You are quick - keen even - to get the wrong end of the stick, aren't you? Is this a pattern in your life?

NorthOfNorth wrote on Oct 17^th, 2009 at 9:23pm:


I got the same feeling when I entered a 2500 year old Etruscan tomb in Italy, or when I stood on the limestone blocks of the now ruined  temple called the Ara Della Regina in the ruins of Etruscan Tarquinia. It's a 'spiritual' thing.

This was a civilisation that was long dead and almost forgotten even in the days of the Romans.

As Propertius wrote of another Etruscan city (Veii)

heu Veii veteres! et vos tum regna fuistis,
et vestro posita est aurea sella foro:
nunc intra muros pastoris bucina lenti
cantat, et in vestris ossibus arua metunt.

Veii, you had a royal crown of old,
And in your forum stood a throne of gold!
Your walls now echo but the shepherd’s horn,
And over your ashes waves the summer corn.


Yes, You have to maintain a certain respect and a sense of awe for the past.

I would enjoy Hitchens a lot more if he hadn't generated an enormous cadre of adulating little drones. The worst thing about the "New Atheists" is that their followers always tend to fancy themselves as insightful critical thinkers but are really as rigid as the people they criticise. This doesn't make them incorrect, of course.

Doesn't not make them twats either.

No poo, but let's face it; the science-worshipping New Atheists hate Darwin too, just in different ways from the creationists. While they will (and perhaps rightfully so) ridicule and scoff at the egregious distortion of logic by creationists, their own rational facade always breaks down almost instantly whenever science runs counter to their own egalitarian world views. Their dedication to Darwin runs as far as their own self-imposed perception of how they would like the world to look, and if the trifling matter of the truth compromises this, they edit, ignore and compartmentalize it. At least the creationists, with their overt disdain for the scientific method, are internally consistent.

It's all of this Czech beer I've been drinking!

Unfortunately there are twats abounding in every hue and colour of philosophical debate, which makes the idea they ascribe to neither right, nor wrong, so leaving the fact aside that you do not have to throw a rock far in any direction, to hit an idiot, the truth is that the image that some try to portray of anti-theists as some type of obsessive extremists, is innacurate, and a mere distraction from the core questions that they raise.

Most I would certainly expect to be a lot like me, people who see religion as a tool, misused by so many, to attempt to control, and/or influence, people to march to their particular tune.
When that tune inspires a merry jig, then all is well and good, but when it is used to inspire a goose step, then we have real problems.
The fact that the pipers who play these tunes are self appointed social engineers whose tools are fanciful threats and promises, is what causes some, like myself, to question just why should we allow them to call the tune at all.

If they did not seek to influence society beyond the walls of their temples, my position would be one of sad observation, that they impose their reckless rules and imagery onto their young, in a totally dogmatic environment which rejects open and thoughtful enquiry, in favour of unquestioning adherence to their creed, which still mixes the vile and malevolent with the spiritual and sublime, to the point where many can not recognise the difference.
This is when you see what would be normal, caring people, calling for those that transgress their particular codes rules, to be consumed by hellfire.
The degree of intolerance that is promoted, as protecting "god's word" is of real concern, for god's word still thinks homosexuality is an abomination, and that adulterer's need the death penalty, in this world, not in the make believe next, that they subjugate their very existence in favour of pursuing.
So while I know that most people ignore these obscene idiocies, their creeds, and religion's most certainly do not, they are their in the books, just waiting for the next piper to come along and start piping their tune again, and that is an intolerable threat on all our freedoms.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Oct 18^th, 2009 at 12:03am:



Helian, your chase after what eludes you most - wit. And in that rush, understanding also evades you. This is what I mean by the wrong end of the stick. You sacrifice understanding just to appear witty but more often than not you are left standing both witless and confused.

When you are not trying to appear witty you do say interesting things - you do get the right end of the stick. So invert the priorities, pal. You can do it.