Links With Your Coffee - Friday
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"All truth is simple." Is that not doubly a lie?—Nietzsche
"President Bush said while he's on vacation he's reading two books about his hero Abraham Lincoln. That's his hero, and this has got his staff a little worried. See they know how much President Bush idolizes Lincoln and the feeling is it's going to be very upsetting to him when he gets to the part of the book where Lincoln gets shot. But then again it's ten days, so it could take awhile." --Jay Leno
Don't be afraid or the president will win. Did you ever think that George Bush is completely fucked up. Even as he complains about how the the cut and run crowd is putting us at risk he's cheerleading for the run and hide crowd. We all know what the risks are. We don't need some inarticulate clown telling us the world is a dangerous place. Ze Frank is right we're more likely to die in an automobile accident than as a victim of terrorism, and heaven help him George is more likely to fall off his bike or choke on a pretzel.
Daniel Dennett (video tip to swedesforobama.com)
Dan Dennett is a Tufts philosophy professor and cognitive scientist, renowned for his books, Consciousness Explained (1991) and Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995). His most recent book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon calls for a rational examination of religion as a cultural phenomenon that has co-evolved over milennia to meet human needs. In this talk, which followed the presentation by Pastor Rick Warren, he takes issue with some of Warren's claims in The Purpose-Driven Life.
Don't miss this delightful bit of fun Samuel Jackson as the voice of God and a big thanks to Frank who provided the link, and while were on the subject of snakes you really should visit our good friend Chris Locke, expert herpetologist.
Comments
On don't be afraid.
I try to remind people constantly of this quote that I adore.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
My mother seemed to be frightened, but I told her you will always have enstranged people trying to kill us. They know this, thus they look for more inventive ways to perform more acts. It sort of reminds me of computer security. You must stay on top of updates and patches, etc. or the people creating these virus, trojans, adware, spyware will do damage to you.
Ok, enough rambling.
Norm (and swedesforobama?, thanks so much for the Daniel Dennett link. He is breeze of fresh logic through the cobwebs of stupidity.
On not being afraid:
Best thing I've ever read on the fear factor in anti-terrorism policy is "A False Sense of Insecurity" by John Mueller. Originally from the Cato Institute journal "Regulation", it is available in PDF at: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv27n3/v27n3-5.pdf
I've also recently posted on the relationship between fear and immoral action ("Afraid enough to be immoral?) at: http://postcardsfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/afraid-enough-to-be-immoral.html
Thanks for OGM, Norm. --h
Thanks for the link to zefrank. Sane words for an insane time.
Hey, I'd never heard of Dennett before but that was a great vid. Thanks for linking that.
cheers
I especially like his religious education proposal :)
Hi,
An extremely interesting interview I heard recently, and an intriguing slant on the whole 'religion as an infection' perspective:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/_data/assets/audioitem/515012/sat-44C13DBD-wmbr.asx
It will only be up for another week. Check it out.
I really wish I could see that Dennett vid. I've been trying for an hour and can't get #$*&!ing mp4 videos to play. My computer says the proper codec doesn't exist... how frustrating.
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