Williamson sounds like a real swell guy. He not only discounts the holocaust and subscribes to the 9/11 conspiracy theory, he also thinks women shouldn't be allowed to attend the university or wear pants.
I like to open a women's university just to spite him. There'll be no pants allowed but in a way that's different from what Williamson meant. Oh, and as a side dish of spite, Jewish Studies will be one of the bigger departments. All I need is a respectable name for it, you know, because parents probably won't send their daughters to a place called Naked Fanny College. If the headlines were more bravely written, they'd say "Former Hitler Youth member cuts slack for fellow reactionary Jew hater" or "Ex-Nazi Pardons Nazi Sympathizer for being such a damn Nazi". It speaks volumes about where we're at culturally, you know? In a less dramatic form, without Hitler or the Pope, we can see the same basic alignment in our own politics. Religiosity and nationalism pretty well define right-wing politics regardless of the particular religion or nation in question. Tradition is in a reactionary mode for historical reasons. This kind of religion is hostile to science and the intellect and yet loves certainty and conviction. This is what makes it reactionary, it's a social level reaction to modernity. Far from being dynamic and fostering an openness, these kinds of religions cling quite desperately to long-held certainties whether they make any sense or not. I mean, this is the kind of place to find people with diabolically emphatic beliefs about good and evil, but not too many mystics. The mega-churches and radio stations yelp about God 24-7. Both parties cater to it and one is dominated by it. It's loud and muscular and demanding. They've got the numbers, big time. And yet everybody knows the jig is up, the party's over and God has left the building. As I see it, if you're a relatively educated contemporary Westerner religion is something to be understood with the help of the sciences and humanities, not something we believe in or accept on faith. It's part of our history, culture. language and our psychological makeup. It's the symbolic language of myth that attracts psychotics and those with lesser illnesses like Williamson. There is a psychological resonance for everyone, but at the lower levels this resonance only works to harden conviction and nail down the dogma. I think this is why we see not just conservative stasis but the repeal of previous innovations, a march backward. Up with Latin and down with pants. Yea, that'll help. Thanks, Pope. ---------------------------------------- > Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:00:56 -0500 > To: [email protected] > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MD] Theism > > > Too much! > > > http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/10/europe/letter.1-426599.php > > > > > > > > > > . > _____________ > > Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars......... > . > . > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_AE_Faster_022009 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
