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Aug. 4, 2006 In this recent article Fred Smith wrote: "I was laying out quotes by famous humanists. Most of the quotes weren't from Russel, his quotes were just near the end, leading me to wonder if John read them all." Well, yes, Fred, I did read them all. Moreover, to back up this claim, my present article presents a number of my reactions to each quote. I feel at liberty to give my personal response to each quote. Note, however, that just as tomorrow I might compose two or three more different melodies to the same poem, tomorrow I might also have something new and different to say in response to each of these quotes. Moreover, just as you are not warranted to demand that I always sing the same old tune to the words of "God Save the King" or some other familiar old song, you are not warranted to demand that I always repeat the same response to the same sentence or proposal or idea. On that basis, here are my responses to the quotes: "If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." -- Issac Asimov Hey man. Haven't you ever heard of dumb luck and trial by error? "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." -- Issac Asimov Yes, but you will start to smile once you become a rolling stone and you gather no moss. You'll no longer be so concerned about the saddest aspect of life, let alone science or wisdom. Furthermore, as you travel far and wide you will lose more and more of your rough edges and your hard-headedness. "Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries." -- Carl Sagan This is talking in rather vague generalities but for the moment I tend to agree. However some fields of science are dangerous and many explorer's lives have been lost. Many people elect to not take the risk. "I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another." -- Thomas Jefferson How does Jefferson's statement back up the secular humanists (such as t411sh) who write that they want to see the Abrahamic religions wiped off the map? "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." -- Gene Roddenberry Huhhhh? I don't get it. It must be my own fault. "It speaks to some basic human needs, that there is a tomorrow - it's not all going to be over in a big flash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids - human beings built them because they're clever and they work hard. And 'Star Trek' is about those things." - Gene Roddenberry Stop preaching to the choir and tell this to those fanatics in the Middle East who want to Nuke Israel and the USA off the map. "The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion." -- Arthur C. Clarke "May be"? Well, and maybe not. My advice is, quit grandstanding. "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum." -- Arthur C. Clarke Huhhhh? I dinna get it. Again, it must be my fault. An alternative response is, "Yes, and since there's no wind in a vacuum then Bob Dylan's "answer is blowin' in the wind" can't be the nothingness of nirvana. Yogis might disagree. "A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell -- mouths mercy, and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!" -- Mark Twain "a bad"? Must be a misprint. Anyway, After he became famous as a humorist and made some bad choices of investments, Mark Twain's humor soured a bit. This quote shows Twain the cynic walking alone on the dark side of the Moon with his glass half empty not half full and living psychically a bit like Ebeneezer Scrooge before the famous Christmas conversion popularized by Dickens. In other words, in this quote Twain just keeps saying "bah humbug!" over and over. "I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue." -- Bertrand Russel In this electronic arena of more or less friendly U-K banter, I'm convinced that Fred Smith does harm. For example, Fred Smith keeps omitting the final "l" from Bertrand Russell's last name. How come? To a poet-punster that's a little like taking the man's hand and cutting off half a finger with your pen-knife. Furthermore, by ignoring many good things that the religions do, Russell fails to be honest. "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion." -- Bertrand Russel If in arithmetic there is only knowledge, how come there so many different "expert" opinions about the foundations of mathematics? "What science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know." --Bertrand Russel So how come you know how to read this sentence? Was your third grade teacher a professional scientist? ------------ About the author: sixty-six years young, and vigorous in mind, body, emotions, and spirit, John L. Waters is an independent researcher on self-healing, integration, creativity, and unity. To help demonstrate the effectiveness of his research, John has created thousands of drawings, paintings, instrumental music pieces, songs, prose pieces, poems, and other inventions. John has used his research to help persons remove a mental block and solve a problem. John also gives personal presentations which illustrate his research results. Each one of these works demonstrates the effectiveness of John's research. For more information, read John's letters of recommendation: about John's self-healing and integration: about the mystical energy or yogic force and related topics: about John's independent research: about John's seeking an agent or a publisher: Email: blueguntwo@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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