Re: a comment on St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Dovina	31-Aug-04/7:04 PM
"comfort is, I believe, the primary benefit religion gives to believers" I think that much of the 'comfort' believers feel stems from a reduced fear that they might end up in hell - a fear that religion put there in the first place!
Re: a comment on St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Dovina	31-Aug-04/6:35 PM
1) There is little evidence that I am aware of to suggest that believers are happier than normals. So I agree with you. 2) Of course you would have to find some way of stranding a morally untrained colony on the island; perhaps by stranding newborn babies there and using morally neutral robots to feed them. It would be pretty difficult to invent a robot that was totally morally neutral, though. Perhaps it should, at random intervals, do something naughty for no reason, like punching one of the other robots in the motherfucking face. Even if the experiment could be performed and the colony didn't slaughter or do anything too untoward, it wouldn't be conclusive. My instincts say people have an innate sense of guilt at doing certain lewds; this also seems to be the case in the animal kingdom, and perhaps it would be best to do the experiment on monkey colonies or something. Anyway my view could be utterly distorted by the fact that my upbringing as a Scholar and a Gentleman has been so austere, so fundamental to my being, that to me it seems like second nature. 3) There seems to be very little correlation between high church-going levels and low murder rate. Britain, Canada, the rest of Europe all have much lower murder rates than the USA, but the USA has a much higher rate of church going. I think religion has very little to do with making people not murder-prone. I don't think most religions say murder is wrong because God told someone it was wrong and they wrote it down, or some madman heard a voice that said it was wrong so he wrote it down; it says murder is wrong because that's what most people instinctively feel is wrong. By and large, most religions share similar basic morals, and they aren't very different from those followed by normals. Is this just coincidence? Or are such religions more likely to survive because people feel more comfortable following morals that they already believe in anyway? Of course some wallyish morals slip through... A friend of mine is a lapsed Jewish, but he has relatives who are ultra-non-lapsed-jewishes. On a particular day of the week (Holy Saturday?) they aren't allowed to work, cook, drive a car, etc. One of the most wallyish aspects of this is that they can't turn on a light. They actually have a special device on their fridge which prevents the light from turning on when they open the door. There is clearly no practical basis for this moral, other than God told them to do it. Other, more serious wallyishnesses exist, like condemning homo lords. Now I actually think there is an inbuilt disgust towards gayness among many people, but normals can overcome this quite easily. Religious people can't because the prejudice, which was present in the elderlies who wrote their holy books, is now ingrained in their religion. So they can't tolerate gayness, lest they be deemed gay.
Re: a comment on St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Dovina	31-Aug-04/6:13 AM
I'm afraid I disagree awfully. I don't think religious people, on the whole, refrain from slaughtering people they dislike just because their religion says it's wrong. And I don't think non-religious people refrain from slaughtering people they dislike for purely practical reasons. In both cases, the majority of people feel guilt, partly through upbringing, but also because we have an innate sense of guilt at doing such things. If you did an experiment in which a human colony was left to develop on a desert island, totally isolated from the rest of humanity, and in particular from religion and people who told them killing was wrong, would they end up slaughtering each other? It is to the species's advantage that we feel guilt when performing certain lewds, since shame at lewding upon others promotes cooperation. Before we all evolved, humans who felt no shame at performing lewds upon others would have been shunned by the rest of the group, and left to wither and starve on their own. The main difference between religious people and normals is that religious people can end up believing in wallyish morals just because their religion says so. These are the morals for which the only justification is "God says so".
Re: a comment on St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Dovina	29-Aug-04/4:46 AM
The only thing I acknowlege is my own excellence.
Re: a comment on abortion by darylchew	29-Aug-04/4:26 AM
If current trends in abortion continue, do you think there will come a day when all the aborted foeti come back to bite us? Also, do you think that every time we abort something, we are also aborting a bit of ourselves?
Re: a comment on St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Dovina	28-Aug-04/6:50 PM
I thought lobotmised people just wobbled around the place feeling happy. Some people think comfort is just the lack of grief, so they would disagree with the idea that lobotomised people feel no comfort. Anyway, my point was that I don't envy religious people, even if I feel grief, because, like you, I don't share their faith, and it seems silly to envy someone who is comforted by a belief that you think is cobblers. If you were an antelope fleeing from a hungry lion, would you envy a passing ostrich who had stuck its head in the sand? Of course the ostrich may not be as terrified as you, and you're right to envy the state of not being terrified, but to envy the ostrich itself is folly indeed! Praying to Vishnu to heal your wife's buttock cancer may make you think she'll be alright, but it isn't going to do anything about the buttock. You might think religion has done good by giving such people hope, but it is that very aspect of it which can prevent people from trying to find actual solutions to their problems. Rather than relying on Vishnu to heal the buttock cancers of this world, why not spend millions of dollars on research into this terrible, and debilitating disease?
Re: a comment on abortion by darylchew	28-Aug-04/6:16 PM
The aborted foetus flung it. It's revenge because the foetus was well pissed off at being aborted.
Re: abortion by darylchew	28-Aug-04/6:15 PM
Foetal rage from beyond the grave is a touching topic. And the yoda-like dialogue - "forgotten, I will be" - was a nice touch. Shame about the "all lower case" and "arbitrary line breaks", though :( -10-
Re: a comment on abortion by darylchew	28-Aug-04/6:09 PM
By flinging the aborter through the windshield, of course.
Re: a comment on St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Dovina	28-Aug-04/6:00 PM
During your times of need and grief, do you envy religious people more than lobotomised people?
Re: a comment on St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Dovina	28-Aug-04/9:57 AM
Important for what?
Re: a comment on Center Of The Universe by Dovina	27-Aug-04/2:39 AM
It's not as empty-headed as the legions of comments saying "show don't tell". People just see other people writing "show don't tell", then think it sounds catchy and wise, then end up smearing it everywhere themselves. It's a disease.
Re: a comment on Faith by Dovina	26-Aug-04/1:49 PM
Why are the Irish peasants praying for rain? Are you talking about a fictional drought which is totally unrelated to the potato famine? Nice one.
Re: Faith by Dovina	26-Aug-04/3:35 AM
I thought the potato famine was caused by potato blight, not drought. If your poeme does indeed turn out to be historically inaccurate, I do hope you will withdraw it from poemeranker. Sincerely yours, Cornelius Bum
Re: a comment on Corner of 30th and Tibbs by klosterfobik	23-Aug-04/5:43 AM
Consider the following passage, taken from The Lewd Memoirs of Sir Arthur Weatherby-Browne: "Punctuation," said Lord Bumlington-Smithe, "is the art of precision. Without it, one cannot surmount the dung-soaked drudgery of a peasant-like literacy, to soar majestically through the meandering colons and semi-colons of Gentlemanhood." Bumlington-Smithe leant towards Rutherford, eyes closed, smugness oozing from every orifice. His glass of Brandy teetered at an absurdly jaunty angle as he mulled over the extraordinary profundity of what he had just said. But it was not its profundity that silenced the Ambassador's guests. Nor was it Weatherby-Browne's subsequent, and rather unfortunate, outburst of broken wind. It was its impertinence. It was well known, among Important Gentlemen Of The Towne, that Rutherford had, as an undergraduate, arranged a May Week garden party in the "Trinity College Fellow's Garden." Of course, as every neglected Fellow knew only too well, the apostrophe should have been placed after the "s". As you can imagine, the damage to his reputation as both a Scholar and a Gentleman was irreparable. It was with the memory of this disgrace still ripe in his mind that Rutherford stood up, put down his glass, and strode around the table - thinking - figuring. Then, in an act of baffling cruelty, he seized Sir Fotherington's plate and hurled a two-volley barrage of Beeves Wellington at Bumlington-Smithe. The helpless Lord still had his eyes closed when the airborne Beeves collided with his face. Lady Queensbury fainted. Arthur Weatherby-Browne broke wind. And Bumlington-Smithe sat there aghast, his embrowned face punctuated with a curious mixture of Madeira Sauce, and Shame. "Oh Dear," said Rutherford, "I appear to have mispunctuated a Fellow!!!!!!111111" Exercises: 1. To demonstrate that knowledge of punctuation is not an important part of being literate, rewrite the passage above without using any punctuation. [100 marks] 2. For an extra bonus, get someone who doesn't understand punctuation to read the passage above. How the fuck can they? [1 mark]
Re: a comment on Corner of 30th and Tibbs by klosterfobik	22-Aug-04/5:01 AM
People who know how to punctuate do seem more literate. Because, you know, that's what 'literate' means. Punctuation isn't for artless people any more than it is for artful people. It's for anyone who needs punctuation to clarify their writing. Of course it's possible to write a good poeme without punctuation, but the vast majority of poemes do contain punctuation, and are all the better for it. Since poetry is all about the skillful use of language, it makes sense to know how to punctuate properly even if you don't always need it. You wouldn't be a painter if you had no control over your brush strokes, would you? I've got nothing against you for being inexperienced. But pretending it's a good thing to be ignorant by insulting nearly everyone who knows how to write correct English is obviously more than a little bit wallyish.
Re: Black streets of Hackney by cpill	19-Aug-04/7:09 AM
"Burn the lands to dry barren earth On which these dark seeds lay strewn." If only the government would adopt a similar policy of ethnic fire bombing. Look at what Britain has become: Ethnic foods stain our cobbles, tainting the earth in vast swathes of brown; Ethnic smells pollute our parks and town squares, sullying our nostrils with the filth of distant, foreign lands; Ethnic wipes litter our streets and places of work - is it any wonder Gentlemen have taken to wearing gloves at all times? It's all decent, civilised people can do to keep from accidentally reaching for a teacup only to find you've picked up some monstrously soiled tow'lette instead. No Sir, this is not the land I once loved; a land in which all men were free to stroll through the gardens of St James, gay and carefree, unhampered by the constant, crippling fear that at any moment you could end up tredding on a giant upturned turban stuffed full of spicy sausage meats. -10-
Re: a comment on Corner of 30th and Tibbs by klosterfobik	19-Aug-04/3:39 AM
Do you honestly think punctuation is for the artless? Is your brain actually thinking that right now? If so, then congratulations, because it is one of the stupidest thoughts ever. How is it possible to think something so bum-like without suddenly exploding in a giant shower of misplaced apostrophes? Punctuation, as any non-stupendously-idiotic person knows, is for clarifying meaning. The only people who think punctuation is for the artless, or that punctuation somehow imposes restrictions on their creativity, are people who are too thick to know how to use it. Instead of trying to defend your ignorance, you might consider doing something about it. Like, I don't know, learning how to punctuate?
Re: Contemplation Of The Heart by kalikopeli	15-Aug-04/10:00 PM
Unbelievably appalling. I shan't comment further on the poetry, but will give you the following important Life Tip: an apostrophe usually indicates a missing letter(or letters). In the case of "wouldn't", the missing letter is the "o" of "not". That's how you know the apostrophe must be between the "n" and the "t". Not between the "d" and the "n". Demonstrate your understanding by correctly placing the apostrophe in the following words: wouldnt, couldnt, thats, theyre (4 marks)
Re: a comment on Mississippi Burnin. by SupremeDreamer	15-Aug-04/7:35 AM
Ok, zodiac. Fine to join in. But in future I would ask that you share your opinions with the rest of the group before attacking other opinions. Nobody here would claim to know how to solve all the world's problems; it's important that we work together if we're to make any progress. Sometimes other peoples' opinions are bulging and wallyish, but not always. There are times when we can learn a great deal by viewing an issue from a different perspective, wouldn't you agree? Thanks for listening, and I hope to hear from you soon!