Tuesday, March 25, 2008
 

Friday Photography: Sailboat


click to enlarge
Daryl Samuel

Location: Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

Previous:
2006 & 2007  —  
2008:
Tulips / Metal Tree / Ferry Terminal / White Rose / Taxi Flower / Child With Teacup / Stone House / Saint George and the Dragon / Fountain of Life / Dormer / Rusty Car

Ed Fitzgerald | 3/25/2008 03:54:00 AM | | | del.icio.us | GO: TOP OF HOME PAGE


Monday, March 24, 2008
 

(3089/898) Quick takes: Religion

Ambrose Bierce
2411) Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911) [CQ]

2412) All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organization. For the latter makes use of violence, the former – of the corruption of the will.
Alexander Herzen
From the Other Shore (1855) [CQ]

2413) To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
Eric Hoffer
The Passionate State of Mind (1955) [CQ]

2414) You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of religion. [...] Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough.
Aldous Huxley
"Amor Fati" in
Texts and Pretexts (1932) [CQ]

2415) There is noting more innately human than the tendency to transmute what has become customary into what has been divinely ordained.
Suzanne Lafolette
"The Beginnings of Emancipation" in
Concerning Women (1926) [CQ]

2416) All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason (1794) [CQ]

2417) The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman Rushdie
"Is Nothing Sacred?" (lecture) (2/6/1990) [CQ]

2418) The main business of religions is to purify, control and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America (1840) [CQ]

2419) I cannot see how any man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious – except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind & keep them shut by force.
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Mark Twain's Notebooks and Journals (c.1888) [CQ]

2420) Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.
Oscar Wilde
"Phrases and Prophecies for the Use of the Young" in
Chameleon (12/1894)
[Note: cf. #1038 Feibleman]
2421) Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out.
Edmund Burke
"Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians" in
The Works (1812)
L. Ron Hubbard, scrience fiction writer and inventor of Scientology
2422) If you want to make a million [...] the quickest way is to start your own religion.
L. Ron Hubbard
speech to the Eastern Science Fiction Assoc. (1947)
quoted in L. Ron Hubbard (1987)
by B. Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. [ODQ]

2423) To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a cult.
Dean Inge
Outspoken Essays (1920) [WHO]

2424) The religion of one seems madness unto another.
Sir Thomas Browne
Hydriotaphia (1658) [MAC]

2425) There are only two things in which the false professors of all religions have agreed: to persecute all other sects, and to plunder their own.
C.C. Colton
Lacon (1820) [MAC]

2426) A religious system is an assemblage of guesses.
anonymous
Meditations on Wall Street (1940) [MAC]

2427) Religion has brought forth criminal and impious deeds. [...] How many evils has religion caused.
Lucretius
De Rerum Natura (c. 45 BC) [MAC]

2428) Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal
Pensees (c. 1660) [MAC]

2429) The more religious a country is, the more crimes are committed in it.
Napoleon Bonaparte
to Gaspar Gourgaud (1/28/1817) [MAC]
Voltaire
2430) The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.
Voltaire
Philosophical Dictionary (1764) [MAC]

Sources

[CQ] - The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993)
[ODQ] - The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 4th edition (1992)
[MAC] - The Macmillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous Phrases (1948)
[WHO] - Who Said What (1993)



Note: "3089/898" is the designation I've given to the project of posting all my collected quotes, excerpts and ideas (3089 of them) in the remaining days of the Bush administration (of which there were 898 left when I began).

As of today, there are 301 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.

Ed Fitzgerald | 3/24/2008 10:03:00 PM | | | del.icio.us | GO: TOP OF HOME PAGE







by

Ed Fitzgerald

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right,
Here I am...
site feed
2008 rules of thumb
Progressive populism!
Economic insecurity is key
Restore the balance
Cast the candidate
Persona is important
Calm,calming,assured,reassuring
Iraq, not "national security"
Prefer governors over senators
recent posts
bush countdown
oblique strategies
recent comments
some links
baseball
storm watch
(click for larger image,
refresh page to update)


topics
a progressive slogan
Fairness, progress and prosperity, because we're all in this together.

"I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking."
(Alex Gregory - The New Yorker)
new york city
another progressive slogan
The greatest good for the greatest number, with dignity for all.
reference & fact check
iraq
write me
reciprocity
evolution v. creationism
humanism, skepticism
& progressive religiosity
more links
election prediction
HOUSE
Democrats 230 (+27) - Republicans 205

Actual:
Democrats 233 (+30) - Republicans 201 - TBD 1 [FL-13]

SENATE
Democrats 50 (+5) - Republicans 50

Actual:
Democrats 51 (+6) - Republicans 49

ELECTION PROJECTIONS SURVEY
netroots candidates
unfutz
awards and nominations
Never a bridesmaid...

...and never a bride, either!!

what I've been reading
Martin van Creveld - The Transformation of War

Jay Feldman - When the Mississippi Ran Backwards

Martin van Creveld - The Rise and Decline of the State

Alfred W. Crosby - America's Forgotten Pandemic (1989)
bush & company are...
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
uncompromising
unconstitutional
undemocratic
unethical
unpopular
unprincipled
unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed

Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
Island in the Sky (1952)

Robot Chicken

The Family Guy

House M.D. (2004-7)
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz


"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)


Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
guest-blogging
All the fine sites I've
guest-blogged for:




Be sure to visit them all!!
recent listening
Smash Mouth - Summer Girl

Poulenc - Piano Music

Pop Ambient 2007
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
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Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.

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the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
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(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)

Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.

original content
© 2003-2008
Ed Fitzgerald

=o=

take all you want
but credit all you take.



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