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Messages - Brotep

#766
I found this section the most thought-provoking:
QuoteBut if a religion is not strictly a matter of believing, what is it? Take note first of the irreconcilable differences between the historic religions. Although Islam and Christianity have been close neighbors for fourteen centuries, it is unthinkable that Muslims might occasionally mistake themselves for Christians. There is something in each tradition that definitively sets it off from the other. But what? It might seem reasonable at this point to consult Christians to learn what their religion is at its core, then turn to Muslims with the same request. After the first few inquiries, we would discover that there is little within Christianity and within Islam as to how the core of each faith is to be articulated. Indeed, this is such an open question that both traditions largely consist in the struggle over what it means to be a Muslim or a Christian. At the center of each, in other words, is a mystery they cannot fully comprehend; neither can they cease attempting to comprehend it. They may give this mystery the name "God" or "Brahman" or "Tao," but when we ask for more complete clarification, agreement among them scatters. How then can we say what the Christian religion is when Christians themselves have never been able to do so?

The difficulty in articulating the core of one's religion does not mean mystery is at the core.  How about religion as action rather than belief?  Something one does, generally as part of a community. 

It's a little weird to carve up different aspects of culture and say, "this is art here...music is over here...basic day-to-day living is here...and this is religion."  The mix and match approach, saying "we have the same culture but different religions" makes only partial sense.

A la Carse I can accept that the presence of a mystery is what makes something religious, but that mystery does not determine the nature of said religiosity.  So for example, belief in God (whatever that is) is religious but does not mean you must be a Muslim specifically.

Belief is a lot more important in Christianity than in Judaism or Islam, especially where the notion of salvation by faith alone comes into play.  You can be a good Jew or Muslim simply by following the commandments and traditions of your religion.
#767
Literate Chaotic / Re: The Invisibles, by Grant Morrison
December 18, 2008, 07:06:42 AM
Loved The Invisibles.

The ending is awesome.
#768
I read Breakfast of Champions first, really liked it.  Then Slaughterhouse Five, which I thought was okay but raised a lot of questions and issues.  Funnily enough, I then read Cat's Crade, which answered them.


And this...Is  my favorite quote.  Other than the Tralfamadorian story from BoC.
Quote from: BokononA parable on the folly of pretending to discover, to understand [ 3 ]

I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.

And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."

"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."

She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he can see what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].
#769
Or Kill Me / Re: No strings attached freedom
December 18, 2008, 06:56:39 AM
Quote from: You guys are fucking up my chi. on December 10, 2008, 04:25:56 PM
A fair amount has been written on memetics, but the "scientific types" don't entirely agree on what defines a meme, and some scientific types consider the idea dangerous pseudoscience, so I don't know that it's likely to be nailed down anytime soon.
Upon initial exposure I found memetics obnoxious and unscientific (not the same as pseudoscience necessarily).  Then people started calling shit on the Internet "memes" and it got more obnoxious.  Then I got over it.  And then, I found ten dollars.

Quote from: Ratatosk on December 10, 2008, 04:44:40 PM
Memetics, IMO, appears like a model
Agreed.  I'm in ur territories, Alfreding ur Korzybskis.


For me what it all comes down to is, memetics just isn't that useful a paradigm.  Yes, you should be cynical about ideas and consider what makes people hold onto them.  Yes,  you should consider the personal reasons you hold onto specific ideas.  But no, you don't need to think of it in terms of natural selection--what's the point?
#770
Principia Discussion / Re: Your Inch
December 18, 2008, 06:42:14 AM
Oh, it's not spam.  It's highly pertinent content that happens to be quoted and really freakin' long.
#771
Or Kill Me / Re: BITCH'S BREW
December 18, 2008, 06:37:58 AM
Two words for you, my friend:

Battlefield Baseball
#772
Or Kill Me / Re: On Being a Nobody
December 18, 2008, 06:29:28 AM
Quote from: Net on December 18, 2008, 06:11:32 AM
So many assumptions, so little time...

Wut u talkin about Willis?
#773
Principia Discussion / Re: Your Inch
December 18, 2008, 05:02:49 AM
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
   A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
   Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
   Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
   Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
   Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,   
When the evening is spread out against the sky   
Like a patient etherised upon a table;   
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,   
The muttering retreats           5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels   
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:   
Streets that follow like a tedious argument   
Of insidious intent   
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...           10
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"   
Let us go and make our visit.   

In the room the women come and go   
Talking of Michelangelo.   

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,           15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes   
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,   
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,   
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,   
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,           20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,   
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.   

And indeed there will be time   
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,   
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;           25
There will be time, there will be time   
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;   
There will be time to murder and create,   
And time for all the works and days of hands   
That lift and drop a question on your plate;           30
Time for you and time for me,   
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,   
And for a hundred visions and revisions,   
Before the taking of a toast and tea.   

In the room the women come and go           35
Talking of Michelangelo.   

And indeed there will be time   
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"   
Time to turn back and descend the stair,   
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—           40
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]   
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,   
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—   
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]   
Do I dare           45
Disturb the universe?   
In a minute there is time   
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.   

For I have known them all already, known them all:—   
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,           50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;   
I know the voices dying with a dying fall   
Beneath the music from a farther room.   
  So how should I presume?   

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—           55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,   
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,   
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,   
Then how should I begin   
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?           60
  And how should I presume?   

And I have known the arms already, known them all—   
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare   
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]   
It is perfume from a dress           65
That makes me so digress?   
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.   
  And should I then presume?   
  And how should I begin?
      .      .      .      .      .   
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets           70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes   
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?...   

I should have been a pair of ragged claws   
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
      .      .      .      .      .   
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!           75
Smoothed by long fingers,   
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,   
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.   
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,   
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?           80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,   
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,   
I am no prophet—and here's no great matter;   
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,   
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,           85
And in short, I was afraid.   

And would it have been worth it, after all,   
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,   
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,   
Would it have been worth while,           90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,   
To have squeezed the universe into a ball   
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,   
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,   
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—           95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,   
  Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.   
  That is not it, at all."   

And would it have been worth it, after all,   
Would it have been worth while,           100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,   
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—   
And this, and so much more?—   
It is impossible to say just what I mean!   
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:           105
Would it have been worth while   
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,   
And turning toward the window, should say:   
  "That is not it at all,   
  That is not what I meant, at all."
      .      .      .      .      .           110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;   
Am an attendant lord, one that will do   
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,   
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,   
Deferential, glad to be of use,           115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;   
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;   
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—   
Almost, at times, the Fool.   

I grow old ... I grow old ...           120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.   

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?   
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.   
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.   

I do not think that they will sing to me.           125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves   
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back   
When the wind blows the water white and black.   

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea   
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown           130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
#774
Or Kill Me / Re: On Being a Nobody
December 18, 2008, 04:03:49 AM
#775
Principia Discussion / Re: Your Inch
December 18, 2008, 03:48:34 AM

I remember when I met Carl Martin,
It must have been a dozen years ago.

This wise old gent was gray and bent,
But his eyes had a fiery glow.

He was born April Fools Day, 1906,
Near Big Stone Gap, VA.

He could play a little fiddle and some blues guitar
That he'd picked up along the way.

But once he put his hands on a mandolin,
He lit up just like a Christmas tree.

Along with Ted Bogan and Howard Armstrong
They were the best string band you ever did see.

For fifty odd years they played rent parties,
Road houses, concerts and festivals too.

At the drop of a hat these three black cats
Would play ya every song they knew.

It was 'Lady Be Good' and 'The Barnyard Dance"
And "The Ice Cream Freezer Blues".

They'd trot the oldest chestnuts out
And make every one sound brand new.

And little white boys with their shiny guitars,
Would follow right along at their heels.

They learned the words and they learned the chords
But they never did learn how it feels.


One day I asked Carl where he got the fire.
He said, 'Steve, you've got to understand,

You want to be someone, you'd better have some fun,
So you better get it while you can.'

(CHORUS)

You better get it while you can,
You better get it while you can.

If you wait too long, it'll all be gone
And you'll be sorry then.

It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor,
It's the same for a woman or a man.

From the cradle to the crypt
It's a mighty short trip,

So you better get it while you can.


Now Carl always had a way to make the good times roll
When the rest of us weren't so sure.

He'd just pick out the prettiest woman in the room
And sing every song to her.

One night back East when the gig was done
There was an all night blow-out jam.

We played and we sang and we drank for hours,
Until the sun came up again.

It was blues and ballads, Ragtime, Dixieland, Swing,
Some old time show tunes.

And Carl Martin sang some songs nobody else knew
And some I haven't heard since then.

Right before dawn he did two more songs
Just to separate the strong from the faint.

It was a red-hot rendition of "The Old Pine Tree"
And a double-time version of 'The Saints'.  (with the mandolin behind his head)

When he was done, those of us who could still breathe
Took off our hats to that man.

Carl played everybody under the table that night
And he said, 'You better get it while you can'.


(REPEAT CHORUS)


You know Carl and his buddies never got too far,
When he died Martin didn't have a dime.

He was a little behind on his payments
And a little bit ahead of his time.

Last week a group of us so-called musicians
Sat up real late and burned one down.

The liquor kept coming and we kept strumming
Till a minute or two before dawn.

There were some who stayed and some who faded,
Till soon I was left all alone.

I don't believe in ghosts - but I could swear
I heard Carl Martin sing one more song.

(REPEAT CHORUS)
#777
Or Kill Me / Re: On Being a Nobody
December 18, 2008, 03:11:59 AM
Quote from: Iptuous on December 18, 2008, 03:09:55 AM
I havent seen the second one....
just evil dead and bruce campbell vs. army of darkness...

The biggest Bruce Campbell fan I know says two is the best.  I like three better, but two is way better than one.  Why?  Trees.
#778
Or Kill Me / Re: On Being a Nobody
December 18, 2008, 03:04:32 AM
Quote from: IptuousDude, you know he's got a memoir out now titled that . (not the china part, though)
Yep, and another called Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way.  Have you seen the Evil Dead trilogy?

QuoteOk. so i read the whole Aini blak raep thread, and am enlightened.....
i guess.... :/
That makes one of us.
#779
Or Kill Me / Re: On Being a Nobody
December 18, 2008, 02:37:13 AM
Quote from: Iptuous on December 18, 2008, 02:26:47 AM
man....if chins could kill!.....
Then China would have conquered the world already.

Quote
Hey.
i didn't know the Bearenstein Bears were black! i thought they were Jooish....
Blackj00s
#780
Or Kill Me / Re: Belief and conviction - a n00b question
December 18, 2008, 02:13:48 AM
There is no such right, and no such prohibition.

"IMO" is implicit.