If you were to die today, why would GOD let you into HEAVEN? - Page 17 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Botnst · #**241** 06-17-2006, 01:42 AM

From: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=198

"Beyond any social utility these chapters may possess, it suits my temperament to study indefensible pretensions and to note how they cause intelligent people to shut off their critical faculties and resort to cultlike behavior. Sometimes amusing, sometimes appalling, such deviousness strikes me as quintessentially human behavior. But I don’t mean to set myself apart as a paragon of reasonableness. Having made a large intellectual misstep in younger days, I am aware that rationality isn’t an endowment but an achievement that can come undone at any moment. And that is just why it is prudent, in my opinion, to distrust sacrosanct authorities, whether academic or psychiatric or ecclesiastic, and to put one’s faith instead in objective procedures that can place a check on our never sated appetite for self-deception.

Several decades of untranquil experience in the public arena, however, have led me to anticipate only limited success in getting this point across. To put it mildly, the public in an age of born-again Rapture, Intelligent Design, miscellaneous guru worship, and do-it-yourself “spirituality” isn’t exactly hungering for an across-the-board application of rational principles. And the culturally slumming, trend-conscious postmodern academy, far from constituting a stay against popular credulity, affords a parodic mirror image of it. That is the condition I illustrate in Chapter 11, on tales of UFO kidnapping: for opposite reasons, guileless “abductees” and supercilious Theory mongers show the same imperviousness to considerations of mundane plausibility.

A student who signs up for a literature major today, having never been encouraged to think independently and skeptically, may graduate two years later without having made any headway in that direction. That is regrettable enough. But if the student then goes on to earn a Ph.D. in the same field, he or she will probably have acquired a storehouse of arcane terms and concepts allowing that disability to appear both intellectually and politically advanced. Here is tomorrow’s tenured professor, more impervious than any freshman to the “naive” heresy that theories can be overturned by facts."

cmac2012 · #**242** 06-17-2006, 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

Reminds me of a WWII story I read about some sailors trapped below decks in an elevator shaft on a carrier. One sailor beat-up other sailors who tried to climb up and out. The one sailor thought it a waste of time and was driven mad by the situation they were in. In his madness he thought it made sense to prevent others from trying to get out.

Actually, while I find the story you recount interesting, Carleton's post did not strike me as similar to that at all.

Botnst · #**243** 06-17-2006, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Actually, while I find the story you recount interesting, Carleton's post did not strike me as similar to that at all.

Actually, I'm unsurprised.

cmac2012 · #**244** 06-17-2006, 02:44 PM

Your story involved a mad-man pulling people down. Carleton's missive in no way indicated restraint of other's aspirations -- just urged caution in their wanderings.

You're a bright fellow. Like many bright fellows, you've become a little too convinced of the primacy of the workings of your mind.

Botnst · #**245** 06-17-2006, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Your story involved a mad-man pulling people down. Carleton's missive in no way indicated restraint of other's aspirations -- just urged caution in their wanderings.

You're a bright fellow. Like many bright fellows, you've become a little too convinced of the primacy of the workings of your mind.

You'd know. You have that uncanny telepathy thingy that reveals the hearts of Man.

cmac2012 · #**246** 06-17-2006, 03:08 PM

It's an old and subtle skill. What I do is read people's words and do my best to discern the meaning they were trying to convey..... rather than just using their words as a platform for my own bloviating.

Mistress · #**247** 06-19-2006, 01:31 PM

because I have a huge rack?

Matt SD300 · #**248** 06-20-2006, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siduri19

because I have a huge rack?

Huge rack?...Hows that going to get you Gods favor? I see lots of racks everyday...never thought of them as Holy & Righteous...just racks.. mostly on pickup trucks.. not many on Mercedes..