Need Is Not Quite Belief

Some days it’s not even worth

chewing off the restraints.

Happy Thanksgiving

The test of our progress is not whether we add

to the abundance of those who have much.

It is whether we provide enough to those who have little.

--Franklin D. Roosevelt--

To Live And Die In Ignorance

Religion as a Black Market for Irrationality

Reason is a compulsion, not a choice. Just as one cannot intentionally startle oneself, one cannot knowingly believe a proposition on bad evidence. If you doubt this, imagine hearing the following account of a failed New Year’s resolution:

“This year, I vowed to be more rational, but by the end of January, I found that I had fallen back into my old ways, believing things for bad reasons. Currently, I believe that smoking is harmless, that my dead brother will return to life in the near future, and that I am destined to marry Angelina Jolie, just because these beliefs make me feel good and give my life meaning.”

This is not how our minds work. To believe a proposition, we must also believe that we believe it because it is true. While lapses in rationality can often be detected in retrospect, they always occur in the dark, outside of consciousness. In every present moment, a belief entails the concurrent conviction that we are not just fooling ourselves.

This constraint upon our thinking has always been a problem for religion. Being stocked stem to stern with incredible ideas, the world’s religions have had to find some way to circumvent reason, without repudiating it. The recommended maneuver is generally called “faith,” and it actually appears to work. Faith enables a person to fool himself into thinking that he is maintaining his standards of reasonableness, while forsaking them. There is a powerful incentive to not notice that one is engaged in this subterfuge, of course, because to notice it is to fail at it. As is well known, such cognitive gymnastics can be greatly facilitated by the presence of others, similarly engaged. Sometimes, it takes a village to lie to oneself.

In support of this noble enterprise, every religion has created a black market for irrationality, where people of like minds can trade transparently bad reasons in support of their religious beliefs, without the threat of criticism. You, too, can enter this economy of false knowledge and self-deception. The following method has worked for billions, and it will work for you:

How to Believe in God

Six Easy Steps

1. First, you must want to believe in God.

2. Next, understand that believing in God in the absence of evidence is especially noble.

3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence for the existence of God.

4. Now consider any need for further evidence (both in yourself and in others) to be a form of temptation, spiritually unhealthy, or a corruption of the intellect.

5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “faith.”

6. Return to 2.

As should be clear, this is a kind of perpetual motion machine of wishful thinking—and it leads, of necessity, to reduced self-awareness and diminished contact with reality. But it is reputed to have many benefits, and once you get it up and running you will be in fine company. In fact, from the looks of it, you will never be lonely again.

Enjoy!

Sam Harris

Newsweek-Washingtonpost.com

Sex And Death

Do you remember when I used to have a real blog and I used to post something every single day, rain or shine? Happy or sad? Naked or clothed? Medicated or less medicated?

Yeah, me too.

I’ve lost my clever. I’ve lost my witty. I’ve lost my give a damn.

I just want to whine and moan and thrash around. And to think they used to pay me to do that.

You would think I have Tourette’s Syndrome, since all I feel like saying is:

I’mTiredI’mTiredI’mTiredI’mTiredI’mTired.

Did I mention I’m tired?

My father had back surgery about a month ago. Father’s Day consisted of firemen, paramedics and driving to the drugstore at 90 miles an hour to purchase a shitload (literally) of Fleet’s Enemas.

And that was a good day.

But can I just tell you how cute the firemen were. And here is how I know that I am getting oh-so-old. I wanted them all to be gay so that they would strip their uniforms off and start doing it with each other. That way I could see them naked but I wouldn’t actually have to participate. It’s tragic but true. You reach a certain age were both working for a living and sex are so overrated. Stocking up on batteries at the 99 Cents Only Store is all I need to keep Blogzie a happy XY girl.

Only 14 more years to go until I can get Medicare.

Yippee!

I’ve got something to look forward to…

I'm So Tired Of Being Tired

Crazy Redux




Give2Shitz

Dick Will Make You Slap Somebody

Remember Dr. Ruth?

Well, this ain't her.

Atlanta Public Access TV9 superstar Alexyss K. Tylor discusses Vagina Power and Penis Power with her mother. She's dressed up as a pilot because she's "piloting the pussy!" She also shares the truth about "nut brackets."

Other lessons learned from this episode:

- Y'all got to be the pussy police, because if y'all don't be careful these men you are committing to is giving the dick away that's got to go up in your vagina.

- A lot of men done took the wedding band off the finger because they know the wedding band is gonna be a noose around the nuts, a true "nut bracket" to lock them in and keep them in check so they don't give it to nobody else.

- The penis and the testicles have no discretion because the pussy ain't got no face.

- Men give dick away.

- A lot of men try to meet up with other women to ration a piece of the dick out.

- Government-rationed cheese is good but hard. It constipates and run up all in you and locks your bowels up.

- Men got to keep their nuts busy.

- Men get a "tingling" all in their nuts when their nuts bored.

Okay, this is my new obsession.

I love her mother.

Politically Correct?

Who gives a shit.

Naked From The Waist Up

To all of you inquiring minds* that want to know, yes I was mentioned on the live JaHeRo Blog last night and yes, Rosie wouldn’t let Helene read my question, which was really a comment. I think they all thought it was funny, but I guess the new rule is absolutely no questions or comments relating to The View.

Which is a Big Bummer! I nearly wet myself when Helene said my name and yes, it is true that I have no life. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Here is what I wrote:

Loving JaHeRo!

You should take your entire year on The View and turn it into a Broadway play.

You could call it:

“The Moustache Monologues”

It would be a huge hit!

But here’s the deal. I want the T-Shirt. It would make me happy, seeing as how I have no life. It has Ro’s artwork on the front and she ordered only 500 of them, so it may become a collectible. She did say at the end that everyone who had his or her question answered gets a T-Shirt. Cause she’s cool like that, generous to a fault. But I doubt I’ll get one.

It was fun while it lasted.

And now my 15 minutes of fame are officially over. For Real.

*Thanks and Hugs to Miss ConnieJane and Dr. Deb.