As a Bible Belter I lived among people who BELIEVED. Many of them believed, as CS Lewis did, that this world is an illusion of final reality. Someday, they say, this illusion will evaporate and God will come with the Judgement. I DISAGREE with them. But if their concept of reality is true, then mine is untrue.
Period.
Then there are people who claim to philosophize about the real world that I live in. They claim to be reasonable people. They claim that, in this world, socialism works and if professors ruled the world all things would be as they should be. It is very hard for me to make it clear that, at the gut level, I can respect those who BELIEVE but I can only regard this lattter group, the group that calls itself “materialistic,” to be beneath contempt.
I may think that those who BELIEVE are probably delusional. But there is always the chance that he can be right and I am in for a shock.
But there is no room for someone who thinks that water runs uphill or socialism or diversity works.
Those who say they are materialists and wish away reality are beneath contempt. They are silly. Delusional is far, far more to be respected than absurdity. I have much to talk about with a person whom I think is wrong. But there is no room in rational discussion for someone who is just plain silly.
#1 by joe rorke on 07/15/2006 - 3:48 pm
Not Spam. OK. You win. I’ve had enough. I have never been anywhere, to any website, to any anyplace where I have heard the word “silly” used as often as it is used on this blog. Maybe it’s a term used primarily in the South. Maybe not. I don’t know. But I think it is overused here. Let’s just take a definition of “silly” from my old 1967 dictionary: lacking good sense, foolish, stupid. Calling someone or something “silly” seems to me to be a value judgment. Fair enough. Sounds almost like a smear tactic. To avoid serious argumentation I’ll just call you “silly.” That’s not my style. I’d rather deal with evidence. That is my style.
Everybody believes something. Jesus said, “all things are possible to him that believeth.” I never try to upstage Jesus. That’s a personal thing. But those Bible Belt Believers that you spoke of believed something. It’s not hard to tell a true believer from a phoney. Just look at the life of the person, know what a Christian is supposed to be and take it from there.
There is no private reality. There is just reality. OK, sometimes it’s with a capital R if you like it that way. If the believers just mentioned are wrong in their belief it does not follow that they are stupid, foolish or lack good sense. In my opinion. Anybody can be wrong. Anybody can make a mistake. In fact, I don’t know anybody who hasn’t made many mistakes. I don’t call them foolish or stupid or silly or lacking good sense. Unless, of course, they make the same mistake repeatedly.
There are many believers who say they believe who really don’t believe at all. They just say they believe and figure that’s the only requirement. Then they’ll rubber stamp the killing of anybody they think should be murdered. I hold these people in contempt because they are liars from the word go. Oh, yes, that’s right they’re willing to steal too. From anybody they can as often as they can. Then they’ll tell you they’re believers. That’s not all of them but that’s a good quantity of them. As James Dean once said to the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor as he was telling how beautiful she was, “and you know it too.”
There is no “final reality.” There is just reality. No private reality. Not your reality and my reality. Just reality.
I don’t want to live in the world that professors rule. Professors are some of the biggest horses asses I have met in my life. Once again, not all of them fall into this category. Some are outstanding. Like Kevin MacDonald for instance.
Sorry. Materialists are part of Reality. They are part of the part that Reality declares falsehood. Hey, that sounded pretty good, didn’t it? Heh! Heh! Heh! Have another drink.
#2 by Shari on 07/15/2006 - 6:35 pm
NOY SPAM
Well I am related to some leftist college mukymucks who are devout leftist christians. They think that socialism IS christianity. Needless to say, they make me nuts. I don’t a high opinion of our medical system. It is very socialist and controled by leftist and big fundage. We have a nephew who is a doctor. You should have heard some of the loaded sideways questions he had to answer to get into medical school. Since he is a “white male” his advantage was that he had cerebral palsy. But we are very glad for him anyway. But my leftist dedicated sister-in-law gets to “assess” medical students and
determine if they are ready to go on. They don’t have grades or any unbiased way of of doing this. I look for medicine to go downhill at least for the not rich.
#3 by Dennis on 07/15/2006 - 9:02 pm
NOT SPAM
Bob says…
But there is no room in rational discussion for someone who is just plain silly.
and it is this which I often end up trying to explain to people. You cannot argue against a person who just uses completely absurd arguments, you just cannot win. All you can do, is try to use their flawed logic, their perverted viewpoint, which ends up making you seem flawed and silly.
I’ve seen debated with the absurd many times, and countering such people only leads to one thing. Making you seem foolish in the eyes of others. Foolish because you give such nonsense any merit. Foolish because you think you can debate succesfully.
#4 by Bruce on 07/16/2006 - 4:52 pm
NOT SPAM
Alright Bob. Now you’ve really peaked my curiousity. In this post you say that you don’t believe, yet other postings you’ve made argue your views on Christian theology and your beliefs about Jesus fullfilling all testaments. You’ve mentioned your technical membership in the Byzantine Rite Catholic Church. Still other posts you’ve made seem to indicate that your an odinist. So I’d like to know, what exactly do you believe?
#5 by joe rorke on 07/17/2006 - 1:46 pm
Looks like Ole Bruce got ya, Bob. It’s that old inconsistency thing that you do so well. Ole Bruce hadn’t figured that you’re schizo yet. I’d a figured Ole Bruce woulda figgered that out by now the way you screw up an argument with every kind of fallacy imaginable.
Go easy on him, Bruce. He tries. Yes, it’s true, he parades his knowledge but it’s just a bunch of trivia. He’s a good ole boy, Bob is, it’s just a little hard for him to accept the idea that he’s not a genius. He tries. He’s been tryin for fifty years an he’s got a bucket full of nothin. Things are much worse than they were fifty years ago but he’ll never tell you that. Guys like me he’ll call naysayers and quitters and “Gloomy Gus.” Things like that. We throw reality at him and he calls us Buckley clones. It’s just Bob. You’re not supposed to take him seriously. Believe? He doesn’t know what he believes, Bruce. One day he’s 99% atheist and the next day he’s a practicing Christian. Now that’s a quick turnaround, wouldn’t you say?
Oh, and he always speaks for me. If I say something on this blog he tells everybody on this blog what I said which is a way of saying he doesn’t have enough respect for his viewers/audience to give them credit with understanding what I said. Now that’s a slap in the face, wouldn’t you say?
But Bob’s a good ole boy. He just said recently that we like to pound on each other. Actually, we’re the best of friends, Bob and I, and like he said we do like to pound on each other. I don’t mind when Bob calls me a horses ass. I don’t pay it no nevermind. We just playin with each other. We got our gun barrels focused in the same direction. He knows that. We just gettin into a little intellectual exercise an poke jabs at each other. Like they said in the Nam: It Don’t Mean Nothin’.