Monthly Archive for July, 2008

The immoral society

Published
by
Ken
on July 21, 2008
in carl jung
. 0 Comments

It is a notorious fact that the morality of society as a whole is in inverse ratio to its size; for the greater the aggregation of individuals, the more the individual factors are blotted out, and with them morality, which rests entirely on the moral sense of the individual and the freedom necessary for this. Hence, every man is, in a certain sense, unconsciously a worse man when he is in society than when acting alone; for he is carried by society and to that extent relieved of his individual responsibility. . . . Any large company composed of wholly admirable persons has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, and violent animal. The bigger the organization, the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity. Society, by automatically stressing all the collective qualities in its individual representatives, puts a premium on mediocrity, on everything that settles down to vegetate in an easy, irresponsible way. Individuality will inevitable be driven to the wall. This process begins in school, continues at the university, and rules all departments in which the State has a hand. In a small social body, the individuality of its members is better safeguarded; and the greater is their relative freedom and the possibility of conscious responsibility. Without freedom there can be no morality.

Carl Jung
“The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious” (1928)
in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. CW 7

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Re: foie gras and abortion

Published
by
Ken
on July 19, 2008
in politics
. 4 Comments

While mulling over two recent posts from Notes From Off Center about abortion (Abortion Is a Symptom of Social Illness and Making Pro-Life Plausible) and one from A Thinking Reed about animal cruelty (The Victorian PETA) I was struck by a similarity which I had never noticed before. This similarity is in the reasons behind the anti movement against each. Or, perhaps more precisely, the why of taking a stand against one (or both) of these rather than opposing something else.

Being opposed to the farming of ducks and geese for foie gras has become the big news way of opposing animal cruelty but there are a lot of other ways to combat animal cruelty and help victims. Similarly, opposing abortion is the “cornerstone” of the pro-life platform but, again, there are many other ways of demonstrating your pro-life beliefs. So, why do these two specific targets seem to get all the attention?

I think it’s because it is extremely easy to be anti abortion and/or anti foie gras. It’s easy because for me to take this stand requires absolutely no change and has absolutely no effect or consequence in my life. None. Zip. Zilch.

To be against the farming of ducks and geese for foie gras simply means that you don’t eat foie gras. Now, I love foie gras — probably more than the average foie gras consumer. But if I had to forgo eating it for the rest of my life it would be no big deal. It would be easy. I could easily take that platform and stick to it. But, animal cruelty is rampant on a much much larger scale in the factory farms where the chickens and cows we eat are raised. But if I start boycotting factory farms and getting states to outlaw factory farms then I’m going to see an effect in my life — specifically in my wallet. I’m going to have to drive further and spend more money to buy free range chickens and eggs and to find grass fed beef. Take the mass-producing factory farm out of the equation and suddenly demand is going to far exceed supply which will only drive up the price more and I won’t be able to buy enough meat to eat 3 times a day 7 days a week.

Likewise, I can support the SPCA or animal shelters to demonstrate I’m against animal cruelty. But if I start doing that, I’m likely going to have to adopt a pet or volunteer my time at the shelter or take part in fund raising. In all these cases, demands are made on my time and money.

But people need to be against animal cruelty so they pick the easy case where all they have to do is sign a petition to get foie gras banned in restaurants and then they have bragging rights for how much of an “activist” they are.

The same criticism applies to the anti-abortion movement. Protesting at abortion clinics is easy. You throw all the blame and all the responsibility and all the guilt onto the mother and require her to make changes in her life and make the sacrifices while you can pack up your signs and head back home in time to catch Oprah or the Big Game. See how that works? You get to be pro-life with a squeeky-clean conscious and without lifting a finger! As “Notes From Off Center” points out, abortion is not the disease but the symptom. But treating the symptom is so much easier so that’s what gets done.

Let me suggest that the next time we get up on a soap box or start marching in protest or even start bitching about something to our friends that we take an honest look at what our position costs us. If we don’t see anything in the debit column then, perhaps, we are not fighting the right fight.

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And God saw that it was … good ???

Published
by
Ken
on July 18, 2008
in god
. 2 Comments

ticks, lice, tapeworms, fleas, hookworms, E. coli, Giardia, mites, chiggers, bed bugs, mosquitoes

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

If the watch keeps fuzzy time does it still require a watchmaker?

Published
by
Ken
on July 15, 2008
in christian apologetics
. 0 Comments

Does anyone still use “the watchmaker” argument? It goes something like: the complex inner workings of a watch require an intelligent designer so the complex inner workings of the universe also require an intelligent designer — let’s call that intelligent designer … oh, I don’t know … how about … “God.”

But what about watches that tell “fuzzy” time. You’ve seen them for your computer on those download-a-useless-app-or-two pages, right? You can control how fuzzy the time is so the clock could read “almost 3:30″ or “around 5″ or “afternoon.” Does it take an intelligent designer to make one of those? I mean a chimpanzee can look at the sun and determine that it’s time to get home and groom his mate. (And I’m not talking about the chimp that “accidentally” wrote Shakespeare’s Othello on the typewriter.)

I think this watchmaker argument hearkens back to an out-dated way of looking at the universe. I mean, back when atoms were mini solar systems with the electron orbiting the nucleus like a tiny Jupiter, this would have been a pretty apt argument. “Look how ordered and mechanical and deterministic the world is. It reminds me of … of … a watch! And we all know that watches don’t assemble themselves so there must have been an atommaker to make those orderly, precise, deterministic, indivisible little critters.”

But that’s not what an atom is at all! The electron is a probability cloud, not a satellite. It has no state until it’s measured. Chaos makes things anything but deterministic. Wind up a watch and you can predict what time it will read in the future. Wind up the weather or a fractal and you never know where it will end up. The world is not based on order and precision. It’s based on probabilities and averages with our meddling scientific observation changing (or determining) the future — literally!

So, I think it’s time to retire this analogy and get one that fits the world as we know it today.

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I’m still shaking my head in disbelief

Published
by
Ken
on July 7, 2008
in homosexuality and rants
. 0 Comments

at the reaction by Signs of the Times to the (self-named) Dyke March in Boston. Maddex basically says that this small group of homosexuals in Boston is a representative sample of homosexuals everywhere and every gay and lesbian acts the same way all the time.

Maddex says:

If gays are the same as the rest of us—if their lifestyles are normal and wrongly maligned—then how do you explain the unhealthy obsession with sex and indecency that is the hallmark of their parades?

Unhealthy obsession with sex and indecency? Have you looked at the heterosexual world lately? TV ads that use sex to sell everything from deodorant to automobiles. Frat parties. Strip clubs. Pornography. Rapes. Mardi Gras. I say there’s a lot of unhealthy obsession in the heterosexual world, too. Then there’s the obsession with sex from the other side of the fence. Anti-homosexual propaganda. Hate crimes. Sex for reproduction only. Missionary position only sex. This, also, is unhealthy obsession.

One would think that if homosexuals were truly psychologically healthy individuals, they would behave like upstanding individuals rather than work themselves up into a debauched lather whenever they congregate.

But just a lather is ok as in college and professional sports, political rantings and ravings, fire and brimstone preaching, anti-_______ (fill in the blank with whatever your favorite pet peeve is) soapbox sermons. We humans act like upstanding individuals about 10% of the time, if you ask me. And for many reasons other than homosexuality.

If you want someone to accept your lifestyle, isn’t the best strategy to show how unthreatening it is?

Didn’t work for Jesus. Doesn’t work for Red Sox fans. Doesn’t work for most evangelicals who insist that we all accept their lifestyle and beliefs and threaten us with hell.

Basically it comes down to this: every single race, group, belief, denomination, faith, age, gender, or whatever, has someone you can point at and say, “Look at how awful that person is.” The problem is when we then generalize based on that person. I could write a similar post as Maddex’s decrying Baptists by citing Fred Phelps and his outrageous, hateful, cruel actions and words. We do it all the time with Muslims, Blacks, men, women, atheists, punks, people with tattoos, etc.

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And God saw that it was good … but

Published
by
Ken
on July 4, 2008
in bible and god
. 0 Comments

I thought I knew the creation story in the Bible. Now, I couldn’t tell you what was created on what day but I knew the basic order and knew when man and woman were created. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve read it but I thought I knew it.

Not so!

I reread it today and several things jumped out at me that I had never noticed.

First, in Genesis 1:31 God pronounced everything to be “very good” yet in Genesis 2:18 he says that something is “not good,” specifically, man’s being alone. What happened here? God says that it’s all good and then realizes something is a tad askew? He made two of every animal but only the human male and it took him a minute to realize he should have made a female human as well? That doesn’t seem very omniscient of him.

But there’s more. Look at Genesis 1:27 and here it sounds like God made male and female together, at the same time and in the same way. Both were made in the image of God. But that’s not the impression I get from Eve’s being created from Adam’s rib.

Now, I do not recall ever hearing a sermon on this and I do not know what the “party line” is but here is an explanation that makes sense to me. God did create man and woman together, in the same way and at the same time, just as with all the other animals. This is what he pronounced as “very good.” Then something happened that left Adam alone, which was “not good,” and so God created Eve.

Hmmmm. Does the name Lilith ring any bells?

Anyway, it seems that God’s first choice of creation method for woman did not work out so well so he chose an alternate method the second go round. If you look at how God addresses man and woman in Genesis 1 they seem to be equals — he says the same things to both. But apparently someone couldn’t handle all this equality and so Eve was made from Adam’s rib.

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