Forum Overview :: Motherfucking News :: Re: No.

[quote name="ndd"][quote name="Mischief Maker"][quote name="ndd"]i just don't get why you are still so dishonest about what you're interested in and why. religion and society matter to you. you have serious thoughts and questions about them. you're not just dicking around with this shit because LOL CALTROPS - that's a lame excuse and i think even you know it. what is your <i>actual interest</i>? you can tell me, i'm not going to laugh at you. caltrops isn't going to die due to an excess of <i>sharing</i>.[/quote] Only dishonest in my intentions. Everything I've posted on Caltrops is consistent with my personal philosophy, I've just been doling it out in small, out-of-context chunks that avoid spelling out the overriding theme for 3 reasons: 1. I don't want to pull a Quentinbec and give enough identifying info here that the antics of my electronic persona begin to interfere with the life of my meat persona. 2. Defining my actual interest is still very much a work in progress and when I've tried to express it in its incomplete form to people IRL, it's often completely misinterpreted. Lord knows how it would fly in cyberspace. 3. <i>{Ed. Note: fucking youtube clip retracted}</i>[/quote] So you're paranoid, risk-averse, and more than willing to let other people speak for you. <b>B|</b> [quote]But for you, my dear, anything. Ever since my young adulthood, I have been troubled by people/society's tendency to value imaginary/conceptual things over real/material things, and their protection of such dysfunctional beliefs by granting them sacred/serious status. Religion is merely the most obvious example of this phenomenon, and as such I attack it with gusto. [/quote] /rekkidneedlescratch.mp3 You're a <i>lawyer</i>. You truck entirely in the conceptual over the material! You <i>must</i> mean something else here, something like - "imaginary things that provide no benefit to anyone" or.... fuck man I don't even know. Do you have any idea how derailed I am right now! [quote]To address uwpp's previous ruminations, my disdain for religion is not the result of being "Mr Rebound" for churchy chicks in High School. That was actually pretty awesome, if confusing. If you want a formative trauma from that time that shaped the trajectory of my life, it would probably be writing for the high school newspaper. I did not submit a single article that was not censored in one form or another. Tellingly, it was not my dirty jokes that were cut, but my criticisms of the school administration's policies. I guess I've now answered my own question of why I've stuck with the 'Trops through thick and thin.[/quote] There's shit missing from the middle of all these thoughts. "I was censored, thus disdain for religion." I mean I understand you were saying earlier about conceptual vs. material and I can sort of see, maybe, "I was censored <i>by an authority in a way which reduced my autonomy and expression while providing nothing worth having either to me or others</i>, <i>and I think Religion as a whole operates in kind</i>, thus disdain for religion." But I had to make that up, that stuff in italics. I don't know if that's what you actually think or not. [quote]The philosophy of Science was obviously very appealing, but I soon learned in college that lab work was not fulfilling to me, didn't play to my natural talents, and with Bush and the Republicans buddying up to the creationists and putting stem cell research under the crosshairs at the time, didn't seem like a secure career choice. Nonetheless, I still identify much more as a scientist than as a lawyer.[/quote] ...ma...material...conceptual... imma hit some stack overflow shit in a minute here. [quote]This is why I found your idea to become a preacher so awful. Even a "live and let live" noncommittal left-leaning religion like Unitarianism. If anything, its refusal to scrutinize the validity of any religion's "sacred" values is anathema to me.[/quote] But then we went through and scrutinized the shit out of my beliefs - all the way down to the nitty gritty! - and it was fine. Granted, I was left with a completely unchanged mind, though also a lot of new granularity, but I would think you'd have come away from that discussion with the idea of "not all religious people are blindly religious." And instead you seemed to come away with "zsensy is not religious." I tried to point out at the time that your adherence to your unpleasant definition of "religious" was... curiously... zealous... but, you know, feelings, running high, all of that. There are people who shut their eyes and adhere completely to what they are told when it is labelled a certain way, and those people will be zealots for whatever they are going to zealot for - Republicanism, Jainism, Dragonball Z (I'm being serious here, I think fandom behavior is very close to religious behavior), whatever. People who are going to do it will do it for something. I think it lacks both respect and accuracy to lump into this body the Thomas Beckets or Mahatma Ghandis or Constantines or Nantembos of the world, or even the petty boojoys Zsensies of the world, or even the regular folks who believe this or that, and even go to church or temple or whatever of a weekend, but otherwise Do Not Care. I feel that your beef with religion has quite a lot to do with the hamfisted, power-tripping, willfully-blind Christian right wing which has worked hard to make everyone's life more difficult and everyone's arguments less sensible over the last 30 years: the worst of religion married to political and social momentum. But for whatever reason you want to name ALL OF RELIGION your conceptual enemy rather than concentrating on stupidest-religion+political-power, and as a consequence it is necessary for you to build this false equivalency: all religions are like that religion, all religious people are like those religious people. tldr what you are mad about is propaganda, but your response has a sort of propaganda-ish savor about it. [quote]But truth be told, scary as religious folks are getting these days, I think the more pernicious influences over the world today are "unquestionable" secular values.[/quote] I am having so much trouble dancing from your opening line to these little philosophical etudes. [quote]For the specific topic that's been on my mind these last few months, I'm still mulling over "<A HREF="http://www.caltrops.com/pointy.php?action=viewPost&pid=139823" TARGET="new">The Great Happiness Space</A>." I saw the prostitutes and hostesses willfully letting themselves be victimized by the same racket they profit from not as a freakshow of crazy Japanese subcultures, but as an example of a desperate longing that everyone in our society attempts to satisfy with imperfect substitutes (religion being one of them,) amplified by these people living at the outermost edges. But to satisfy that longing? That would require slaughtering one of the most sacred cows of civilized society...[/quote] Why on earth are you pulling <i>this</i> punch?!?!?!? Are you trying to frustrate me?! Remember, I'm not that smart! So I can't even imagine what this sacred cow would be. Is it monogamy, haltering the Natural Human Urge To Have Casual Sex And Loving Relationships With Lots And Lots Of People? I'm only guessing that because I remember you talking about Sex At Dawn before (remind me to tell you my wonderfully self-indulgent new theory about the purposes of men and women.) [quote]At the same time I'm in a career shift from Lawyer to full-time Mediator. The more I learn and the more cases I mediate pro bono, the more I'm amazed and appalled at the waste caused by deferred conflicts and people overvaluing their dysfunctional beliefs. This is a job I'm hoping will truly satisfy my personal values.[/quote] And best wishes and hopes for that. But also - if not this conflict, if not this waste, then what? I mean - what do you think (or is "believe" a better word?) humanity would be doing if not this? I wonder if you don't have a vision of optimization which is frustrated by actual human nature. Not that that's a crime or anything, but - if not waste, then what would be happening? [quote]Does that answer your question?[/quote] NO, IT ONLY GETS ANNOYINGLY CLOSE AND THEN FLUTTERS AWAY INTO THE NIGHT AGAIN. <b>MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS</b>[/quote]