Sunday, March 16, 2008
Imagine if one minute from now, every single person on Earth disappeared. All 6.6 billion of us. What would happen to the world without humans? How long would it be before our nuclear power plants erupted, skyscrapers crumbled and satellites dropped from the sky? What would become of the household pets and farm animals? And could an ecosystem plagued with years of pollution ever recover? Aftermath: Population Zero asks these hypothetical questions and more to envision a world we'll never see.
It's almost like they are hoping for it, eh? There's a couple mega-churches down the road that anticipate such similarities. Eco-Religion is sure bent on doom.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
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19 comments:
interesting confluence of idiocies, mft.
A lot of trendy-lefty "ideas" are of these sort. After having discarded religion (as their Moses, Karl Marx, told them), they are left adrift. So they re-invent an ersatz religion, with only some of its trappings, but in a hollow, pathetic sort of way. The quasi-messianic cult of Obamania is yet another instance of this sad phenomenon.
there is still the acceleration of history, though. note that we'll be done with the global warming thing very soon after the miracle doesn't show up. same with Obamism--not to be confused with Onanism. Oh, well, confuse the two if you want.
Eco-religion is sure bent on doom.
Not more so than the evangelicals & their impending "day of last judgment" fear mongering.
don't think you're right, Pepe. The Jesus freaks have the fact that their beliefs have withstood the test of time. The eco-ians don't.
that's right. the day of last judgment has been coming next week for over 2,000 years.
got me there
What is this bullshit about "the test of time" that you guys are rehashing about christianity? Hasn't astrology also been around for ever ? Is that an argument for reading The Ladies Home Journal weekly predictions on the subject of your love and financial life ?
no, not the same. Christianity has rules that make societies adhering to it stronger than most of those tht don't. it's useful for something. think Darwin. Likely it had the good fortune to get accepted where people were more resourceful and the land was better...than Jainism or whatever, but it was clearly a stronger force than paganisms it replaced. Gibbon (who argued fairly) argues this cogently in his "Decline".
JJ's got a point, and this even works if you do or don't read the Bible the same way you read Homer or Herodotus. If taking the Bible as literature (which I tend towards), there are some themes that seem to have worked (even though there are plenty that have not).
First, there's a nifty pastoral theme that runs through the Old and New testimonies (as though God didn't get it right the first time; he had to opine a second). And in the new testimony, there's a recurring theme of forgiveness, which, I believe, is necessary for any culture to survive (even Nietzsche was big on forgiveness). Good agrarian and pastoral themes tie in with a, to use a value-judgment, positive use of the landscape, regardless of whether you believe some bearded dude walked across water a couple thousand years ago.
As far as fear-mongering goes, it does happen on both sides, as Pepe and AI point out. There's the televangelist who wants to scare folks into believing; and there's Al Gore who wants to scare folks into thinking tomorrow is judgment day. It seems, however, that we're ignoring geology — which anticipates another ice age in, oh, 15,000 years — and even the cosmos when it comes to planetary warming and cooling.
Christianity has rules that make societies adhering to it stronger than most of those tht don't.
It's also the broad spectrum of humanity — its flexibility through metaphor, anecdote, and story telling — that allows it to be interpreted and applied through the ages; again, akin to Homer or Herodotus. The authors of the Bible, and the preceding Ancient authors Homer and Herodotus, are far more enjoyable than the incantations of Gabriel circa 635AD, but that's just my humble opinion.
MFT: Why do you call the Testaments, "testimonies"? There is some overlap in meanings, but I still think the two terms are quite distinct. At least to people like me, who view the Bible as more than just literature.
Christianity has rules that make societies adhering to it stronger than most of those tht don't
We agree: religion is about feeding people horseshit for their own good.
God didn't get it right the first time; he had to opine a second
and then a third with the koran. and boy did he fuck that one up.
Testimonies, or sworn testament. It's a statement from an individual, and recorded within the historical record. Whether it does or does not come from the Divine is not my contention. I look at it more in the anthropological sense, similar to the way I would listen to a Native American tell me about their origin stories, or about how their grandfathers and grandmothers found the secular inextricably bound with the metaphysical world (so did St. Augustine, but that's another realm — Augustine argued more in the linear, teleological sense; the Native more in the holistic, cyclical sense).
To eliminate ambiguity, AI, here are the definitions of testimony and testament, taken from Merriam-Webster:
Testimony:
Etymology: Middle English testimonie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin & Latin; Late Latin testimonium Decalogue, from Latin, evidence, witness, from testis witness — more at testament
Date: 14th century
1 a: (1): the tablets inscribed with the Mosaic law (2): the ark containing the tablets b: a divine decree attested in the Scriptures
2 a: firsthand authentication of a fact : evidence b: an outward sign c: a solemn declaration usually made orally by a witness under oath in response to interrogation by a lawyer or authorized public official
3 a: an open acknowledgment b: a public profession of religious experience
Testament:
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin & Latin; Late Latin testamentum covenant with God, holy scripture, from Latin, last will, from testari to be a witness, call to witness, make a will, from testis witness; akin to Latin tres three & to Latin stare to stand; from the witness's standing by as a third party in a litigation — more at three, stand
Date: 14th century
1 a) archaic : a covenant between God and the human race; b) capitalized: either of two main divisions of the Bible
2 a: a tangible proof or tribute b: an expression of conviction : creed
3 a: an act by which a person determines the disposition of his or her property after death b: will
EVERYONE, BEHOOOOOOOOOLLLLD!!!! PEPE LE PEW MAKES SENSE!!!!
Pepe quotes MFT, and MFT said: God didn't get it right the first time; he had to opine a second
Then Pepe said: ...and then a third with the koran. and boy did he fuck that one up.
Wherever you find yourself this evening, FCP'ers need to hoist a glass to our French friend's statement, and harken back to the late 18th-century when Yankee-Franco relations were fraternal and brotherhood, certainly at an all time high. We haven't seen anything like it since Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were cruising around Paris (although that crazy Reign of Terror almost got our boy, Thomas Paine!).
Here's to your statement, Pepe!
Hmmm... As I said, close, but no cigar. The Latin roots are different. I'll stay with the Old and New Testament. But testimony sounds like a good alternative if one is faced with too many repetitions in a paragraph, say.
You afraid of going to hell or something?
if he's been around jj long enough, he's definitely going to hell.
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