell for all eternity simply for what he did to me…ah… but perhaps Sparrow asked God to forgive him just like the Honorable Newt Gingrich asked God to forgive all his adultery and.. God is so cool that he forgives all kinds of stuff…. so I say we let all the gays and lesbians marry and then simply ask God to forgive them… and that should work just fine… No?
Be thou a spiritual Bezaleel
Papal Infallibility, Kung, Ratzinger and Plato's Noble Lie
The Woman in Red
Kant's categorical imperative and the calculus of consequences
Achieving our ends through deception
Friends v. Lovers
A simple peasant's faith
Satan posing as a false Christ
How do we define love
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Pure monotheism
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Does the Law Educate and Does Knowledge Transform Lives?
William:
John, consider the MANY congressmen, senators and even presidents who have fallen pray to their temptations. There are probably fewer judges guilty of misconduct (I would have to Google) BUT given that it is congress which frames legislation and the senate which passes it (and the president signs it into law or vetoes)…. all those folks play a role in writing, interpreting and enforcing the law. So, John, YOU feel that even though the body of people who author the law are often guilty of dishonest conduct, yet they will produce a body of law which will educate the general populace. As I remember it Moses brought the laws down to the people from Sinai and for 40 years they wandered in the wilderness and yet often they did wrong things. God CHOSE Saul and even gave Saul a new heart and yet it is written that God regretted having chosen Saul. And David had his share of iniquity and Solomon and finally the temple was destroyed and the Jews were scattered to the diaspora.
William: John, I have the feeling that you are playing games. Do you feel that you are Socrates and you can lead me with dialectic questions out of the cave and into the light of day? I tell you what. In MY book, smart people don't ask questions, they give answers, good answers, GREAT ANSWERS that boggle the mind. Furthermore I suspect that your questions are not genuine, sincere questions for which you seek some answer. I suspect that you ALREADY have your mind set regarding what the real truth is and you are playing this little Socratic game with me. Now for a Christian (if there are any of those around, I am not certain) I would think they would turn to the parable of Christ about the woman caught in the act of adultery, about to be stoned. Jesus invited anyone without sin to cast the first stone. Now Jesus is believed by some to be the only SINLESS one and Jesus said "I give you a NEW law" which must mean that Jesus is a law giver. SO, John would you still like to ask if bad men can make good laws? Then there are some more verses about how all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and there is no one good, not one. So from that Biblical perspective there is no such thing as a good person and therefore all laws are framed, interpreted and enforced by people who are not good in any sense of the word. PERHAPS they are forgiven but they are not good. But then of course anyone who feels that the Bible is a pile of rubbish will simply laugh at my post and say "Who cares?"
I think that if we ask the right questions, regardless of what you or I may think the answer may be, we will eventually come to the truth. I don't claim to be "smart" enough to compose answers that boggle the mind, I would rather see if I or anyone else actually understand what we are talking about. It seems to me that to give an answer without first clarifying what the question is is the real intellectual dishonesty. Anyone can simply give an answer that people find interesting, but only the intellectually honest can ask questions that may or may not work out to the answer he is expecting.
Now as to your invocation of Scripture, it seems to me that what follows from this statement:
"Then there are some more verses about how all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and there is no one good, not one. So from that Biblical perspective there is no such thing as a good person and therefore all laws are framed, interpreted and enforced by people who are not good in any sense of the word"
is that either there are no good laws or that good laws can be made by bad, sinful men. Is my logic wrong?
Second, I think you are equivocating all over the place about "law". Didn't you, not 45 minutes ago, claim that Christ is a lawgiver, and now you accuse me of schizophrenia for asking whether laws can be good whileprofessing to be a Christian? You have to have some more honesty and clarity if you want to actually converse with other people. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself about your own "agenda". You still have not answered a single question I've asked. You have only jumped to conclusions about what my opinion probably is based on the questions that I ask and attacked those straw men with dubious concrete examples. I want real arguments please.
I suppose I agree that there will be no "final ultimate solution" to the miseries of humanity (before the Lord comes again). I do not, however, think that excuses us from perfecting ourselves and our communities to the best of our ability. It seems to me that what really matters in the final analysis is the purity of the heart rather than the success or failure of our efforts.
Why did you accept that you are probably eternally damned, unless you mean that facetiously? What I guess I mean is, are you a Christian (in the sense that you believe some Christian creed to be true) or not? And if not, why do you think you are damned? Or are you not being honest?
William: Most criminals, I would imagine, KNOW that they are doing wrong and know it because it is the law which made them aware so YES in a sense the law EDUCATES us. St. Paul writes about this…. That which I will I do not, that which I will not I do, the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak…. and we may toss in Socrates excellent point that all people by nature desire the good, but then we must throw in Solomon's wisdom that "there are ways which seem good unto a man but the end thereof is death."
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Facebook Group Chat and Diaspora
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Homeric Choices
Achilles must choose between a long but ignoble life or a short, glorious life.
How to join the Diaspora chat at jabber
Dec. 1994 Taking Zen Initiation
Yeast - a poem
My Father - poem I wrote in high school
Monday, June 20, 2011
Somersaults of Comprehension
Columbus. native American life passed by idyllically for thousands
of years, undisturbed by the cleverness of European conquest and
colonial aggression.
Yes, there were doubtless tribal skirmishes and territorial border
disputes, but no massive waves of conquest or colonial aggression of
the magnitude of an Alexander the Great, or a Cortez, or a Napoleon
or a Hitler.
Prior to the rather advanced culture of native Americans, we know
that there were upon the earth various human-like but distinct
species such as the Neanderthal, which lived side by side with
our "human" ancestors, but became extinct.
The very existence of separate, distinct human-like species would
seem to undermine the notion of "Man" as a deliberate creation meant
to be set above all other species.
Perhaps the Neanderthal was a much nicer person than our human
ancestors.
Paleontologists have determined that Neanderthals established a
permanent home and never wandered more than 30 miles from that home
in search of food or stones for tool making.
By contrast, the constant nomadic wanderings and ceaseless innovation
of our human ancestors theoretically sharpened their intellect
through the constant exercise of diversity and changing challenges in
the ever-widening circles of their somersaults of comprehension.
Astrophysicists tell us that in approximately 8 billion years, our
sun will expand to engulf all of the planets, including Earth, and
will then burn out in a spectacular super-Nova and disappear.
Faced with this distant but inevitable Doomsday, our one real hope of
cultural "salvation" and ideological "immortality" is to develop a
technology which will allow our language and learning and culture and
civilization to escape the narrow limits of this solar system and
exist self-sufficiently in prolonged space travel to colonize some
other planetary solar system capable of supporting biological life.
But for all of our religion and philosophy and science, we have not
evolved beyond the use of force and violence to settle our disputes
and differences, but remain in a perennial state of war or
preparation for war.
We consume so much energy and resources fighting each other that
there is nothing left to fight against the real enemy of ultimate
solar extinction.
Perhaps the answer to our salvation from the Armageddon of the Super-
Nova is to develop an artificial intelligence which will carry on the
activity of consciousness, that great dialectic, once organic life
has passed away, a cyborg 'Library of Babel' such as Jorge Luis
Borges describes (above).
What is the superiority of the simple, good-natured Neanderthal over
the cunning craftiness and treachery of our all-too-human ancestors?
Faulkner once criticized Hemingway, saying, "Hemingway was never
known to send anyone to a dictionary."
http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=6635
Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954, five years
after it had been awarded to another American, William Faulkner.
Neither writer, however, thought much of the other.
Faulkner once declared that Hemingway had "never been known to use a
word that might send the reader to the dictionary."
"Poor Faulkner," Hemingway retorted. "Does he really think big
emotions come from big words! He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar
words? I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and
better words, and those are the ones I use."
When we read an author like Hemingway, we read life in its
primordial, (Neanderthal, if you will), simplicity, life for living's
sake, stripped of its hierophantic garb of symbolism, motifs,
metaphor, allegory and inner hidden meanings.
We read in Hemingway's short stories of the manly Nick, who pauses
during his hike to savor the pancakes saved from breakfast which he
anticipated as he walked along, and afterwards, a cigarette.
What is life and existence and bodily experience apart from meaning,
morality, philosophy, religion and teleological cultural goals?
Fiction such as Hemingway produced does not provide the same sort of
fuel for scholastic research as a Plato or a Steinbeck or a Melville.
Even an Existentialist such as Sartre or Heidegger strives to uncover
the esoteric meaning hidden beneath the simple bronze of Being.
Heidegger's definition of man is one who beholds "Being, which
unveils", but an unwilling, reticent Being, much like Melville's
Bartleby the Scriviner, whose sole refrain to all requests is "I
would prefer not to."
In the two movies, "Wings of Desire (Himmel uber Berlin)" and its
American remake, "City of Angels", we are confronted with angelic,
incorporeal beings who crave the esoteric knowledge, most commonplace
for us, of how coffee tastes and how tobacco smells. Fleshly beings
such as we, bored with mere physical sensations and appetites, seek
to uncover the Platonic forms and unified field theories which
underlie mere Being.
Whenever the mind turns a somersault of comprehension, we feel a
metaphysical thrill.
A child is constantly thrilling to such somersaults since, for a
child, just as for Shakespeare's Miranda and her "Brave New World",
everything is new and awaiting discovery.
Supposedly, when a student of mathematics succeeds with the greatest
difficulty for the very first time in comprehending what the
mathematician Kurt Godel did in his Incompleteness theorem, they
experience a thrill akin to a religious experience.
Hinduism is quite explicit about "horripulation" (goosebumps) as a
symptom of experiencing the Divine, while Abrahamic religions remain
silent about such hair-raising phenomena.
But, constant sensation ceases to be a sensation.The second time that
humans walked on the moon, people hardly noticed or made the same
fuss, compared to the first moon walk. Even manna in the wilderness
and pillars of fire can become commonplace and passé.
Marxists awaited a final time when the State would wither away.
Hegel envisioned a future age of "Absolute Knowledge" where time, in
the sense of historical change, ceases.
The Kingdom of heaven, as described in the "Book of Revelation", must
be something of this sort, an ultimate, unchanging, timeless age of
absolutes.
In such a heavenly Kingdom, what more is there to prophesize, since
all prophecy has been fulfilled?
What further struggle is there to wage, since all evil and opposition
has been defeated?
What further thrill from somersaults of comprehension may be had,
since, as St. Paul says, "We no longer see through a glass darkly,
but see face to face and know even as we are known."
In such angelic realms, what is left to desire or yearn for unless it
is perhaps to once again enter into the imperfect flesh of a physical
body and taste a cup of coffee, a pancake, a cigarette, or to be
reborn once again as an infant, innocent and ignorant, to turn
somersaults once again upon the Bronze of Being and thrill to the
discovery of the commonplace.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Jung - On the Nature of the Psyche
Love Your Enemies---Augustine
Love Your Enemies---Augustine
It is necessary for you to say in that daily prayer of cleansing, "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." What will you do? You have enemies, for who can live on this earth without them? For your own sake, love them. In no way can your enemies so hurt you by their violence as you hurt yourself if you do not love them....
Let your prayer be against the malice of your enemies, that it may die and they may live. For if your enemy were dead, it might seem you have lost an enemy, yet you have not found a friend. But if your enemy's malice died, you have at once lost an enemy and found a friend....Why are you forever trailing your heart along the earth? Lift up your heart, reach forward, love your enemies.
William: You mean ... Like ... Osama bin Laden?
All I said to start this was that I was grateful that Osama got half his head blown off and stand by that with the perfect peace that surpasses all understanding. God Bless Your Heart.
William: Tim, obviously you have a high opinion of yourself and are unwilling to entertain my suggestion that perhaps "you have been weighed and found wanting" which was the "handwriting on the wall" which no one could understand until Prophet Daniel was called to interpret it. In my opinion the majority of people who call themselves Christians are "weighed and found wanting." Tim: it is unlikely that you would ever take me seriously. Why do you even care what my personal opinion is? If you feel that you are a good Christian then that should be sufficient. You should have faith that God knows your heart even if all the world reviles you. I suspect that your notion of "meaningful and mature dialogue" is if you win and I lose. St. Paul said that "all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"... so was Paul speaking to everyone EXCEPT you? I don't think you have to worry about a "scripture war" since I have not yet seen you refer to a single verse of scripture. I did notice that you spoke a few words in the King James dialect, or what you imagine is Biblical language (when you wrote, "engaging in a behavior that you doth protesteth much about"). I am sorry if my assessment of the majority of "wannabe Christians" offends you but that is the conclusion I have come to and I am not likely to change it any time soon. A humble person would walk away because Paul advises "not to engage in vain disputation." Being Christian has a lot to do with humility and with admitting ones own shortcomings.
Posterous team suggested DELETING and then re adding identica.ca
test identica.ca/williambuell
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Adaptation, Natural Selection and Divine Will
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
First 7 Ecumenical Councils
Various Canons of the Apostles include decrees concerning eunuchism. But since they were disregarded, as it would appear, on this account it became necessary that it be made the subject of the present Canon, which says: Whoever has been made a eunuch by surgeons because of a disease or ailment, or by barbarians during the time of an invasion, if he is a clergyman, let him perform the functions of the clergy. But whoever while in good health has made himself a eunuch, even though he is a clergyman, must cease from the activities of the clergy. And of as many such persons as are laymen not even one must henceforth be made a clergyman. But as we say this in regard to those who affectedly and wilfully dare to make themselves eunuchs, in the same vein again we say that if there be any persons that have been made eunuchs by barbarians or by their masters (or owners), that is to say, against their will and tyranically, but that are worthy, the Canon (either the present Canon, that is to say, or Apostolical Canon XXI) allows them to be admitted to the clergy.
Inasmuch as many things, whether of necessity or otherwise urgently demanded by men, have been done contrary to the ecclesiastical Canon, so that men who have but recently come to the faith from a heathen life, and have been catechized for only a short time, have been conducted directly to the spiritual bath, and as soon as baptized have been given an episcopate or a presbytery, it has seemed well henceforth to have no such thing occur. For the catechumen needs more time and a longer trial after baptism. The Apostolical letter, too, is plain which says, "not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the Devil’s snare" (1 Tim. 3:6). If, on the other hand, in the course of time any psychical (i.e., animal) sin be found against the person, and it is exposed by two or three witnesses, let such a person be dismissed from the clergy. As for anyone acting contrary hereto, as having the hardihood to do things opposed to the great council, he himself shall be in danger of losing his standing in the clergy.