RANDOM THOUGHTS

robot flowers.....Went to a pricey department store one day and discovered robot flowers. (Most people call them bottles of cologne or perfume.) Just like biological blossoms, these flowers of metal and glass repose in silent beauty to fill our lives with fragrance. In fact, robot flowers carry more scent than natural flowers, and never wilt.

Robot flowers don't look like their natural counterparts, but manufacturing robots don't look like assembly workers either. It is the function of the robot flower that demonstrates how Man can improve upon Nature.

free will.....How can people debate the existence of free will when no one knows what free will is? Since when has anyone coherently explicated this concept?

If free will means that our choices are not determined by prior causes, how can we make sense of the idea that choices can be prompted by certain factors, like my choice to get out of the rain, or move out of a dangerous neighborhood?

If free will means that our choices are indeterminate, how do we explain our intuition that other indeterminate natural phenomena do not possess free will?

(Consider the likelihood that a single atom will undergo radioactive decay. Consider the exact trajectory of a single gas molecule. Sorry, folks, you can't predict those things.)

If free will merely means that we could have acted differently in a given situation, why not impute free will to everything in our universe, which current physics tells us may be one of many universes in which all alternative events are realized?

The philosophical and theological sense of "free will" is not only vague; it's useless too. We don't need this ghost of a concept to understand that people's brains can generate alternative scenarios; conceive of them as occurring in the past, present, or future; and select a scenario or two to use as a basis for action. Are the processes involved in this kind of thinking determinate or indeterminate? Does the phrase "free will" have a meaning after all? These are questions for physics or metaphysics; they have no everyday ramifications in my opinion.

Yes, better minds than mine think that question of free will is crucial to ethics too, but I don't see why. (Don't laugh yet.)

If determinism is true, and we are helpless to prevent our own misdeeds, aren't other human beings equally helpless to stop themselves from calling us responsible?

Consider the plight of the deterministic police officer. Maybe deep down, a tender facet of the officer's psyche wants to hug the sex-murderer he has just arrested. Maybe the officer wants to shout "All is forgiven! Sin no more, and let us run together naked and innocent through sunny fields of flowers!"

But does the officer do these things? No! His upbringing in a family with good parents, his constant exposure law-abiding peers, and his indoctrination at the hands of a crime-weary society have forced him to a different course of action that he cannot even consciously question! Deterministically driven, he handcuffs the sex-murderer, and puts that villain in jail!

The idea that determinism is relevant to morals or law involves an unforgivable inconsistency: the notion that, while wrong-doers and criminals can't be held responsible for their actions, society-in-general and the criminal justice system can. For are we not called upon to consider the alternative choices to traditional punishments when confronted with the idea that wrong-doers can't help themselves?

Holding people responsible for their behavior is a universal human tendency. A person acts one way, we praise. A person acts another way, we blame. As a practical matter, the advantages of this behavior pattern outweigh the disadvantages.

Who knows when or if this behavior pattern will become outmoded? If it does, the change won't be due to the collapse of some airy-fairy nebulous notion of free-will.

gold and god.....

From the Opium War to the conquest of the Incas to all the blood shed over land, oil, and every other source of wealth--oh, the atrocities committed in the name of gold.

Does this mean that gold is responsible for centuries of murder?

Does everyone who longs for gold inherit the blame?

Is gold no earthly use to anyone? Is there no one who could look to gold for genuine help or comfort?

And isn't it absurd to ask how gold could exist in a world where people who seek gold do so many vicious things?

From the Inquisition to the Witch Mania to all the blood shed over doctrines, denominations, and every other source of religion--oh, the atrocities committed in the name of God.

Does this mean that God is responsible for centuries of murder?

Does everyone who longs for God inherit the blame?

Is God no earthly use to anyone? Is there no one who could look to God for genuine help or comfort?

And isn't it absurd to ask how God could exist in a world where people who seek God do so many vicious things?

materialism.....If three goons in trench coats pushed me into an elevator and demanded to know my metaphysical orientation, I would have to call myself a rationalist. I could call myself a materialist, but I have never been comfortable with this term. My discomfort has nothing to do with any belief in disembodied spirits or non-physical beings. No, the reason the term "materialist" irks me is that the term "material" doesn't really mean very much.

If "materialism" is defined as the belief that the constituents of reality fall into one ontological category, namely "matter," then it may be too monistic to be compatible with the physical sciences. After all, there are many fundamental particles, and at least three forces (gravity, electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces). But, the quest for a Unified Field Theory notwithstanding, the sciences have yet to reveal a single ur-substance called "matter." To say that the various particles and forces are all the same type of thing, namely "material," begs the question of what all these particles and forces have in common.

What they have in common, I believe, has nothing to do with their intrinsic properties, but rather, how much we know about them. "Material" and "immaterial" do not mean "known" and "unknown," but historically, their application has corresponded, respectively, to things that we understand empirically and things we hardly understand. In ancient times, the universe was explained in supernatural terms: a plethora of gods explained everything from weather to disease to sunshine. As we came to understand more about our surroundings, lo and behold, the land became "material." The stars in the heavens and the animation of living bodies remained supernatural for a while. But thanks to people like Galileo and Newton, the planets and stars became "material." Even up to the nineteenth century, the processes that kept organisms alive were "supernatural" or at least imbued with a "vital spark." Now that we understand proteins and DNA, life is presumed to be "material." "Material" vs. "immaterial," "physical" vs. "non-physical," and "natural" vs. "supernatural" are unwittingly epistemic terms.

Admittedly, supernaturalist doctrine complicates the picture. Though the term "supernatural" has historically been applied to poorly understood phenomena, the believer in the supernatural is not an agnostic, but one who pretends to know all sorts of interesting things about the unknown. The creativity that this pretense requires has given us a baroque world literature of superstitions from heavens to hells to gods-on-Earth. A frequent theme among all of these beliefs is action caused by unmediated will. In magic and in many religions, things happen because certain beings will them to.

No known natural phenomenon is caused by unmediated will; even biofeedback is theoretically mediated by nerves or hormones. So for the time being, we have a convenient way of distinguishing alleged supernatural phenomena from natural ones. But what positive property makes a phenomenon "natural," "material," or "physical"? In my opinion, none.

It's how we come to claim knowledge of reality--trust in common sense, observation, and their mathematically gifted children, the sciences--that distinguishes rationalists from believers. That's why I prefer to call myself a rationalist rather than a materialist.

humility.....Humility is not a mirage; humble people really do exist. Maybe you've met a humble person once or twice in your life. A relative who who never makes anyone feel inferior. A friend who listens better than anyone else. A neighbor who says "please," "thank you," and "excuse me" to everyone from bankers to small children to skid row bums. A boss who isn't afraid to apologize to the lowliest subordinate. A mensch who sees something miraculous and worthwhile in every other human being no matter how small or broken.

Yes, humility is real, but it can't be taught. Why? Because people who set themselves up as teachers of humility are, to a man and woman, devoid of this virtue. Who could even state the intention to teach humility without proving himself an arrogant ass? "Hi, my name is Fred. Your ego is inflated, but under my guidance, you'll learn to understand what an insignificant boob you really are."

Even if the listener is an insignificant boob with an inflated ego, how humble could Fred possibly be? What could be more conceited than Fred's belief that his put-down will improve his listener's character?

If Fred is going to get away with being the great teacher of humility, he can't state his mission explicitly. He has to be subtle. He has to establish false credentials as a master of humility by cultivating an image that gullible people associate with that virtue. He could adopt the farmer's or the laborer's "more meat-and-potatoes-than-thou" taste, dress, and mannerisms; who could possibly be humbler than the salt of the earth?

Religious posturing accomplishes the same goal. If a scoundrel constantly humbles himself before God, gullible people will overlook the fact that he never humbles himself before anyone else.

Once such false credentials are established, Fred is free to spread the gospel of humility to his unwitting and unwilling students. He can tell endless jokes at their expense just to "bring them down a peg," and call them too arrogant to take a joke of they object. He can scoff at their every stated ambition, and call them conceited if they object. He can angrily shout down their attempts to assert their own wants and desires, and call them egotistical if they object. In short, Fred, the Great Avatar of Humility, can spend his days treating all the vain people in the world as his inferiors.

What results can we expect if we try to teach humility? The usual result is a vain person who hates the teacher. However, some students of humility really do lose their vanity, and gain a sense of insecurity that allows them to face the world with all the confidence of a laboratory monkey freshly strapped to the dissecting table. Other successful students of humility go from being vainglorious boobs to obsequious boobs, yes-men, suck-ups, and slaves. Still other good students of the humble life become aw-shucks-just-plain-folks who punctuate their every spoken paragraph with some gratuitously self-deprecating remark--as if that's going to stop them from deprecating everyone else too.

Worst of all, some students of humility become erstwhile teachers of humility themselves, perpetuating a false and toxic sense of virtue.

No, humility can't be taught. It's something that grows spontaneously in the hearts of sweet-tempered souls who like people in general. After all, if you liked everybody, who would you talk down to? And who wouldn't you be willing to serve, however humbly?

At most, humility can be encouraged, possibly by persuading people to appeciate the interesting qualities in all human beings. In the English classes we take in school, we are taught to appreciate fictional characters. We don't despise Falstaff's cowardice and bluster, or Ahab's obsession, or Raskolnikov's homicidal neurosis; the characters are too fascinating. Who could teach us to see real human beings in the same broad-minded light? Couldn't children be taught to appreciate life's real characters--great or lowly, strong or weak, bright or slow, happy or haunted, plain or handsome, fringe or mainstream, familiar or foreign, young or old? Maybe that would encourage humility.

bald man!!!!.....When his plane crashed in the high mountains of Nepal, Trey Dome was rescued from a frozen death by a secret society of martial artists, who taught him to use his baldness as a weapon for justice! Now, evildoers everywhere cower under the glare of Bald Man!!!!

[page 14, panel 1]....Four members of Dangerous Dirk's Beserker Gang burst from the doors of Everest Security Bank. But as they heave their loot into the trunk of their getaway car, a caped figure moves to intercede.

(Bald Man)..."Thought this was bank-robbing season, did you? Not today, vermin! Surrender, or face the consequences!"

[page 14, panel 2]....Drawing their firearms, the Beserker Gang prepares to strike!

(Thug One)..."Try facing these consequences, Bald Man!"

[page 14, panel 3]....But before the fiends can pull the fateful triggers, Bald Man assumes a Level Two Jeet Bal Do stance, positioning his head at a microscopically exact angle with respect to the sun! Dropping their firearms, their hands rushing to protect their eyes, the erstewhile assassins fall to their knees as they cry out in turn...

(Thugs)..."Oh, God, we're blinded!" "The light! Get it away!" "We surrender, Bald Man! We'll do anything you say!"

(Bald Man)..."Very well. I say turn yourselves in to the nearest jail!"

[page 14, panel 4]...Behind our hero, evil makes its next move!

(Dangerous Dirk)..."And I say you're one dead cue ball, Bald Jerk! Say hello to my flame thrower. Say hello to Hell!"

(Bald Man--thought balloon)...(Only a million to one chance to save myself! But I've got to risk it!)

[page 15, panel 1]...Furrowing his optically smooth brow, the Glabrous Gladiator makes a supreme effort to gather the ambient light and focus its power like a laser beam!!

[page 15, panel 2]...In a heartbeat, the light of justice strikes, and Dangerous Dirk meets the flames of destiny!

(SOUND EFFECTS: bzzzzt! KA-FUUUUNNGGG!)

[page 15, panel 3]...Now a weary crime fighter can only hang his head at the tragedy. An officer of the law comforts him.

(Bald Man)..."If only Dirk had made his life an instrument of good! If only I could have somehow...done something..."

(Police Officer)..."We saw the whole thing. It was him or you. Anyway, the Beserker Gang won't be threatening any more innocent civilians. Nice work, Bald Man."

[page 15, panel 4]...As Bald Man disappears into one of many secret tunnels that honeycomb the city...

(Bald Man--thought balloon)...(Nice work? My work can never be finished. For as long as evil men and women threaten the good and decent people of the city, there must always be...Bald Man!!!!)

architecture.....When little kids see a long hallway or a large room, they see a perfect place to run around. When they see a short stairway with railings on both sides, they see a perfect place to jump and vault. When they see part of a wall painted in a light hue, they see a perfect place to draw stick figures and stick houses in crayon or permanent marker. When they see a linen closet or the floor beneath a big dining room table, they see a perfect place to hide.

All this goes to show that, for little children, function follows form when it comes to architecture.

Space-Age Memories....I was born in 1957, the year that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, which scared the bejesus out of the American government and spawned a race to the moon and a push for better science education.

1.....Fuzzy black-and-white TV image of Neil Armstrong climbing down the LEM ladder onto the lunar surface, with caption "Live, from the Moon." Uninterrupted on all three networks.

2.....Toy astronaut helmets as Christmas gifts for tots. (I have a very fuzzy memory of having one as a tot in New Jersey. The shell was white; the visor was dark green.)

3.....Astronomy-oriented kindergarten nap-time songs. (Way back in Mrs. Pfaffle's kindergarten class, I heard one about how the sun is too hot to live on, but that without the sun there would be no you or me.)

4.....A kids' book, found among other kids' books like "Go Dog Go" and "The Cat in the Hat," called "You Will Go to the Moon." The lunar surface in the book was yellow. I forget whether or not the red space ships were single-stage 50’s sci-fi jobs.

5....."Space Food Sticks," chewy sticks of food that came in peanut butter and other flavors. Designed for use by astronauts!

6....."Tang" advertisements reminding us that astronauts used this drink.

7..... Man-Lands-on-the-Moon tie tacks and other accessories.

8.....People getting bored with post-Apollo-11 moon landings; political lefties decrying billions spent to collect a few moon rocks when those billions could have funded social programs.

(For some reason, I don't remember much about the post-Apollo 11 missions; the Apollo 13 emergency passed me by. I learned more about it from Ron Howard’s movie than I did from the contemporary issues of Life Magazine.)

9.....Astronauts in a quarantine unit that looked a little like an Airstream trailer. That was after a post Apollo-11 moon landing (maybe more than one?) when concerns about the possibility of lunar germs prompted the quarantine.

10.....The Matthew Looney series, including "Matthew Looney's Voyage to the Earth," "Mathew Looney's Invasion of the Earth," and "Matthew Looney in the Outback." These first three are the best. Extremely clever and funny children’s books about Moonsters (indigenous people of the Moon) and their journeys to the exotic satellite, Earth.

11.....1964 World's Fair: A family car of the future, long as a limo, fire engine red with long, long fins. Forget whether it had glass dome instead of conventional roof & windows.

12.....1964 World's Fair: A "Fun Machine," a sort of monkey bar in a metal & transparent-stuff cube with ladders and tunnels and ropey things hanging from above. Fun for little kids like me to crawl through. Fun as a vending machine commodity?

13.....1964 World’s Fair: "The City of Tomorrow" part of a ride that began with a cool dinosaur diorama, had a bunch of stuff in between that I've forgotten all about, and culminated in "The City of Tomorrow," a panoramic night-time view of a city-cum-light-show.

14.....1964 World's Fair: I saw the Unisphere! It was big and metallic. (That pretty much exhausts my memories of the '64 World's Fair.)

15.....Our family saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" when it first came out. We saw it at the Cinerama in Seattle. I was struck by the fact that the bone-tool of the ape-men and later HAL 9000 the computer were both weapons. Didn't get the ending.

16.....All imaginary space stations were big doughnuts. Skylab was a big disappointment. Skylab burning up in the atmosphere was an even bigger disappointment. The space station Mir drove a stake through all my dreams of mega-doughnuts in the sky.

17.....Splashdowns, live and uninterrupted on all three networks.

18.....A non-fiction TV series called "The 21st Century." Early '70's. Short, tinny, and robotic-sounding synthesizer theme song. I forget what the gee-whiz predictions were. Wasn't that on National Educational Television?

19......Film version of "Future Shock" that I saw at the University Congregational Church. Early in the picture, we see a shot of someone walking in the forest, approaching the viewer. As the figure walks out of the shadows, we see its robotic face. An earnest narrator asks the viewers "in the future, will we be able to tell whether a store clerk is human or a robot?" or words to that effect. The book was a different thing altogether.

20.....Brazenly artificial food was perfectly okay. Snow-white low fiber bread with no holes was considered healthy. Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, and Ho-Ho’s did nothing more sinister than spoil a kid’s appetite. Sci-fi writers and futurists predicted artificial nourishment that would supercede bulky natural food. (This was before the wheat-berry bread backlash of the '70's, and the "every kind of bread you can possibly imagine" Harry's Market mentality that came afterwards.)

21.....People still believed that aliens might be humanoid. One popular science book, whose name and author escape me, argued that extraterrestrial people would resemble us for the same general reason that placental wolves and marsupial wolves/tigers resemble each other---form follows function. As you probably know (hey, the net people should abbreviate that AYPK) few people buy that argument these days.

22.....One children's non-fiction book, "Automobiles of the Future," featured a picture of a model of a car called the "Nucleon." A nuclear reactor would power this future car, so it would never need re-fueling in its lifetime. I don't recall any material about what would happen if an atomic-powered car got in a wreck.

23.....Time/Life books were about the sciences. Insects. Mathematics. A far cry from the series on alleged paranormal phenomena that Time/Life sold years later.

24.....Most ultra-modern domestic design was realized in cheap plastic. I once owned a doughnut-shaped blue transistor radio. It became garbage in what must have been under a year.

25.....Women were often referred to as "girls." The word "men" could still be used generically to refer to people. TV comedies like "Love American Style" and "Here Come the Brides" made people laugh, not vomit.

26.....Personal helicopters, household robots, colonies on the moon, mainframes that could think like human beings, and technologies that would make Earth a paradise all seemed possible.

science fiction....Attention, would-be science fiction writers! Here are three ways to make your science fiction novel a surefire best seller!

First, make sure that about ten percent of the words in your novel are taken from an imaginary jargon. Your novel should have a glossary in back to tell the reader what your new words mean.

Second, chuck characterization. Write about archetypes, like the King, the Queen, the Wise Old Crone, the Madonna, and the Conquering Messiah.

Third, set your novel in a future so remote that it couldn't possibly have any relevance to readers in the here and now.

This plan would be a real money-maker if Frank Herbert hadn't thought of it first. Seriously, why do the "Dune" novels sell so well? Even with the war and the intrigue and the giant sandworms, you'd think that the jargon alone would turn most readers off.

But the operative phrase here is "most readers." Science fiction readers are, by and large, a group distinct from the readers of most bestsellers. Sci-fi readers are distinct demographically. Most best-selling authors write to an audience with a female majority. The sci-fi readership is predominantly young and male. More importantly, sci-fi readers bring a different set of expectations to their favorite books than the readers of most bestsellers do.

For the readers of most bestsellers, the characters and settings in the book exist to drive the plot. Characters must be drawn well enough to keep the reader interested in what happens to them. Settings must be vivid enough to transport the reader to the scenes of many conflicts. But, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the plot is the thing.

For science fiction readers, the characters, plot, and setting in the novel exist to reveal author inventions, the more novel, the better. Good characterization remains a plus. The plot must be good enough to keep the reader turning pages. But invention is often the point of science fiction novels. I would add that this invention is often invention for the sake of it-for the sheer fun of it.

That's why the jargon in the "Dune" books doesn't necessarily put sci-fi readers off. In fact, it promises the reader a trip to a neverland so exotic, so inventively imagined, that dozens of new words must be coined to describe it.

Even so, how can a book like "Chapterhouse Dune" make it to the Costco bestseller stacks? IMO, because the audience for science fiction and fantasy has either expanded or become a more visible market in recent years. For this we can thank the development of movie special effects that make it easier to bring science fiction convincingly to the screen, and more importantly, the increasing popularity of role-playing games and computer games.

For the role-playing and computer game fans, learning jargon and mastering background information are crucial to their games, which get much of their inspiration from science fiction and fantasy.

It's no surprise that the world of computer gaming gives us so much science fiction. A lot of scientists and computer programmers were inspired to enter their fields by reading science fiction, or, more generally, being part of a cultural axis, a set of overlapping fan-bases and subcultures, that includes comic-book fans, science fiction fans, gamers, and budding computer experts. The members of this axis are more interested in creating private worlds than in depicting the reality we share, and more focused on the mind than on the heart.

abortion....Is abortion okay? I don't think that medical science supports or refutes either answer to this question. The development of a human organism, from fertilized egg to viable baby, is continuous, and provides no obvious clear-cut line of demarcation between pre-person and person. "Person" is a philosophical, religious, legal, and moral concept, not a biological one.

IMO, religion has helped individuals decide whether to condone or condemn abortion. However, religion does not provide compelling reasons for widespread agreement on this issue. Among Christians, judgments on the morality of abortion depend on differing interpretations of the Bible, and vary across denominations.

IMO, secular philosophy has been equally un-helpful. One secular definition of "person" that I have encountered is "a being that can conceive of and has concerns about the future." This particular definition excludes from personhood almost anyone under three! And how long a future are we talking about anyway?

To the extent that arguments about the morality and legal status of abortion hinge on whether or at what point a fetus is a person, I can't foresee an end to the debate. However, the debate will go on anyway, and with this in mind, I offer the following observations.

a....We should be careful to distinguish two issues: Is abortion moral? Should abortion be legal? It's high time that people recognize that these are separate issues. Though the law is often inspired by moral maxims that enjoy widespread support (e.g. murder is wrong), the laws enforced by conscience and community are still distinct from the laws enforced by the criminal justice system. This is particularly true when...

i) the population can't agree about whether a certain act is wrong, and

ii) the consequences of legally enforcing a prohibition of a certain act might cause more suffering and oppression than the prevalence of the act itself.

b....In connection with the abortion issue, we should ask "What moral relationship does a woman have to organisms--human or otherwise--that have to reside in her body in order to live?" Is a woman sovereign from the skin down, having the power of life and death over any organism--human or otherwise--that depends on her body for life? Can a woman be morally or legally obligated to use her body as a life-support system for someone or something else--even if she is partly responsible for creating the life in question?

c....I am satisfied that a legal system that can't compel a woman to donate bone marrow to preserve her daughter's life should not be able to compel a woman to face all of the risks of pregnancy to preserve the life growing inside her.

d....I am also satisfied that the point at which a fetus is recognized as a person will always vary from sect to sect; that any state declaration that life begins at conception would represent the imposition of sectarian views on the public; and that therefore the question of when and whether the dependent fetus is a person should be decided by the mother, not the state.

e....When the fetus reaches an age when it can live outside the mother's body, and can be removed from the mother's body without being killed, then the state can claim an legitimate interest in preserving its life.

f....This means that the morality of abortion may change when we have a widespread, practical means of bringing human life from conception to birth outside the mother's body. An artificial womb would raise the question "Why kill it when you can park it?" But there aren't any artificial wombs yet, so let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

atheological arguments....For those who came in late, an atheological argument is an attempt to demonstrate that the concept of God is incoherent. For example, one argument runs that God cannot be immutable and the creator of the universe. The former entails changelessness; the latter entails a change from the God who meant to create the universe to the God who did so. Then there's the argument about how a loving god could never permit the suffering we experience in the world he supposedly created.

Atheists often use atheological arguments to bolster their positions: after all, how can we say that something exists if the very concept of that something doesn’t make sense?

The trouble with atheological arguments is that they address concepts without addressing the possible reality of things that believers may merely misconceive.

If there was a time before God willed the Creation, and a time after, then God cannot be atemporal. Does this mean that there is no God, or that God is must be temporal being?

If the concept of a bodiless agent is incoherent, does this mean that there can be no God, or that God has some kind of substance?

If it doesn't quite make sense that God knows everything and yet thinks and draws conclusions, does this mean that there can be no God or does it mean that God might not be omniscient?

If a loving god could not make his creatures suffer, does this mean that God does not exist or does it mean that God's love is not like human love?

If three cannot equal one, does that mean that the Christian God does not exist or that trinitarians are simply wrong about God?

It's easy to prove the biological impossibility of mermaids, but that doesn't disprove the existence of manatees. It's easy to point out the absurdities in most dogmatic conceptions of God, but that doesn't mean that something invisible, conscious, and supremely wise and powerful can't exist.

These remarks aren't intended solely for atheists; they are also addressed to theists who refuse to alter their conceptions of God even when those conceptions don't make sense.

creationism....

If creationism is true, then someone deliberately made us physically and genetically related to chimps. Getting rid of evolution doesn't change the facts of comparative anatomy or genetics that the theory explains.

If creationism is true, we come, not from animals, but from dust! Well, okay, men come from dust: women are just spare-ribs.

If we really did descend from Adam and Eve, then all of us are the products of brother-sister incest among their children. How could this not be if we take the Bible literally?

Creationists can boldly face the idea that God made us from dust, spare-ribs, and incest with the hope of making us look and act as if we were related to chimps. This is the doctrine that preserves human dignity; this is the creed that gives us comfort.

Personally, I would rather be comforted by the belief that evolution, which has given us dangerous childbirth, monkey-heritage, and a food tube that crosses the airway, was not done to us on purpose.

miracles....According to some believers, any event that is both improbable and good must be a miracle. A child survives a plane crash that killed everyone else on the plane: it’s a miracle! A junkie kicks a 20-year habit: it’s a miracle! A cancer inexplicably goes into remission: it’s a miracle!

It really is too bad that believers use events like these to defend their faith.

In the first place, this defense reflects a naivet頡bout numbers. Suppose we define miracles as beneficial events so improbable that the odds are a million to one against their happening to any particular person in any given year. Here in the USA, whose current population is about three-hundred million, that’s maybe three-hundred miracles a year on average nation-wide. What’s so supernatural about that?

In the second place, the miracles just mentioned wouldn’t seem so miraculous to the families of people who did not survive the plane crash, the families of junkies who have died by the needle, and all the cancer victims who have lost their battles with malignancies. Did these people lack sufficient faith in God? Did God ignore their prayers? Was their suffering part of God’s plan? Most importantly, what psychopath would burden the victims and survivors with these questions?

Anyway, there are other kinds of miracles, namely things that just can’t happen, not only according to the sciences, but according to thousands of years of accumulated common sense. Corpses raised from the dead after days in a tomb! Water changing to wine! Seas parting on command! Atheists’ reasons for disbelieving these tales are just as good as Christians’ reasons for disbelieving every one else’s miracle stories except their own.

But let’s suppose that things really do happen that defy any rational explanation whatsoever. Let’s say that corpses do rise now and then, that staffs turn to serpents when we aren’t looking, etc. etc. etc. A lot of people think that such miracles would vindicate religion if they were documented.

But there is no reason to think of Biblical narratives as default explanations for everything that we moderns don't understand.

It is beyond any reasonable doubt that we moderns know far more about the material world than the ancients did. If the ancients could not explain things that we do understand; such as where rain comes from and the order in which light, land, and water came to be; why should we believe that the ancients had a clue about things that even we moderns don't understand?

first cause argument.... One of St. Aquinas’s formulations of the first cause argument for the existence of God goes something like this.

There are two possible kinds of beings, necessary and contingent, i.e. things that must exist by their very nature, and things whose existence is contingent one some cause.

The existence of contingent beings is evident. Everything in the observable universe seems to arise from some antecedent cause.

However, there cannot be an infinite regression of causes.

So, there must be a necessary being that constituted the first cause of all the contingent ones, and this necessary being we understand to be God.

This argument still has some big flaws, IMO.

1. There is no reason to believe that "necessary" beings that are eternal and contingent beings exhaust all the logically possible types of being. One does not contradict oneself by imagining a first event that did not have a cause but was finite in duration.

2. Though necessary beings are eternal by Aquinas's definition, the argument still does not give anyone reason to believe that the first cause is conscious, intelligent, infinite, all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, or otherwise anything else like God. What is more, the argument does not imply--even to the slightest degree--a deliberate act of creation on the part of the First Cause, which act is a central tenet of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

3. What is more, the argument does nothing to eliminate the possibility that the universe as a whole is a necessary being even if all of its constituents are chains of contingency. Parts and wholes resemble each other only contingently, not by logical necessity. Recall that, as far as any physicist can tell, mass is conserved. Though features of the universe may come and go, the stuff that the whole universe is made of can neither be created nor destroyed.

Incidentally, the premise that there cannot be an infinite regression of causes is false. Aquinas would have known that if transfinite arithmetic had been invented in his time. But this point is academic, because current scientific evidence suggests that time had a beginning.

But the fact that time had a beginning does not imply a creator. In fact, one could argue that the universe could not have had a creator, since the transition from God's intention to create to the fact of creation implies a temporal sequence, which is not logically possible before the beginning of time.

A theist could reply that the creation of the universe took place in a larger realm of absolute spacetime entailed by God's existence, but this is an ad hoc hypothesis--no independent considerations support it.

knowledge through religion....For most of history, people have used mythologies, including religious doctrines, to account for material phenomena. With the development of empirical sciences, the track record of these mythological accounts has been proven to be abysmal. The world wasn't created in six days, rain doesn't fall from holes in the firmament, the sun doesn't orbit the Earth, and although scientists debate details about how life evolved, no publishing biologist working as a biologist at any accredited university doubts that life evolved.

Maybe knowledge through religion is restricted to knowledge about gods, avatars, angels, demons, spirits, afterlives, etc. It should be obvious that knowledge through religion, if there is such a thing, could not be empirical. There is not one shred of empirical evidence that gods, avatars, angels, demons, spirits, or afterlives exist.

In fact, I haven't heard a good explanation of what would constitute evidence for the existence of the god of Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammed.

Suppose, for example, that Jesus did rise from the dead. Currently, our sciences could not explain that. But does this mean that religion is the default explanation?

To put the question another way: if religious doctrines are lousy ways to explain stuff we do understand (e.g. how the species came to be), why would they all-of-a-sudden be good ways to explain things that even modern scientists can't understand?

If the Resurrection were a proven fact, the biblical explanation, that Jesus was the Son of God, would still be just as mythological as the biblical explanation of rain, which supposedly leaked through holes in the firmament above us.

So is there such a thing as knowledge through religion? I think that depends on what we count as knowledge. For instance, when we interpret the meaning of a book, to posit such things as author intention, unconscious author motivation, etc, are we generating knowledge about the book?

I'm not sure.

But I am sure that, if we can interpret the meaning of books, there is no law that says that we can't also interpret the meaning of existence (life as we experience it) or the universe (the reality that the sciences attempt to describe).

If our experience suggests that life has a purpose, it makes perfectly rational sense IMO to posit a being whose purposes reality serves. Such a person makes the notion of a purpose for reality intelligible. Hence theism.

I'm not a theist myself, because my experience has not suggested that reality has a purpose. But I think that theism can be rational for the reasons just given.

However, religions go wrong when they make absolute truth claims. Just as there can be myriads of defensible but mutually incompatible interpretations of a book, so religions--which shed light on the meaning of existence--can vary.

Besides, absolute truth claims about God, in all his unprovable glory, are irreverent, since those who hold them presume to comprehend the infinite and transcendent with their tiny finite immanent minds. To say nothing of people who presume to speak for God, who are arrogant at best, and monstrous at worst.

Also, religions, Christianity in particular, founder on their absurd empirical claims. For instance....

We can't disprove the notion that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead: no one brought a camcorder to the alleged event.

But disproof is not the only good reason for disbelief. We can reasonably reject the Lazarus scenario for two reasons that don't mean much by themselves, but mean a lot together.

1st: No one has found empirical evidence that Lazarus rose from the dead. This does not mean much by itself. No one has found empirical evidence that one of my thirteenth century ancestors liked to play games of chance, but it would be foolish to pronounce that statement impossible on that account.

2nd: No one has found any evidence that bodies can rise from the dead. This does not mean much by itself either. No one has found empirical evidence that there are particles that move faster than light, but tachyons could be discovered next year for all we know.

Both: But if there's no empirical evidence that bodies have risen from the dead, and no empirical evidence that bodies can do that, these two considerations together make the Lazarus account worthy of disbelief.

That doesn't mean that my disbelief comes with absolute metaphysical certitude. But since blind allegiance to a mindless dogma is the only human activity that requires such certitude, the world is still safe for atheists.

king of kings....Here’s the problem: how could a God who loves each one of us, even the littlest sparrow, condemn human beings to the worst suffering that the world has to offer?

Some answer the problem with the Free-Will Argument, to wit: our suffering is humanity’s fault, not God’s. The appeal of this argument is easy to understand. In the era of modern technology, the suffering that we encounter most often is indeed caused by people. We don’t run from cave-bears anymore; we run from men with guns. We don’t get eaten by sharks very much; we get hit by cars. We don’t worry about surviving the winter; we worry about surviving a nuclear war.

Small wonder that the Free-Will Argument has such credibility these days; we could avoid many deaths that occur in the wake of natural disasters if only we chose to. No one forced us to overuse our water. No one forced us to settle in places where earthquakes and hurricanes are common. No one forces us to travel widely enough, and invade the wilderness aggressively enough, to make ourselves the living targets of deadly unknown plagues.

The Free Will argument would be very compelling if God were simply very powerful and remarkably competent. But God is supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing. So critics of the Free-Will argument can be forgiven for insisting that, in addition to never being jealous, boastful, conceited, or selfish, Love does not give any child cancer or muscular dystrophy, does not afflict any youth with schizophrenia, and does not curse any elder with Alzheimer’s disease.

What’s more, God in his omnipotence could have created a less dangerous world. Why should there be such things as hurricanes, earthquakes, and plagues if God can ordain that they never occur?

Related to the Problem of Evil is the question of why a just god would punish finite human sins with infinite damnation.

One answer invokes the following principle: sins are punished not only in proportion to their gravity, but in proportion to the one offended. This doesn’t sound like modern law or modern ethics, and indeed it isn’t.

When thinking of God's justice, we need to remember that the paradigm for God is the ancient near Eastern King.

That the leaders of nations can be judged, that their powers should be limited by custom and constitution, and that the government should be one of laws and not of men--all these notions are a bunch of bleeding-heart-liberal claptrap that had nothing to do with the original intent of Western Monotheism's Founding Fathers.

In a good, basic, old-time government, the king may kill anyone he likes, torture anyone he likes, and make any decision he wants to about who should pay for a person's transgressions. If he doesn't feel like punishing a transgressor, he can torture or kill someone else instead; maybe the transgressor's family, or maybe someone else.

And who is a transgressor against our ancient king? Anyone the king names. People who do not bow before the despot, for example. Or people who say that this king is not the greatest of all kings. People like that deserve to be killed outright, or thrown into the dungeon and subjected to periodic torture for the rest of their lives.

And why not? These decisions are not evil. The will of the king is good by definition, since his word is law. Therefore, we should call the king benevolent, even loving, since his armies protect his subjects against all the evil kings.

God is an ancient Near-Eastern despot writ large. Hence the archaic and barbaric concepts of justice embodied in the doctrine of damnation for unbelievers.

This doctrine is not merely one that I happen to disagree with; it is a doctrine that I condemn as evil, since Western Monotheists of many sects have used it as an excuse for vilest forms of oppression wherever and whenever these believers have held political power.

What is more, the doctrine could not be more obviously human in origin. What could be more unmistakably mundane, more alien to the sublime notion of divinity, more typical of humanity's primate in-group/out-group mentality, than the idea that WE believers will be saved and THOSE others will be damned?

We have tried to outgrow the notion of a Master Race. But too few people mind when Pat Robertson and his ilk promote the notion of a Master Creed. That notion deserves a lot less respect than it gets.

hell....What will save you from the fires of Hell? Is Hell reserved for those who laugh and grin in carnal ecstasy as they strangle the innocent in vicious sacrifices to Satan? Will you be saved if you merely refrain from stealing, lying, or coveting your neighbor’s wife? On the day when your flesh cools to be justly and rightly mortified by its journey to hideous putrescence, will your history of total devotion to acts of piety, purity, charity, and humility save you from the great birds whose beaks shall tear and rend your soul for all time?

Oh no....Hell waits for all who have yet to heed the call of our Savior, for all who fail--on even a single night of their worthless lives--to grovel before the Lord baptized in the chill sweat of their own self-revulsion and terror! Indeed, should you have even thought of touching yourself for sinful purposes within the last five years without the cleansing guilt that the Lord grinds down upon sinners even as millions of tons of glacial ice grind down upon the mountains, you stand condemned to the pits of HELL!

In what body shall you suffer Hell’s torments? Shall you merely awaken in a copy of your familiar form, kneeling naked in an icy lake? Shall you be a shade which bears translucent resemblance to the body of your prime of life, but suffers not the rending of the flesh? Shall you be a mere abstraction, experiencing only that conceptual separation from the Lord which you so happily endured in this world beneath the sun?

Oh no....The body in which you awaken in Hell shall be far different: so loathsome and abhorrent that even the most horribly deformed, gnarled and twisted soul on Earth would --upon the sight of your body in Hell--hobble up on his stumps and growths to wheeze and sputter his prayers of gratitude for the Lord’s generous gift of his glorious frame.

Imagine a body riddled with huge worms, each impelled to chew with venomous teeth and drool with corrosive bile until the softest, most sensitive secrets of your mortal flesh are ripped and burnt in agony! The worms deny you the peace of the grave, for as they saw and grind your flesh from within, they die and rot in the stinking slime of the suppuration and filth that courses through your veins, your flesh, and even your skin, where it erupts in great splashes from your legions of pustules. But the poison suffusing you denies you the peace of the grave, for the poison is burnt to grotesque crustiness by the fires that consume you yet leave you alive to suffer the agony of immolation for all time!

Yes, imagine all this, and know that awakening in such a body would be as awakening in bloom of active youth unblemished by one atom disease or discomfort in comparison to awakening in the body that shall curse you forever in HELL!

And what awaits your tortured body in the Pit of Hell? Will it be an eternal debauch where libertines wallow in their detestable sins and mock the righteous and the pure?

Oh, no...Hell shall be far different.

How will Hell look? Hell shall surround you with darkness, because the flames of Hell burn even blacker than the heinous sins that stain your unrepentant soul! But even as one can look through fire to glimpse what lies beyond it, so the damned shall gaze through the midnight darkness to see sights that nothing human could bear for an instant! Oh, how intolerable these sights shall be!!!

Imagine that you saw a sight so horrible that even the briefest glance would force your doctors to amputate your arms to stop your desperate lifelong struggle to claw your eyes out with your bare hands.

Yes, imagine: and know that this sight would be as the sight of your beloved, happy and well, reposing in the comfort of a summer mountain meadow, in comparison to the SIGHT OF HELL!

How will Hell smell? Imagine the carcasses of an entire herd of cattle, kept in a vat until they have rotted into countless gallons of putrescent goo. Now imagine a diabolical machine in which you lay strapped and helpless as every cubic centimeter of this goo is slowly pumped through your nostrils, so that you must constantly spit it from your mouth in order to breathe, tasting that which wrenches the gorge from the tortured organs of your belly.

Yes, imagine--then know that this experience would be like the delicate scent of honeysuckle floating on the fresh and gentle winds of Spring in comparison to the SMELL OF HELL!

How will Hell feel? Imagine that every cell in your body could transmit as much suffering as all your nerves and brain can on Earth! Imagine the fire roasting your flesh, so that it may heal to be burned again and again forever. Imagine that every last cell in the flesh, bubbling in the searing heat, conveys so much suffering, that the pain of the ragged hoarseness of your never-ending screams shall be as great, nay, greater, than that of the black eternal fires themselves!

Yes, imagine--and then know that even this experience would be like silks, oils and the loving hands of heavenly massage in comparison to the true PAIN OF HELL!!

And what anguish of the soul awaits us in Hell? Even if Hell were a sunlit land of milk and honey (WHICH IT MOST ASSUREDLY IS NOT!) how much inner grief and turmoil would blight the minds of the damned even centuries after their gnashing teeth at long last lay shattered at their feet?

Imagine yourself in a box at a stadium whose retractable roof is closed. You preside at a convention for the families of unusually sweet-tempered and well-behaved preschoolers, who laugh and play on the Astroturf. You decide to do something naughty for once in your life, so you open the roof. Moments later, a meteor shower kills everyone at the convention except you. Later, you learn that the stadium roof was so rugged, it could have easily deflected the meteors if only you hadn't opened it! You consider using a pair of pliers to kill yourself over a period of three hundred days, but realize that it's not enough--that nothing can ever be enough!

Yes, imagine--then know that even this anguish would be like waking up in the warmth of a summer morning to the smile and touch of the love of your life in comparison to the ANGUISH OF HELL!!!

HOW LONG WILL YOU BE IN HELL???? The merest memory of even an infinitesimal fraction of a second spent in Hell would leave the strongest specimen of mortal humanity gibbering, shrieking, drooling, and convulsing in an agony of unremitting horror that only death could silence! Is this how long you shall spend in Hell if you are damned? Shall mere instants suffice as punishment?

Oh, no...Hell shall last far longer than mere instants. Longer than mere centuries. Longer than mere eons!

Would it last for the time it would take a dove to flatten the tallest mountain by brushing its wings against it once each century? Would it last for the time it would take an asthmatic mole to wear down all the mountains in the solar system by breathing on one spot on one mountain once every thousand years until all the planets shone in the sky as smooth as spheres of glass?

Bah! These trifling intervals are too inconceivably brief to mention in connection with the never-ending, vile, and exquisite torment that your mangled and violated soul shall suffer in the Pit of Hell!

But if you imagine the time it would take you to accumulate a mass of snot equal to the mass of the Cosmos raised to the power of trillions by blowing your nose once every geologic epoch, know that even these countless ages would together constitute a barely measurable fraction of a single instant spent in the ETERNITY OF HELL!!!!

Remember this: God loves you. If you don’t love him back, he will send you to HELL!!! If that’s not love, what is?

darla....[Our writer’s group was doing a serial novel that never got finished. A chapter without a novel won’t be published, so I tucked this one into the word-garden.]

[The story so far: With each of two ex-spouses claiming that the other stole an expensive diamond ring, insurance investigator Ben Skidmore suspects that one or both may be trying to defraud his company, represented by his boss, Hudson. Skidmore’s investigation leads him to a zirconia ring that matches the diamond ring’s description, and to a rival insurance company, headed by the evil and repulsive Fontaine. Eager to gain eyes and ears in Fontaine’s office, Skidmore has a steamy affair with Fontaine’s sexy secretary, Darla. Fontaine knows about the affair, and is secretly using Darla to spy on Hudson and Skidmore. But there is far more to Darla than any of the insurance men suspect, as we shall see in this chapter.]

Progressive Novel: Chapter 5 (Jim Grossmann)

Wandering First Avenue, Darla tip-toed around fast food trash, broken bottles, and broken drunks. Most of the lunch hour bodies coursing around her wore moth-eaten jeans and sweats, though the occasional suit walked by, along with women wrapped like party favors in loose blouses and tight skirts. Darla's blouse was day-glow pink. Her leopard-skin mini-skirt complemented the tall curls of her silvery sequined wig.

Feet tortured in her high heels, she glanced at windows, searching among pawn, porn, and thrift shops for her destination. At last she spotted the landmark her contact had described: a five foot cardboard cut-out of a sixteen ounce can of Komodo Dragon fortified malt liquor, standing sun-faded in the painted window of Mr. Z's Bar. The giant lizard on the can stood with its mouth in a drooling gape over a caption that read "It’ll eat you alive." The door, its paint peeling from gray wood, stood part way open. Darla stepped inside.

Here were walls painted black, a dozen booths and corners, and light-bulbs dimmer than candles. Judging from the cigarette smoke, maybe half a dozen patrons sat hidden in the darkness, drinking up for their nightly bout of vomiting in the alley.

Behind the counter, a stout man wearing a derby sucked on a cigarette, stopping to chug a can of Komodo. Several other cans lay crushed and empty by his left hand. Taking another drag on his smoke, the man glared at Darla and said "According to ancient texts unearthed in Greenland, the wooly mammoth mated awkwardly."

As the man gazed into her eyes, Darla answered "My acupuncturist has abandoned needles. He now uses angry hummingbirds."

With a sideward glance, the barkeep motioned Darla to the back of the room. Moments later, she found a dark hallway with several unmarked doors. Facing one such door, she lifted her blouse, and watched an oscillating red laser scan her exposed navel. When the laser winked out, the door opened without a sound. Darla stepped through onto plush carpeting and staggered out of her high heels as the door closed behind her.

Blue-white lights came on, and Darla surveyed the safe room, which stood bare except for a bed, a nightstand, a full length mirror, and a long, low dresser. The dresser supported a large fish tank filled with blue liquid whose aftershave smell permeated the room.

With a single motion, Darla flung her day-glow pink blouse onto the bed, revealing her naked torso. When she tried to hook her thumbs into the mini-skirt's waist band, the thumbs wouldn't fit. She tugged at the zipper; it was stuck. Maybe she could get her thumbs into the skirt if she jumped up and down. She tried it. Five minutes later, she was still jumping and clawing at the skirt with both hands. Finally, she opened a dresser drawer, took out a Bowie knife, and slashed the skirt off her body. With towelettes from the night stand, she rubbed the make-up off her face.

She stood naked in front of the mirror, a young woman whose beauty could leave a man dehydrated in a matter of hours. Her thatch of pubic hair sat five or six inches too low, but no man had ever noticed. She pulled off her wig, letting it drop to the floor, and inspected the real hair, the brown crew cut hair.

Pressing her right hip in three spots, Darla watched as skin parted with a hiss and a puff of steam. Seconds later, her hips and vulva hung in loose flaps around her middle. The molecular bonding of the sexual prosthesis had depolarized, and the person in the mirror winced while pulling the prosthesis down the hips and legs. That damned rubber thing always pulled too hard on the testicles, and its catheter stung the urethra on its way out. Once the prosthesis lay down around his ankles, the man in the mirror cradled his crotch in his hands. For Darla was really Dan Hazard, secret agent Double X working for the CIA.

Hazard gathered up the prosthesis, and laid it gently into the fish tank. The light blue synthetic bath would clean its intricate micro-technology. Hazard stared in wonder at the machine in the tank. Its inter-femoral orifice, though strangely positioned, felt just like the real thing, reacting with all the right fluids and swellings. During the physical act of love, it injected Hazard with endorphins and sex hormones, allowing his body to respond to sexual acts that he inwardly loathed.

Hazard wasn't some communist pansy out to ruin America's families; he was a real man, with a wife and seven children to prove it. Now that the hormones had worn off, he sat nauseated with memories of the past week's sex. Fontaine on the desk. Fontaine on the floor. Hudson in the men's room. Hudson in the ladies' room. The other insurance guy in the cafeteria dumpster.

Hands shaking, Hazard opened a dresser drawer and fetched a stack of football magazines, a can of beer, and a full-sized luxury cigar. Soon, he lay back on the bed, enjoying a manly beer and smoke, loudly coaching the football players in the magazines spread across his lap.

Hazard hated dressing up and doing it with guys. He did it strictly for duty. He tried to remember how disgusting it was to get intimate with Skidmore.

But when he pictured the detective, all he could think of was a speed boat bounding through the waves off the Florida keys, with him and Skidmore in the front seat, both wearing the loose fitting pastel coats and trousers he had seen in hip eighties TV detective shows. Him and Skidmore. In the speed boat. Together. Hazard almost dropped his beer as he shook the thought away.

His next thought found him in a Ferrari cruising down a highway flanked with palm trees. Skidmore sat beside him, tanned and muscular, at the wheel and in command in his lavender tank top and knee-length raw silk shorts, whose cut said 'casual with an A-list flair.'

Hazard dropped both the cigar and the beer, and wrestled with the bed clothes as he struggled to put the cigar out. Dousing the smoldering comforter with beer, Hazard seized a football magazine.

"How about those Dolphins; how about those Forty-Niners," he said to himself, over and over, as if he were saying Hail Marys in the face of an oncoming tidal wave. By the time his mantra had changed to "Stay with ball," his whole body seized into a cringe: he had forgotten to remove his artificial breasts.

Trembling, he almost ripped the left breast from his body, but remembered that doing so would trigger its built-in stun grenade. So he pressed several subcutaneous studs where the breast clung with no visible seam. The breast flopped off with a hiss and a steam puff. The same procedure worked with the right breast. As he held its soft generous bulk in his hand, he gave it two quick squeezes and three long caresses, activating his two-way right breast radio.

"CIA Headquarters," a deep voice boomed from the breast. "Smith speaking."

Hazard spoke into the nipple. "This is Double X. I want out. I can't do this anymore."

"You're hyperventilating, Double X," said Smith. "Take slow deep breaths and give me your report."

"Okay, but this is the last time," said Hazard. He sighed and continued. "I've got four targets: Ann-Marie, her ex-husband, Fontaine, Hudson, or Skidmore. One of them has the zirconia ring. Still don't know who's working together, or how much they know. Who else is after the crystal?"

"The Guatemalans," Smith said. "If they get the secrets burned into that crystal, they'll be fixing up America for their fruit company."

"I thought the Guatemalans were our friends, or our colony, or something," said Hazard.

"That's last week's news, Double X. The Guatemalans are part of the Axis of Evil now. Get that ring before they do."

"What the hell do you need me for?" Hazard said, teeth clenched. "Just pick these jokers up and interrogate 'em."

"No good," Smith said. "They've probably arranged to ship the ring the moment we grab them. It's up to you to be the person they want to share their schemes with. That's how you'll get the crystal back."

"No," said Hazard. "I can't put that stuff on me anymore."

"That stuff," Smith said, "comes from a research institute that employs a thousand people in the President's home state. We're supposed to create a demand for it. Besides, our female operatives won't do this kind of work."

"I won't either," said Hazard, tears flooding his eyes. He sobbed and shouted into the nipple of the breast-radio. "I quit! No more!"

After brief silence, Smith's voice, softer and more conciliatory, issued from the hefty breast in Hazard's hand. "Double X. Dan. We can't make you do the mission. But if you quit, someone will have to notify your mother. I'll be assigning that duty to you."

His mother. How could Hazard have forgotten her, and the sacrifice she had made to make sure that the hair on his sexual prosthesis was natural to the last follicle? How could he turn his back on his mother's selfless patriotism, when a part of Mom went with him on every mission?

Hazard wiped the tears from his eyes, and raised his head up high.

"Okay," he said, "I'll do it for our country."

"Good man," said Smith. "Now listen carefully. I want you to get close--and I mean really close--to anyone who might have the ring. Especially Skidmore. Wear him down until he talks. And Dan?"

"Yes, sir?"

"When this is over, we'll get you a good psychoanalyst. Smith out."

Hazard spent the next few hours lying on the bed in a fetal position, clutching the breast radio. Was he laughing or crying? He didn't know.

it’s hard to find good help....You ask one of the staff to help you find something in a store. The staff person admits to being just as clueless as you are about where that something might be. In fact, this staff person is even more clueless than you are, because this person hasn’t looked where you have looked. So what does this staff person do? Stand around for who-knows-how-long telling you where the item you’re looking for might be.

Good Lord, that drives me nuts! It’s like hearing the staff say “Well, my guesses aren’t even as good as yours, but instead of letting you go so that you can use your time to find another solution to your problem, I’m going to keep you here for at least five minutes with my unhelpful verbiage so that you can stew in frustration at the time I’m wasting.”

Of course, if you tell the staff person that you would like to find someone who does know where the item is, the staff person will look at you as if you’ve just stated that his or her mother is fellating Satan in Hell.

More delicate exits from such conversations are possible, but I’m tired of having to preserve the staff people’s delicate egos!

Store managers--wherever you may be, whatever store you manage--hear this plea! Tell your staff that if they don’t know the answer to the customer’s question, they should ....

a) briefly admit that they do not know the answer to the customer’s question,
b) refer the customer to someone who might know the answer, or
c) failing that, apologize, wish the customer luck, and let the customer go!

little howie:....Willa Nice, Miss Nice to her first grade class at Placid Elementary, always had her doubts about little Howie, the red-haired boy who sat by the window. Not that Howie was slow; he was a bright, creative boy. Each day, Miss Nice was amazed to see the strange and pretty shapes he made with Legos. He could grow up to be an artist or something if only he weren’t such a trouble-maker.

But every quarter, she had to put the same marks on his report card. Plays well with others? Needs improvement. Uses time wisely? Needs improvement. Follows directions? The same answer, and the same exasperated sigh each time she checked it off.

She had hoped that Howie’s mother, Ms. Rand, could help him fit in better with the other children. At conference time, however, Ms. Rand had scoffed and said that the other children weren’t worth Howie’s time. Every year brought at least one problem mother who couldn’t face her child’s behavior issues. But Ms. Rand would have to face reality after that business on Valentine’s Day.

The problems started before the party, when Miss Nice explained that Valentine’s Day celebrated people who fell in love, like Mommies and Daddies. She asked her class what they would do when they became Mommies and Daddies.

“I’ll have lots of money and get lots of trucks and a big house!” said one little boy.

“I’ll have twenty babies and give them twenty Barbies and kiss them all goodnight,” said a little girl.

“I don’t wanna get married,” said Howie. “I wanna have a girlfriend and dump garbage all over her and be mean to her all the time. And I want her to be mean to me too.”

“Well Howie, that’s interesting,” said Miss Nice, horrified.

“I want to get married to someone like you, Teacher,” said the little Keating boy. Such a wonderful child to have in class, Miss Nice thought. That Keating boy always warmed her heart. He even brought her apples.

“Okay, boys and girls,” she said, “time to go to centers and make Valentines.”

When the children were finally settled down, earnestly cutting away at heart patterns on red and pink paper, Howie caught Miss Nice’s eye again. His paper had no heart patterns. It wasn’t even pink or red. Howie had cut out construction paper rectangles in three shades of blue, and had just finished gluing them together in overlapping patterns.

“Howie,? said Miss Nice. ?what are you making?”

“This is my Valentine,” said Howie. “It’s cool.”

Miss Nice gazed in wonder. Howie’s geometric collage was pretty advanced for a first grader, but the boy wasn’t following directions.

“Howie,” she said, “we’re not using blue paper. We’re making valentines. Valentines need hearts.”

“All the valentines have hearts,” said Howie. “When we make hearts, we’re just copying old stuff. My valentine’s new. It doesn’t have hearts.”

“But Howie,” said Miss Nice, “If you don’t put a heart on your valentine, what will the other children think?”

“I don’t give a damn what they think,” said Howie.

Miss Nice told Howie to sit in the time out-chair for his language. While the other children laughed and talked as they made their valentines, Howie sat still and silent in time-out. He never seemed to care about time-out, but at least he stayed quiet there.

The time came to pin the Valentines on the bulletin board. She put little Howie’s up last. Then she opened the valentines and read their little messages one by one. To Mommy. To Daddy. To Mommy and Daddy. The Mommies and Daddies continued for twenty more valentines, until Miss Nice opened Howie’s and frowned. Painstakingly scrawled in purple crayon, its message read “To ME.”

Mrs. Nice frowned and found herself saying “This valentine would look nicer if someone put a heart on it.”

?I’ll put a heart on it, teacher,? said the little Keating boy.

Miss Nice beamed. Little Keating already had a heart perfectly cut and glued, ready to add to Howie’s creation. The heart didn’t go well with Howie’s work, but it represented such a nice thought.

“Okay, Howie,” said Miss Nice. “Are you ready to come back to class?”

“Yes teacher,” said Howie, in his usual flat monotone.

Then Miss Nice looked away for only a moment as one student asked permission to use the bathroom. In that moment, she smelled smoke, and a little girl shrieked “Teacher!”

Two loud pops, like gun fire, sent the children shrieking to their feet as Mrs. Nice whirled to see the charred and smoking remains of fire crackers taped to a few blue shreds that used to be Howie's valentine. Howie stood beneath the damage, glaring at Mrs. Nice with bitter calm as she ordered her class to sit down. Nice grabbed little Howie and dragged him to the office.

All the way down the hall, Howie screamed “I don’t want any hearts on my valentine! It’s MY valentine! It’s mine!”

After the children had gone home for the day, Miss Nice discussed Howie with the principal, who dismissed most of her concerns.

“Quit worrying,” the principal said. “He’s just a kid. He’s not gonna act like this for the rest of his life.”

However, the principal agreed that the fire-setting incident would require meetings with the parents and the multi-disciplinary team, and referred Howie to the school psychologist.

the fountainhead....Captivated as I was by The Fountainhead, I had a couple of problems with it: the absurdity of its characters and consequent plot points, and the fact that it never presents Roark or his philosophy with any significant challenges.

absurdities

1.....Roark is an absurd character. He expresses only two emotions, amusement and anger, and then only for philosophical reasons. He has no family. They weren’t killed in the Great War; they simply never existed. When faced with circumstances that most people would find stressful, he never exhibits any significant need for comfort or support. His creative genius grows without nourishment, with no ideas from past or contemporary masters of his profession. Though he claims to love people, he never shows that love. He is Dominque’s master, not her lover. His self-sufficient ego is every bit as implausible as the ideal of absolute selflessness that he criticizes.

2....All of the other major characters are more interesting than Roark, because they have origins, emotions, and social circles in which their lives develop. But Keating, Dominique, Toohey, and Wynand are all made ridiculous by their awe of Roark’s ego.

Keating is the most successful architect in the business. He knows that he's not an artistic genius, but instead of crying all the way to the bank, or realizing that not every building has to be a work of genius, he pines away under the blazing glory of Roark’s ego.

Dominique is a lively sado-masochistic society lady, but her adulterous, abusive, and emotionally unavailable boyfriend’s ego awes her so thoroughly that all she can do in response is abase herself by becoming some millionaire’s numb, dumb slave-toy waiting to be rescued by the guy who raped her.

Toohey is a successful architectural columnist for a big newspaper. He's also crazy and secretly conspires to suppress all individual greatness so that mankind can live in mutual enslavement. He considers one eccentric architect’s ego to be a threat to civilization.

Wynand is the publisher of a major newspaper, and Roark is just another bug that he could squash for fun. But confronted with Roark's ego, Wynand can only sadly salute the great one and dismiss himself as hollow. The publisher will risk ruining himself in defence of the mad architect, and let Roark build his skyscraper. He doesn't even care when Roark beds down with his wife.

If The Fountainhead were remotely true-to-life, Keating would have forgotten Roark, Dominique would have dumped him, Toohey would not have wasted time scheming against him, and Wynand would have squashed him like a bug for refusing to do copies of the Parthenon for the rest of his life.

3....Most absurd of all is Roark’s big statement at the climax of the novel. In a nutshell, Roark seems to say that....

....humanity’s great achievements are all the work of lone creators.

....these creators always stand apart from opposed to tradition and majority opinion.

....humanity is divided between these lone creators and second-handers who define their own value, and that of their work, in terms of what others think.

....great works, and all works of integrity, are done for oneself and not for others.

There have been lone creators who achieve great things on their own. Van Gogh comes to mind. There have been great creators who have all but single-handedly saved the societies that despise them. George Washington Carver comes to mind. But as generalizations about all great creators, Roark’s claims fail--fortunately.

I’m glad that the Manhattan Project, the Moon Landings, supercomputers, and cyberspace were not the works of lone creators. I am also glad that the works of lone creators like Thomas Edison have been improved upon by scores of other inventors.

I’m glad that the people who built the great cathedrals of Europe, and all the great religious art and architecture around the world, surrendered themselves in will and intellect to their religions and sought to impress the masses.

I’m glad that there are people who tend to innovate cautiously and otherwise re-hash other people’s ideas, always with an eye on what others think. Among such people stand investors, doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians, activists, archivists, editors, and clergy.

I’m glad that some bright people know the value of working together on behalf of others. Aren’t you glad that Howard Roark was not the father of our country? Imagine his Preamble to the Constitution: “This is my Constitution. I designed it, and have forbidden anyone else to have the slightest say in its contents. Most of all, I designed it for myself. If the people like it, fine. If they don’t, that’s tough, because I don’t give a damn what they think. If anyone changes my constitution, my demolitions-knowledge will serve the British cause.”

no challenges for ayn

1....Roark’s practical difficulties--from bad press to professional ruin to lawsuits to criminal court--leave him unmoved. Only his ego and his ethical egoism matter to him, but The Fountainhead avoids any challenge to either.

Roark faces too little indifference. If his greatness goes unrecognized, it’s because of people like Toohey scheme against him in the name of the Great Conspiracy to Lead the Masses to Collectivism by Enshrining Mediocrity. The Fountainhead never allows that the world might ignore Roark on its own accord; and that Roark might have to care about his clients, do a better job of pitching his work, and be willing to compromise in order to receive even a single commission. Rand’s novel can’t deal with these possibilities because doing so would diminish Roark’s inhuman self-sufficiency.

Roark is the only major character in the novel who is permitted any integrity. Keating is a sell-out; Toohey is a wacko power-monger; Wynand prostitutes his soul and looks to Roark for redemption; Dominique is a willing slave. Only in comparison to characters like these can Roark seem morally ideal. Better characters would upstage Rand’s creation. His ego could not withstand a superior architect who honestly believed that modern architecture should recall the Renaissance. His dubious dignity would not survive his mother’s harangues against adultery. No problem: Roark has no mother.

Where are the sincere altruists in this book? I’m not talking about corrupt and crazy collectivists like Toohey; I’m talking about people who run soup-kitchens, fight fires, and comfort dying children. Rand’s case against altruistic ethics amounts to little more than equating altruism with a) collectivism, b) being propagandized into subservience by and for the power elite, c) being jealous of great talent or integrity in others, d) letting others dictate one’s values. The equations are false, but keep Rand’s philosophy safe.

Where are the committed couples in this book? Roark and Dominique grow from S&M buddies to disciple and prophet, but there’s no marriage here. In marriage, you have to live partly for someone else--not just yourself--so Rand avoids this challenge to her philosophy. For the same reason, none of The Fountainhead’s characters are loving parents. Rand’s universe has no room for people who say things like “We need towels,” “We should go on vacation,” and “Our children will live better lives than we did.”

In short, The Fountainhead carefully excludes any character or event that might challenge Roark’s faith in himself, along with any possible counterexample to ethical egoism. Ironically, these omissions weaken the drama and persuasiveness of Rand’s vision. Without moments of self-doubt and philosophical crisis, Roark’s endurance is no more meaningful than that of a stone. Without real altruists in her novel, Rand’s egoism stands unchallenged, and therefore undefended.

It would have been so easy to give Roark a sincerely altruistic brother, a social worker, whose honest and selfless life gave Roark pause, until the brother burned himself out by giving too much of himself, while failing to improve the world nearly as much as Roark’s egoistically motivated housing projects. But Rand couldn’t write about altruists made of flesh and blood; her altruists had to be made of straw.

where rand gets it right

Rand’s take on social responsibilities may be dubious, but her egoism is right-on when it comes to life’s non-moral sphere. Far too many of us use peer reactions to judge our tastes, avocations, and opinions. Will we be embarrassed or ostracized if we speak frankly about them? We should address that issue as Roark would, IMO.

three atheistic diatribes.....Unbelievably, I once heard a pastor say that, as a rule, Christians don't use force to impose their beliefs on others. Here in the USA, churches CAN'T use force to impose their beliefs, thanks to the Constitutional separation of church and state.

So, if we are to assess the claim that Christians use only peaceful means to seek converts, we need to look at either Christian theocracies, or states with no church-state separation. In such states, the Christian Church (whichever one held the power) really had a genuine choice as to whether to impose its beliefs on non-believers. Name one such state that did not impose its beliefs through force. Christians, name even one.

...............

Part of me is comforted somehow by the idea that there is a God who became incarnate to discourage hypocritical legalism, promote love, and sacrifice himself for all humanity. In the right hands, this idea can be ennobling, as my Christian friends can attest.

Also, though I don't believe in the Resurrection, the story can serve as a beautiful allegory for the idea that the fact of love is more important than the fact of death.

What I DO despise, with all my heart and soul, are these things;

---the doctrine of damnation for non-believers,
---opposition to the separation of Church and State,
---the idea that Christians are morally better than non-Christians.

If someone said that Jews all deserve to go to Hell, that the state should give special privileges to non-Jews, and that other peoples are morally better than Jews, we would rightly condemn these ideas as the rankest kind of anti-Semitism. The Nazis are not popular.

But because Christian ideas are considered sacred; because the Scriptures that convey them are found on every Christian altar, every book store, and even most motel rooms; and because most Christians don't know any atheists, or gays, or pagans, it's perfectly okay for Christians to express precisely the same sentiments about non-believers.

We don't even give such vile prejudices a name, even though the names suggest themselves immediately: Christian Supremacist, or, to use a more general term: Creedism.

A great many Christians--perhaps the majority--are by no means Christian Supremacists. But I think that Christian Supremacism is very popular in the South and Midwest; that George W. Bush, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, & Gary Bauer, are all Christian Supremacists; and that Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, the 700 Club, and the Christian Coalition are all Christian Supremacist organizations.

....................

I think that Christians who lose their social skills in Jesus’s name deserve the ridicule that they often get.

It is just plain STUPID to preach that an absolutely loving and all-just God would send non-believers to hell, and THEN to offer no real evidence in favor of this claim, and THEN to expect non-believers to harbor no disdain for said doctrine. And yet, intelligent Christians do this all the time, as if the Blood of Christ had washed away their common sense along with their sins.

....................

What do I think of all religions, not just Christianity?

At their best, religions give their followers an explanation for the meaning of existence (life as we experience it) and reality (the world that common sense and sciences attempt to grasp). At their best, religions remind their followers of the virtue of benevolence to oneself and others. At their best religions give people words and metaphors for experiences that our terms for emotions are not subtle enough to describe. At their best, religions remind people that there are things more important than commerce, success, politics, and work. At their best, religions keep the State and Human Cleverness off the pedestal reserved for the Godhead. At their best, religions remind us that humanity and the world have an intrinsic worth that has nothing to do with their mere utility.

At their worst, religions perpetuate all manner of superstition and just plain nonsense. At their worst, religions serve as excuses to oppress and torment unpopular people or groups. At their worst, religions block every movement towards progress, not just in the sciences, but in humanity's effort to bring common decency into the law, the government, and our traditions.

Demons account for some mental illnesses! Only our Church can save you from Hell! Masturbation is highly disordered and sinful! Look, this saint's corpse can't rot! Look, our sacred waters heal the sick! We're Sudanese Muslims; the Christians must die! We're Serbian and Orthodox Christian; the Muslims must die! We're Hindus, you're Muslims, so let's commit atrocities against each other! And the majority of Christians? Well, since governments in most predominantly, or at least nominally, Christian nations try to limit the political power of their churches, the Christians don't get to kill people outright like they did through most of the Dark Ages and the Renaissance.

But at least the conservative Christians can lobby against birth control, against the teaching of evolution, against homosexual rights, and, historically, against civil rights movements in general. Hell, in Virginia, they've passed a law that would allow courts to discount wills and contracts made between same-sex life partners. But of course, this is being done in the name of Christian love.

I still don't understand why intelligent, educated, 21st century people buy into this kind of vile and pernicious garbage.

defining the stages of life:

child		one who wants to be an adult 
adult		one who wants to be a child
teenager	one who wants to be an adult and a child

boy		one who wishes he were a man
man		one who wishes he were a boy
girl		one who wishes she were a woman
woman		one who wishes that men were better 

what are teenagers?.....Teens are people who preen their hair and clothes in front of mirrors, like adults preparing for a meeting or a dinner date.

Teens are people obsessed with sex, unlike adults, who are uniformly chaste in spite of the fact that their higher incomes have made pornography a multi-billion dollar industry.

Teens are people who are self-conscious about their bodies, and worry about their physiques, hair styles, and zits. They barely resemble adults, who are self-conscious about their bodies, and worry about their paunches, their hair loss, and their wrinkles.

In so many ways that age denies, teens are young adults, and adults are old teens.

red door conspiracy:.....Now and then, my partner, his father, and I drive through well-to-do neighborhoods to look at all the expensive homes. I have noticed that a number of such homes have doors painted red. This tipped me off to a frightening conspiracy.

The world is running out of oil. No one in America is doing anything to develop alternative energy sources. 90% of our people will die when our petroleum-based civilization finally runs out of gas. America's power elite wants to be the 10% that survives.

Enter America’s shadow government: a cluster of agencies too secret to have names! A silent coalition that pulls the strings of puppets like Congress, the Executive Branch, and decoy groups like the CIA! The unnameable masters of the biggest, blackest ops ever to launch a fleet of black helicopters!

The shadow government has secretly advised certain carefully selected rich people to paint their doors red, so that when America stands mere months from collapse, the drivers of the black moving vans will know who to spirit away to underground cities hewn into the Rocky Mountains.

If you make less than $400,000 per year, do not try to save yourself by painting your door red. If you do, the men from the black helicopters will make your death look like a suicide.

You have only three hopes of surviving when Western Civilization comes to its rioting, starving, thirsting death: lots of freeze-dried food, lots of guns, and one hell of a lot of ammo.

You doubt me? Fine. What’s your explanation for the red doors?

SANITON! (The Ultimate Custodian!)

[panel sixteen] (Saniton flying over Peoria) With King Grime safely confined to his giant hefty bag at Peoria’s City Refuse Center, Saniton resumes his patrol once more. Flying free through fresh clean skies, he startles at a mysterious and monstrous sight!

Saniton: (thought balloon) Great Scott! Those buildings were clean moments ago! How could they be covered with graffiti so quickly?

[panel seventeen] (Saniton swooping closer to Peoria’s skyline.) Using his sani-vision; which allows him to see even the smallest specks of dirt, dust, and grime from any distance; Saniton discovers the true horror of the graffiti menace.

Saniton: “That graffiti is spreading by itself! Who could be responsible for this hideous filth!”

Mysterious Voice: “I am responsible. And you are helpless! Ha ha ha!”

[panel eighteen] (Saniton swoops by a cornice, glaring at the villain who stands gesticulating upon it. In the background, more buildings are covered in graffiti.)

Villain: “Admiring my auto-catalytic graffiti, Saniton? See how it spreads like fire across the buildings, absorbing its substance from the very steel, glass, and concrete it defiles! Without one drop of paint, I shall deface the world! So swears Graffiti God!”

[panel nineteen] (Dramatic close-up of an angry Saniton holding his hands claw-like before him as bubbly-looking energy surges from his finger tips.)

Saniton: ?Graffiti God, eh? Let’s see how god-like you feel when your evil plans get washed away under the power of my surfactant force!?

[panel twenty] (A disbelieving Saniton stares and Graffiti God laughs as graffiti intrudes once more upon the dozens of buildings sprayed clean mere seconds ago.)

Graffiti God: “Ha ha ha! Cleanliness and order shall fall! Filth and chaos shall reign forever!”

[panel twenty one] (Saniton looks pensive as he scans the streets with furrowed brows.) Thanks to the mess-detecting power of his sani-vision, Saniton sees the evil graffiti that covers the streets and skyscrapers detouring around grassy areas.)

Saniton: “Looks like your graffiti only covers hard surfaces, villain!”

Graffiti God: “What difference could that possibly make, Sani-Clod!”

[panel twenty two] Saniton: “All the difference I need!”

(Graffiti God looks perplexed and worried as Saniton furrows his brow in fierce concentration.)

[next set of panels all headed by this caption:]

[Using his telekinetic command over all cleaning sponges, Saniton calls upon thousands of his squishy allies! From kitchen sinks, from restaurant counters, from janitorial supply closets everywhere, sponges fly from their normal duties to aid Peoria in its time of direst need!]

(Multiple mini-panels show dedicated cleaning sponges flying from their various locations.)

[panel twenty five] (Graffiti God cringes in shock as a triumphant Saniton sees the sponges land in the paths of spreading graffiti lines, stopping them dead in their tracks!)

Graffiti God: “No, my graffiti is invincible! This can’t be!”

[panel twenty six] Saniton: “Let’s see what a little surfactant force can do now!?

(Saniton unleashes his surfactant force once more as crowds of innocent Peorians cheer the obliteration of the graffiti menace. Graffiti God sobs, head in hands.)

[panel twenty seven] Later.... (Saniton is at street level as a crowd gathers around him.)

Kid in Crowd: “Wow, Saniton, you’re not just a custodian; you’re a hero.”

[panel twenty eight] (Saniton in semi-profile goes into to full speechifying mode as the awe-struck crowd listens intently.)

Saniton: “Am I a hero, son? Or are average custodians the true champions? I’ve been blessed with special abilities to fight extraordinary threats to cleanliness. But when the average custodian faces the worst this city has to offer, he doesn’t have super powers. All he has is a bucket, a mop, and a sponge. Yet, somehow, the city stays clean. Because when bits of trash sadden a happy sidewalk, it’s the average custodian who puts them in their place. When callous litterbugs sin against our hallways, it’s the average custodian who makes those hallways clean again. When the smells and fluids of daily life overwhelm the innocent citizen, it’s the average custodian who meets them head on. When lavatories threaten to spread disease and disgust, it’s the average custodian who says ‘No!’ to the germs, and wipes away their evil stain, not just sometimes, but every day! How can any occasional act of service on my part possibly compare to that steadfast heroism? How can society ever repay its debt to the legions of custodians who hold the line against a world of barbarous filth to protect the world good clean living?” (Saniton’s head is bowed as a single tear appears on his cheek. The crowd is hushed.)

[panel twenty nine] (Pan into crowd.)

Ordinary Citizen: “Gosh, I never thought of custodians that way. I always used to look down on them... make fun of them. Not anymore! Thank you, Saniton!”

(In the background, the members of the crowd smile through their tears of gratitude as they applaud their immaculate hero.)

[panel thirty] Later...

(A mugging victim lays in an alley.)

Mugging Victim: (looking shocked and afraid) (thought balloon) Oh no! I’ve been stabbed!

[panel thirty one] (Same scene, except mugging victim is smiling gratefully as Saniton, unaware of the victim’s plight, zooms through the sky overhead.)

Mugging Victim: (thought balloon) But the wound won’t get infected in this clean alley. Not with Saniton around!

NEXT: Saniton faces the malodorous menace of....THE SKUNK!

when to become a theist:.....Are you an atheist? If so, when should you become a theist? If you’re not sure, watch for the following changes in your universe.

a)....From all radios and radio telescopes, no matter where they are pointed, a message is received. "I am God, the god who spoke to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Bahaullah, and others. I am the all-powerful, all-knowing maker of this universe and other realms, even Paradise. Though you have suffered, yet I love you infinitely in ways that you will understand in the life that awaits you in the hereafter. Believe that I am God; trust in me; pray to me. Most of all, love others as you love yourselves."

The repeating message is broadcast over as many frequencies as there are mutually unintelligible varieties of language--with one language per frequency.

b)....The message is received telepathically by all humans. (The purpose of the radio message is to insure that the message was delivered in an objectively recordable form, and not just subjectively.)

c)....Scientists document that the sources of this message include every star observed with no exceptions, and that the background radiation that has permeated the universe since the beginning of time is modulating to convey the message also.

d)....According to all observatories, the red shift that indicates the motion of the galaxies away from us in the expansion of the universe has stopped. Later observations confirm that the universe had, in an instant, changed from a post-big-bang universe to a steady state universe.

e)....Astronomical photos confirm that the countless observable galaxies in the universe have changed positions, and are now arranged in clusters each containing a prime number of galaxies.

f)....As for the moon and every other observable non-stellar astronomical body, all these become hospitable to human life in an instant to brief to be measured.

g)....All infirmities, diseases, and disorders vanish in the same instant.

h)....All humans suddenly acquire the ability to change their location instantly by act of will, and travel not only anywhere on Earth, but to any world in the entire universe, without ever getting lost. Remember, all the worlds are habitable now.

i)....All humans acquire the ability to hear--unaided by technology of any kind--radio transmissions from the stars, which would convey The Word of God undimmed by the errors and biases of scribes and translators.

If these changes happen in your universe, consult your clergy person about becoming a theist today!

the hero’s sister:.....Some martial arts movies are lightweight. Take Jackie Chan’s most recent movies, which feature lots of amazing stunts and honest-to-goodness comedy. Then consider ninja movies, harmless revenge/omnipotence fantasies for people who are thirteen or want to take a break from being older than thirteen.

Some martial arts movies are grim, and come in two flavors: Early Bummer and Later Bummer. Both these kinds of movies have a grim tone and lots of action occasionally seasoned with some good acting, but you can generally tell these two kinds of movies apart by paying attention to what happens to the hero’s sister.

Here’s what happens in an Early Bummer martial arts movie. Right at the get-go, the villain kills the hero’s sister in some vile and horrible way. The hero gets wind of it, and vows revenge. After spending the entire movie destroying the villain’s organization with his bare hands, the hero has a showdown with the villain.

Maybe the hero kills the villain. Or maybe the hero refuses to kill the villain until the villain pulls a gun and leaves the hero no choice. Or maybe, the villain sneers at the hero’s principled refusal to kill him until a gust of wind blows the villain off the thousand foot cliff (where he happened to be standing) and onto the jagged rocks below.

The point is, in an Early Bummer martial arts movie, the hero’s sister buys it early, and the hero feels grim, but a little bit better when the villain is dead.

Things are different in Later Bummer martial arts movies. The sister doesn’t die until close to the end of the movie. At the get-go, the hero is trying to stop a criminal organization that relies on elite martial artists armed with throwing stars when ordinary tommy guns and tanks prove inadequate for its sinister plans. As the plot thickens, the hero gets more and more bummed out about the contrast between his sister’s gentle peacefulness and his own chop-stocky tendencies. Close to the movie’s finale, the hero’s sister gets caught and killed in the crossfire of the hero’s battle. The hero prevails, but the death of his sister leaves him a shell of a man, condemned forever by the ultimate emptiness of his violent destiny.

To review, in Later Bummer martial arts movies, the hero’s sister dies late. The hero prevails, but feels horrible beyond imagining even after the villain is dead.

Of course, in lightweight martial arts movies, the hero’s sister not only lives, but, as a martial artist in her own right, helps the hero catch the bad guys, who usually live to be thrown in jail.

gentle plant eaters my ass:.....Enjoyed Jurassic Park a lot, especially back when it came out, but one thing that really pissed me off about it was the depiction of plant-eating dinosaurs, brachiosaurus in particular.

There’s this scene in which a man and two children are resting near the top of a tree, and a brachiosaur approaches, and starts nibbling at the leaves right next to the humans. When one of the children gets scared, the other two people say not to worry; that this is a plant-eater, not a meat-eater, and therefore a gentle creature. Yeah. Right.

The three largest land animals alive today are all plant eaters: the tranquil rhinoceros, the unassuming hippopotamus, and of course, the gentle African elephant.

Rhinos are meek, timid creatures, unless you get too close to them, in which case they snort in order to scare you away. If that fails, they charge, fast as a horse and eager to drive their horns like huge stakes straight through your guts. Of course, they’ll probably have to shake your body off those blood-drenched three foot spikes, but bits of gore will cling like crimson slugs to the deadly horns as the rhino tramples you to a hideous paste that will never threaten their kind again.

Ah, the peaceful rhinos. They’re plant eaters, you know.

Hippos, on the other hand, kill more people in Africa each year than lions do. Hippos attack anything that surprises them and their jaws are strong enough to chop a human head off at the shoulders with one bite. In fact, hippos really do bite human heads off at the shoulders. Hippos take all kinds of killing bites out of human beings, but only out of anger, never out of hunger. They’re plant eaters, after all.

And who can forget the African elephant? So mild, so tranquil. Well, okay, it gets angry sometimes. That’s when it picks you up with its powerful trunk and hurls you twenty feet to a bone-shattering collision with the nearest tree. Or maybe it will dash you to the ground where its feet can stomp, kick, and trample you under its three tons of muscular weight. Or maybe the retiring pachyderm will use its head to pin you to a pile of rocks as it lifts its back leg, transferring crushing tons of force to the head that smashes your bones and mashes your organs.

If African elephants, mild and harmless plant eaters that they are, can be this gentle, how much more gentle would plant-eating dinosaurs be?

Guys, gals, if you’re ever stuck in a very tall tree, and a brachiosaurus puts its mouth within teething distance of your body, be afraid. Be very afraid.

overestimates:.....We should believe in learning, but be skeptical about education. When we acquire the skills and information that authors and teachers attempt to teach us, that’s learning. When some of what we learn gives us a more informed way of looking at the world as a whole, that’s education. Consider a modicum of scientific skepticism a good example of education.

Now some people inflate the utility and value of education. Some educated people say foolish things like “I’m too educated to be influenced by propaganda,” “Educated people have the most refined tastes,” and “Educated people always make the best parents.” Let’s not even get started on that last one.

What’s really foolish is the belief that mastery of one field of learning somehow translates into a superior knowledge of all fields. Most educated people deny believing this, but too many educated people speak as if this is precisely what they believe. It’s as if they think that each year in school adds a new level of epistemological clairvoyance.

The most irritating examples from my experience?

Some physics students believe that studying the Theory of Everything gives them knowledge of everything from botany to philosophy to interior design.

Some psychiatrists and psychologists overestimate the forensic utility of their field, as if they could investigate the world of fact through unaided investigations into their subjects' states of mind. (False memories, anyone?)

Some speech therapists overestimate their knowledge of neurology.

Some pediatricians overestimate their knowledge of child cognitive and linguistic development.

Some teachers overestimate their knowledge of psychology and medicine.

Way too many English profs and teachers overestimate their knowledge of philosophy, psychology, and linguistics.

Some Ph.D.’s in fields that have nothing to do with the humanities talk about the arts as if the New York School of Fine Arts sends them a fresh diploma every year.

Hey, guys, outside your field, you’re lay people.

what the hell is this?.....Different tastes are a fact of life. Other people are always going to like stuff that you can’t stand. You won’t be able to imagine liking that stuff; you’ll wonder why anyone sane would like that stuff; you’ll avoid hearing and seeing that stuff whenever you can; and you’ll object when some inconsiderate so-and-so needlessly subjects you to it. And all that is okay. It doesn’t make you closed-minded. You don’t have to like what other people like.

But it’s a long jump from not liking something to cultivating an active contempt for people who do. You walk into someone else’s home, hear a tune that isn’t on your personal play list, and say “What the hell is this?” You get testy and disrespectful to anyone who mentions an artist whom you don’t like. Someone explains why they like something you’re not into, and you call their judgment stupid or corrupt, and otherwise treat them like dirt.

Hidden behind your angry contempt for tastes you do not share is pure conceit, pure egotism embodied in the idea that that all the forms of art, and all the media too, should be made for you, and that all the people around you must defer to your judgment. Yes, it does make you closed-minded. Yes, it does make you despicable.

the UFO cover-up:.....In this country, the belief that UFO’s could be extraterrestrial spacecraft pops up across a wide spectrum of rationality, from the arguably scientific notion that the unexplained UFO sightings are worth more serious study to the frankly mystical belief that extraterrestrials have come to Earth to enlighten humanity.

It has become customary to refer to the ideas along this spectrum as “belief in UFO’s.” The phrase is stupid considering what “UFO” stands for. First, we do not merely believe in unidentified flying objects; we know for a fact that some flying objects are unidentified. Second, those who are said to ?believe in UFO’s? think that they have identified the flying objects in question as extraterrestrial spacecraft. Strictly speaking, flying saucer buffs believe in fewer UFO’s than skeptics do.

So let’s distinguish “UFO’s” (unidentified flying objects) from “ETV’s” (extraterrestrial visitors, to Earth that is).

Belief in ETV’s has created precious opportunities for our secrecy-obsessed government, particularly the agencies that protect the secrecy of classified experimental aircraft programs. In a country where half the population owns camcorders, someone is bound to pick up an image of an experimental aircraft flying around.

How can our government keep these aircraft secret? The most cost-effective way to do this would be to persuade the public to doubt the veracity of UFO reports. It beats trying to put a tarp over half the sky to conceal our hypersonic aircraft tests. But how could the government accomplish this persuasion?

By covertly encouraging belief in a government cover-up of ETV. This prompts the believers in ETV to say things about UFO’s that reflect fanciful speculation and anti-government paranoia, which in turn prompts most of the public to laugh UFO’s into the margins of public discourse. Everyone talks about aliens. No one talks about hypersonic aircraft tests. The blurry photos and videos are too closely linked to fringe groups to have any credibility, and the government is happy.

This encouragement would hardly cost the government a dime. All it would have to do is classify a bunch of UFO reports. These reports would not have to concern any actual experimental aircraft. The reports could be transcribed from old UFO stories in newspapers. They could be compiled from Project Blue Book. They could be fabricated by aspiring novelists among the government staff. And, if distributed to the public, they could be so riddled with blacked-out lines that any self-respecting ETV fringe group would cry ?government cover-up.”

The government could further obscure the truth about experimental aircraft by allowing retired or supposedly fired officials and military pilots to describe impossible UFO sightings. Such insiders could report silvery flying discs executing right-angle turns at thousands of miles an hour, or appearing from nowhere, or rendezvousing with great mother ships that don’t show up on radar. With testimony enough to keep the ETV groups thirsting and the public scoffing, these few ex-government employees could camouflage the true capabilities of secret experimental aircraft.

The government could even pay a few ordinary citizens to claim that the government harassed them for knowing too much about flying saucers. These citizens could even tell tales of handling alien materials or seeing things that may have been the bodies of alien humanoids.

Yes, that’s the real explanation for the government’s UFO cover-up. You can take my word for it. After all, it’s not as if alien humanoids in dark suits came to my house and forced me to write this piece. The very idea is absurd. Isn’t it?

mind-photos:.....A good photographer can make almost any subject look interesting. And a good photographer’s pictures need not represent the concrete world exclusively. Even without retouching, properly cropped photographs of interesting surfaces can do the work of abstract paintings. A good photographer can see beauty everywhere.

Now, not everyone can take good pictures. But if everyone took a little time to use their eyes the way they might use a good camera, the whole world would be filled with fascinating scenes. You already take mind photos of people. Take mind photos of everything else too. Make your world more interesting.

thirty flags:.....Walk down the hallways of any elementary school. You’ll find a wall somewhere dedicated to this week’s art from some classroom or other. Sometimes you’ll see free coloring or painting on 9 x 12 construction paper. Sometimes, you’ll see photocopied line drawings colored by the students. The art will be arranged in neat rows and columns on the wall.

Some of the young colorists can stay in the lines; some of them can’t. Pictures colored by a talented few will look eerily like stained-glass windows. More pictures will be scribbled over with clashing colors. But regardless of the level of talent each young artist brings to bear, every picture will be different, no matter how much the teacher strives to craft instructions that produce identical pieces of art.

Look at the art from a single classroom and you’ll see the flags of thirty nations on the school house walls.

human cloning:.....For those who came in late, living human clones have existed ever since the dawn of humankind. We don’t call them human clones; we call them identical twins. But biologically speaking, they’re clones; more than one individual with the same genetic material. This does not mean that identical twins are less human than anyone else. Nor does it mean that they have less individuality than the un-twinned masses. And there is no good theological reason to deny that identical twins have souls.

So let me say from the outset that artificially produced human clones would be just as human as anyone else; there is no scientific reason to believe otherwise. The idea that artificially cultivated human clones would be less than human is superstitious garbage.

Also, let’s assume that the technical difficulties involved in cloning mammals will one day be solved. One fine day in the future, cloning a mammal will not involve the destruction of dozens of try-out embryos and will not doom the clones to birth defects and progeria.

All that said, I’m against the use of cloning to make babies, because the only reasons for reproductive cloning are bad reasons.

Cloning babies to solve Earth’s desperate under-population problem is obviously ridiculous. Human beings have doubled their population over the last fifty years just by doing what comes naturally.

What’s more, cloning whole nations would also decrease human genetic diversity, leaving these nations vulnerable to diseases that would harm a smaller percentage of more genetically diverse peoples.

Cloning talent seems like a good idea at first blush. Why not clone another Einstein or another Michael Jordan? The answer is no revelation. Cloning for talent would create a de facto caste system. It would not be called a caste system. The existence of the talents in question could be scientifically documented rather than assumed on religious grounds. But the investment represented by cloning million dollar talents could not be justified unless the course of a clone’s life were preordained.

Cloning whole babies for spare parts? Heck, why not clone babies just to see if we can keep their severed heads alive in laboratories? Our clones would be human. What’s immoral to do to identical twins would be immoral to do with human clones.

But what about human cloning as a fertility technology? Well, personally I’m not a big fan of elaborate fertility technologies. Do they really have a place in a world where too few children are adopted?

Even if they do, would it be healthy for a parent to raise his or her identical twin? Many parents are tempted to live through their children; to insist that their children succeed where they failed. How might this temptation be magnified if one parent had a child created in his own image? How else might cloning distort the parent-child relationship? If a child were cloned as a replacement for a child who died, what would that say about whether a child exists for its own sake or as a mere vehicle for parental fulfillment?

And by the way, why use cloning when you can use artificial insemination?

The fertility tech crowd could argue that would-be parents have the right to assume the psychological risks of raising their own clones. But in my opinion, cloning for fertility could be the slippery slope that leads to cloning for talent. Suppose an eminent and remarkably talented couple had one or more children who failed to exhibit the family genius. Cloning would make it possible for them to have another child as smart as Mom or Dad.

same people. different BS:.....Any well-traveled person will tell you that people are the same everywhere; that you find the same kinds of personalities in every nation the world over. Let’s take the globe-trotters at their word.

Societies don’t vary when it comes to the types of people they have, but vary a lot when it comes to the stations that the different types occupy. Take thugs, for example. In America, thugs are often found in dark allies. Back in the Soviet Union, thugs got jobs in the secret police and occupied high positions in government.

I shake my head when I hear people say that the Soviets had street crime licked. Stalin didn’t wipe out murder. He turned it into a function of the government.

laundry folders:.....I am currently watching BEAST, a made for TV giant squid movie based on Peter Benchley’s giant squid novel of the same name. It may not be as legendary as the Godfather saga, but it’s one of the greatest laundry-folding movies of all time. At more than three hours in length (four if you don’t fast forward through the commercials), this light soap opera, occasionally punctuated by giant-squid scenes, requires only the most minimal attention on the part of the viewer. This enables the viewer to do repetitive tasks, such as folding laundry, in a pleasant stupor rather than a bored funk.

America’s Great Laundry-Folding Movies (cue ?2001? theme music)

contemporary

Peter Benchley’s THE BEAST: film version
Peter Benchley’s CREATURE: film version
Any giant-and-or-recombinant-DNA-animal attack movie

retro

The Land that Time Forgot (featuring Doug McClure and cheesy pterodactyls)
The People that Time Forgot (the proudly mindless sequel!)
Any ninja movie

silver screen classics

Any 1950’s B or C grade giant-and-or-radioactive horror movie.
Any Tarzan movie. Any Bomba the Jungle Boy movie.

What Elements Make a Laundry-Folding Movie Truly Great?

cheesy pterodactyls.....man-eating plants.....quicksand.....gratuitous dry ice
sacrificial pits of lava, fire, or unspecified bubbly & dangerous-looking liquid
lots of young, very good-looking non-actors, plus a few old, career-impaired actors

the competition:…..When you’re in a competitive situation, it’s important to gauge not only your own ability to compete, but how much attention you need to pay to your competition.

In games, from chess to football, you have to anticipate and respond to your opponent move-for-move throughout the contest. So too with races.

At the opposite extreme, we have being a student. Trying to be a good student is indeed a competitive task, but you don’t have to pay much attention to your competition as long as you do your best.

Arts and entertainment occupies the whole range between these two extremes. Creating original art or entertainment aimed at small audiences can be a very competitive task, but not one that requires you to pay much attention to your competitors. Creating derivative work for a large audience requires close attention to the other guys.

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“2.012 In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in a state of affairs, the possibility of the state of affairs must be written into the thing itself.”

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socialism and artificial scarcity:.....We’ve tolerated the artificial scarcity of diamonds; we’re starting to feel the artificial scarcity of music. A technology sufficiently advanced, coupled with social discipline sufficiently comprehensive to give societies control over their own population growth, could make artificial scarcity so pervasive that the pressure to eliminate it and embrace socialism would be great.

Hendrix et al.:.....Recently, I did a re-listen to Jimi Hendrix’s “Axis: Bold as Love.” I only discovered this album many years after I discovered “Electric Ladyland” when I was a kid. In fact, I bought “Axis” within the last decade or so to complete my collection of Jimi Hendrix re-issues.

The drummer was smarter than I remembered, and played lots of flashy fills.

I think this fill-o-mania has to do with the fact that rock breaks three cardinal rules of art, namely don’t be obvious, don’t be simple, and don’t do anything to excess.

It is incumbent on rockers, particularly hard rockers, to communicate very simple messages (I’m angry; I’m horny; I have a glowering spooky side; We should all be afraid; I live in a world in which my emotions must be suppressed to an unhealthy extent so part of me dreams of making an aggressive and triumphal tidal wave of sound powerful enough to annihilate all my frustrations and feelings of powerlessness--which is why millions of people like me wish they were rock stars.)

It is incumbent on rockers, particularly hard rockers, to keep the composition stringently simple. (Prog-metal acts like Dream Theater don't fit this description, but the existence of prog-metal depends on the existence of simple metal, and the most metallic passages of Dream Theater are simple). So in the main, forget composition; any ingenuity in hard rock and metal is invested in texture; not just the production, but the timbres of the instruments, the dexterous (if artistically undisciplined) instrumental work and solos, and most importantly, the voice of the lead singer.

It is often incumbent on rockers, particularly hard rockers, to do things to excess. Why? Because you have to make that big sonic tidal wave with very few instruments. If all you’ve got are a bass, a guitar, a drum kit, and a voice, and you’re supposed to communicate intensity, one way to do this is to have everybody overplay. The singer screams, the guitarist plays too many notes, and the drummer plays more than his share of fills. And if the band is anything like The Who, the bass player holds everything together. Oh, and you have to have lots of big speakers.

Nowadays, with modern production, a hard rock or metal band can make a stadium-filling growl even if they play simply, but back in the heydays of Hendrix and the Who, having the musicians do too much of everything (into too many speakers) was one way to ignore art’s “nothing to excess” rule. Fortunately, for people like me, who are suckers for even unmotivated displays of instrumental dexterity, the too-much-of-everything tradition has carried over into relatively recent times.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that the drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience played a lot of flashy fills.

Electric Ladyland was the album that first acquainted me with his music; I must have been in sixth grade.

As for Hendrix himself, I can’t pretend to identify with his heritage or circumstances. But I can sure as hell identify with the euphoric fantasy he communic