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scottmil's comments:
on The Slow Path to Adulthood
Adults are not automatically ‘adult’ in the way we normally mean. Adult is quite a broad category, with a zillion levels of wisdom. Aging doesn’t create wisdom with any consistency. Half the people who we consider to be adult, or consider to have settled down, have merely given up. They simply don’t have the push to create the muckraking they once did. In other words they have not gotten smarter or more even-keeled, they have just gotten lazier with age. As we age, for many of us, the forces of conformity have had more time to do their job.
It is true that life is unidirectional, so perhaps we all have the desire to make progress, to build upon ourselves. And, perhaps more history behind us creates the illusion, or reinforces the illusion of personal certainty in our beliefs and mannerisms. But it is mainly just an illusion---someone who is 21 may be just as wise as someone who is 61. It all depends on where you start from and what you start with. The aim shouldn’t be to turn young people into adults, but to encourage all people to make progress, to challenge what they think, and how they think.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on Football!
Sorry my post was not clear. I was saying something a bit opposite from what you suggest. I propose that all murderers are generally crazy, so that is beside the point. I say, it is relevant to question whether the environment, political or otherwise, has some impact or influence on events like these massacres. Of course you can’t blame the actions of a murderer on politicians, but it is possible the political climate does play a role. If a country repeatedly allows ridiculous ideas to flourish, and they go unchallenged, and they build upon each other, so much that they become a normal part of our culture, then yes it is possible they provide the climate necessary to give birth to extremist behaviour or terrorism. It doesn’t mean the cultural/political climate is ‘responsible,’ but it might play a role.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on Football!
When is a murderer not a ‘nut?’ When exactly do people go around massacring people without being a little bit crazy? And, when is anything ever do to politics? When is anything ever do to anything in this country? Oh, it is not the religion, oh it is not the politics, it is just one crazy person! I guess if we follow all this to its logical conclusion then nothing we do culturally or politically has any lasting impact, it is only the individual that is ever responsible. I guess when the Rwandan Genocide occurred the poor country must have been coincidentally full of individuals who just happened to be crazy.
One of the big problems we face in this country is that we don’t make meaningful distinctions between groups and ideas. We think tolerance is the same is intolerance. That a conservative idea is merely the opposite of a liberal idea. That a bigot can easily be balanced with a non-bigot. We have even begun to preach that atheism is the equivalent to being religious. And, sadly, we have begun to believe that smart ideas should be balanced with dumb ideas---and then we will all have the correct answer. And, any violence that occurs is outsourced to the crazy few, when really their ideas are very similar to much of what the country believes---these crazy few just happen to be nutty enough to act upon the bad ideas. It is similar to how so many of the religious are personally never violent, but they sit upon this belief that so much of the world is inferior, sinful and dirty and should be destroyed, not by them personally, but by god. These degrees of separation can easily be lessened. The gods must be crazy---and, well, Mr. Loughner decide to play one.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on Second Chances
The only new year’s resolution I have ever made was not to make any, and even that you can’t take seriously. The idea that we wait to till the end of the year is a recipe for disaster, it is a resolution that begins with procrastination---this kind of conception doesn’t have much chance at a successful birth.
‘Second chances,’ seem very different from new year’s resolutions. They tend to indicate some external obstacle has been placed in your path, and the second-chance-part is that you overcome that roadblock and then flourish. And really these sorts of second chances, aren’t second chances at all, they are generally the only chance or option you have---do or die. In some ways these second-chances are a bit easier to achieve then an arbitrary resolution that requires change out of the blue. Because second chances contain a clear enemy, or opposing force, that is outside yourself---and when an enemy is clearly defined it is easier to fight against.
It can be much harder to fight against what you might perceive as the laziness, or lack of will, of your character, then it is to get cancer and decide to fight or die, and then be happy when you win. This seems similar to heroes, when so often their efforts are really the only option they have. It is great Sully Sullenberger landed the plane in the river, but he didn’t exactly want to do it---he really didn’t see another viable option. But if you want to stop smoking, you have another clear option, you can keep on doing it instead.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
SoHonestItMightHurt,
Wow, spending all that energy on that banal, nit-picking conclusion---I don’t believe it! It is also unfortunately invalid, not to mention, pointless, and at core semantic. And, no, everybody does not know ‘that gay people choose relationships with people of the same sex, instead.’ Nor do we know that heterosexuals choose relationships with people of the other sex. In the beginning, perhaps there was the first instance of cheesecake, and that cheesecake was what we might now term as original or plain or NY, but just because new variations came along, it doesn’t mean they are not all still cheesecakes---or that we can’t even refine the definition of what the general term cheesecake includes or is. These claims are based around historicity, and they have little other value or use. Improving or modifying the recipe for cheesecake doesn’t invalidate the previous cheesecakes or stop the progression of new cheesecakes. The definition of our physical relationships, and also our linguistics are continuously evolving. Language is a symbolic or representative expression that can and does change over time. Perhaps at one time, or in one culture, all marriage was arranged---so maybe those people didn’t use the term ‘arranged marriage,’ they just said ‘marriage.’ But all these kinds of marriages are still marriages, just like all the variations of cheesecake are still cheesecake. If you want to use the term ‘gay marriage’ to differentiate between marriages, perhaps it is fine to do so, but then you probably should also use the term ‘heterosexual marriage’, particularly if you don’t want to show favoritism to one instance over another. But, it is hard to swallow, that the motivation for this overzealous labeling on your part isn’t based upon the belief that one instance must be inferior to the other.
You attempt to get around the discrimination claim by proposing that gay marriage isn’t even really the same kind of marriage anyway, as if you were merely stopping people from putting apples in orange juice, and still calling it orange juice. But what you are more severely doing is deciding on what juice itself actually is, and what single fruit it can be squeezed from. So gay people can marry, just with people who are of the opposite sex. But if they want to marry on their terms, well they can’t---what they can do is just get ‘gay-married.’
Many people may agree that gay marriage is different in the matter-of-fact way that it obviously is, with regard to the sexes of partners. But to what degree they see that difference as being, or meaning, is the important question. Yes, you have stated the obvious, obviously, but to what end?
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
SoHonestItMightHurt,
That was so dumb it might not make sense.... . Nope, it didn’t make sense! I can’t decipher what your point is. I don’t think gay marriage is exactly the same as heterosexual marriage, in fact I don’t think the marriage of chipmunks is the same as heterosexual marriage. And? Why do I need to think they are the same to allow them? You are saying all the cheesecakes in the world must be like yours, but, god forbid I add toppings, because, then I will have watered-down your brand, and have made something that is no longer a cheesecake. Well, you don’t own the brand. No one does! Too bad you don’t get that luxury, you don’t get the right to copyright how my cheesecake is prepared.
I hope you have the strength and resilience to not allow the decisions of others to somehow infringe on the power of the unions you have made. I hope your marriages are not that weak that they cannot weather what you must see as the competition. If heterosexual marriage is so strong, and the omnipotent way, then you need not worry about what other people are doing, your spangled ways of truth will automatically shine brightly in the end. You have nothing to fear, except yourselves, and what you attempt to deny to others---and the rotten historical legacy you will heap upon this planet.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
Ms. G is essentially saying, that she is not bigoted because her discrimination is rooted in facts, or is correct. So, if I am correct, well, then I could not be said to be bigoted. The problem is that Ms. G is not correct or incorrect, because the argument she proposes is essentially unprovable, and is based on a definition of marriage that will always be subjective. It is kind of like thinking it is okay to discriminate against black people because you can prove they are actually inferior, rather then merely disliking them willy-nilly.
Even if Ms. G is correct and gay relationships are somehow inferior, or even merely not the same as heterosexual relationships, she still needs to show why the discrimination is necessary and beneficial. And how could she ever do that? Marriage is a relative term, that as many have said, evolves over time, has different meanings for different people here, and in different cultures and in different periods of time. Ms. G bases her whole argument for allegedly useful discrimination on a premise that can never be substantiated. She is basing her premise on the recipe she feels is the true cheesecake, and then trying to ban all the other cheesecakes in the world, and writing books about the true cheesecake, wasting all this breath about the correct cheesecake---but there will never be the ultimate cheesecake, because there is no true form to compare it to. And, even if you feel there is one true cheesecake, why stop the rest of the world from enjoying their versions?
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
What outcome? First you are required to prove that marriage succeeds at all! Which you cannot do. Succeeds at what? Based on what conception? Based on what person’s ideas about marriage? Marriage is already a human-made commitment that is not inherent to human living, any of us could rewrite the contract, or the rules, at any time. Marriage could only be said to succeed on a per instance basis, on whether people feel it works for them---its worth is always individual and anecdotal. Clearly, people don’t need to be married to have children, that point alone shows how wrong you are, because we don’t need marriage for the human race to continue. The one thing we can say succeeds, is that heterosexual sex can produce children, which has nothing to do with marriage, or with homosexual sex. The world could potentially become better populated without marriage. It could potentially be that marriage helps control the population rather then proliferate it. (I am not taking a stand on that, but it is worth considering.) If a partner is sterile in a heterosexual marriage, has this marriage failed? Is it any less worthy?
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
How grand, Ms. Gallagher was finally able to regulate her animal passions by getting hitched, so sad she wasn’t able to achieve this same level of control without the artificial strictures of a contract. You have to at least admire the blind determination of folks who forge ahead with a million variations on the same, incorrect theme---constantly building on a rotten, illogical foundation. She keeps putting new logs on the fire, but does not realize she is already in hell. Ironically, isn’t the ideal, and final, solution to Ms. Gallagher’s reproductive concerns homosexuality? As homosexuals don’t have to worry about getting knocked-up, so they can just have a bit of fun with the screwing.
What Ms. Gallagher ends up doing with her irrelevant (non)argument is making a case for homosexual relationships, she in effect proposes homosexuals don’t need marriage, not because they don’t deserve it, but because their unions don’t require the same controls. Homosexual relationships don’t have the capability, on their own, to produce the rotten inconvenience of a child! Couldn’t Ms. Gallagher have saved a lot of time, and a lot of work, and the poor world from her boring books, by simply getting an abortion the first time around? But, really, why stop with proposing one marriage? Isn’t the ultimate economic security for a mother and child polygamy? How baffling Ms. G argues against ‘Obamacare’, on one hand she advocates heterosexual marriage for the security it provides to mothers and children, but on the other hand wants to wipe away the security that ‘Obamacare’ will provide to all the single mothers in the country. Perhaps, Ms. G’s next proposition will be clipping the wings of all the birds in the world, so they won’t have the potential to die while flying into closed windows.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on Winter Depression
FarmerMike,
I don’t disagree with any of that. I just think SAD is a simplistic diagnosis for people who want answers to a complex problem. I think SAD is a trigger, but the disease is much more complex then that. I perhaps take issue with this idea that the cause needs to be outsourced, as if bad weather was like the death of a relative---and, now I have the answer to my problems: the weather. Additionally, it seems scary, and somewhat unbelievable that the human could be so adversely effected by the norms of the natural world. And it would be hard to say if the weather is the only cause, or the paramount cause? Or whether that cause was somewhat self-induced by our social views about the weather? Or perhaps there is an underlying depression problem and the weather is a trigger?
What I want to say is that the problem is most definitely within the person, whether it is biological or some other type of response to the weather, there is nothing about the weather itself that is problematic, the problem lies in how the person handles it. It seems like a small distinction, but it is important. I am not trying to take something away from people, or belittle the very real depression that they feel.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Winter Depression
I dislike the holidays for the sole reason that they are religious. Sure it is easy to go on about the commercialism, and all the other clichés associated with why people hate the holidays, but those criticisms can also apply to almost anything in modern life. Sometimes it seems passé to say how you hate the holidays, because it is such old news---doesn’t everyone already hate them? Even though I don’t celebrate the holidays, lately I have become fond of them, because I like seeing so many people going shopping---ridiculous, yes, but I can’t help it.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Winter Depression
People who get depressed because of cloudy weather seem overly animal. It is hard to believe it is actually the weather, or some-kind of inherent physical response to lower light levels that are built into the human---I believe it is a social response to weather. I personally am a bit creeped out by anyone who has a response to the normal range of weather. Maybe I am ridiculous for these views, but I have them. For instance if someone loves the sun and needs to bake themselves on the beach, it seems icky to me, it seems desperate and primitive. I often say I prefer the winters and clouds, which is really just as silly as other people saying they prefer the sun. I think people with SAD are depressed to begin with, yes, they may be more depressed in darker weather, but it is not the cause of their depression, it is simply how it is manifest or an added trigger. It is, yet, another chicken or egg question!
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Obama's Popularity
President Obama was elected not in spite of the color of his skin, but because of it. The same people who superficially elected him are now complaining about his performance. That is what happens when you elect someone for the wrong prevailing reasons---you don’t know what you are getting. In some ways I find myself supporting Mr. Obama because in many ways he is the victim in all this. I never overwhelming supported Mr. Obama in the beginning because he seemed underwhelming and trendy. In some ways people got lucky with his performance, because it probably could have been much worse. You get what you vote for, and if you vote with the wrong reasons, you don’t have a right to expect much.
But, Mr. Obama is clearly under-performing, he utterly squandered real health-care reform and now we have one court that rightfully doesn’t agree with the legislation. He has done little for gays. I don’t know who he has really done anything for? What is Mr. Obama in the end, he has been turned into a mascot, for sad, pathetic people who needed one.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Soggy Portlander---Your level of dialogue is definitely not worth my time, or anyone’s, not because it is rude or impolite, it merely isn’t any good. It is perfectly acceptable to think of me however you would like, and additionally to twist the context, the syntax, and quite frankly the content, of what I have said to suit you. Have fun with it! Why do you keep clinging to this limited angle that isn’t even working for you? Even if you could substantiate that I was somehow paranoid (which I am not by the standard definition), it doesn’t do anything to further your argument or to combat my argument.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Soggy Portlander,
It does not sound paranoid. Perhaps you don’t get it! Hum... Yes, that is correct, most religions think that gay people don’t deserve salvation in whatever form, heaven, everlasting life, etc... and usually that results in death or at the least in no-life. Not sure how stating that makes me paranoid? And considering I mentioned how many have outsourced this de-lifing to god, and considering I don’t believe in god, then I am not much, paranoid about it!
Perhaps you were being overly literal and felt I thought the religious people were all going to come and kill me now---nope!, I know enough about religion to realize it isn’t that crazy.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Soggy Portlander,
I have no idea, based on what I wrote, why you would come up with, that I think all these people are focused on me and am somehow paranoid about it. I assume it is because you are using cliched assumptions and generalizations about the type of person that would claim not to like Christians, Muslims or Jews. Which is entirely the problem with much of what you have written today, it is all cookie cutter banal rhetoric, that doesn’t understand the conceptual complexities of religion and it implications, whereas JMWS comes from a similar angle (even though I don’t agree), but at least shows the intelligence to think about these issues on a deeper, challenging level. And instead of answering the question you have now resorted to another angle of attack. Perhaps I am tortured, tortured by the fact that people who you would expect to display more thought, ‘liberals’ are almost as incapable as everyone else, it doesn’t bode well for the future, though I assure you, I am not paranoid about it.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
JMWS,
I don’t have any spiritual beliefs. I am not entirely sure what you mean by ‘it is an unhappy way to view the world?’ That my allegedly bad generalizations are just unproductive? Or, the implications of them, if they are true, provides a sad outlook on much of the world?
Even if we disregard the gay issue to make room for the watered-down brand Christianity has become, or just assume that all Christians love gays, you are still left with the fundamental problem, that you have in almost all religions, that some people must deserve an added benefit in life or after-death from believing or practicing that religion or else what is the point. If some people get a benefit then it automatically makes a statement about the people who don't. Even if a religion doesn’t implicitly say what will happen to non-believers, it can be assumed that something different will, or that there must be some benefit from practicing this religion that people who don’t won’t receive. Even if they don’t implicitly claim their way is the correct way, it can only be assumed it must be the better way, or why do it at all? People who claim they love people of all faiths, but they practice only one specific faith, have made an unequivocal decision in on direction, and by proxy that decision is exclusionary of other ways or that there must be a way at all.
Many are grasping at straws with these secular interpretations, trying to market one branch of religion to a modern audience. They try to twist things in unbelievable contortions to try and not be held accountable at all, sometimes for their bigotry, and other times, simply because they have decided that they have found the answer to life’s potential mysteries and all the other answers are wrong, even though they won’t come out and say it. So now I am asked not to say things about Christians as a group, because they are all different, but they are not all different in the very real sense that they are Christians, just as all dogs are dogs. I can say I dislike ALMOST ALL Christians because of their ideologies or I can say I dislike Christians because of their ideology. I think that distinction is a bit insulting to everyone, that one needs to modify commonsense when speaking about Christians to make room for the unbelievable contingent that has utterly modified any standard view of the religion to suit their demographics to the point that if they really believed everyone was equal then the religion would be rendered useless.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Soggy Portlander,
Nice to know you are changing the ‘stereotypes’ you felt about me. I would have felt much happier with an answer to the questions though. You would think that someone who actually pitied someone would provide them, but pity is pretty dirty and slippery word... .
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Soggy Portlander,
Good work! Exactly as I expected, when you are cornered you have nothing to say. I am well versed in the religions of the world thanks, that's why I find your views unbelievable and when challenged it is clear you couldn’t provide them. It is obvious that most religions wouldn’t last long without a good and bad component, what would be the point? If you didn’t get eternal benefits from practicing a certain faith then why bother? Oh to lead a better life here and now?! There are many other ways to do that without getting wrapped up in a religion.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Soggy Portlander,
Yes, I need a better argument from you. Then you alleging how you are the minute minority Christian that doesn’t believe I deserve death, based on some new interpretation of Christianity. So what exactly is the point of your version of Christianity? If nothing bad is going to happen to me, then what is the benefit of Christianity for you personally? What will happen to me exactly in your interpretation of Christianity assuming I don’t believe in god and am gay?
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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