Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

I suppose is one of lack of jurisdiction. Although God clearly ceded worldly dominion to humanity[1], to actually bring a successful suit against the deity I suppose one would have to make a strong case for representing all of humanity rather than one small faction or a subdivision thereof.

Thus, the plan:
1) Unified world government
2) Sue God

[1]Genesis 1:26-28

(posting prompted by this article on a climate change lawsuit)

Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

Listening to music again, of which I'd forgotten how vital it can be.

Aanyway, listening to 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' again reminded me of the time my 4th grade teacher had the whole class learn and sing that song. Mainly that one sticks in my memory of all the songs she had us sing because for that one she struck out the word Christ from the chorus.

I think she replaced 'Chris' with 'Lord', since you pretty much have to for the song to make sense. It is after all John Lennon talking to Jesus, saying Jesus must be able to empathise with Lennon's situation of exaltation and persecution.

"Christ, you know it ain't easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They're going to crucify me."

So you can take the Christ out, but the way I see it that lyric's going to be blasphemous whatever you call the god in it. Sometimes I wonder if that was a bit of a response to the 'more popular than Jesus' incident.

aesmael: (haircut)
Perhaps I should moderate myself more. I read things people say which inspire me to polemical writing and the result, being caught up in rhetorical acts, is often something I would not be willing to say in direct conversation. This suggests to me either I should be interpersonally bolder, more rhetorically muted, or make clearer the distance between the words which inspire mine and the more generalised directions I tend to mean them.

In other news, it bothers me when people describe conservative religious leaders or leaders who invoke religion as 'probably faking belief to manipulate the masses'. It makes me think the speakers hold religion so in contempt they do not think believers are capable of such popular or effective leadership. I wonder if these people, often atheists, realise what they are saying sounds a lot like "I think much of what is worst in society is due to atheists cynically manipulating religious belief to their personal benefit". But I see no reason why these leaders couldn't mean what they say. Their followers appear to, mostly.
aesmael: (just people)
Obama lifts the ban on US aid money going to any organisation that provides abortions and the US House of Representatives goes and passes a similar ban on their own people.

It's absurd. Federal money banned from paying for a particular class of medical procedures. Why? It's not illegal, so why is a government being barring itself from funding legal medical procedures? Because a subset of the population has a religious prejudice against it, seems like mainly. Which isn't a very secular way to run a government. Unfair too; no government is making laws based on my religious beliefs, or even- well.

How come? we would ask. How come laws are made on the basis of the views of some sects of a religion but not the views of others? Especially the ones which outlaw personal choices, ones we would expect people who hold a belief in their immorality not to choose.

If this becomes law the lives of many people, particularly poor women and children, will be materially disadvantaged compared to if this does not become law. The gain, meanwhile, is that members of some Christian sects can feel pleased others are being forced to live by their morality, while members of other Christian sects will be frustrated that their morality has been prohibited.

Their are anti-choice non-religious atheists and members of other religions, but let's not pretend this was done to suit their desires.

[Link up top, very worth reading. Post content is different to what I wrote here]
aesmael: (haircut)
For a few months now at least I have seen several people decrying the idea of 'thought crime', that some thoughts, desires, ideas, etc. are wrong in and of themselves, immoral and perhaps deserving of some sort of punishment even if they lead to know action.

It makes sense to me. A thought in itself harms no one, is not going to lead to harm unless acted on (or inacted on). There is no need to police or outlaw thoughts because people are free to think whatever they like; our only concern is to prevent people's rights from being infringed on by others.

Except... it seems that only makes sense under particular moral or ethical systems. If I value things like personal freedom and rights, protection from harm by others. There are other systems under which thoughts can be considered effectively criminal, even punished.

If I believed some thoughts were damaging to the person thinking them and that people ought to be protected from themselves, it might make sense to take some action against that person's will (frex: suicidal thoughts).

If I believed some thoughts had a corrosive effect on the morality and self-control of the person thinking them, and that it is right or imperative to act to prevent possible harm then the idea of wrong or bad thoughts which need to be controlled or cured will make sense to me. Examples: rape fantasies or paedophilia.

If I believe some thoughts constitute immoral acts in themselves I might think that is a matter of community or personal responsibility. Possibly something for the person to deal with emself but possibly it would be a matter for the community to respond to, perhaps attempting to condition the person away from those thoughts, prohibiting their exercise or otherwise attempting to persuade em eir mind is wrong and needs to change. Example:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

So it can make a lot of sense to seek to control or restrict the minds of others to a moral end. Other religions like Buddhism also have a conception of thoughts as able to be right or wrong, although I think that is treated more definitely as a personal rather than a social matter.

It doesn't make sense if we are concerned only with whether a person's actions harm others or infringe on their rights, and not with that person's thoughts. If that is not the stance we begin with, however, I doubt it's assertion would do much to sway our opinion. It seems likely we would need to address instead the reasons for holding a particular perspective initially before attempting to persuade people to adopt a differing perspective, but ethical / moral persuasion remains a great mystery to me.
aesmael: (just people)
Here we have something new (albeit less so than when I came across the news).

In short, the Victoria State Government has indicated an intention to approve a curriculum of secular humanist lessons for primary school students. These would run as an alternative to the existing religious education in schools. When I was in primary school, we were to choose a scripture class to attend or else go to non-scripture where we would sit quietly and perhaps draw until it was over. I think this is a good thing - a few years ago I actually considered doing something similar until I realised the school would probably not approve of an untrained, unaccredited person attempting to teach stuff to the non-scripture students. It would be a vast improvement to have people who actually know what they are doing and who have a coherent education plan offering education in humanist principles.

There seem to be two separate bodies in Victoria responsible for accrediting volunteer religious teachers. Access Ministries, which handles the Christian educators, and another handling everything else, World Conference of Religions for Peace. Access Ministries appears to be objecting to this move while World Conference of Religions for Peace appears to be in favour. Not especially pleased there was seen a need to defend humanism as a legitimate perspective to hold but ah well.

What has been interesting me is the claim from Access Ministries that this course should be denied approval because humanism is not a religion. I have seen numerous times religious persons insisting that any atheistic position or philosophy is a religion regardless of what its proponents say (with the apparent meaning religion is a bad thing). In this case both Access Ministries and the Victorian Humanist Society agree humanism is not a religion. I am inclined to say the course should be approved even so. Even if not actually a religion, humanism tends to fill the same sort of space in people's minds - a broad worldview informing and / or offering perspectives, principles and morals which can be used as a basis for individuals and / or communities to function.

Am also, by the way, pleased Muslim volunteers will be approved to teach their religion too, and surprised they were not already approved. Perhaps my faint memory of their being such classes available in primary school was not real, although this is in a different state.

Now, a chunk from the article:
Humanist Society education director Harry Gardner said he had designed a course to be taught from prep to year 6 called "Applied Ethical Education — Humanism for Schools". It covers subjects such as the art of living, the environment, philosophy, science and world citizenship. The curriculum is likely to be submitted for approval next year.

Dr Gardner, a former CSIRO research scientist, said his course adopted the "honesty ethic of science (that is, not fudging results)" with the intention that children would be inspired to think for themselves.

"If accredited for use in schools, the Humanist Society of Victoria envisages that the volunteer teachers would develop a comradely relationship to the regular religious instructors in adjacent rooms," he said.

But Access Ministries chief executive Evonne Paddison said while it was not her decision as to who should or should not have access to state schools, she did not think humanism fell under "the relevant legislation to be classified as a faith-based religion in religious instruction in the way that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism" did.

Ms Stokes said humanists could not expect to have it both ways. "It doesn't make sense because they proclaim themselves not to be a religion," she said.

Religious instruction in state schools should be Christian because "basically we are a Christian nation", she said.

The course appears to cover or at least brush against material I have been saying for a while now should be incorporated as foundational in primary education - although my stated focus would be on information literacy, skepticism & critical thinking, propaganda / persuasion techniques and recognition of same as well as a secular education in principles of ethics, morality and reasoning. I tend to think these should be considered as fundamental in education as things like literacy and mathematics since they concern the ability to find and evaluate information.

If Ms Paddison is right about the relevant legislation then I think it should be changed so as not to be restricted to "faith-based religion" - if the only reason to teach children a Buddhist perspective on the world but not a humanist one is that the law makes no provision for the latter, well, I do not not see what distinguishes them so sufficiently that such a distinction should be made.

I would also like to draw attention to something which confused me the first few times I read this article and which seems excessively unclear. That being, the Ms Stokes quoted at the end is not so far as I am aware affiliated with Access Ministries. Rather, she is quoted speaking on behalf of an organisation called Salt Shakers, a socially conservative theocratic organisation whose primary concerns seem to be denying sexual, reproductive and religious freedom and making from the state an official instrument of Christianity.

There was another quote from them earlier in the article which I also at first misinterpreted to be from Access Ministries:
Research director Jenny Stokes said: "If you go there, where do you stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism?

"If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim to be taught in schools."

I've yet to find out anything about witchcraft (is this refering to Wicca or some other religion? I would not be surprised if there were a lot of conflation going on here) or Satanism that would make me think they are any less suitable to be taught to children than Christianity. Possibly more suitable.

What's going on is that witchcraft and Satanism are being held up as emblems of evil and depravity even though this does not reflect their nature, then comparing humanism with them to cast it in a similar light, much like when people hold up the spectre of polyamoury as an argument for denying the right to same-gender marriage. Hopefully as more classes like this take hold fewer people will give such rubbish credence.

As for the claim of Australia being a Christian nation, I just went and nervously checked our constitution. It has not the word 'Christ' or 'Christian' anywhere in it. What I did find was this:
116 Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any
religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for
prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test
shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust
under the Commonwealth.

It seems Australia is not a Christian nation after all; merely one composed of a largely Christian population.
aesmael: (Electric Waves)
New show advertised recently, Eli Stone. Seemed like fun, a main character having extravagant, perhaps prophetic visions. I thought I would give this sort of show another try after snarling at Medium.

I don't like it. After a few minutes, I realised this was the show I heard about some months ago, in which the opening episode establishes in court that vaccinations using thimerosol (faintly disguised as 'mercurisol' in the show) as a preservative cause autism, and that the company producing the vaccine was aware of this.

I don't like seeing such a charged falsehood presented on television as fact, considering it has been established firmly in multiple studies that there is no such link, and yet there are still numerous parents trying to sue companies which produce vaccines for 'making their child autistic'.

That, and the scene toward the end in which, after the main character is told that his visions are caused by an inoperable brain aneurysm, another character tells him they can have another explanation and perhaps he is a prophet, apparently in a Christian framework (Moses is referenced as an example 'I'm not' 'but God told Moses he would send a prophet to every generation'). The main character says he does not believe in God and gets told "Do you believe in right and wrong? Do you believe in justice? Do you believe in love? Then you believe in God." This sort of declaration that being a moral person is identical with belief in the Christian God annoys me a lot.

Plus, I would have preferred if he decided to attribute significance to his visions on his own.

Perhaps it would have been better viewed as some sort of alternate reality story or fantasy, but I think I would rather not watch a show which seems to have as its primary message that evidence-free belief and decision-making is better than the other kind.
aesmael: (tricicat)


And if you will kindly click through now, you will see an example of what is possibly one of the few ways the current US administration could bring me some measure of happiness.
aesmael: (Electric Waves)
[livejournal.com profile] osakadensetsu brings to attention the recent gassing of Muslim children at a Ramadan service in Dayton, Ohio.

This sure looks like a hate crime, especially following the recent distribution of an anti-Islam DVD in newspapers, so why are police dismissing the possibility when no evidence for any other motive has been made known?
aesmael: (tricicat)
Your Results:

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

How did the Belief-O-Matic do? Discuss your results on our message boards.




1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (91%)
3. Liberal Quakers (76%)
4. Nontheist (72%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (71%)
6. Neo-Pagan (66%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (60%)
8. Taoism (53%)
9. New Age (51%)
10. Reform Judaism (42%)
11. Mahayana Buddhism (41%)
12. Orthodox Quaker (36%)
13. Bahá'í Faith (30%)
14. Sikhism (30%)
15. Scientology (29%)
16. Jainism (28%)
17. New Thought (27%)
18. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (21%)
19. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (18%)
20. Hinduism (18%)
21. Seventh Day Adventist (16%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (13%)
23. Eastern Orthodox (9%)
24. Islam (9%)
25. Orthodox Judaism (9%)
26. Roman Catholic (9%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (6%)


Results seem fairly unchanged. Glarfed from [livejournal.com profile] nacho_cheese.
aesmael: (tricicat)
Google Reader Shared Items
  1. Thank You Thursdays: Your (Notice I Didn't Say Female) Brain [via [livejournal.com profile] gentle_gamer. Comments to the post made me warier of this video. Did she have that brain cut in half to illustrate her point? Am pretty sure most brains I have seen are in a single piece unless cut. Much of her described experience of having a stroke is not unfamiliar to me, if to a greater degree. Not, I stress, identical, but apparently similar to something which can be accessible to me. If I were to release certain brakes, if I could remember how. I have a lot of hostility to the frame in which she presents her thesis, despite finding much recognition or even agreement in the details.

    I dislike the way people jumped on ropty's comment ("Non-gendered? Dividing the world into two parts, one is linear, unemotional, calculating and the other about feeling, emotions, timeless oneness. Gee, that sounds rather gendered to me.") because this is a thing which is done, this is a way in which brain functioning is presented and those traits are very gendered in this society. Also that my readings of other writings on neurobiology suggest this is a highly oversimplified perspective on human brain hemisphere functioning, though as this was a talk for a lay audience that may have been deliberate. And it still seems to me her described experiences are very 'on point' even if I am not so fond of her presentation of them.

    I wonder if making such experience accessible at will would have the effect on the world Dr Taylor describes.]
  2. Video: Blaser tournament unwisely fits Japanese robots with lasers -- PEW PEW [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. If we intercut this with some footage of people we could make a movie of it.]
  3. New Hubble Images Reveal Plethora of Interacting Galaxies [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. Pretty!]
  4. Young feminists just want to "go wild and pole dance" [via [livejournal.com profile] gentle_gamer.]
  5. How To Sing Like A Planet [via [livejournal.com profile] gentle_gamer. Wherever there be medium and motion, music. The article makes me angry, with it's talk of 'merely' as if scientific explanation of such magnificent happenings cannot be also magnificent, wondrous or beautiful themselves. I lost a lot of esteem for the writer's prior musings when I read that part.]
  6. Atheism is a condom for your mind [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. The part I disagree with is the phrasing suggestive that removing religious belief is a part and precursor to mental hygiene and health -- I would place taking care of the mind first, and if that leads to the removal of religion then so be it. Someone eventually said so too.]
  7. Equality Through Intimidation? The Houston HRC Dinner Protest [via [livejournal.com profile] gentle_gamer.]
  8. Comical Surroundings [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. This is interesting but I think I would not like my furniture to be displaying always the same images and words. After so many repetitions reading, wearying.]
  9. Modular, shape-shifting robots get right back up to creep you out [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. Shiny! Still a ways to go before they are as capable as the version seen in Terminator 2 though.]
  10. Australia to Remove Antigay Discrimination From 100 Laws [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. An improvement, but not enough.]
  11. Maintaining Moore's law with new memristor circuits [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. Fascinating (a thing said when {in this case} interested but uneducated in a subject).]


Scienceblogs
  1. Vaccination doesn't cause autism volume what-are-we-up-to-now? [And yet we see how well the continued lack of evidence substantiating a connection is received. *sigh*]
aesmael: (tricicat)
Once I realised people do not need to have a religion at all and became Discordian. Today I realised people can have more than one religion and nothing has happened yet.

Maybe this is because the first sentence is a story.
aesmael: (sudden sailor)
I wonder very much about continuing these. If I did not, then I would say nothing of most of what I read, and give it less thought than if I attempted to find words for each. If I did not, I would read more, and quicker. I cannot quite shake the feeling that posting these is a pointless mechanical activity, a task continued because it was once set.

These links do not form an entirely honest record. There are items I have read and not noted because I did not wish to give the tacit approval of a link and did not know how to express or form criticism of the content in question.

The reason the majority of these are from shared items is, of course, that I have resolved to first become current with those before reading material of my own subscription.

About.com: Agnosticism / Atheism
  1. Bias and Vested Interest: Interpreting Facts Unreasonably [Well, yes. I strive to avoid this but on good days do not pretend I achieve it.]

Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  1. Even More Political Chutzpah [I suspect most people do not investigate such claims - I know I tend not to, and rely on information provided by those who do.]

Google Reader shared items
  1. Mysterious White Rock Fingers on Mars [via [livejournal.com profile] gentle_gamer. Mars may not be my favourite planet (which is? none, really, the overexposure of Mars or any other location seen as a prospect for life grates on me) but areology is fascinating!]
  2. Because I can't help but make a LIAR out of myself [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. I agree with this post. That photo is far too pretty for me to quite believe. Really, flower-filled meadows? Wild grass is brown, not green, and never contains flowers. This sort of scene is about as fantastical to me as the elves and snow I read of in stories.]
  3. Inflation Theory Takes a Little Kick in the Pants [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. The people commenting (at least at first) do not seem have understood what they read - the main claim is that a previously thought clear test for inflation has been found to produced by other sources too, and thus detection of this gravitational radiation cannot easily be taken as confirmation of the theory.]
  4. Industry execs sound IPv6 alarm - is the sky really falling? [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. Mm. I tend to be wary of people saying we have plenty of time to deal with a foreseen problem. Often, it seems solving it takes longer than projected.]
  5. HP Mini-Note gets unboxed, causes extreme jealousy [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. Presumably this computer is a big deal.]
  6. Let's all pack up and move to Great Britain [via [livejournal.com profile] soltice. Odd seeing posts from feeds I have subscribed to shared by other people, and not reading them more directly. this comment sort of seems on the nose to me:

    "Us Brits aren't precisely an areligious lot - most of us have some sort of faith, but it's so vague and noncommittal that it passes for atheism.

    You know the kind of thing - "I believe there's something comforting out there but I don't know what it is and whatever it is I'm not going to let it affect my life. It's just nice to believe sometimes."

    So, when Brits say they're afraid of "religion", what they're really afraid of is passionate religion. And seeing as Anglicanism is by definition almost never passionate, they're afraid of other religions being passionate. And in practice that means...Islam.

    When my countryfolk talk about the evils of religion, they're talking about mosques, the Quran and ramadan. But what they're thinking about is bombs.

    So you see we're not so elightened after all."
    ]

    Pam's House Blend
    1. NYT article on convention bloggers features Pam's House Blend


    theinferior4+1
    1. Border Crossings
aesmael: (nervous)
Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] lost_angelwings for pointing me to this post by Willow|Seeking Avalon.

It concerns a rejection letter sent by William Sanders of Helix, which reads as follows:
No, I'm sorry but I can't use this.

There's much to like. I'm impressed by your knowledge of the Q'uran and Islamic traditions. (Having spent a couple of years in the Middle East, I know something about these things.) You did a good job of exploring the worm-brained mentality of those people - at the end we still don't really understand it, but then no one from the civilized world ever can - and I was pleased to see that you didn't engage in the typical error of trying to make this evil bastard sympathetic, or give him human qualities.

However, as I say, I can't use it. Because Helix is a speculative fiction magazine, and this isn't speculative fiction.

Oh, you've tacked on some near-future elements at the end, but the future stuff isn't in any way necessary to the story; it isn't even connected with it in any causal way. True, the narrator seems to be saying that it was this incident which caused him to take up the jihad, but he's being mendacious (like all his kind, he's incapable of honesty); he was headed in that direction from the start, and if it hadn't been the encounter with the stripper it would have been something else.

Now if it could be shown that something in this incident showed him HOW the West could be overthrown, then perhaps the story would qualify as SF. That might have been interesting. As it is, though, no connection is shown and in fact we are never told just how this conquest - a highly improbable event, to say the least - came about.

There are some other problems with the story, but there's no point in going into them, because they don't really matter from my viewpoint. It's not speculative fiction and I can't use it in my magazine.

And I don't think you're going to sell it to any other genre magazine, for that reason - though you'd have a hard time anyway; most of the SF magazines are very leery of publishing anything that might offend the sheet heads. I think you might have a better chance with some non-genre publication. But I could be wrong.

Sorry.

William Sanders
Senior Editor
Helix


I did have Helix bookmarked as something to read, Suddenly the idea of reading, supporting, or contributing to anything associated with William Sanders is much less palatable.

And unsurprisingly he responds to the posting of this text with vicious and ablist language:
Son, hasn't anybody ever told you that public posting of a private email message is contrary to the rules both of accepted internet practice and common courtesy?

I do appreciate your efforts to be fair - certainly far more so than most of the other people in this ward, ah, group - but the fact remains that you've done something both socially and professionally unacceptable in posting it at all. So if you had any idea of submitting anything else to Helix, forget it. I won't work with people who pull this kind of shit.

I suppose this is what I get for trying to be a nice guy, and give you a little encouragement rather than the standard thanks-but-no-thanks form rejection. Silly me.

(I notice, too, the presence in the lynch mob of another person I've tried to help, and to whom I thought I'd been particularly kind. No good deed, etc.)

Of course none of these people have read the story, and so they fail to grasp the context - that I was talking not about Muslims, or Arabs, or Oompa Loompas or any other religious or ethnic group, but about terrorists and violent extremists. (That being, after all, what your story was about.)

But I don't feel any need to defend myself, or Helix, to these people; indeed I doubt that there's anybody outside their little Mutual Masturbation Society who gives a damn what they think about anything at all.

They are cordially invited to have intercourse with their precious selves. I'm sure most of them could use the practice.


That was in response to this explanation of the situation from the person who originally posted the letter, which I do not think mitigates it any:
You don't expect to get a rejection like this in your email inbox, that's for sure. I mean, I don't know him at all so I'm surprised that he would be so blatant about it. (I see that he's been referred to as William "Sheethead" Sanders on lj before...)

On the other hand, he was writing about a nasty character in my story, so I gave his email the benefit of the doubt and took it to be more character- or extremist-specific. He was also giving my story a lot of attention when he didn't have to look at it due to Helix' closed submissions policy. I usually don't try to argue with the editors for fear of getting blackballed, and it's his fiction site. I also don't want to be a nail in the coffin in one of the few professional-rate free-read SF markets out there. Plus, I think people can hold whacked-out opinions in some areas and be reasonably intelligent in others, or at least I hope they can...


'Tis a shame. I had been given to believe that Helix generally contains quality fiction by accomplished writers.
aesmael: (haircut)
Josh Rosenau|Thoughts from Kansas writes about religious conservatives and their apparent belief that heterosexual relationships are fundamentally unstable and need protection.

I am not exaggerating or being euphemistic or speculating. He quotes from material by James Dobson and Al Janssen of Focus on the Family which indicate a belief that love itself is insufficient to sustain a relationship, that it requires firm vows and legal obstacles to keep a couple together. Very big on the idea of marriage being an unbreakable contract, binding until death.

This valuing of the marriage as an end in itself rather puzzles me. Marriage as I understand it (which reminds me I want to write some exploration of what I actually think of the thing) seems rather for the benefit of the people involved; if they no longer wish to be married I do not see any point requiring they continue.

I suppose I can see that permanency may be important in a religious context, but that seems a matter for whatever people and / or deities may be involved. Hrm. Rather the same as I see it for secular contexts then.

It might be touching in the moment that a person pledge eir life with me, but after that moment it would mean rather significantly more to me to know that whoever I am with is choosing freely to be there and not out of some sense of obligation, and certainly not because ey is legally required. Similarly I would not pledge myself to someone for life because I cannot guarantee my future feelings and desires - the most I can in good faith say is that today I love em and today my desire is for a future together.

This does not mean I would not marry anyone, but I would feel vastly happier, safer, more comfortable knowing we could choose to part ways any time we chose.
aesmael: (friendly)
Watching The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Professor, when talking with the children on the possible truthfulness of Lucy's tale of Narnia, used the same 'Lunatic, liar or Lord' argument I am told C. S. Lewis used as an argument for Jesus as Christ.

Now I am wondering if this is from the novel or if it were added in to the film. It never seemed a convincing argument, since there seemed far too much unexamined space in the first two parts of the trilemma. I have not yet seen Lewis' own formulation, though (beyond this).
aesmael: (tricicat)
Dear Greater Macrocosm,

A great majority of the persons with whom I am in correspondence exist in a separate 'time zone' to me; possibly they are phase-shifted from reality or from another planet, I can't be bothered sorting out all these finicky details. This causes any communication involving named days of the week to become wracked with ambiguity, and not any of the fun kinds.

Therefore, I am instituting the following reforms, effective immediately:
Illusory Day Real Day Unified Reference Scheme (URS) Day
Monday Sunday Smunday
Tuesday Monday Tuensday
Wednesday Tuesday Wuesday
Thursday Wednesday Thrensday
Friday Thursday Frursday
Saturday Friday Sriday
Sunday Saturday Sunturday

Your compliance is appreciated.

With flourish,
Summer Snow, Tyrant of the Seven Seas

P.S. Would someone mind telling me how long we have been having Tuesdays, and why I was not informed? It is as if there is a blank space in my mind which does not want to acknowledge their existence.
aesmael: (tricicat)
It can be odd first seeing something subscribed to via a different source, but these days I hardly ever check my feeds. Regardless, this is from Jeff Vandermeer|Ecstatic Days via [livejournal.com profile] infiniteviking:

Evil Monkey's Guide to Kosher Imaginary Animals*

*probably not this one

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