| | Ted, your post 4 reply is awesome.
A Seether? ...
I find myself a little short on extended, intellectual-generosity lately. I don't want to agree with you on this point (that I'm that imperfect), but I fear that I might have to -- due to the current weight of relevant evidence on the matter.
A Reacter? ...
Ted, when you're upset with folks, you bookmark them and respond when you're not so hot about it. Yet some of my best writing has been penned while frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog. I'd rather not suspend the MoJo -- IF you know what I mean. So verily I say unto thee: from each according to his unique ability to respond to reality ...
A Fast-Breeder Reactor?
Hehe. Just joking here now. I don't yet have any kids. FBRs have outputs exceeding their inputs -- at least that's what engineers say. They're potential, perpetual-motion machines, like life is. But I digress. Now, back to the points of contention. You said:
... the Amalekites, the Midianites, the Jebusites, the Canaanites, and so forth are all dead. While the would be victims of the throat-slitters do, of course, make up 5/6th of the current population of the planet. That's too literal, too concrete. An instance of what I have dubbed the Heisenberg fallacy (where precision is afforded higher priority than accuracy). Just the idea that killing innocents might be okay -- indeed, righteous -- is enough poison to corrupt an unsuspecting mind.
On Dawkins and the real "meme-ing" behind what he said about passed thought ...
Agreed. And I suspect you and I are in an RoR minority on this one, friend.
On calling inanimate objects evil ...
Evil, spelled backwards, is live -- and anti-life existents abound. True, guns don't kill people -- but guns have objective value. Ideas can be evil. Indeed, that is how evil is expressed in the world. Mere acts aren't evil, unless they meet at least 2 criteria ...
1) performed by sapient beings
2) anti-life
Evil ideas are what it takes to meet these 2 criteria simultaneously. They are how we "purposely" fail to live. They are both the map, and the vehicle, for arriving at the destination of an unlived life.
Is the song of songs evil? Not as far as I can tell.
Is the story of the creation evil? Yep.
Yet the book itself doesn't stone anyone. Not literally, but alas, you digress (see above).
Objectivism is about clear thinking, not about praising any attack on the Bible you happen to come across. This wasn't just any attack. It including a weighing of relevant evidence. It included a noncontradictory integration of objective identifications -- it didn't include unclear thinking.
On objectively-useless "idiots who think not shaving for a year and asking people if they would like to be stoned to death is a stunning exercise in intellectual bravery." ...
The alternative response you recommend involves silence on the matter -- which, though a stretch, could be seen as approval. My simple purpose was to take a stand for something so as not to be seen as falling for just anything. Sometimes the obvious requires explicit statement. I had felt that this was one of those times. I admit that this is something on which reasonable men might disagree.
;-)
Ed
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