Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 27 Editor's Choice: 6
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Pure horsefeathers
[Read the article: Ghost world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, of course the problem is that so-called "phenomena" can't be reliably replicated. When psychic "phenomena" is examined well and truly, it has always evaporated or degenerated into shabby human chicanery.
Consider for a moment, even the most credulous believers among you, the act of going to the kitchen to find the makings of a meal. You look for a chicken. It is either there or it isn't. Ditto rice, broccoli, wine. If you find them, you have chicken dinner. If you do not find chicken, would you pretend to have chicken? Would you wash an imaginary chicken, or suffer one to be washed, quartered, laid in a pan, served? Would you pretend to see it, taste it, swallow it all?
Why allow special dispensation for claims that someone went into your kitchen and found poor dead Uncle Fred? Why for goodness' sake do any of us allow anyone making psychic claims into our hearts, to "come back" from our mourning rooms, worry beds, and bored lives, with empty hands and glistening eyes, saying "behold the wonder"?
We don't take anyone's word for it when it comes to meals, rent money, beds to sleep in. We don't allow crews of psychics, chanters, healers, or pray-ers to surround our jets before takeoff, trusting their hand-holding piety or weird powers to stand in for maintenance checks, routine repairs, or fueling.
Magical thinking is the most salient feature of the neo-cons who led us into state bankruptcy and greedy adventurism, without attention to the "reality-based" world and its insistent shortage of chickens. The left has to wake up, grow up, set aside the pixiedust-addled thinking that was fun for 15 minutes in 1967, but which contributes to the ambivalence toward a President that declares the world a magical creation of a finger snap, and that Pterodactyls played frisbee with Barney Rubble. Evidence counts.
Google "Skeptic", "debunking", "Paul Kurtz", the "Amazing Randi". That last fellow has offered, for many years, a million dollar prize for anyone who can present verifiable evidence of a world or powers beyond the laws of physical reality. A "real psychic" could come forth, claim the prize with her authentic skills, give the prize to a Harlem pre-school, and settle this once and for all. They try, but they can't deliver the goods.
Please: examine claims, weigh evidence, and don't let "sincere" hucksters -- sharp Tarot readers, gullible authors, zealous Presidents -- bilk you of your money, intellect, or future.
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Cheap contrasts mar a valuable article
[Read the article: Come as you are]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nothing like a scary, here come the nut-job fundamentalists story -- this time with tattoos! to wake up a Wednesday. It's natural: we want to know what our future overlords are like. Women are prevented by plumbing from any career other than pushing out babies. It's a matter of pride to manipulate kids with parent problems by swapping their bad Daddy for sweet Jesus. Confusing Rules with Ethics among under-educated "hipster" kids, in order to achieve Christian, er, Order.
Sandler does us all a favor exposing the human tragedy that is Mark Driscoll and his vote-for-Bus, abhor-Walmart-and-globalism contradictions. There is not much new here, though, except the veneer of current culture. Christianity has long thrived on peddling Father-Son fairy tales to the young and semi-literate, the restless, disenfranchised drfitalongs who define a big chunk of of every new generation since Aristotle and before.
But the author reveals her abysmal ignorance, shared by most of Americans, regarding secularism when she state, about Love (Agape): "It's the emotion that secularism, enraptured by its logic and empiricism, refuses to engage."
Huh? Google Paul Kurtz, Peter Singer. Pick up a copy of Free Inquiry, it's only the essential organ for Secularism and Freethought as philosophies and movements. Every issue declares positions and tenets for love and compassion, prominent among which are celebrations of our shared humanity, love of family, children, each other. Moreover, they are positions free of ancient superstitious double-talk and made-up miracle stories. Love grounded in a sober understanding of how the world really works is not bereft of joy; it offers in fact a liberating maturity that helps us to love each other with positive purpose and critical understanding. The best kind of love, one free of burning lakes, eternal torture, constrictive credos, and religious enmity.
Hey, forget the intellectual argument: take a look at our sappy, sentimental, love-drenched culture! Harry meets Sally, Waterloo Bridge is soaked in romance, Valentines Day is a noticeable part of our GDP, and Love makes the world go round in 99% of movies and TV shows. Putting two together is the essential theme of our narratives. Our secular society is saturated with paeans to getting along, understanding, love, and the inevitability of Romance.
It is in fact hard to find Secularists OR secularists who refuse to engage with anything, much less love. Love is absconded by religion, in text and tradition, but it transcends such partisanship every day, every hour, in the lives of everyone, everywhere. It is the necessary glue for ourselves and our communities. Altruism and agape have short- and long-term survival benefits too long to list, and, besides it feels good! Lauren, check it out: your straw man has a heart, too.