oh, go to Éljúðnir

1. only those slain gloriously in battle receive eternal life in Heaven (Valhalla). all other mortals go to Hell (Éljúðnir). how do i know norse is the one true religion? because it is the only religion the gods revealed to us in prophecy.

2. re: the incompatibility of religions
it takes great presumption and arrogance to assert two religions are not describing the same divine truth just because your feeble mortal mind cannot comprehend it. how do we know that reincarnation and heaven/hell are not two primitive mortal interpretations of a same divine process? stop insulting your god.

3. one of my most cherished belief is in the Hippocratic Oath--first do no harm. many Americans believe it is better to be firm in your convictions even if they are wrong, than to not have a firm conviction. i would rather not know the meaning of the universe, than believe a false one perpetrated by a religion.

4. there is an entire treatise here on why this person believes Christianity is the one true religion. i can boil his argument down for you, "because the other religions are wrong since they are not like Christianity." (ie, these religions are wrong because they don't have concepts of good and evil and don't make up a trite "meaning of life") why did he need several pages to say this? the funniest part was how he thought he was "disproving Hinduism" by essentially stating and agreeing with the fundamental Hindu beliefs; he just did not have the religious literacy to see that. note: his law of non-contradiction (the axiom of dichotomy) is one thing--a false dichotomy is another.

5. the atheist worldview is not "arbitrary"--the religious worldview is. the atheist's world is one inexorably ordered by rational laws (like gravity). the religious man's world appears random, chaotic, arbitrary. gravity might arbitrarily stop working one day because an emotional god felt like it.

6. the atheist worldview is not "devoid of awe and beauty"--on the contrary, the human mind could never dream up a more fantastic and beautiful world than the one we were given. compared to the true nature of things, the bible seems trivial, silly, and childish.

"there is grandeur in this view of life."

delineating love

English is one of very few languages that does not natively delineate different types of love. ancient Greek on the other hand, is famous for employing a variety of words, such as érōs, philía, and agápē, as well as storgē, and thélēma.

such delineation of the word of love is usually considered by the learned to represent the superiority of languages like Greek over languages like English in terms of description and nuance.

however, the need to delineate love is an arbitrary, heteronormative one. there is no stark difference between passionate love and dispassionate love--they are different; that is true, but they do not flow from fundamentally different sources. all love flows from humanity's single capacity to bind one soul to another.

when people "confuse one type of love for another," they are not actually "confused"--for a moment they are catching a glimpse of the oneness beyond our mind's contrived order.

[edit 2008-08-11] English is also known for it's "weak" meaning of the words "Love" and "friend." Perhaps Barney is to blame? In any case, I think the rest of the world is just being stingy and pretentious in limiting their use of "friend" and "love."

festering thought theory

there is a theory that if we ban hate-speech, people's hate will bubble up inside of them until it eventually explodes violently as hate-crime.

people seem to think that we are born with a certain quota of hate that must be continuously defused lest it build up. is this the case for any human emotion?

by never acting courageous, can we save up our courage within us to be unleashed in a great act of heroism in the future? by never loving anyone do we become ever more and more loving individuals?

the above theory can be thought of as a theory of negative feedback between actions, words, and thoughts. feedback is negative in this theory because actions, words, and thoughts add up to some fixed sum (inherited quota) or fixed rate (just like how linear sum functions have negative slopes).

i believe in positive feedback between actions, words, and thoughts. think positive/negative reinforcement and peer pressure. it is almost impossible to resist peer pressure without verbal rebellion/commiseration. broken window theory (which i also believe) is a corollary.

[edit 2008-07-18] in the chinese worldview, words have power and are liable to manifest as reality. in the modern american worldview, words ward off reality--the more hate we speak, the less hate we act upon. inversing the idiom--does speaking of the devil ward him off?

american

"America: love it or leave it"

most counter such platitudes by questioning righteousness. but this plays into the hands of the speaker by allowing them to capture the definition of patriotism.
i instead question relevance. how can one love America but hate the constitution and founding fathers? "love it or leave it" applies to he who hates my freedom of conscious, not to me.

what is American?
to work for the City University of New York, i had to sign a pledge of allegiance... to the US and NY constitutions! by holding to my affirmation, the same affirmation that Bush took on a bible, i am more patriotic than our president.

"Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: 'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'"
--Article 2, Section 1, United States Constitution

in my idiosyncratic opinion, the only offense worthy of presidential impeachment is failure to uphold the single oath taken when sworn into office.

honesty

as for politics, the only normative stance i take is that people should own up to their positions: this is my bias. people are entitled to their positions, but don't deny what your position is. for example,

1. the position "free Tibet" is not about human rights, it is about succession, right? in this way, the term "free Tibet" is honest (perhaps "stop freedom of movement into Tibet" would be a more descriptive position)
2. the position "pro-life" is not about life. the vast majority of people who are "pro-life" are not "pro-life" out of respect for life (otherwise they would not be "pro-Iraq war" and "pro-death penalty"), they are "pro-life" because of religion. thus, a more honest label would be "pro-compulsory christianity." im not saying you shouldnt hold this position, just be honest about it.
   

while on the topic of China, my take on the Olympics and Tibet protests

1. China might officially petition the federal government to allow New York City to succeed ("free NYC!") because of federal "human rights abuses" such as the right to privacy, free speech, assembly, habeas corpus
   
2. protesting governments other than your own is cowardly, not compassionate. grow some balls and protest the Patriot Act
   

failsafe

many people think religion acts as a source of morality,
many others think it is the source of morality.

i however, think morality comes from humanity itself;
religion is the override protocol.

much like the Asimovian laws, humanity is programmed with moral fail-safes that prevent sane humans from performing certain acts, like suicide bombings, etc. religious righteousness was discovered as an effective way to override these fail-safes and allow men to perform unspeakable atrocities. in other words, religion serves a practical, catalytic purpose.

in any other context we would consider a corruption of innate human programing to be insanity.