It is sad to see so many who are wise in their own sight, yet who continue to be so decieved [sic] by Satan. He continues to misquote God, cause confusion and temptation just as he tempted Eve so many years ago. This method worked for him then, and it still works for him.
It ruins any notions of the pictured Link being a knight in shining armor and a force for good...The only thing that crosses my mind when people like Lync start spouting off such silly words is Do they realize this is the year 2008? That we've put a man on the moon? Cured diseases? Harnessed electricity? Looked at light fourteen billion years old? Invented the perfect ham-and-cheese sandwich? Fundamentally changed the flavor of Coca-Cola?? What can you say to someone with such a twisted sense of reality? Either Lync has been living at the Renaissance Faire while heavily medicated, or there is something seriously wrong with the neurological pathways in such a mind set...
Something tells me questions were not encouraged in little Lync's life...
The one good thing about science is, as it continues to ask things like "why," "how," and "wherefore" (you know, the basic questions most two-year-olds have mastered...), god is found in fewer and fewer places--satan even less so! But then as kids get older and their parents just start flat-out squelching the merest hint of a "Why?" ("Because I said so, that's why! Don't question my authority!! Rock music is EVIL! R-rated movies are of SATAN! Cards were invented by a DEMON! Dinosaur bones were planted in the dirt to drive you away from GOD!!!"), most people can't seem to ever get themselves to ask again... Where religion thrives and intelligence dies, this is what the church is built on...
I weep for the children of Catholics, Southern Baptists, evangelicals, Muslims, Hindus, Brittany Spears... (Especially the children of Brittany Spears...)
Christians used to believe that god kept the sun going 'round the Earth (and every now and then caused the sun to "stop in the sky"... You know, when he wanted the Hebrews to smite in his good and just name...). Then we figured out it's the other way around. And not because of some sky daddy, but because of this nifty thing called gravity. (Yeah science!) So god could no longer be found in the upper atmosphere, nor in the gaseous bright thing burning perpetually in the sky above...
And disease isn't some punishment by that same sky daddy for being pissed at you! It's called virus's and bacteria, other living things (as much as a virus can be said to be "living"...) going through what WE go through! Living! So god could no longer be found in the boils on your ass, the zit on your nose, or the crabs in your pubes...
Here's another news flash: earthquakes and volcano's aren't caused by failing to pray or forgetting to sacrifice a virgin!! Seriously! It seems we're floating about on tectonic plates rubbing together, crashing into one another, pulling away from one another...
Being that most of the physical, tangible world can longer support such ridiculous theories (outside of an institution...), now people look for god and satan in stupid little things, like the actual examination of the actual Hebrew of their holy book. After all, it MUST be a pitch-fork-carrying ex-angel with a grudge if someone comes to a different conclusion--especially when they came to that conclusion by studying the actual words and not basing it off of some "feeling" or "gut instinct" about what `asah tow`ebah means...Sigh. I can only hope science and medicine find a cure for medieval superstitious nonsense. Otherwise this is what your kids will be learning is actual fact because too many have been suckered into contemplating creationism as an actual scientific theory instead of the idiotic philosophizing that it is:
You think I'm kidding? Look at any creationist propaganda--people living with vegetarian T-rex's and bark-chewing tigers, the lord god "made them all"...
I'd wonder about where they dream up this nonsense, but then I remember:
Yes, indeed.
Death: Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes.
4 comments:
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?
The feeling I got from Death's explanation about "lies" is that belief (even belief that comes from a lie) leads to hope, and hope leads to change.
The falling angel meets the rising ape at the point where he begins to imagine the world as it can be, not as it is. Believing in something that doesn't currently exist is called faith. It is the driving factor that bridges the gap between myth and reality.
To think that a man could walk on the moon! To imagine that disease can be caused by microbial bacteria! These discoveries resulted from individuals who were willing to defy conventional truth and take a leap of faith.
You took Pratchett's quote out of context and provided your own connotation to suit your argument. Pratchett is arguing that imagination, fantasy, and belief are all essential parts of being human. They allow us to rise above our condition and dream of a better future. Children's hopes and dreams develop into the imaginations that create innovation.
Even God has his place. The idea of a God creates a mythos that uses story and metaphor to teach human qualities like love, generosity, compassion, kindness, etc.. I agree that religion has been perverted and politicized but that is not religion's place. Religion is about faith in a better tomorrow- plain and simple. We tend to get stuck on the details. Science can work out the details. That's what it's good at.
I agree with you up to a point, but not very far. I believe you got part of Pratchett's message but missed the whole point, stopping where you deemed it best. (I say this not to be mean or anything, but it seems to me you missed, as it were, the "Big Picture.") as I find time in the coming weeks (fingers crossed) I may dedicate a post to your comment, but suffice it to say, in a nutshell, that while fantasy and imagination allow us to accomplish greater and greater things, and are an essential part of what makes us human, not everything we imagine can be made true, and can be found out to be true, such as god, a circle with one corner, or a teal microwave in an invisible force field circling Jupiter once every ten days like clockwork.
:)
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?
The feeling I got from Death's explanation about "lies" is that belief (even belief that comes from a lie) leads to hope, and hope leads to change.
The falling angel meets the rising ape at the point where he begins to imagine the world as it can be, not as it is. Believing in something that doesn't currently exist is called faith. It is the driving factor that bridges the gap between myth and reality.
To think that a man could walk on the moon! To imagine that disease can be caused by microbial bacteria! These discoveries resulted from individuals who were willing to defy conventional truth and take a leap of faith.
You took Pratchett's quote out of context and provided your own connotation to suit your argument. Pratchett is arguing that imagination, fantasy, and belief are all essential parts of being human. They allow us to rise above our condition and dream of a better future. Children's hopes and dreams develop into the imaginations that create innovation.
Even God has his place. The idea of a God creates a mythos that uses story and metaphor to teach human qualities like love, generosity, compassion, kindness, etc.. I agree that religion has been perverted and politicized but that is not religion's place. Religion is about faith in a better tomorrow- plain and simple. We tend to get stuck on the details. Science can work out the details. That's what it's good at.
Use the whole quote next time...
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. DUTY. MERCY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
REALLY? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET YOU ACT, LIKE THERE WAS SOME SORT OF RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes. But people have got to believe that or what's the point?"
MY POINT EXACTLY.
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