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Triple-Filtered Crazy

[ Another long one. Sorry. ]

Sanity has a horizon.

Meaning: Everything you and I do seems sensible to us. Everything other people do seems sensible to them. But not everything you and I do seems sensible to others, and not everything others do seems sensible to you and I.

Everything you and I do seems sensible, of course, because it’s US, and we’re caught up in the subjective immediacy of our lives. We’re inside our own horizon, and everything inside it with us is visible, understandable and comfortable. We naturally find it hard to think of ourselves as wrong or villainous or insane. Everything we do, however weird it might seem to others, seems sane and reasonable to us. Even if we don’t know the reasons, we’re prone to automatically assume SOMEONE knows, and those reasons must be good ones.

On the other hand, other people, out past our own personal horizons of sanity, often do things that seem crazy.

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Curiosity Question

Suppose there was a way to make other people think like you?

Imagine a drug you could hand out that, with regular doses over a period of time, would cause other people to agree with you in every way. A drug that would cause them to be UNABLE, mostly, to disagree with you.

1) Would you give it to your kids?

2) Would you give it to your friends?

3) Would you give it to friends without telling them what it was but saying it would be good for them?

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Be Alert … because the world needs more lerts

I somehow got onto a right-wing Christian mailing list. Without fail, EVERY email they send me is both amusing and disturbing. That they’re so wrong, but so earnest, is funny. That they’re enticing others to be so wrong and earnest, that’s disturbing.

The latest was an Action Alert! from the stick-up-the-backside “American Family Association”:

“Pepsi Produces Another TV Ad Promoting the Gay Lifestyle”

Yes, the “gay lifestyle.” The lifestyle that people choose, and then recruit others into, so they can all be evil and debauched together, and get people to hate them. All done deliberately, you understand, and in opposition to good traditional American Christian values.

And yes, Pepsi is saying “Be Gay!! Everybody drink Pepsi and engage in homosexual activity!! Don’t be like all those heterosexuals who drink Coke!” What better publicity campaign could you get?

I had to respond to the part that said “Sign the Boycott Pepsi Pledge.”

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Why Not Be Nice?

[ Argh. My newer version of WordPress has controls for placing an image, but they DON’T SEEM TO WORK. Until I figure them out, we’ll have to live with the non-existence of text wrap. I say again: Argh. ]

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Comment-volleying on a blog with one of those people I refer to as a “nice Christian” – the people who project kindness and understanding as their motivation, all the while ripping your metaphorical guts out (“There’s no such thing as atheism! It just doesn’t make SENSE!”) – I stepped away from the subject of the debate for a moment, for the benefit of the other rationalist commenters, and addressed the interaction itself.

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The Goodness of Atheism

atheism.jpgI got one of those Nigerian email scams. I’d guess it was about number 50, or maybe it was 75.

I’ve been thinking for several days about two very different views of atheism. One is from the godder side, where atheists are consciously evil, and want to hurt people and destroy things. The other …

Well, read the email first.

DEAR BELOVED IN CHRIST,

Yeah, the whole thing is in capital letters. I’ll spare you by translating it into something less shouty. I’m leaving in the typographical errors and misspellings, but I’m fixing the weird line breaks and large number of extra spaces sprinkled throughout.

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Code Blue!!!!!!

I’m chuckling, but in a grim way.

codeblue.jpg

I get these emails from something called Worldview Weekend, a Christianist organization that sees a plot to murder God – and white people – in every shadow. I signed up in  a weak moment a year or so back, just to keep tabs on what they’re selling.

Some of the lines from this week’s plate of steaming neo-con Jesus (I confess I added all the exclamation marks, just because it seems funnier that way):

Liberals to Spend $1 Trillion And Can Not Say it Will Produce One Job!!!

Uh, hello? How many net jobs were created by the several trillion that Bush spent?

Distracting and Destroying the Middle Class, by Brannon Howse

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Atheism a la Meme

atheists1.jpgWay back in October, No More Mr. Nice Guy tagged me with a list of questions about atheism. I was busy at the time, and eventually forgot it. I just came across the link today, though, and with apologies to my fellow blogger, I reply today:

Can you remember the day that you officially became an atheist? Do you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?

Nope. It happened gradually. As early as 13, I wrote that I didn’t believe in God. My stepfather found it and gave me hell about it. But I must have had doubts about it even before then. I just didn’t see any evidence for the god hypothesis, and worse, everybody said different things about it. No matter how certain they seemed, nobody knew anything for sure.

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An Atheist’s Thanks Giving

Thanks to PZ Myers of Pharyngula, and all the great commenters tatheists.jpghere.

Thanks to Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, Terry Pratchett and Richard Dawkins. Thanks to Ray Bradbury, and Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey and Diane Duane, George Chesbro and Jim Butcher. Thanks to David Brin and Larry Niven. Thanks to Robert Service and Mark Twain. Thanks to Arthur C. Clarke, and to Chris Clarke.

And what the hell, thanks to Stan Lee, and Siegel and Shuster! Thanks to Bill Watterson, Berkely Breathed, and Walt Kelly.

Thanks to Mrs. Nicholas who took my friend Johnny and I to the library every Saturday when I was a kid. Thanks to Miss King, geometry teacher, who taught me that sometimes there really is only one right answer. Thanks to my “dad,” Dan Farris, for the years of tolerance, and to Lou and Mary Roeser, for the years in the saddle.

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Getting Nailed

nailed.jpg[Apologies to my readers. This is more than 1,700 words, but I couldn’t say it in less. Exploring a new thought, and linking it to things you already know, just takes time. And when you write it out, it’s … longish. But I do have a couple of ideas here that were “Ahas” for me, so if you have the time, I’d love to know what you think. — Hank the Interminable]

Say you did something you thought was good at the time, but later turned out to be bad. You could admit the mistake. Or you could refuse to admit it.

Any sensible person would probably say the first option was the best one. If you can admit a mistake, you can probably do something to fix it, or correct your course so you don’t do it again. And you can move on.

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