tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098598790977982632024-03-19T21:21:30.230-07:00On both your housesA curmudgeonly view of the world and the people in it.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-81526364199920519032015-09-09T17:00:00.000-07:002015-09-09T17:00:13.606-07:00Having it Both WaysThe Christian religion has had two millennia to hone its arguments. Since many Christian stances are self contradictory it's good that they've had time to work with them. The confused and contradictory nature of the two stories of the creation in Genesis is an example. One argument goes that the first account is of a "spiritual" creation, sort of a practice run I'd say, and the second account is the actual, physical account where it's okay to divide the light from the darkness before the sun is created. With perseverance and lots of words, Christian apologists have managed to reconcile sometimes quite disparate elements in (general) theology.<br />
Consider the the Christian attitude toward proof. In the normal world of science, evidence precedes belief. It's the way we conduct all our business. If my faucet leaks, it's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of plumbing. In the New Testament, this rational take on life is personified by the Apostle Thomas, who (the story goes), wouldn't believe in the resurrected Jesus until he actually saw him. In the story of the meeting, Jesus sets the tone by gently suggesting that belief without evidence is better than belief because of evidence. As an outcome of this exchange, Thomas, the only scientifically and rationally minded of the set became forever stigmatized as "Doubting Thomas."<br />
So, blind faith becomes better than rational thinking. But rational thinking is still an acceptable mode of operation. Isn't it?<br />
No, because later on, Jesus responds to people who want some evidence that he is who he says he is. His reply is enlightening, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." Somehow, rational skepticism is morphed from an acceptable method of inquiry into a sinful one. Not only is it not a good thing to question the pronouncements of religion, it's downright bad.<br />
Why this mania to turn a reasonable request for evidence into a scrofulous, sneering, unwillingness to have faith?<br />
Seems to me that the reason is fairly simple. Religion has to sneer at proof, downplay evidence, and make logical connection sinful because they can't do it. They can't prove anything: not the existence of God; not the divinity of Jesus; not the resurrection; not any miracle; not the claim of the Catholic church that it's the continuation of the one Jesus founded; not the fact that Jesus started a church; not the claim of the Mormons to be the really real church restored; not the validity of the biblical account of things (The Bible is looking more and more like a collection of folk tales written for political purposes); not any claims to a conduit to the divine.<br />
The irksome thing is that, after a thousand years or so of drumming the same thought into people's head --HAVE FAITH -- the world has by and large accepted that the stance of the Christian church is, if not thoroughly valid, still a reasonable one.<br />
It's a neat technique. Religionists in general have succeeded in convincing us that there are two worlds out there; One, the everyday, mundane, dull, world, works normally. The faucet leaks; we change out the washer. The other one, the spiritual, exciting, exalting world works though belief, wishing, the will of God, the prayers of the priesthoods, the flame of candles, the scent of incense or the feel of olive oil.<br />
Of course, there is no evidence at all for this world. Look, our bodies have built-in sensory mechanisms that we don't even know about. If we are out in the sun, our bodies darken; this without our knowledge or understanding. There should be a holy-ghost sensing mechanism in us, so we can hear and heed the "still small voice" that the HG uses to talk to us.<br />
But, there isn't.<br />
Religion just smiles smugly and says, "Just because you can't sense it doesn't mean that it ain't there." Their great victory is that, not only do we not stone them where they stand, we accept their answer as valid.<br />
On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-36605939094248958242014-06-04T23:42:00.000-07:002014-06-04T23:42:57.339-07:00Searching for dirt on the AGBackstory: The former Attorney General of the state of Utah and the former former Attorney General of the state of Utah are both under investigation by people, feds and staties, who think said Atty. Gens. committed various crimes and indiscretions when they were in office. Now, this investigations is some months old. Yet, today it was reported that search warrants have been issued for the homes of the two ex-AG's.<br />
That's really stupid. I mean, can you imagine a conversation between the two, or better yet, some incriminating emails. One says, "They will probably search our houses in the near future. Let's leave some incriminating evidence lying about, marked bills, forged passports, something like that." The other says, "Great. I have some counterfeit money I could put in a safe."<br />
Now, for all I know these two are really crooks and not merely sleezebags. But I also know that they are not stupid. They have had months to prepare their houses for the possibility of a search. I'd be willing to bet that there are more illegal things in my house than there are in theirs, and I don't know of anything illegal in my house. <br />
The former AG's are complaining that the searches were demeaning and intrusive, an assault on their privacy and in insult to their families. And they are right. It was harassment, pure and simple. The only object of the searches was to humiliate the F-AG's.<br />
It will backfire, I surmise. The dingleberries who thought this one up have done nothing to advance any case against the F-AG's, and have probably generated some sympathy for aforesaid F-AG's. I know I feel more sympathetic toward them than I did yesterday. <br />
It just goes to show that being righteous and being smart do not necessarily occur together in the same person.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-88189303952486613792014-04-25T11:25:00.001-07:002014-04-25T11:28:19.753-07:00A New (Old) Economic ModelI have been supporting the economy in a number of ingenious ways. Because of a recent move that necessitated inventorying all my <strike>junk</strike> possessions, I've discovered just how heavy my support has been. I call it the "Buy, lose, replace, find" model. As an example, I now have in one place in my medicine cabinet 15 tiny jars of Carmex that I've bought, lost, replaced, and found again. The same is true for razors, sunglasses, nasal spray, glass polishing cloths, car-care products (waxes, brushes, hose sprayers, buckets, electric polishers), pepto-bismol bottles, watches, and, of course, ball-point pens. <br />
I have four sleeping bags, three tents, three camp stoves, four fire-starters, and dozens of tent pegs. I have six blue plastic tarps and three canvas ones. I have three bicycle pumps, and perhaps ten little bicycle valve tools. I have three sets of cycling gloves, three sets of ski gloves, five sets of winter gloves (three black and two brown), three sets of mechanics gloves, and about seven singlets that I can't throw out because that would ensure that I find the missing ones. I have 22 bungee cords.<br />
I have three shop vacuums, at least five sets each of SAE and metric end wrenches. Ditto socket sets. My screwdriver collection is second to none. I have two huge cross-shaped lug-nut wrenches, neither of which fits any car I currently drive. I have enough micro-fiber polishing rags to open my own store. I have two sets of brown, two sets of black, and two sets of gray automobile rubber floor mats. I have six folding pocket knives (ten if you count the little Swiss Army ones with the tiny scissors). I have three come-alongs, four ladders, at lease four claw hammers and as many ball-peen hammers. <br />
How, you may think, does one lose a ladder. Especially an extension ladder that if ten feet long when collapsed? I don't know. All I know is that one day I need a ladder. and when I look around for it, it isn't there. So, I buy a new one, and sometimes as soon as I get home, I discover the old one in a spot that I was sure I had searched earlier. My socket sets mysteriously disappear and as mysteriously appear again when I open my tool chest to put in my just-bought set. Carmex simply vanishes temporarily. <br />
I now have enough of the items above to last me for the rest of my life. I have done my part for the economy, and am considering taking it to the next level. Now, where did I leave my car?On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-71914056098617009132013-12-05T11:09:00.000-08:002013-12-05T11:09:06.533-08:00One of the glories of our governmental system, I always thought, was that those who served did so out of a desire to help their fellow beings, and not for fame, loot, or power. I had in mind Washington and Jefferson, aristocrats who devoted themselves to a noble cause; Lincoln the self-made man who ruined (and lost) his life serving others; and a host of other figures whose creed was to serve. It didn't bother me too much that the Brahmins in office usually regarded those they helped as being little better than peasants. Their vision was still one in which the populace, the unwashed, the proles, <em>hoi polloi,</em> were still bettering themselves. <br />
I would contrast this vision with the reality of government in other countries, when political office was the key to the bank, and corruption was the rule. The people? Let them eat cake. <br />
I guess, though, that we are catching up to the rest of the world. I am a resident of the state of Utah, based on a set of governmental postulates (in turn based on a set of religious postulates) which make service to one's fellow beings the highest calling one can have. One of the state's highest elected officials may be, in blunt terms, a crook who sold influence and shielded the very people he should have been putting in jail. He resigned just ahead of a lynch mob, but waited long enough to be sure he got his pension funded.<br />
On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-63668415670893587102013-11-26T11:19:00.002-08:002013-11-26T11:19:53.822-08:00Bible City musingsUtah, or Salt Lake City, or maybe Mayberry, has been designated "Bible City" for 2013. To celebrate this, a group of dignitaries and other high-minded people gathered in the rotunda of the capitol (I think) to read passages from the Bible. I wasn't invited, and didn't attend, but you can be sure that the passages read from the Bible were all 1) very familiar, 2) uplifting, and 2) G-rated. <br />
The truth is that of the 1590 pages in my version of the Bible, only about 50, total, are worth reading or something you'd let your kids look at. <br />
Let's suppose for a minute that I were invited to the read-a-thon in the rotunda, I think it would be nice to read something that really represents the spirit of the Bible. Here are my selections, both from the Book of Numbers:<br />
<br />
<em>11:1 And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>21:2 And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then, I will utterly destroy their cities. </em><br />
<em> 3 And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah</em>.<br />
<br />
Some interesting things here. In the first selection, there is the puzzling fact that only the "uttermost" parts of the camp were burnt. That shows, clearly, I think, the danger of living in the suburbs. <br />
In the second section, the King of the country that the Israelites were travelling through took some of them captive. The gall of the man! I am assuming, by the way, that the <em>they</em> and the<em> them</em> in verse three refer to the Israelites and Canaanites respectively. <br />
<br />
These two typify the Old Testament much more exactly than "The Lord is my shepherd." The whole Old Testament is a dreary parade of murder, rape, genocide, slavery, and brutality, interspersed with excruciatingly tedious genealogies.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-76202589577167156872012-08-28T10:53:00.004-07:002012-08-28T10:54:59.659-07:00Merciful TallibanSomewhere in the middle of my morning paper, I ran onto two stories posted side by side, so that the headlines could be read almost together. The first headline was, "Taliban Prisoner Complains about Treatment." It seems that a jailed terrorist thinks that his keepers are being too strict on his, limiting his ability to practice his religion, and therefore putting him in danger of hellfire. He claims that if he can't exercise his religious convictions to the fullest, he is unacceptable to God. In this case it's prayer, something about the way his rug is positioned. The second headline read, "Taliban beheads 13 at party." It seems that some people, exercising their religious convictions to the fullest, broke into a home and cut the heads off of a bunch of people. All in the name of God, of course. Ah, those Talibaners, they know how to have a good time. <br />
I'd like to believe that the layout person at the paper put those two stories together deliberately, so that the forbearance of one society could be contrasted nicely with the viciousness of the other. But, probably not.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-4382006183826137272012-05-07T01:18:00.000-07:002012-05-07T01:20:25.550-07:00The Grammar KingI just finished a most unsatisfying semester. I was notched into a class I didn't want to teach, and felt that I was really not able to give my best shot. Not because I didn't know the material -- it was Grammar, and I am a Grammarian. Or, at least, a linguist.<br />
Y'see, the problem is that as a linguist I know that there is a huge difference between the knowledge of the rules of grammar (as they are taught in the school system) and the ability to produce grammatical sentences. For most people, there is no reason or value or validity or worth or profit in studying traditional parts of speech grammar. I felt obliged to share this information with the class, which caused them to ask the question, "Then, why are we here?" I couldn't answer that one very well.<br />
So there I was, teaching grammar. Since I had to teach it and they had to take it, I vowed that I'd try to 1) make it interesting, and 2) make sure the students got it. As a result, I basically worked on a day to day schedule, talking about nouns and verbs and adjectives and (shudder) adverbs, then testing the students to see what they had absorbed. It made for an up-in-the-air experience which must have been unsettling to modern students, who want to know exactly what they are doing from day to day, and, more importantly, when the test days are.<br />
In this class, students knew the general trend of the lessons, but didn't know precisely what we would be doing on any one day. <br />
It was actually a very liberating experience in a way. I wasn't simply covering a set amount of material in a set time -- I was covering as much as I could cover thoroughly in the time I had. And, I have to admit, for a linguist, talking about syntax and words is fun any time, even if it doesn't serve any real-world purpose.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-39049569675622321952012-04-16T19:57:00.004-07:002012-04-16T20:36:02.774-07:00Myth as historySo here's the deal: A beloved king in ancient times knows that he's getting old and liable to bite the dust any day. He wants to assure that his oldest son succeeds him, and to give his people some kingly advice. So, he says to his son, "Get everyone together tomorrow and I'll talk to them." Now, we have no idea what time of day this occurred, but let's say about 10 a.m., the start of the business day.<br />So, on the next day, all the people of the kingdom gathered, and there were a lot of them, so many that the king had to order a tower built so that he could speak from it. How big was the tower? We don't know. Let's say, though, that it was 12 feet tall and big enough to hold one king.<br />With me so far? Okay, so in come the people. They came in droves, they came in hordes, they came in legions. How many? We don't know, but they set up their tents facing the king's tower, and gathered together as families. So, the patriarch's tent would be there, in all its <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">patriarchal</span> splendor, then the tents of the sons, the sons of sons, the sons of sons of sons, and so on. I don't know where the daughters were -- they're not mentioned.<br />Now, there were so many people, that they couldn't all hear the king, not even from his tower, not even if he used a megaphone. So, he stationed people throughout the crowd with paper and pencil (or the equivalent) to take down the words the king spake and distribute them to the crowd. The king gave a bang-up sermon and named his oldest son as successor, a good time was had by all, and the people went home satisfied and edified.<br />But there are some trouble spots in the story. The way the story is told, it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. The king talking to his son and sort of hatching the plot on the fly. That being the case, here's what had to happen in the space of about one day:<br /> - The king had to get word to his people to assemble. There being no telephone or radio service, no roads, it meant runners out to all the segments of the kingdom. Since it's a kingdom and not a city or a duchy or a barony, we can assume there were a lot of people. Were there runners hanging around, waiting for the king do tell them what to do? No, because the king prided himself on not being that kind of a king. So, first he had to hustle up some messengers. Whom would he choose? Professional messengers? Aren't any. So, he's got to find someone to round up the messengers. He's got to write out instructions to everybody on assembling: time, place, order of encampment, and so on.<br /> - The people have to assemble. So, first, they've got to get the message. Then, they have to pack and make provisions for their flocks and herds and fields. I mean, you don't just drop everything and take off to see the king. So, herds taken care of, tents packed, family assembled, the families have to journey to where the king is giving a speech, set up camp, get dinner cooked and eaten and the kids to bed.<br />How long would that take? Let's say that the kingdom is a small one -- fifty by fifty miles, and that the king's tower was smack dab in the middle. So, starting from 10 a.m., the king has to write and make copies of his orders, say one hour; find some runners (he'd need, what? 50?), two hours; get them equipped, girded, mounted, given food, drink, and the messages, another two hours. So, it would be a minimum of five hours before they even started out. And that's assuming a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">bureaucracy</span> more efficient than is really possible. Then, the riders have to ride, run to the ends of the kingdom, seek out the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">patriarchs</span>, give them the messages, and ride home, exhausted. The patriarchs have to gather their people, etc. etc. etc., and make it back to the king's city before nightfall, in time to set up their tents. And these people are either walking or riding in carts, which have a top speed of three miles an hour downhill in a tail wind.<br />See what I mean? I can't be done. What I've described is a process that would take a week under the best of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">circumstances</span>, and more likely three.<br />Yet, there they were the next day.<br />And what about the scribes, the paper, the writing, the copying, of the speech? And the tower. Let's not forget about the tower. If the king scared up builders and got them started right away, how long would it take? Well, first he'd have to find enough builders. Then, they'd have to get the lumber, probably cut it as there were no Lowes stores anywhere around. Then, they'd have to put it together. Could it be done in one third of one day? Maybe. But I've seen movies of people trying to build things like siege towers, and it's a more-than-one-day job, and they did have a Lowes nearby.<br />Yet the account is firm -- it happened in the space of about 24 hours. Heck, let's say 48 hours. It's still not nearly enough time. I mean, the logistics of the note-taking themselves are formidable.<br />Yet people buy the story. As history. Not as myth, allegory, legend, or parable. As history. I just can't go along.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-41167971218475009962012-02-15T16:05:00.001-08:002012-02-15T16:13:45.022-08:00Sex EducationThe Utah legislature is considering a bill that would allow schools to dispense with sex education altogether. I have no idea why they would be doing this, since there is no evidence whatsoever that sex ed influences kids to have sex. Actually, they're going to do that anyway, regardless of whether they learn about sex in the classroom or in the back seat of a car.<br />The mentality the legislature seems to be displaying is this: Someone asks a question --"How can we protect our young people from the dangers of sexual indulgence?" The legislature's answer seems to be, "Let's keep them in complete ignorance!"<br />Wow, what a stroke of genius! I'd like to advise the legislature to take it one step further. Maybe we could make it a law that women should wear a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">garment</span> that covers them from head to foot. We'll leave armholes, of course, and a slit to see out of, but if that doesn't protect our young people, then perhaps we'll have to move on to chastity belts.<br />Sex education has much to recommend it, and nothing to suggest that it isn't a help in people's lives. To me, this proposed legislation makes the legislators, in the words of Professor Fate, "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Thimble</span>-headed gherkins."On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-90008003987340614672012-02-06T10:47:00.000-08:002012-02-06T10:56:00.136-08:00Chariots in the red seaI recently ran across a spate of items on the famous crossing of the Red Sea, when the Hebrews crossed on dry land, and "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Pharaoh's</span> army got <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">drownded</span>," so Mary don't you weep.<br />It seems that an amateur archaeologist claims to have found chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea, which proves that the Biblical account is true.<br />Whoa there! Some comments:<br />1. First of all, there is no evidence that there is anything at the bottom of the sea at all. There are photos, of what could possibly be wheels, but no actual artifacts.<br />2. Even if there were chariot wheels found, what would that prove? It would prove that there were chariots at the bottom of the Red Sea. It does not follow that they were <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Pharaoh's</span>, nor that they were chasing Israelites, nor that they were part of an army.<br />If we are to accept the Biblical account, I suspect we would need to find the following:<br />- Lots and lots of chariots. After all, it was an army that got drowned.<br />- Evidence that the chariots were Egyptian, Military, and period appropriate.<br />With evidence like this in hand, I might be inclined to accept that the account could be true.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-87989461939483138442011-09-13T09:44:00.000-07:002011-09-13T09:56:38.864-07:00MiraclesI've never liked miracles; they seem to violate the natural order of things. But sometimes, an account of a miracle does more than that; it makes me mad.<br />For instance, there's a miracle recorded in the Bible. Seems Jesus and some of the Apostles are walking past a man who was born blind. One Apostle asks, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" The <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">answer</span> was that no one had sinned. The man was born blind so that he might help demonstrate the power of God. Wherewith, the blind man was healed, and could see again.<br />This miracle is often quoted to prove a theological point: a person can sin before he or she is born -- ergo, they lived before this life. Because I focused on this point, I for years overlooked what is now to me the salient point of the story. It's this: A man was forced to live for about 30 years in darkness, unable to run or play as a kid, unable to learn or ply a trade, unable to see the sunrise or the sunset, to read, to recognize the faces of his family -- all this so that someone could pull a stunt and impress the rubes.<br />This strikes me a both callous and a bit of an overkill. I mean, couldn't he simply be born with a wart on his face, a not unattractive wart, that could be removed miraculously? I can see the scene now: "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born with a not entirely unattractive wart?" The answer, "No one. He was born with a wart so that the power of God could be manifest in a non-cancer-causing operation."<br />Same result -- the rubes are impressed, the guy gets better looking, and all is much more humane.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-787194482155259332011-09-05T19:22:00.000-07:002011-09-05T19:38:55.895-07:00Imaginary FriendsWhen I was growing up in Palmer, Alaska, there was a kid in school who had an imaginary friend. He'd walk around the playground during recess talking to this friend. He'd talk, then listen, then shake his head or nod or gesture, and reply. This is supposed to be a harmless <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">aberration</span> in kids, but an <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">aberration</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">nonetheless</span>. In adults, it's considered to be not so harmless (Unless it's some guy talking on a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">bluetooth</span>).<br />But, '<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">cha</span> know, I have a host of imaginary friends. Everybody does. We talk about them as if they are real, and I think we realize only dimly that they are not. My friends include Sherlock Holmes, for instance, Long John Silver, Mary Poppins, Hamlet, Elizabeth Bennett, Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, Tugboat Annie, Harry Bosch, Bertie Wooster, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Frodo</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Baggins</span>, James Bond, Little <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Dorrit</span>, Huckleberry Finn, Uncle Remus, The Scarlet <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Pimpernell</span>, and Lord Peter Wimsey.<br />I care about these people. I worry when their lives don't go right. I rejoice in their triumphs. I read "Pride and Prejudice" once every two years or so, and am always tickled to death when Lizzy and D'Arcy finally get together.<br />I mention this because I'm worried about one of my favorite TV characters. She was shot at the end of the season last year, and it looked like she died -- right there on camera. I'm pretty sure it was a cliffhanger, but I can't be certain. What if she's really dead?<br />There's a part of me that realizes she's a figment of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">someone's</span> imagination; that the actress speaks the lines she's been given. But there's also a part of me that wonders where to send the flowers.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-17494809162787676022011-08-24T10:41:00.000-07:002011-08-24T11:13:10.856-07:00A New Religion<div><div>I've been thinking about starting a new religion. I want it to be a success, and I haven't had any visits from angels, spirits, deities, or other religion-founding sources, so I guess I'm on my own. I've thus been forced to think about what the requirements for a good religion might be, and I've come up with a few:<br /><strong>Doctrine:</strong> Of course, you've got to have a doctrine. What the doctrine is really doesn't matter much. What does matter is that the doctrine has to be a mix of how-to-live-a-good-life advice with some really hard-to-believe tenets. I mean, if a religion were based on science, it wouldn't be a religion; it would be science. Now a lot of doctrinal points that are hard to swallow are already taken (virgin birth, earth 6000 years old, day of the sabbath really important), so I can either go ahead and use someone else's doctrine or invent my own. Best would be to invent my own. I can borrow from science fiction, I guess. The number of outlandish doctrines should be kept to a manageable number -- three is a good one, I think. And remember, the emphasis should be on the outlandish, but there should be enough of the live-a-good-life that the membership can actually exist on the planet. Remember what happened to the Shakers and the Jonestown group.<br /><strong>A Conduit</strong>: The best religions have a pipeline to deity. Religions that rely on sacred texts alone tend to splinter and to fight with each other. A charismatic leader, on the other hand, can shift doctrine to suit the needs of a changing world. He (or she) can get a revelation that we all need to eat more broccoli, and voila! the church is healthier. The leader also becomes a magnet for new converts. Let's face it, a leader with lots of ethos beats sound doctrine every time.<br /><strong>Rigor:</strong> Those religions which demand a lot of their people seem to thrive. From those to whom much is given, much is required (That's a quote but I don't know if I got it right; hence no quotation marks). People don't value something that's free. So, in my religion I will require both money and time. The money because even religious leaders need Ferraris, and the time because it keeps people occupied and out of trouble.<br /><strong>Isolation:</strong> Not total isolation, the way some religions separate themselves from the "world," but a degree of separation. One of the best ways to do this is to teach your people to distrust anything that is printed, broadcast, aired, said, written, or mimed by any "unapproved" source. This has two benefits. First, it can be used to keep believers away from annoying counter arguments and from science in general. Second, it creates a category of sin, which means that curious people will also be feeling guilty about it.<br /><strong>Sin: </strong>The concept of sin is a wonderful one for religions. Let's face it; you can't have a religion without sin if you want to survive. Sins don't exist naturally. That is, there is no such thing as a sin in nature. In nature, there are acts and there are consequences. So, both sin and law are inventions. The neat thing about sin is that it isn't subject to the will of the people, the way laws can be. If the religious leader says, "This is a sin," then it's a sin. End of story.<br /><strong>A mark</strong>: Really good religions have something about them that tells non-believers who they are. Best is some item of clothing that is an announcement. A hat, a hairstyle, a tattoo -- these are all nice. This gives the members of the congregation a sense that they are set apart from (translation: better than) other people.<br />Just six simple things, and you're on your way to world domination.</div></div>On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-22626367165639815322011-08-22T20:23:00.000-07:002011-08-22T20:49:19.527-07:00Faith<div>I've been thinking about faith lately. The Apostle Paul said, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen." Which sounds kind of neat, except that when you examine it closely, it ends up not meaning much. Exactly what is "the substance of things hoped for?" The other half, "the evidence of things not seen" makes a little more sense, except that I'd say that the evidence of things not seen is -- evidence. We can't see the back side of the moon, but we accept that it's there, based on, what? Faith. No, I'd say that we have faith based on evidence.</div><div>And yet the idea of evidence-based faith runs counter to most religious thought today. One religious leader said, "Faith precedes the miracle," which I interpret to mean, if you believe hard enough, it will come into being. Kind of a twist on the "If you build it they will come" mantra from otherworldly movies like "Field of Dreams."</div><div>So, I'd like to posit that there are three types of faith.</div><div>Faith A is faith that you have because of the evidence. What the Greeks called "logos." When my doctor told me I had blockage of the cardiac artery and showed me the X-ray, I believed. I had faith. Some people differentiate between knowledge and faith, but that's a false dichotomy. If you believe because of the evidence, you have Faith A. In a court case, both sides present evidence, and one side engenders more faith than the other. Then you get a verdict.</div><div>Faith B is a faith that you have in the absence of evidence. This is what most people think of as faith, and perhaps what Paul had when he started his maundering definition. I believe in God, or Jesus, or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Buddha</span>, or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Mohamed</span>, or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Zoroaster</span>, or astrology or the Tarot, or tea leaves, even though there is no real evidence that the information is true.</div><div>Faith C is a faith that you have in spite of the evidence. The belief that the earth is 6,000 years old, for instance, or that God created a certain number of animal species which has remained constant, that there was a world-wide flood -- you get the picture. This faith is the scary one. It's one thing to believe in a 6,000 year-old earth when all you have to go on is some old texts, but it's quite another when you can walk out in your back yard and see the folding in the earth that took place a good sight longer ago than a measly six grand years. In order to keep your belief, you have to reject not only the accumulated evidence, but pretty much rational thought itself. The work that people will go through to explain away data is awesome. One person explained to me in solemn detail how the layers in the earth's crust were the effect of a giant earthquake that shook things up and made them naturally sort themselves out into layer. Sir William of Occam is twirling in his grave.</div>
<br />On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-62298679193596850552011-08-19T19:56:00.000-07:002011-08-19T20:09:25.089-07:00What's it all about?<div>About the creation of the world, two alternative hypotheses. </div><div>First, everything in the world could have been created with humans in mind. That is, the world is a setting for whatever happens to us. This is the viewpoint of a great many religions. What that means is that a certain locust, which sleeps in the ground for 17 years, emerging to eat, mate, and go back into the ground, was fashioned with humanity in mind. This is not to mention things like <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">duckbilled</span> platypuses, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">octopi</span>, camels, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">tse</span>-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">tse</span> flies, mountain goats, and perhaps Sasquatch itself.</div><div>So, one muses, "Why?" What could God have possibly had in mind when He created this intriguing mishmash of stuff? The answer from <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">religionists</span> is invariably a variation on one of two themes: "There are some things that man was not meant to know," and "God doesn't think like we do." Both of these answers mean the same thing - "Beats me. Let's blame God," and are simply not acceptable answers for a complex variety of reasons.</div><div>Second, none of the things in the world have been created with humans in mind. This strikes me as a much more sensible alternative, because it not only satisfies the demands of Occam's razor, being the simplest explanation that fits the data, but it also doesn't lead to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">innumerable</span> questions such as why those strange undersea fissure tubes were created. </div><div>Notice that this doesn't say anything at all about the presence/absence of a creator, though it is clear that option two doesn't need a creator. Another reason to prefer it.</div><div>There is a third option, actually, that the world and everything in it were created for some beings other than humans. This is the Douglas Adams interpretation, and frankly, it makes as much sense as the first option.</div>On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-58356738070950592272011-08-15T12:47:00.000-07:002011-08-15T13:04:47.911-07:00Marriage<div>Much is in the news lately about <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriage</span>. Exactly whom can one marry? Can a guy marry a guy, a doll marry a doll, a man marry two women, or a woman marry two men?</div><div>My question is, "Why not?" Most arguments against non-traditional <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriages</span> (though polygamy is certainly traditional, isn't it?) are one of two types: </div><div>1. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Marriage</span> is ordained of God to be between a man and a woman.</div><div>2. Non traditional <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriages</span> would wreck the institution. I mean, what would happen if a gay couple married and then decided to separate? </div><div>Argument number one is simply not so. Religious texts seem to support a rather more open idea of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriage</span>. One in which, if you're a king, you can have 1000 wives and concubines, or as in the case of more recent times, 27. All the fulminations against anything but one man one woman are all fairly recent, and in fact, God hasn't commented on it at all, at least not to me. </div><div><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Marriage</span> has until recently been about property rights and bloodlines and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">inheritances</span>. If you were the Duke of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Omnium</span>, you needed to know who was yours so you could decide who got the money and who had to go into the priesthood. Nobody cared about the lower orders; they weren't much more than animals anyway, and if they married, why, jumping over a broomstick was good enough for them. It's only recently, in fact, that love has even entered into the occasion.</div><div>Argument number two is bogus also. How can we wreck something that is in shambles anyway? When two <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">younguns</span> get married, it's with a 50/50 expectation that they'll be divorced before it's all over. I suspect that statistics among gay couples are certainly no worse, and probably better.</div><div>We might even speculate on when <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriage</span> began. Currently, the earliest true human is believed to be a woman, puckishly named "Eve," who lived 800,000 years ago, give or take,</div><div>Was she married? Certainly not (who would perform the ceremony?). What about her offspring. Nope also. </div><div>So, when did <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriage</span> enter the picture? I'd guess, shooting from the hip, that it was about the time that two ideas emerged: property and clergy. Which would mean that for most of the time we've been human, there hasn't been such a thing as <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriage</span>.</div><div>It would be scary and tragic if the same flowering of humanity that <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">gave us</span> Lascaux also gave us <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">marriage</span>.</div>On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-17357451347856695932011-04-14T11:30:00.000-07:002011-04-14T11:49:25.952-07:00Book ReportI just read a fascinating book. Read it in a single sitting, almost. It's called <em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Denialism</span>,</em> and no, it's not about the Egyptian river (sorry, couldn't resist). It's about a general trend that the author believes is very strong in the world today: people not believing in science. The author treats a number of subjects, including <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">genetic</span> manipulation and pharmaceuticals, but my favorite is vaccinations. I had assumed that everyone was enthusiastic about vaccination. I remember as a child standing in line to be given a sugar cube with a drop of the Salk vaccine absorbed in it. It was the first Polio vaccine. Every summer was Polio season, and my mother worried all summer about one of us getting the disease. A friend of mine developed a headache one day after we went swimming at a lake near my home. Shortly after that, he was paralyzed with Polio. I'd been swimming right beside him that day. The Salk vaccine changed all that. Because of vaccines, I've been more or less safe from a variety of diseases, some annoying (I wasn't vaccinated for mumps, and it was a real drag to have them), some really dangerous (<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">diphtheria</span>, for one). Yet I read that today people are opting not to have their kids vaccinated, in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccination is both safe and necessary. As if to put an exclamation point behind it all, in the newspaper yesterday I read about measles outbreaks in Utah. Measles! I have come to two conclusions about the people who don't have their children vaccinated. The first is that they have no idea of the immense relief that vaccination brought to the mothers and fathers of children who were saved from a host of childhood diseases. They have no concept of a world without vaccination, a world where influenza is a major cause of death. The second is that those people who withhold vaccinations from their children have that smug arrogance that only truly profound ignorance and stupidity can bring.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-76194763678053779112011-04-04T12:31:00.000-07:002011-04-04T12:43:31.503-07:00Advice from HarvardI had to sit in on a discussion by a Harvard Professor last week (Threats were made). In it, the professor deigned to talk to us but didn't go so far as to actually prepare something to say. Instead he had a sort of open mic session in which we could voice supplications and he would reply to them (Are you sensing my response to the whole thing?). One thing he did say (a couple of times) is that if changes are to be made in English Departments (And by <em>English</em> he means <em>literature, </em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">blithely</span> unaware that half of English department people don't teach literature), the "leaders" in the field (Harvard) will have to do it first and then the rest of the world will follow like imprinted ducklings. Not so, my <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Brahmin</span> colleague. In fact, it's the other way around. There is no reason in the world why the "leaders," the ones with the endowments and the prestige, should make any changes. They are quite happy at the top, looking down on the inchworms struggling up the slopes. Change comes from the newcomers, from the proles trying to get ahead in the world of academe. Some upstart university way out past the Mississippi (where civilization ends) will create the first completely on-line Master of Science degree in technical communication. "Technical Communication?" quizzes our Harvard man? "What's that?" P.S. Utah State University, Logan, Utah, developed the first and still very successful on-line program in technical and professional communication.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-53648426871570822682011-03-21T17:14:00.000-07:002011-03-21T17:29:30.745-07:00On Nuclear Disasters (or "The Sky is Falling")A quick quiz.<br />How many people were killed as a result of the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown? How many people got serious radiation poisoning? How many people got light doses of radiation poisoning? How much radiation carpeted the countryside?<br />Answers to the above: none, none, none, and none.<br />The nuclear problem in Japan is a different story, sort of. It's still ongoing, of course, so it's hard to tell what is going to happen, but as of this date the answers to the quiz would be the same. That's kind of lost in all the hysteria about nuclear energy. Here's a nuke that got a double whammy, earthquake and tsunami, and has still released only very small amounts of radiation, amounts small enough that they are detectable but not life-threatening. Now, no one wants to eat sushi that glows in the dark, but "radiation" is a word that carries such ominous overtones that we forget it's really an everyday part of life, and that we are irradiated constantly by a variety of things.<br />If you look at the news coverage, though, you'd assume that all of the seacoast of Japan was bathed in the kind of greenish glow you see in sci-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">fi</span> films, and that the damage from the earthquake and the tsunami is merely an afterthought to the nuclear disaster that has overtaken us all.<br />The truth is that more than 18,000 people have died and that so far nuclear radiation has had nothing to do with those deaths.<br /> In the end, I think that the nuclear plant problems will reveal heroic efforts, grim possibilities, some short term problems, but will ultimately be a footnote to the larger horror that is the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">devastation</span> of the earthquake and the flooding.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-87982392312468013882011-02-10T09:15:00.000-08:002011-02-10T09:29:47.094-08:00Who's on First?I don't know who irritates me most, the Utah legislature, which seems to have more than its share of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">gooney</span> birds, or the news media, which seems to have more than its share of vultures. I'm coming to think, though, that the legislature is mostly sincere <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">people</span> who do their homework, try to keep the good of the state in mind, and generally are worth their salt. We do have the zingers in there who want to to legislate away evolution, hand out guns on the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">street corners</span>, and make pi a flat 3.000; who are unwilling to accept anything that science tells us if it interferes with their beliefs, and who are always willing to speak into any microphone, mug before any camera, collar any <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">newsperson</span>.<br />These are the ones that we read about in the newspaper, see on TV, watch on Yahoo!<br />So, whose fault is that? It's gotta be the news media, who see no news value at all in sober, hard work, and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">lotsa</span> news value in oddball antics. A case in point: One legislator wants to make the Colt model 1911 the state firearm. Not a bad choice, actually. It was designed by one of the foremost firearms geniuses in history, a Utah resident. Not only the 1911, but a plethora of other firearms that served our country well in a number of wars, saving the @#$ of many a serviceman.<br />But it's no big deal, really. It's a footnote to the business we are conducting in the legislature. So, why is it in the paper every day? Well, there's always the "any gun is evil" chant spit out by people who have no experience with guns at all, but in this case I think that it's simply that the news media think it's worthy of some sort of campaign, a "let's show the legislature being concerned with insignificant things" push. Take a small item, make a big thing of it, and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">wa</span>-la (for those of you who can't pronounce voila), we have a legislature we can <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">snigger</span> at.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-73816260679335747932011-02-07T10:38:00.000-08:002011-02-07T10:48:41.055-08:00Idiots in the LegislatureI wonder about the members of the Utah Legislature a lot. Of course, I have only the daily newspaper to go on, so I freely admit my sources may be biased.<br />Mark Twain said, "Suppose you are a member of congress. Suppose you are an idiot. But I repeat myself." Is this true? We have a member of the legislature who seems to fit this mold, and he is not averse to showing us. He is against evolution. I don't mean that he is against evolving, though that might be true, but he is against teaching the theory. It's not just that he's against it, but that his public pronouncements indicate that he doesn't even understand it. Hasn't a clue.<br />I see three ways this could go: A) He is truly ignorant of the data available; B) He is dumber than a post and will never get it no matter what, or C) He knows all right, but his politics dictate that he fight against it.<br />I have a sneaking suspicion that it's option C. I don't think he's stupid. The guy has the casual arrogance of a safe seat in the legislature. He's sure that his way is the right way. Not only the right way, but the righteous way. Given those <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">those</span> conditions, he's free to say any dippy thing he needs to in order to get his way.<br />A guy like that is even liable to opine that he knows how the schools should be run better than the people who've worked at it all their lives.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-50366323888542225862010-10-12T10:27:00.000-07:002010-10-12T10:39:11.731-07:00Guns Again (groan)I've mentioned before that if someone walks into a school building with a gun and opens fire, there are two possible outcomes: 1) The person continues to shoot until he/she finishes, then is captured, killed, or commits suicide; 2) Someone inside the school intervenes. There is a third possibility, but it remains theoretical -- that the police arrive quickly enough to stop the shooter in mid-havoc.<br />Anyone who believes that the third possibility may become a reality anytime soon believes in the tooth fairy.<br />The second possibility presupposes a person already on the premises who has the wherewithal to intervene. That ponderous sentence can be translated "someone with a gun." The <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">hierarchy</span> of my university believe in the tooth fairy. Gun <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">toters</span> believe in their marksmanship. The police acknowledge that the only real way to stop a shooter is with an on-site shooter. However, they say that it would be difficult in such a situation for the police to know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy.<br />This is a reason for not carrying a gun? For one thing, it'll be all over by the time the cops get there, so there is no reason to worry. For another, anyone who has a license to carry a weapon knows the procedure for after a gunfight -- put up your gun and put up your hands. For a third, the police should have a procedure in place -- shoot anyone with a gun.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-6782198070022924762010-08-31T09:15:00.000-07:002010-08-31T09:26:04.327-07:00Witch HuntsNewspaper columnists have a hard life. They have to find something to write about every day (or week, or whatever). If there is nothing cooking at the moment, they have to actually think of something to say (What Aristotle called "invention"). So, this morning I'm reading the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Trib</span> (Salt Lake <em>Tribune) </em>and see where one of my favorite <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">apoplectics</span> is saying that the Republicans (translation: evil people) are on a witch hunt.<br />Seems they are after President Obama. The writer mentions that this happened before, with President Clinton (who never, never, never did anything wrong, with or without a cigar). The Republicans (translation: evil people) hounded him, harassed him, gave him no rest.<br />And in between Clinton and Obama was Bush. Bush, on the other hand, was treated with deference and understanding by the media wasn't he. He wasn't hounded -- oh, no -- but given every consideration.<br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">C'mon</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Krugman</span>. Even you cannot be so <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">blindered</span> you don't realize that the<em> outs</em> always attack the<em> ins</em> with everything they've got. Clinton made it easy, and Obama (to my way of thinking) is making it hard, but hey, what's imagination for, if not to dream up things like faked birth certificates or hysterical newspaper columns.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-56396707321740742162010-08-26T10:00:00.000-07:002010-08-26T10:14:18.267-07:00Defending Dr. LauraI never thought I'd be defending Dr. Laura. I don't like her. Her program has the same effect on me as fingernails on a blackboard (for you younger people, a blackboard is a primitive communication instrument).<br />She's under fire for using the "N word" on a program. Seems that a woman called in who was having trouble with people using the word around her (she's African American). Dr. Laura used the horrible word 11 times (count 'em) in her discussion.<br />So, what is Dr. Laura's crime? Did she refer to the caller as a (insert horrible word here)? No, not really. She may have done so indirectly, as "Why are you unhappy to be called a (insert horrible word here)?" She certainly used the word to refer to itself. That is, she voiced the word as an object of discussion.<br />Is Dr. Laura's crime that she is abrasive and insensitive? Holy Cow, Batman, who doesn't know that? I've always wondered why people call in to her when they know they're going to be abused and ridiculed. Did the caller who was worried about being called a (insert horrible word here) think that Dr. Laura was going to be all "There, there" and sympathy?<br />And yet people are falling all over themselves to abuse Dr. Laura. Rather than using some small portion of the 10% of their brains that actually work, people react as if the Devil him (or her, don't want to be sexist) self is amongst us. Remember, this is a society that 1) got a man fired using the word "niggardly," even though it has no connection with (insert horrible word here); 2) jumped all over a college professor who, in a historical context mentioned that illegal aliens used to be called "wetbacks"; and 3) fired a government official for a whiff of a hint of a misrepresentation of reverse racism 20 years ago.<br />Is it any wonder that Dr. Laura, who advises people to stop whining and get on with their lives, should be the object of a witch hunt (with apologies to all the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">wiccans</span> out there)?On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-609859879097798263.post-76140033326851422092010-08-26T09:48:00.000-07:002010-08-26T09:57:57.728-07:00NaturalnessI've had two good friends in my life who were gay. Both came out of the closet when they were adults, married, and with children. Both formed stable relationships, in one case, a life-long one. In neither case did I suspect that they were gay until they came out.<br />I mention this because of one of the arguments I hear against homosexuality: It isn't natural.<br />I accepted this argument, more or less, for a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">lotta</span> years, until I asked myself, "Who defines what's natural or not?"<br />Turns out it's not Mother Nature, because there are numerous examples of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom (Heck, for all I know, there are gay plants).<br />It's the keepers of the moral flame who have decided it's not natural. The argument is an old one, and is found in various religious texts all over the world. It's also set down in musty law books as "The dreadful crime against nature." Reminds me of the saying (I wish I know who said it): "There are two kinds of people: The righteous and the unrighteous. The classifying is done by the righteous."<br />However, since nature herself doesn't seem to have any objections, I don't see why I should. In fact, I think I may even be able to see it as a good thing. For one thing, it cuts down on the competition for the girls.On both your houseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474215196050660881noreply@blogger.com0