Thinking

Notes on an Encounter with a Cult

Received a long lecture on the wisdom of Ken Wilber, New Age master of the proverbial cutting edge. Found the alarm bells going off in the back of my head -- cult! cult! cult! -- and finally said so when I could get half a word in edgewise.

Post-Modernism vs. Democracy

I agree that the motives of post-modernists are admirable, that they do rightly perceive biases that white male scientists often bring to the study of human behavior (in particular), and that there are other ways to knowledge; however, I do not like the way that they have opened the door to sloppy thinking and some very wrong takes on the nature of human life and the Universe that threaten to undermine and destroy all that our parents and grandparents struggled to establish for the good of all the children of this country of ours.

Sociobiology and Metaphor

Sociobiology isn't Science: it's Poetry.

Truth and Beauty

I answer that they exist out there and they are products of our minds which take in fragments of the world and organize a picture.

From a Notebook

I'm with Wittgenstein on this: scientific philosophy looks at things, describes them.

Reagan and Prozac

Yule Heibel often writes of a future -- and a present -- where human beings have become assembly line products.

Of Clovis Points and Automobiles

The man (or woman) who chipped the stone into the shape of a pointed leaf thought of these problems that went with ensuring the kill....

Argument and Assassination

The folly of arguing with extremists is similar to the folly of assassinating George W. Bush.

Adolf, Dubya, and Me

if notified of such a funeral in Orange County, California and physically capable of doing so, I will attend, wearing only my dark suit and making no political comment at the scene.

Money

If you collected all the U.S. currency in the world -- the quarters, the Susan B. Anthony dollars with their kinky edges, the pennies filed down to the size of dimes for purposes of cheating vendors, the silver certificates held in collections, -- I mean every single last cent no mattered if it is warped, bent, half melted, half burnt, or torn in half, you would not have nearly enough to cover the amount of money that is on the books in today's banks and brokerage houses.

Why History Needs to be Revised

There's a dangerous myth here: that what is said once must only be repeated, never tested.

On Wearing the Crown of Arrogance

Life's a guessing game. "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Was that Joan Didion or Anais Nin?

Killing Off Our Symbols

The country is in ruins and as some of us strive to reconstruct the beauty and the good of what was, others pull down bricks from the walls of civil gold and smash at our heads.

An Original

I point it out, in part, to direct you to C's wisdom on the subject (I thought it cute that she called me an "evangelical agnostic") and in part to the comments where there's an interesting example of a blogger who doesn't seem to understand that winning an argument is not the same as finding the Truth.

San Onofre 5

How the Right Lies

In all these cases, regardless of the smoking gun, they deny the Truth because in their minds, the Truth is something that can be shifted around to fit their political aims and prejudices

Definition of Religious Fanaticism
A religious fanatic is someone who insists that when a person of another faith says "Do unto others as you...

Illusions

These things only confuse me if I think about them. So I don't. Not often.

Why I Write and Read Blog

One editor is not an adequate test of the value of an idea. A trained corp of journalists is still not enough.

Like Controlling Rabbits

The statement's like one pregnant rabbit.

Declaration of Choice

The men who lust have pornography, the employers a large job pool, the salesman other opportunities to make their case. The Wingnuts are free to blog and comment elsewhere. I am under no obligation to bend the course of my life and my convictions to argue with them.

On Contempt for Semantics

War is the thing we're trying to prevent here. It is in all our best interests to use the right word(s) that zeroes in on what we're trying to do.

Double Talk

When the sounds of the word "liberation" and bomb explosions coalesce, I cannot sleep: How can you liberate the dead?

Definition for Our Time

America: the one country in the world where running with the herd is considered -- nay, touted and extolled -- as an act of individualism.

Optimism and Pessimism are Bipolar

The middle ground is Realism: everything is neither good nor bad. Life throws you a mix of experiences.

Not Proved

"Not proved" means that the prosecution hasn't established sufficient proof of the guilt of the defendant, but the jury isn't convinced of innocence, either.

Puzzled

How could they not have noticed?

As I See It

I'm just telling it like I see it. That's what you get when you come to my blog.

What Conscience Is

You must be stone cold sober and thinking for yourself.

Keep it Simple?

I've been praised for the short story I've circulated within my circles and I've been warned that the language may be too difficult for the "mass market".

A memorable quote

The word of a loser is more trustworthy than that of a winner.

The Language of the Lie

It is another tactic to bring over lots of supporters to attempt to drown out the voice of one who exposes facts and truths which directly counter their arguments. It is yet another tactic to deny that they are "attacking" this person.

Thoughts on Creationism

To tell the truth, I hope Ashcroft goes after the professor who Raye names. Just look what happened to the Kansas Board of Education!

Fuzziness and Ripples

My particular brand of relativism is, therefore, founded on a comfort with uncertainty.

A Defense of Cultural Relativism

I don't think Franz Boas and the other founders of cultural relativism meant to let evil persist uncriticized and unchallenged.

Neat Divisions

Can we live comfortably in a world of the mind where we can't tell the apples from the oranges?

If

The word "if" doesn't seem to exist in some chatters' vocabularies.