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My first write off: spongebob_man1's Say Your Piece W/OAug 01 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Sixteen very difficult questions and some attempts at answering them.
This is my first write-off and originally wasn’t going to join in, but since I seem to be encountering others’ answers that are far from what I had expected, I’m going to give it a go. 1) Do you believe in science's evolution theory or the Bible's creation theory? I didn’t actually realise rational people still believed in Creationism. It could be an American thing, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across people here that have advertised this belief. I also didn’t realise the Bible was antithetical to science. I mean, I was brought up Catholic and taught that Genesis was allegory, like Aesop’s fables or the parables of the New Testament. Or would that be considered Vatican II revisionism? I’ve never really been able to buy some of the Protestant flourishes. So, in answer to the question, I’m even astounded this is being asked. Christianity came before Darwin but logic existed long before the Bible did. Thus, it’s easy to see why evolution (or dinosaurs for that matter) isn’t in it. But no adherence to logic, which had been around for hundreds of years? Perhaps it’s because the flow of information from Greece to the Middle East wasn’t great. Maybe David Cross had the answer when he told us to keep in mind that the Bible was written when people were even dumber than we are today. In fact, if you read Socrates or Plato you see much of the theology that would later be attributed to Christ. Why can’t we have both? Socrates’ view of the physical world was wrong, but that doesn’t discredit his philosophy or the logical and argumentative methods he produced. What we now call ‘common sense’ comes from what those great old Greek guys were thinking up (evolved from it, one might say). In the same way, just because the Bible got information about the physical world wrong doesn’t mean the theology isn’t useful. Having said that, given the choice, I’m always going to go with not blindly believing something. And Christians won’t divorce the mythological from the theological. To cite another comedian, Eddie Izzard’s idea that religions are just philosophies with some weird bits, seems to fit here. My only problem with the evolutionary model is certain other areas it is often applied in. Much of the popular, derogative view of the ‘other’ has come out of falsely attributing a very specific Western scale to human societies and concluding that the ones that are most like ‘us’ in the West are the more evolved (and here I’m including Christians who do this without realizing the irony). Hence we have some of the more embarrassing episodes in the history of ethnographic anthropology. Though, this whole discussion is also sticky as it almost assumes a relativism that is just as silly as Creationism. I don’t think anybody thinks this can or even wants this argument to be resolved, since science always has recourse to proof and evidence, while theologies like Creationist Christianity only have ‘faith’ to justify their beliefs and, sometimes, actions. This is the same justification that allowed the crusades of the Middle Ages and the same that allows the fundamentalist terrorism today. 2) If you believe in the Bible's creation theory do you disbelieve science in other areas such as medical research, geology, astronomy, physics, biochemistry, etc? As I said above, I’d be surprised if any believers in creation ‘theory’ could come up with anything that resembles a cohesive answer. Science unravels if you pull at a thread, so believing in certain things but not others is a hazy area. Having said that I don’t want people to be blindly following anything; including science. Science has had its share of f-uck ups, but it doesn’t kill people at such a steady rate as religion. 3) Why do you think "we are here?" (Why do humans exist?) Hard one. Is this a write off or a book pitch? This could take a while, but I’ll try to be concise. Not to harp on a previous point, but the fact that humans have this second level consciousness (we are conscious of our being conscious) and can ponder questions like ‘why are we here?’ is evidence towards an evolution of consciousness, no? Humans are the only species (or even sub-species) with concepts like ‘purpose’. Some primates have tools with functionality, but humans, I think, are the only beings that can attribute a ‘why’ to the what. At the moment I’m reading ‘A Brief History of the Mind’ by William H. Calvin, which I would recommend to anyone who has a true interest in these kinds of questions, rather than just quick-fix answers that stand up to little scrutiny. Christ and Socrates alike would have said our purpose is to please the gods/God, but neither would have said that is all there is to life. Humans have this tremendous ability to think at a much higher level than any other species. Call it a God-given or evolutionary gift, I think it’s pretty special. Maybe that we can ask these questions is all the reason we need. 4) Can we ever truly be happy by grasping for material things (cars, houses, CDs, movies, clothes, etc.) or should we be more concerned about affecting/improving others' lives? Not the material things themselves but sometimes the information they confer can make one happy. For example, I have a pretty big CD collection, but it’s not the CDs themselves that make me happy rather than the music that enriches life that is contained on it. So, if I lost or wore out my Sgt Pepper, I’d be able to buy another one without ruining the musical experience and the lessons gained from it. Same goes for books. Anything that can teach you something is of value. That’s a bit of a cop out answer, I know. I don’t think an excess of material things is necessarily good, but I don’t think oaths of poverty do much for the mind or spirit either. 5) Do you think ADD/ADHD are more a product of environment or genetics? Why do you think ADD/ADHD has become so prevalent in the last 20 or so years? It’s become prevalent recently because it didn’t exist until recently. Though I have little doubt that there are kids with chemical imbalances and whatnot which is probably going to affect behaviour, I also think there are some fakers. AD(H)D seems to be judged by looking at behaviour alone, and then attributing a biological cause. Frankly I don’t know which affects the other more. The kids could just be badly behaved and that affects their biology, rather than the biology making them behave badly. It’s a chicken and the egg kind of conundrum. All I can really say is my opinion, and as far as AD(H)D goes, I’m not really qualified to have one on this topic. All I know is the kids with AD(H)D in my classes when I was at school annoyed me a lot, like their condition was an excuse for acting out. 6)Are you a Democrat or Republican or something else? Why do you subscribe to that ideology? Being Australian, if those terms apply at all, they mean completely different things. In the same way, ‘conservative/liberal’ mean different things here, since our conservative party is called the Liberal party. Hence, we don’t get attacks on ‘liberals’ like Fox News and the ilk love to do. That said, Australian politics has a problem also plaguing the American system where the two main parties (or, in the Aussie case, a coalition and a party) are so close together there isn’t much choice. True opposition parties seem to be a thing of the past, or our collective imagination. Australia is still a constitutional monarchy. We had a referendum on becoming a republic a few years ago, but the republican model was disliked and thus we are the republic that never was. In a way, then, I am a republican and a democrat. I believe in democracy and I wouldn’t mind giving this monarchy thing some time on the bench and see how we can do on our own. The Queen has more say in Australian lawmaking than she does in British lawmaking (though these days, in practice, her representative is a rubber stamper). 7) George Bush or John Kerry for President? Why? As I said in my Fahrenheit 9/11 review, every US Presidential election confers a responsibility by the US people to the world that is not true of any other national election. The US President is, pretty much, going to be the most powerful person in the world, so the US people have to think about the international ramifications of unleashing certain people upon the world. Of course, they don’t. Most of them choose to not even vote. I’m hoping for Kerry but I have no way for this to happen. I want to see how John Howard, should he be re-elected, would respond to Kerry. I mean, he couldn’t mess things up more than Bush, could he? 8) How do you feel about Ralph Nader getting most of his support from long time Republicans in the form of campaign contributions and signatures to get Nader on the ballot this fall? Wasn’t he a democrat? I guess that’s your point eh? I don’t know about this at all, so I won’t say anything. Too often people speak without appropriate information (or sometimes, act. How poignant). 9) Has toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein really made us safer? Or has it infuriated more Muslim fundamentalists and made us a bigger target? No, I don’t think it’s made ‘us’ safer. I especially don’t think it’s made the US safer. Except as a demonstration of power and a warning to other places that the USA can come after you (for any reason), it has been a diversion from what was meant to be a war on ‘terror’. 10) Was the Abu Ghraib torture scandal a big deal to you? No, and I’m kind of angry that it shocked so many people. I was annoyed that people were so unflinching in their support for the war that they didn’t see this coming. I was annoyed that those who did support the war and were shocked by this clearly didn’t take any time to understand why people were opposing the war: partly because things like this would happen and make new terrorists. It’s things like this that make a ‘war on terror’ even more impossible than before. When you have this happening, terrorism is a hydra. When I heard about the torture scandal, I just sighed and thought ‘well, what did they expect?’ Was it a big deal? Of course it was, but to me it was symptomatic of the bigger problem of the Iraq war. 11) Why has Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind and financier of 9/11, been virtually ignored since the Iraq Invasion began? Killing him doesn’t get anybody any closer to conquering this un-winnable war on terror. As I said above, terrorism is a hydra. You can’t just kill the head and the body will die. It’s overly simplistic to even talk about it in terms of a leader and a group. It’s making it smaller than it is. If bin Laden is any kind of leader, it’s more likely to be ideological. But the way he has been portrayed it’s like bin Laden is the Don and al Qaeda is the Mafia. That’s a dangerous and stupid lens to view this through. Can’t we separate our imagination from reality? Maybe a better question is why we are in Iraq at all. Maybe somebody realised you can’t win a war on ‘terror’. Maybe they are scared that once you have captured or killed him it won’t amount to a hill of beans any more than capturing Saddam did insofar as winning any ‘war’ goes. It sickens me, really. 12) Do you think America should support and/or participate in a possible invasion/attack against Iran? Yeah, I think America should just keep invading countries until there’s nothing left but little Americas. And then, no-one will hate America will they? Nope. Everyone will love and praise the American way for saving them from diversity. Seriously, guys, just chill out. Morrissey’s new album has a song called ‘America is not the world’. Here’s the opening line: ‘America your head's too big/Because America/Your belly's too big And I love you/I just wish you'd stay where you is’ (sic) I think that sums up a lot of the world’s opinion. You can probably find bad things in every country. It doesn’t mean you are justified, especially without UN sanction, to invade. 13) Have you seen or plan on seeing Fahrenheit 9/11? If you've seen it what did you think about it? I reviewed Fahrenheit 9/11 for epinions.com. http://www.epinions.com/content_149591789188 14) Do you think we, as a nation, are more united or more divided since 9/11? Not being American, I can’t comment. Maybe the Presidential election will be telling. 15) The Terminator is Governor of California, Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State under President Clinton, and other foreign born American citizens have contributed to this country. Should foreign born American citizens be allowed to run for President? I think so. American-born citizens don’t seem to be doing much of a job, so why not give the others a chance? After all, they might at least consider the global implications of certain actions instead of the view of America as King. There is a point after which a country has so much power that it should not only be considering domestic interests. If the US wants to be the global police then they should perhaps consider the responsibility that comes with it. 16) Do you trust the electronic voting machines that will be used in some states this election? Once again, not applicable. In Australia we don’t have electronic voting. It’s all paper and pens. 17) Does the United Nations fill a relevant or necessary role in today’s world? It should, yes. But when there’s a nation with more sway than the UN who try and go above the UN’s head (claiming moral right, no?), the UN is not being shown the respect it deserves. I quite like Kofi Annan, but I almost think he isn’t doing enough. I almost wish he had dug his heels in and given no support at all to the Iraq war. It seems the UN has accepted it now. History is made by the winners, after all. 18) Why are you Pro-Choice or Pro-Life? I consider myself pro-choice. If I may reference another comedian, Bill Hicks said that if you’re so pro-life don’t link arms and picket abortion clinics, link arms are picket cemeteries. Ok, that’s the flippant answer. Here’s the proper answer: a fetus, or even an infant, does not yet have the level of consciousness that an adult has, nor even that which a child of 2 or 3 has. An infant’s mind has not yet developed enough for it to be considered, psychologically, more human than a primate. Yeah, they might look cute but their brains are constantly evolving (sorry, creationists) and haven’t yet reached consciousness beyond basic perception. Our brains might not stop growing, ever, really, but my point is that a fetus has no way to know that he or she is alive, which I would consider the point of being alive. You can show me any number of ultrasound photos to show me the physical growth of a human fetus, but you can’t tell me that fetus can comprehend the world. This relates to euthanasia too. That, and I just don’t think we should be bringing more people into the world. This isn’t a ‘let’s have a better world to bring children into’ comment more than it is just a ‘there’s too many people in the world’ one. Unless all the world powers suddenly decide to feed, clothe and house the poor of the world (which I don’t see happening any time soon, since it’s regular people in the West who are being asked for donations to help the Sudanese refugees rather than the powerful corporations and governments), I don’t think we need to add more people. I’m not denying the traumatic and emotional stress of abortion. I think it would be terrible experience. But so is miscarriage. I just don’t think it’s ever as black and white as ‘it’s wrong to terminate a pregnancy’. 19) Why do you support or condemn the death penalty? Considering that many creationists seem to support the death penalty (based on ‘an eye for an eye’), does this relate to their non-belief in evolution? Since the Old Testament has the Genesis story and the New Testament refutes many Old Testament writings, is it the ignoring of the social/theological evolution from Old to New Testament that allows them to deal with this kind of glaring oversight? Or are creationists only opposed to the biological frame of evolution? See, it gets sticky. In Australia we don’t have the death penalty. Nor does any Western ‘civilized’ nation (oh, except…the USA). I’m opposed to the word civilized though, so I’m not sure what that stat really means. I also have a sick feeling that given a referendum on it, Australia might vote to restore it. This is evidenced by the public’s glee at the prospect of the Bali bombers’ execution and their collective outrage when that execution might not end up happening. There are 5 purposes for punishment: Incapacitation, Deterrence, Restitution, Retribution and Rehabilitation. The death penalty puts some above others here. I suppose, in a way, this is another argument that won’t be resolved. As someone who just doesn’t think taking a life is right (or, more accurately, that a state should have the power to take a life), I have never been able to support the death penalty. Incidentally, humans are among the only animals that have no problem killing each other. Other hominids and other mammals in general have certain camaraderie with members of the same species. Anyway, once I’ve finished my Correctional Theory and Practice course I’ll have a better formulated answer for this, one of the stickiest questions ever. 20) Any final thoughts or feelings? Thanks for reading, if you’ve made it this far. The End  |
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