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“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” I’d not heard this before, but I love it. Of course, you could point out that it’s only applicable if you don’t address the grudge but hey – who am I to critique bathroom wall wisdom? http://www.photoattorney.com/?p=1492 So, who owns the copyright if you use a timer, or if more than one person pushes the button, or if the dog accidentally takes a snapshot of your balls? (What? It could happen.)
RT @tealou: New Blog Post on tealou.com.au: On “negativity” and “overshare”. http://bit.ly/ibm5eb Go read that first. My tripe could easily put you off, so don’t go wasting time on my rot if yours is scarce. Righto, done? Good stuff, now, as I was saying.. I have this weird aesthetic, and get a brain-nourishing sense of satisfaction at the way some people write. And not even in any technical kind of way, but the way a piece runs, the way it actually feels to read. I was one of those “7 people”, and whilst it’s unlikely you’ll ever see anything quite so revealing from me again (well, anything not completely wrapped in allegory, indecipherable nonsensed drivel, or is just plain too boring to read any more than three lines of), since coming across her thoughts*, I’ve come to see Téa is one of the “realest” people I’ve read, and her stories completely human, raw and as she’s mentioned, brutally honest. Remember that thing I said about being afraid to talk about the things that fear us? Téa’s not. She is a storyteller, and a damn fine one at that, even talking about “teh negative stuff”. (Ok, this is where it gets rambly, so feel free to skip through if it gets all outta control. Click through and buy an ill conceived t-shirt or donate to a charity or something.) This. This is how we connect – through the stories passed down, told, guarded, published, won, or fought. No less important are the stories lost, those which are kept silenced, or those we choose not to share (but then those are so often co-authored, and we tend to spend so much time editing them. Other people can really suck at the story we’d like life to be) but at the end of the day, what we do or don’t share doesn’t define us (*remorseful sigh*, yes, not even Palin.) What defines us is who we are. One of those common things that pops up here and there is the concept that in terms of communication, text is a method considered of inferior effectiveness, the recipient not being advantaged by all that non verbal communication stuff. I can say with years of experience with non verbal meltdown, well – it ain’t all that. We lie, we fear, we exaggerate, we belittle, we champion, we trust, in real life as online. Both methods of communication are fallible, and likely will be so long as we keep being.. you know, human. To have the chance to explore the humanity of others is an opportunity to question our own, to examine our nuances and idiosyncrasies in light of the world of another. And when that ‘other’ is a @tealou, or a @warwraith, or @blogaboutabloke, or hell, the (slightly unnerving) girl next door, that’s a hell of a chance blown, if you’re at all interested in who you might be, and how we all fit into this ridiculously complex and frightfully self ignorant thing we like to call “us”. You can throw all the awareness campaigns you like at the internet or at the airwaves but it’s those that tell their stories from whom we learn, from whom we take our own bearing, from whose explorations we can add to our appreciation of life, our own, and those of those we share this floating hunk of rock with. Well, except maybe flippin’ dolphins. * Yes, on Twitter. It’s a thing. No, she didn’t tweet about her breakfast habits. Or toilet schedule. Well, not that I read.
It’s quite pretty really. It’s mnemonic even. Thanks brain.
Really? Because personally, I having scientists make me airsnort chemical compounds whilst I’m assessing the attractiveness of a picture of a woman really gets me going. “If you remain focused on the fact that there is noise, you’re never going to hear the damn signal.” There’s a slight “not safe for work” warning attached to this. Unless you’re a gyneacologist I suppose. Ten points if you can figure out how this is related to the concept of Liminality, and (believe it or not) Mark Pesce.
Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Do you know why it is humans fear the dark youngling? Not the night – night is merely a cycle amongst cycles, just a part of the kaleidoscopic tumult of existence of which we are all of us a microscopically small portion. No, night is merely want of the sun. Darkness, true darkness, is born of the soul of the sum of those parts, it is eternal, and unchanging, it is infinity incarnate. And therein lies the nature of that fear. The dark is indefatigable, insurmountable, wholly unfathomable and unconquerable. It cannot be banished – no matter how many fires you light, nor how bright they be, no matter how many billions of stars burn coldly overhead, eventually, inevitably, fires die. You see, human beings have an infatuation with their own mortality. Some aspire to transcend it, whispering fervent prayers of devotion in the hope their pleas for mercy fall not on deaf ears. Some play at belieing their mortality, fearing death and the very passage of time that leads to it so much as to pour their efforts into appearing still young, as if this will persuade the reaper to pass them by, despite the decaying of flesh, the withering of body and mind that marks the journey to their inescapable end. Some sicken of their mortality, so much loth to see the path through it’s course, that they cast themselves to the unknowable, risking all for the mere chance to escape the vicious talons of the burdens life imposes. But there is fear here too, of the line they cross in want of freedom. Line of course, is far from an adequate term. Line indicates a separation, a division, darkness however knows no boundaries, no dimensions, it is, in all ways aphasic. Perhaps a comparison can be best made with Truth – a vista unattainable by observed or observer alone. Truth, like the Dark, both entails and encompasses, they are autogenerare. The subjectunt’s perception of truth is akin to the afeared’s apprehension of the dark; nought but a cresting wave atop an ocean spanning beyond all horizons, the full terror awaits below the surface, beyond and imperceptible to the meagre reckoning of men. Ripples above, currents below, such is the nature of Truth and Darkness both. You can’t watch the Dark, it watches, and is watched, insatiable, it swallows all. The very soul is birthed from this hungry Dark, all things matter and imagined emerge from it’s fecund womb. All light, all colour, all sound, all thought and deed suckles at Darkness’ breast, is sheltered under it’s arching wings. All that has existed, before time could be measured by any being claiming sentience, before sentience itself had emerged, in a primordial existence that age itself had no meaning, no measure known to gods or men, here the Darkness formed, here seeded the mater potentia of all existence. Here she waits, amid the chaos, death, destruction and rebirth of all possibility, the evolution all all as yet unformed, all discarnate potential, the recursive resolution of the very fabric of your reality, and the unmanifest reticentia awaiting the sprawl of time’s web to be woven beyond the barriers of space, outside the confines of the very nature of existence as you have come to know it. This is the Dark. This is the Truth. One can never experience it, one can nor presume to observe it, only offer oneself to it, to be consumed by it, devoured by the endless void, to embrace the Darkness, as she embraces all. Anyone can give an answer, and of those, some well. It is, however, in the formulation of their questions in which you’ll find the measure of a creative mind. One of the more interesting people I follow on “The Twitter” posted a piece today about Euthanasia, the story and some thoughts around her changed position on the topic. I’ve included an excerpt that summarizes the post, which in many ways, echoes my own viewso and reasoning on the topic:
Last year, I visited my own Grandmother, on her deathbed, drugged senseless so as to dull her pain, and no doubt the expletive laden demands to be left alone to die. Sitting there, by the side of one of the most charming, charismatic women I’ve known in my life through what would be some of her last hours, listening to the crisp rattle of uneasy breath pass over her parched lips and into her emphysemic lungs , I felt terribly ashamed. Those words in fact impart an undeserved levity, but down to my bones, I was sickened with guilt, with self doubt and a deep personal dismay. I’m an awful grandson, and a worse son. A pretty shitty brother, and the title of uncle, according to my own logic, may as well be stripped. The absolute worst part though, is that of all the blood relatives I’ve more or less dismissed from my life, Grandma was one I liked. She was an avid storyteller, an indefatigable fountain of knowledge concerning family history on my fathers side, and even though mostly immobile, financially impoverished, and cursed/blessed with a live-in 40 odd year old Trekkie (*hack, spit*) son, she never seemed to want for anything but the chance to share those tales. She moved from Melbourne to Ballarat with the express intention of being closer to her newly expanding family in what she no doubt knew to be her closing years, and although Dad and my sisters visited her semi-regularly, I get the feeling none of them could have gotten what she had to give in the same way I might have, had I not been preoccupied with my own whirlwind journey into adulthood. Kids, wife, debts, work, and the draconian control I felt I had to maintain over it all, at the expense of those who’s familial culture I felt (and still do, mostly) was not suitable for those young lives I ‘protected’ in that little bubble. But, for an inadequate, pitiful 40 minutes or so, none of that mattered. I asked my cousin to leave, and while what might be my last link to a heritage I’ll perhaps now never be able to fully appreciate lay staring, dull-eyed at a ceiling she probably couldn’t even see, I apologized. I wept, I held her unmoving hand, brushing the paper thin skin with my thumb, and I told her how sorry I was that I hadn’t gone to see her, that I felt guilty and ashamed because of it, that I was sorry she’d more than likely be dead before I would come to see her again now. I brushed the hair from her eyes and planted a kiss on her clammy forehead, wiped my tears, and laughed. I apologized again, this time for being such a selfish prick as to break down in some kind of mad impromptu clutch at absolution from a dying woman who could barely take a drink of water in the few minutes she’d been conscious earlier in the day, let alone provide a sense of comfort to her erstwhile conversant grandson. I laughed, because, hard arse Scottish widow that she was, I’ve no doubt she would have told me it was OK, then followed with a wickedly humored version of “harden the fuck up”, and then perhaps, circumstances being what they were, a less subtle “shut the fuck up, I’m trying to die.” She was a blunt ol’ biddy, my Grandma. The point, such as it is, is that while I will be forever grateful that if nothing else, I had the opportunity to say goodbye and apologise, in my case it was that very act which was the selfish one. It didn’t help her, it didn’t change a whole lot in terms of how I relate to my family (except for the increased effort in facebook-dodging my cousins) and I’m still concerned that if she did hear me through the morphine haze, that it was a terrible burden to place on her on the road to whatever afterlife she aspired to. So when I found out that the doctors were maintaining her life against her will, at the bequest of those family members that were having the hardest time with the idea of losing her, I was a little enraged. Who were we, outside of the suffrage she bore, to make such a decision. My auntie, who had worked as a nurse in palliative care, agreed, but it been decided by the three sons, grief stricken and unwilling to let be what would be. While I would never suppose to begrudge them that decision, it is not the decision I would have made if in the same position, and certainly not the decision I would want my girls to make if it were me on that bed, begging for the chance to die. So, though I agree the burden of an ‘easy’ death (if there truly is such a thing – I don’t plan on doing it for a while so I can’t be sure) should not be placed on medical practitioners, I think that if the question of a decidedly uneasy life should fall into the hands of family, that it be a decision that, difficult though it may be, needs be answered with a freedom from the begrieved’s own motivations to continue that life, should doing so be against the wishes of the would be departed. Huddled, ensconced, in contemplative woe Characteristically, when presented with the idea of being OBLIGED to write something, (even if the obligation is to myself only) I struggled to get so much as a word on paper, even doing the “write down random words and see what comes out” thing. Most often when I write, it’s a ranty response to something I’ve stumbled across, or based on one of the utterings of the little voice in my head. Well, one of them. Anyway, eventually, something did come out: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” While possibly an intriguing insight into the workings of my subconscious, it’s also clearly very stupid. I feel there’s a lot to be said for contentious arsehattery. In fact, some of the most insightful commentary I’ve read on any number of topics has been blisteringly sarcastic, ripe with dark innuendo and subtle digs. So why do we maintain this creed with our kids today? I mean, essentially we’re saying “Hey little tacker, if you’re opinion on something is likely to impose upon the ignorance or comfort zone of anyone else, thereby considered as ‘offensive’ shut the hell up, we don’t want to hear it.” For a society that supposedly values and promotes freedom of expression, it seems a little hypocritical don’t you think? What’s even more fun is that it continues well on into adult life – any online social media expert guru ninja meister worth their iPod will tell you to be careful of what you publish online, lest it come back for you, aimed at your posterior with big sharp, pointy teeth ready for the chomping. (Although recently I was treated to an example on Facebook of ‘Uni applicant bags out teacher to potential detriment of educational prospects’ playing out in real life. Nothing happened. No University social media police or ANYTHING. Disappointed, I am.) So what the hell do we do when there are rules, and then there are rules? Ultimately you, the producer of your online content have to decide, be it happy happy joy joy lovefest material, or snide, bitter and expletive laden filth that you publish – but in the context of Social Media, when you’re having a bad day (week, month, year or hell, incarnation) surely in this day and age we should be able to eschew Mother’s terribly unrealistic advice and just get our rail on for five minutes without having to worry about losing our job, the respect of our peers, or our right to consider ourselves a normal human being. However, because being human seems to be largely all about maintaining cultural dishonesties, we’ll more than likely to continue to dispense such valuable advisory gems en masse. Stupid it might be, but ignore them at your peril – what with the brewing storm around freedom of expression on the internet that is likely to well and truly crack open sometime into this year, you may have to pick which side of that particular white picket fence you enjoy most before too long. If you’ve checked out my blog recently, you might think I’ve completely abandoned the idea of writing nonsense on the internet. I haven’t, and there’s dozens of drafts, a few tattered “dead tree” notebooks and even some recordings on my phone as evidence to that fact, but that’s entirely beyond the point. Because what I have done, is abandon this blog, and the plan to keep the flow going, and for what it’s worth (should my little WordPress daemon be listening) I’m sorry. I haven’t been exactly quiet on the internet – I’ve just been… well, a little bit all over the shop. See, last year around this time, I told myself I was going to write more. It’s what I love, and what I want to do. To my credit, I have been – just not so much here. I’ve been posting elsewhere, and given this is my site, that seems a little silly. So here’s how 2011 is (planned as) going to play out. I’m taking up the WordPress postaday2011 ‘challenge’ – but with a few twists. For one, I won’t be posting daily musings exclusively here, in my own little bubble. Instead, I’ll be continuing with my trend of writing for (what I believe to be) awesome sites, blogs and services, and aggregating them here. It’s not exactly a groundbreaking concept, but with any luck, it’ll reinvigorate my muse, get me back into whipping this site into something less ugly and re-establish my learning curve(s) – which as you may have noticed, kind of fell by the wayside around the same time as my personal life exploded into a less coherent version of disarray than it already was. Also, I don’t much like the tag WordPress have selected for their plan to get a few billion more eyeballs campaign to assist bloggery. So I’ll be using ‘daily’ – clever, innit? Things will be messy for a bit – I have a… um… well, we’ll say “vast” amount of information bubbling away in my cranium at any given moment, most of which requires a level of context in order to have any hope of understanding. More on that “context” thing later – it’s one of the drafts I mentioned. So stay tuned world – vociferation awaits. In the meantime, to see out the year, I’ll be wrangling the site around a bit, throwing out some of those ‘posted elsewhere’ tidbits I mentioned and sharing some of my favourite links from the year. Make sure you come back, they’re all very good. Promise. This post was actually a response to a discussion raised on the IF Project Facebook page. The IF Project is an endeavour by journalist Jane Lee to, in a 100 day timeframe, “launch a new magazine to shed light on the SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL and HUMANITARIAN challenges of the world.” I suggest you check out and contribute to the discussion itself, and you can keep track of the progress of Jane’s idea via http://ifprojectblog.com/ Bullying, or any form or violent or otherwise destructive aggression toward peers for that matter, is (and rightly so) considered unacceptable behaviour. Yet I can’t think of a constructive approach to bullying prevention that takes into account what we know about communication and emotion. We know the links between (infrequency of) speech and aggression exist. This makes sense, given that speech itself can be considered an ‘aggressive’ act. (Perhaps we evolved the ability to communicate through language simply so we didn’t eat each other) Yet we have our kids in classes, told to ‘be quiet’ while they learn, in a one-to-many environment that cannot possibly accommodate the stimulus needs of your average child, let alone 30 of them. I read once upon a time a study of a group of people watching a play – over time, their heart rates synchronised. How likely is it that a young learner, who’s developing brain is desperate for stimulus, would tune in to and become affected by the ‘vibe’ of each of the other 29 (also bored, frustrated and under-stimulated) students around them? Ask any substitute teacher – I’m sure they can give you a very good account of exactly what happens when you introduce new stimulus into such a tense environment. It’s great that bullying is being addressed in general, and there are some great tools out there for post-event reporting. (See http://bullyproof.frontlinesms.com/ for example) Tools like frontline, if widely adopted, could be of great advantage, in particular in cases of Emotional bullying as Geoff has mentioned above. But aren’t we treating the symptom, rather than the cause? We hear more and more about ‘kids these days’ – but isn’t that repeating the woeful cries of the ‘Adult’ Generations of the 60′s? The 40′s? Ancient Greece? Hell, the very first creation myth known to humankind (Enuma Elish – 7 Babylonian clay tablets, copies of which have been dated at 16th or 14th centure BCE, and is comparable to the creation myth in the Hebrew and Christian Genesis ) contains the idea – Apsu (the ‘Granddaddy’ God) wants to kill all his children because they’re too rambunctious. Kids are energetic. Loud. Irrepressibly active, physically and mentally. In many ways, inevitable, in accordance with the laws of physics. And yet we insist they sit still and quiet for the better part of five days out of every week (under threat of punishment of even MORE stillness & quietness by ‘Detention’), and expect them not to exhibit behavior we KNOW occurs under such conditions. There are opinions, studies and research that tell us that kids can’t empathize anymore because of facebook, they are too distracted and have shorter attention spans (if, in fact such a thing exists) or they’re otherwise becoming more and more ‘socially inconvenient’. Where are the studies then, that examine how kids behave in a different learning environment? With available stimulus appropriate to their age and interests? I’m no expert, but I’d wager that such studies would offer more valuable, new and productive results than any of the same recycled gripes from the older, ‘wiser’ generations for literally the entirety of recorded human history. Cool, I got the current round of Facebook spam on my wall. It’s cool, because now I get to show you folk the one simple thing you can do that will protect you from phishing attacks more than any anti-virus software you’ll ever get. It uses legacy technology known as ‘eyeballs’ and really isn’t that complicated. But first – the current scam. Most facebook users are aware by now of the details. Basically, an infected users account will post something like this to your wall.
But we all know about that now so we won’t click on the bikini clad bum, will we? (Personally, I wouldn’t click on anything with that many :P’s – even if they are a real friend, they probably shouldn’t be.) But what about the next time? How do you best guard your PC, your facebook account and all the other juicy bits dirty, rotten, evil & nasty malware is designed to capture? The answer is simple. Pay Attention! No, seriously – check out the pic below. Notice the URL (site name) at the bottom left? You’ll see that in every (non-mobile) browser for every link you ever hover over. If you check this before clicking a link and notice something that’s ‘not quite right’ – you’re already as step ahead.
The second thing to pay attention to, (when it comes to facebook and some other social networking sites in any case) is this (just underneath the bum)
So, clearly not from Youtube. If you hover over the Avi Video link, you’ll see the following: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=123901010971252 You can click this safely – it’s just an application (Name: Avi Video, ID: 123901010971252) Where, you’ll also find this:
That’s not to say, 100% that the app is ‘responsible’ for creating the malware. Just that it’s being used to distribute it. So - all the information you need to know something is crap, evil and spammy is there. You just need to know where to look, and what for. Now you do – and I expect no more spam from you on my wall. If it’s too late and you’ve already picked up the malware, check out facebook’s official steps to recover your account. If you see something you’re not sure of - let me know. You can safely copy any link address by right-clicking on the link and selecting ‘copy link address‘ (Google Chrome) ‘copy link location‘ (Firefox) or ‘copy shortcut‘ (Internet Explorer) Throw the link, and the address of the site you got it from on a contact form along with your email address and I’ll suss it out for you. I had to push a photo taken on my HTC Desire to my Laptop today, and got a little stuck. After connecting, it wasn’t immediately apparent which folder contained the photos.
A quick Google search sorted it out (not to mention the Pacman awesomosity) but I think this is something HTC could have done a whole lot better.
And clearly, I’m not alone – although Mark Pesce‘s beef takes a broader view here.
Here be instructions, and screenshots (via DDMS, for those who’d like to do the same)
Connect the Desire via USB to your computer and when prompted, select ‘Disk Drive’ as the connection method and hit Done.
 If you don’t get the prompt requesting your preferred selection method, you can pull down the notification bar from the top of the screen and tap the current USB Connection type (shown as ‘Charge only’ below) listed to change it.
 Once you’re set up, jump in to the new Removable Disk drive via Windows Explorer and jump in to the DCIM folder to get your pics.
If you happen to get the auto-play options dialogue (Windows Vista shown below) you want to select the ‘Open folder to view files with Windows Explorer’ option. Well, unless you don’t. (See below)
 Hat Tip to http://androidforums.com for the folder name.
For the nerdy types – yes, I tried picking up images with Nokia LifeBlog, and yes it worked. On all 887 images, thumbnails, app caches and crash dump logs. (I’m sure there’s more, but don’t have time to check) Not sure if this is a *sigh* moment, or an interesting way of keeping track of EVERYTHING. Will let you know. One day. Probably.
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Copyright © 2012 Prometheus Ink (ABN: 65 505 537 781) All Rights Reserved. All content published is authors creation/own opinion except where otherwise stated. See The Disclaimer for .. well.. the disclaimer. |
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Me vs Atheism
Before I jump into this, a few quick points, and a disclaimer or two.
(Edit) 0: The title of this post is (deliberately, I’ll admit) misleading. I do not, by any stretch of the imagination ‘oppose’ atheism – but rather the attitude that (in my experience) is held by many who claim that (or any other) view, which I see as disruptive to inclusive, unbiased and reasonable debate.
1: My original point (which got a little lost in the ruckus this post is actually about) was very simple. Following an interesting episode of the SBS program Insight addressing religious education – scrap that – theological indoctrination in the public school system, and a number of trialled, suggested and in one case rejected alternatives, I concluded the following.
If we are going to include Religious Education in the public school system, for God’s sake (pun fully intended – and it is a pun, just so you’re clear on that) can we actually educate our kids about, you know – religion? Not the Christian or Catholic or Hindu or Islamic faith, but RELIGION. After all -
Yeah, quoted myself. So ner.
2: If I’m wrong here, let me know. Not in the “No, you infidel – God is real!” or “There is no god you ignorant twit” sense, but if I am at all mistaken in my observations – I’m more than happy to stand corrected.
3: This is one of those really fun topics that you either don’t give a crap about (in which case I suggest you leave now – this get’s a little long and ranty) or if you do, you feel quite strongly about (usually in one particular direction). I encourage and welcome comments – you may have noticed there aren’t many on the site, so it’d be a novelty, if nothing else – but typically these kinds of discussions degenerate into a perfect example of one of the bigger issues I see with this kind of thing (there’s a post in that I’m sure) and I’d much prefer a reasoned debate than an outright flame war. (Most of the time)
Bottom line though, is that (frustrating as it may sometimes be) ignorance can stand corrected – intolerance, more rarely so. Needless to say, intolerance trumps ignorance on Collin’s ‘wanker-meter’, so if you really feel the need to be an arse – do it elswhere.
Cool, now I’ve quoted myself and referred to myself in the third person. How conceited is that!
4: I’m not an expert on anything that I’ll (eventually, I swear) be looking at in this post. My opinions on these topics are essentially just that – opinion, based on casual observation for the most part, and backed by a preoccupation with finding out the ‘why’ of things.
5: Despite the apparent assumptions of some commentors on the ramblings that kicked this off, I’m not a ‘believer’ when it comes to the ‘One God’.. thing. If you were reading around April Fools day it should be pretty clear I’m an equal opportunity fun pokerer. But then, I’m not a believer in the ‘No god’ thing either.
What? Huh? What on earth can this mean?!
It’s pretty simple. Three words, in fact. If you think you can manage, you can say them with me. Ready?
I don’t know.
And I’m OK with that. Because when it comes to contending views on the ‘truthiness’ of a given thing, to ’round out’ to the most likely, or most evidenced version is essentially a cop out. A by product of our biological compulsion to rationalize perhaps. Or maybe just a big flip of the bird to the party unable to prove their claim. (Either way, ‘liklihoodiness’ sounds nowhere near as good as ‘truthiness’)
And while most of the ‘scientifically minded’ folk are happy with the way the ‘burden of proof‘ works, I am not – it’s never really made sense to me. Lack of proof of the existence of a thing (in this case, a deity) does not, in any way, validate the counter-argument attesting to that thing’s non-existence. Something either exists, or it does not. It is either true, or it is not. The burden of proof shouldn’t fall on either party – determining the actual truth should be the goal of both. And if that truth cannot be determined, the only remaining option to to admit ignorance.
In the simplest possible way I can think to put it:
x = their view
y = your view
n = the ‘truth’ of the matter
n will never be either x or y – it will always be n.
x or y might accurately describe n, however if x or y cannot be infallibly found to do so there is no basis on which to claim that either x or y has anything to do with n at all. For all you know, a better description would be q. Or 784. Or Batman.
After you die-hard philosophers out there get over your apoplexy, I’ll ask you to consider this:
Should the answer to any question posed regarding the nature of a thing be biased toward the conventionalism, and the likeliness of one presented answer according to common opinion and the ideology of the time?
Once you’ve answered that (I’m sure it won’t take long) perhaps reflect on what Socrates might have thought.
I can’t tell you if god exists, but I can tell you something of what I do believe – that throughout our history, human beings seem compelled to envision an entity or power greater than themselves to whom (when anthropomorphized) they will submit their will, and while our nature leans toward an abuse of the power such compelling beliefs hold over our fellow mortals, these same beliefs have spawned such institutionalised concepts as law, morality, consequence and in a (granted, very) broad sense, are in fact a form of scientific endeavour.
While such beliefs may be inconsequential in the view of some, I myself cannot dismiss them as easily, given the impact they’ve had (and still have) on our culture, and by virtue of my own (irritating, I’m sure) tendency to leave every matter ‘open to discussion’ unless completely, unequivocally resolved.
OK, enough of the preamble. On with the show.
Continue reading Me vs Atheism