:: 6/03/2003 ::

In his Burnett Lectures, W. Robertson Smith explained that "even in its rudest form Religion was a moral force, the powers that men revered were on the side of social order and moral law; and the fear of the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society, which were also the laws of morality." Émile Durkheim, of course, argued that religion exists because it unites humans into moral communities, and while law and custom also regulate conduct, religion alone "asserts itself not only over conduct but over the conscience. It not only dictates actions but ideas and sentiments." And, according to Bronislaw Malinowski, "every religion implies some reward of virtue and punishment of sin."

bringing god(s) back into social science? scheme stinks to high heaven..

:: phil 12:28 [link] ::

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The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: "Is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride."

And we kill those people. "We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." Just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok.

It's just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.

Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

hicks - "as he himself said, he was Chomsky with dick jokes"

We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.

***

I love the Pope, I love seeing him in his Pope-Mobile, his three feet of bullet proof plexi-glass. That's faith in action folks! You know he's got God on his side.

***

See we just had a misunderstanding. I thought we lived in the U.S. of A., the United States of America. But actually we live in the U.S. of A., the United States of Advertising. Freedom of expression is guaranteed? If you've got the money! [on being censored from "The Late Show with David Letterman"]

***

"Get this, I actually asked one of these guys, OK, Dinosaurs fossils - how does that fit into you scheme of life? Let me sit down and strap in. He said, "Dinosaur fossils? God put those there to test our faith." I think God put you here to test my faith, Dude. You believe that? "uh huh." Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be.. fuckin' with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha ha." [mimes God burying fossils] "I am God, I am a prankster... I am killing Me!"

***

He toured Britain and Ireland extensively to sympathetic and responsive audiences.Explaining his success Hicks said, "People in the United Kingdom and outside the United States share my bemusement with the United States that America doesn't share with itself. They also have a sense of irony, which America doesn't have since it's being run by fundamentalists who take things literally."

***

Listen, the next revolution is gonna be a revolution of ideas. A bloodless revolution. And if I can take part in it by transforming my own consciousness, then someone else's, I'm happy to do it.

:: phil 19:57 [link] ::

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"Assiduous students of the print media will have noticed its practitioners becoming increasingly exercised about 'blogging'

On 18 May, for example, one Geoffrey Nunberg fulminated in the New York Times about the fact that whenever one does a Google search on any topical issue, the top page rankings often go to blogs rather than established media sources (such as the New York Times ).

This was, according to Nunberg, A Bad Thing. After all, most bloggers are not professional journalists, but rank amateurs! He was not the first hack to articulate this whinge. In fact, he seems to have picked up the idea from an earlier piece in the Register, an online publication. But the mindset he represents is widespread in Big Media, so it is worth devoting a few moments to unpacking the prejudices behind it.

First, there is the contempt for 'amateur' writers, endemic in professional journalism. Hacks are always astonished by anyone who writes for no pay, so upwards of half a million such amateurs now publishing blogs leaves the pros speechless. It also leads them to deride blogs as an epidemic of vanity publishing rather than the glorious outbreak of free expression it actually represents.

Second is the assumption that anything written by an amateur is, by definition, worthless. Yet journalism has always been, as Northcliffe observed, 'the art of explaining to others that which one does not oneself understand'."

[...]

Third, there is the problem - not often touched upon in the New York Times, by the way - that many controversial public issues are ignored by Big Media for the simple reason that the ideological and commercial interests of their proprietors preclude it.

This is why the US mainstream media has wound up misleading its audience about Iraq and the 'war' on terrorism. The fact that most US citizens believe a majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis rather than Saudis is a case in point.

Since the whole point of the web is full and comprehensive linking, and Google ranks pages by the numbers of other pages that link to them, it is hardly surprising that blogs are winning over established media. Nobody in his right mind would link to a mere abstract.

A few Big Media outlets understand this elementary fact. The Guardian and The Observer sites are exemplary in this regard - which is why they are beginning to outrank their competitors (for example, the London Times and the New York Times ) in web searches.

:: phil 12:38 [link] ::

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