Maybe random, maybe not. But if I had to have bad sex to be good and good sex would make me bad I'd want to go out and kill too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRopmfinsWk

But Larry is right: obliviosity is best.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/09/this_morning_i_was_reading.php

Semantics is such a lovely game. I was talking about spiritualism the noun (not the movement). According to Webster:

Spiritualism: the view that spirit is a prime element in reality. (1st definition) Spirit: The immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person.(4th definition).

I don't think I was so far off base.

i just knew i would be enlightened!

my own trying to describe spirit was to say, a kind of being-ness.

my thoughts about mixing religion and politics (as i have said before)...a particularly manipulative game.

Spirolitics

Some random thoughts:

What does Spiro Agnew have to do with this?

It's interesting to read this thread backward.

There's a wonderful line in a biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson ("The Mind on Fire," by Robert Richardson), in which a holy-roller type preacher of that time, who vehemently disagreed with RWE on theology, nevertheless responded to another critic of RWE by saying, "It may be that Mr. Emerson is going to hell, but of one thing I am certain; he will change the climate there, and emigration will set that way." I think that's just about the highest compliment anyone could be paid and, since he's been dead over 100 years, I'm thinking the climate's probably a lot different by now than when the Bible was written, even assuming there's any validity to the concepts of heaven and hell, and I would rather be there helping to change the climate than in some boring "heaven."

"Religulous" is a fun movie in parts, but it was bit too much "preaching to the converted" for me. I loved the clip with the priest that I posted because I think the most effective critical commentary on religion comes from the religious, not the secular. That kind of critical commentary doesn't get aired nearly enough, and R would have been a better movie if he'd engaged with those kinds of religious people more.

I generally feel about people and their gods just as I feel about people and their dogs. I'm neither a dog person nor a god person. I don't care if other people have them, as long as they don't let them jump on me or expect me to worship them.

I found "The Tillman Story" (new documentary on Pat Tillman) much more cathartic than Religulous, even though it (TS) is only tangentially about the Tillman family's non-religiousness (to put it mildly). It kills the "there are no atheists in foxholes" myth more effectively than any diatribe, and if you've ever experienced the pain of having to listen to a religious person's "comfort" at the death of a loved one...well, this is your film. (And, leaving that aside, it's a really good film on many other counts.)

The Bible is fine if you look at it as a book of questions rather than answers. It's also very funny, with a dry sarcastic humor.

Slate ran a series awhile ago in which one of their writers (Jewish, nonreligious) blogged the Bible. It was great. http://www.slate.com/id/2141050/

My favorite "religious" site is www.killingthebuddha.com . It's always full of surprises.

Seems like I remember being blamed for the religious leap here. I looked through the whole thread and beg to differ.

Edited for a spelling error...

My desire is to at some time in my life...acquire the wisdom you possess.

Thanks Captain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNJjd3z77fY



How do you define jump on me and expect me to worship them? Do you accept a moment of prayer in schools? Do you accept religious symbols on public property? How about school books designed to allow god to exist? The unequal treatment of homosexuals?


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/201 ... s_CV_N.htm

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Not mine, Gus. That Gershwin wisdom! Or "Gershwisdom"?

thank you for all your thoughts up there...this...i suppose it would depend on the context from which you were to wind up approaching it (the bible) as to how you might take it!

but i want to say, thank you for your perspective!

I dunno. We have certainly covered some ground here. I just still haven't figured out if we are talking about religion or opossums...

I dunno either Gus, but I think one thing has been made clear: opposums don't have religion, or if they do they don't really think it's a good use of their time discussing their different views on the subject. Now, they might be spiritual.......it's too early in the morning to ponder such things. Does anyone know if humans ever worshipped an "Oppossum God?"

It is like anything else in this world, you take what you need.

To me, animistic spiritualities and identification with holistic planetary (Earth) systems make more sense than looking to invented and invisible systems for guidance regarding how to best get along in this world. We'll never be happy being a link in the chain if what we ultimately want is to become the entire chain, or at least control it completely.