Cynique

The high school I went to drew its student body from the little villages in the district that it serviced. One of these places was heaviiy populated with Italians, a great many of whom were school mates of mine. In this setting, the Italians and Blacks didn't act any more alike than the Italians and Irish or the Italians and Jews or the Italians and Poles. To us Blacks, they were all white, and none of them acted like us who had our own style and own slang and own music, and we didn't particularly bond with any ot them on a group basis. Individual friendships that I formed with my white classmates were not based on what we had in common but on an interest and curiosity about how different we were. That's what diversity is all about. Generalizing about ethnicities is a slippery slope and does reinforce stereotypes; an opinion I feel is as legitimate as the assertions of Pioneer.

So, tell me, Troy. Do you sometimes have trouble sleeping at night? I've heard that when this is the case, it's because you are awake in somebody else's dream...

Lame try, Pioneer. And no cigar. In an attempt to shore up your disjointed repetitive rants, you are grasping at straws, supplying your own definitions, putting your warped spin on my views, concocting your flawed analogies, desperately attacking the messenger instead of the message. I don't know why you are convinced that I have a problem with defending atheists. I actually dig atheists and I don't think there's a stigma attached to liking them. All the ones I know are deep, reflective, honest people who embrace Humanism, - a philosophical school of thought you continually choose to ignore because it is the anti-thesis of pompous religious self-righteousness. And I identify with agnostics, fully aware that your definition of an agnostic is strictly your definition. Anybody who spells as badly as you, can't be taken too seriously when it comes to being detail-oriented. You arrogantly project yourself as the final authority on abstract concepts like "morality" and "ethics", and you pee on yourself because I cited the objective versions of "good" and "bad". Why does this pique you? Because while I may be opinionated, you are dogmatic, quick to impose your tenets on others. And my critique of religion was an opinion that's shared by many. I'm certainly not the first to voice it or will I be the last. You are not as well-read as you profess to be. As far as defending oneself goes, you never refute the things I say that expose you as the prig that you are. In giving you a taste of your own medicine, I said that my interpretation of your concept of "god" may be presumptuous. - like yours was of mine. But you conveniently ignored this acknowlegment, while sanctimoniously portraying yourself as a victim of my "projection". Get outta here! In accusing others of what you yourself are, you call me a know-it-all. Puleeze. I can admit my shortcomings, but confined by the strait jacket of your ego, you think you have none. You have met god, and he is you! Jeeze. As I previously concluded, arguing with you is a waste of time because it's not enlightening. All I've learned is that you come across as some one who is used to being deferred to. You present yourself as being "worldly" but you are actually "naive". I'll stick with indulging the soaring curiosity that liberates me to contemplate, unlike you, who have surrendered to the stagnant tunnel vision that spawns the rigid, narrow mind which leads you to mistake your inflexibility for stability. But you're an amusing and well-intentioned guy, so knock yourself out. And this is a forum for debate, so preach on.

I go online almost every day and play bridge. After logging on to the site, the computer pairs you up with a partner, a total stranger who could be any age, sex, race and from anywhere in the world. In order to get into a winning mode, it's necessary for you and your partner to establish immediate rapport for the purpose of communicating during bidding and the subsequent playing of the game. I don' know if ESP occurs during such encounters, but I kinda think interacting in a cyber environment might facilitate me and my partner picking up on each other's brain waves. There are certain partners with whom I seem to be able to silently communicate. In Bridge, you designate the suit you are bidding so you don't have to guess about what your partner is coming in But what you do have to try and do is to give your partner an assessment of your hand, strictly through how you bid. You don't have to keep on bidding the same suits, and you can raise the bid on the same suit your partner bids if you have help for her/him. The bidding keeps going around and around until there are 3 passes in a row and the final high bidder get his trump in. The winning bidder's hand is exposed as the "dummy" and if you and your partner didn't win the bid, you proceed to try and defeat the opposing twosome. So through a combination of card sense and hunches, the game is played, leaving partners to figure out when to cut and what to lead and what a lead means and what a played card indicates as you instinctively rely on skill and mental signals from each other. This is not only fun but fascinating. Even more so on line than in person because you're limited strictly to trying to read the mind of the phantom who is your partner. Of course a lot of this involves common sense and logic. But many times, getting an inkling as to what your partner wants you to play is esp-like. And I have regular success in mentally telegraphing what I want my partner to play when she/he is stumped, or with getting a brain-hiccup of what he/she wants me to play... I don't know what to call another phenomenon that I experience almost everyday. I would guess it's a form of synchronicity. I'll be reading something while I'm listening to TV and suddenly the same word I am looking at on paper will be said on TV. It also happens with the computer. The same word I am keying will be simultaneously said on TV... I think everybody has experienced receiving a phone call from someone they were just thinking about. This happens all the time between me and my children. I am a night owl who stays up into the wee small hours, and I'm convinced night time is "different" than dayttime. After my husband died, I moved in with my oldest daughter. My room has become a woman cave, - a cocoon furnished with everything I need and use, right at hand; TV, computer, books, magazines, cell phone, microwave, newspapers, radio... I love it. I embrace solitude and don't relish intruders. It's like in the twilight of my years, I have returned to the womb. Late at night I see fleeting images out of the corner of my eyes. Never face on. I've also caught whiffs of the cologne my husband used to wear and I sometimes feel someone jerk my hand. It's like I have 2 sets of eye lids. When I awake and open my eyes I seen an unfamiliar scene that seems illuminated, but when I close my eyes and open them again, I see my regular surroundings. Some time it's like I have x-.ray vision and can see through my legs and feet, all the veins and sinews. The TV never goes off and when I doze on the recliner, the people in the TV come out of the screen and stand before me. Woooooooooooooo.

Well, Pioneer, with a nod to your cherry-picking "rebuttal", I don't claim to be consistent in my sentiments. I consider endless possibilities about life and death and the wonders of the universe and I favor some scenarios more than others. But I can bring myself to concede that views different from mine might be true, and I do not dismiss the idea that there is no universal intelligence but that random activity emerged from a void, - unlike you, who presumes that what you believe cannot be questioned. You think you have a hot line to "heaven" and this god who exists in your mind and who is apparently your personal confidant, has anointed you to tell others what you consider the indisputable truth. That's why I called you condescending. I was disappointed in you. I hate to resort to cliches, but you seem totally incapable of thinking outside the box. Your mind is finite. You are not a free thinker. I can't believe you've studied other religions and philosophies and are so steeped in absolutes. You cannot conceive that the god of your belief may not exist. And why not? Because your faith is apparently your security blanket. It doesn't seem to occur to you, who are so quick to diagnose others, that you need a god to cling to. And you could benefit from a few sessions on the couch, yourself. We have all agreed that language can be a stumbling block particularly when people like you deign to tell someone what they mean when they use a word or phrase. Since you want to imply what I mean when I say "universal intelligence, etc." I'll tell you what you mean when you say "god". To you, god is a divine almighty personage who is responsible for the bible or the koran or the torah, and is the Father of a Christ figure and interferes and injects himself in the affairs of men. That's not what I have in mind when I say a "universal intelligence/force/source". Since you're such an "expert" on where I'm coming from, why can't you discern that my mind-set is compatible with the definition of an agnostic? As for atheists, I don't need to defend them. They are perfectly capable of defending themselves. ( and who, besides "religious" people feel the need to experience guilt about defending them?) Now if I have misinterpreted your concept of god, then consider that turnabout is fair play. BTW, rather than combative. I prefer to consider myself amazed by smug people who, without proof, consider themselves right, and anyone who questions their infallibility, as ignorant. SMH

Puleeze, Pioneer. You, and your god-complex are so emeshed in your ego-driven pontificating that you think you speak the gospel. You don't. You don't know anymore than anybody else on this subject. You're just parroting what is comfortable for you to believe. It's increasingly obvious, that you cannot wrap your brain around anything that rejects your premise. Let me clarify that the difference between me and you on this subject. I express a sentiment, but my ultimate sentiment is that I don't know the unknowable. Your position is: This is what I believe because I know everything and I am irrefutably right. And not only content to reject challenges to your stifled way of thinking, you apparently fancy yourself a psychiatrist, supplying a motive for my stance. If guilt was a factor, then why wouldn't I simply relieve my guilt by embracing religion?

I am beginning to realize that I am dealing with 2 guys whose brains are wired differently than mine. I say it is a waste of time for me to discuss this particular point with you because I am coming from a different mind-set. I simply don't buy that just because a person doesn't believe in a supreme being that this makes him incapable of being sincere when it comes to not harming others. I don't accept that acting positive instead of negative has anything to do with religious beliefs. That's humanism. Or do I agree that anarchy would be the result of widespread atheism. Religion causes more wars and deaths and chaos than anything in the world!! Our conflict does, indeed, involve language, which can be inadequate which it comes to conveying thoughts. And it is difficult for we 3 to resolve anything because everybody wants to define their own terms. God, Allah, Yahwee, are man-made deities who I do not have in mind when it comes to a supreme intelligence. To me, a supreme inteligence is beyond comprehension and too awesome to be explained in words, and certainly not something that can be personified and condensed into a father figure who's the main character in fables and parables. And the more I exchange ideas with you 2 paternalistic males, the more I discern that this is a battle of wills, not intellects. If you could reach through your computer screen and pat me on my head, I think you would, while cloaking yourselves in your condescending sense of "irrefutable" wisdom.

Hollywood has not completely shied away from whites enslaving whites but it's usually in Sci-Fi movies or epic ones where Romans and Greeks enslave each other, like Demetrius in "The Robe" or Sparticus the Roman slave who led a revolt against his Patrician masters. White indentured servants occasionaly pop up in movies about the old west. It behooves us to remember that conquerors not only triumph, but they get to write history and their descendants get to make movies where art imitates life. Africa just couldn't keep the upper hand against Europe, and African Americans have been among the main ones to bear the brunt of this downfall. Slavery has been a demoralizing burden that we've never recovered from. Modern day Afro-centrists seek to provide Blacks with heroes and noble legacies, but here we are, fretting about Django and Precious and "The Help", clamoring for copies of DVDS about ancient civilizations where beleagured black leaders weren't teetering on the edges of cliffs. It's not January 1st yet, by Happy Emancipation Proclamation Day.

Well, Delano, we have to agree to disagree. Instead of being adjectives, as you have decreed numbers to be, to me the devil and god are simply nouns that represent religious symbols. Since intent is difficult to determine, it would be hard to prove what the ulterior motive of not only an atheist is, but a believer as well. Religious folks can be the biggest offenders when it comes to being deceptive. And, of course, the reason Society has laws, is to prevent people from yielding to the temptations which, if everybody gave into, would lead to chaos. This debate has degenerated into an exercise in futility; an ongoing clash of opinions which are not being changed. Ciao.

If an atheist and a believer act in the exact same way, Pioneer, then it's ridiculous for a person speaking the English language to say that what the believer is doing is moral and what the non-believer is doing is not moral because believers have a monolpoly on being called a certain word that describes how people act. And it's not how an atheist thinks of himself, it's how an objective observer would categorize him. A visitor from Mars wouldn't be able to tell the difference between two people acting just alike. If an atheist and a believer both reject molesting a child then what would an English speaking person call the atheist? When I opine that there is no such thing as good or evil, it's because I am contending that giving words connotations is a function of society, but it goes contrary to science which simply deals with opposing forces. I kinda believe that earthlings all came from the same source and are all a part of a universal intelligence. And that we don't know what we know. I also like the romantiicized idea of us being star children because we are made of the same elements as stars.

Well, Delano, I said omnipotent "force" not omnipotent "being" in order to make a distinction between a person and a power, and my alternatives to the words "good" and "bad" are terms that apply to simple scientific principles. If we're going to talk about what exists in the universe of a person's skull, then we are talking about inner space, not outerspace. Nobody can say anything for sure. But I can demonstrate certain reactions. Faith is blind trust in a belief. If you could snap your fingers and make the devil appear in the flesh, as a rebuttal to my extinguishing a lit match by squirting water on it, then you and I would be on the same page. Yep, Troy, it does pretty much boil down to different strokes for different folks. And this is a subject that could be debated ad infinitum.

I think we need to make a distinction between a Supreme Being and an Omnipotent, Infinite Force. Religion, which is an invention of man, has crafted "god" in the image of a person, making "him" either a petty, vindictive old man who doles out punishment, or a Mystical prophet who spouts riddles. And any one who judges people by the bible or other religious scriptures written by men is not qualified to be objectve. To say that an atheist can't be "moral" is simply an opinion. In the big picture, there is no such thing as good or evil or moral or immoral or Satan or God. There is simply matter and anti-matter, negative and positive, darkness and light. The "good" and "bad" labels are constructs of civilization. But, as is proven everyday, these opposing energies co-exist. And any scientist who cannot explain what came before the Big Bang, or what caused the spontaneous combustion that ignited it, needs to expand his vocabulary. The word "nothing" is inadequate.

Come on now, Pioneer. Do you really think the West has any influence on Third World countries who hate us? Furthermore, the Middle East and the Eastern countries are very saturated with their religions. And just because people are Atheists doesn't mean they have no ethics or morals. In addition to being a well organized segment of society and, unlike to a lot of religious hypocrites, Atheists are quite often people who have high morals and lofty principles and who love their fellow man and choose to lead the kind of lives that will benefit the common good. Also, many scientists can reconcile their belief in a Supreme Being with their scientific positions. It's not that hard to accept that an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient force is the Master of the Universe and therefore, among all other things, the origin of what we call science.

Powerless people who assign negative value to a particular race are "biased" or "prejudiced". Such offenders who personally practice discrimination are different from those in authority who are genuine racists because, being in a position of power, they can enforce what results from their assigning negative value to a particular group. I agree that Blacks are just as capable of assigning negativity to another group as anyone else. That's why I play so fast and loose with the term "xenophobia" because it can be applied to all the different ethnic groups who instinctively regard each other with caution but, as you say, not necessarily with hostility.

Well, this discussion has imploded because everybody is co-oping each other arguments. The debate about what is learned and what comes natural has become nebulous and convoluted. My position is that once a child sees the good or bad consequences of his actions, he learns to curb his natural impulses to have his own way, then learns what behavior to adopt in order to be accepted by the group. This is why psychologists and educators formulated the kindergarten concept: to teach children how to get along with their peers and conform to an orderly classroom environment. This has nothing to do with racism. Can we agree that racism is about empowerment, - about being able to enforce and instituionalize color discrimination, something that children don't have the authority to do. I'd say that hate comes easier than love. People do have to learn to subdue their egos in order to love somebody other than themselves. Some people never learn to do this, and are incapable of becoming emotionally involved with another because they are too self-absorbed. Of course there is love at first sight, but in order to preserve their love, couples have to learn to live together. IMO.

Well, Troy, since you think nobody knows anything, that pretty much negates all of your contentions and rebuttals. We have to assume that you don't anything either and that what you assert can be doubted, which is why I challenged your statement that a housefly doesn't know anything about our solar system. Obviously speculation has nothing to do with truth. Once the door to skepticism is open, anything can be relegated to the unknown. That future discoveries can alter present conclusions, dilutes the constancy of facts. In the big picture, everything can be questioned because an overview could reveal that what is assumed to be right is wrong and what doesn't make sense is actually logical. So life is, indeed, a mystery, and it's folly to trust what you think you know for sure.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church is not a typical inner city one. It is a mega-church located in one of the better neighborhoods on Chicago's far south side, and its congregation is distinctly "bougie". Although Wright was not above delivering fire and brimstone sermons, his resume is quite impressive. He served in the military for many years, has several degrees and could easily be be referred to as not only radical but intellectual. The title of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" was taken from a quote by Wright, who is now in his 70s and retired from preaching.

The Jewish musicians were "influential" in the big band "swing" music. But, again, "swing" music is a different genre than "jazz". Benny Goodman was a swing musician; Miles Davis was a jazz one.

Scientists are not totally ignorant about space. They know the universe is expanding. They can make reasonable assumptions about black holes and white dwarfs. They have picked up waves left over from the big bang, have realized that our sun is just a small star, are regularly discovering new galaxies and planets, the latest one, which is millions of miles away, appears to be an Earth twin.They are also tracking asteroids heading in the general direction of earth. And Man did, after all, land on the moon, while now, Explorer is sending back pictures of the surface of Mars. What we don't know is whether a housefly understands our solar system. It just might. It may have been clued about something by roaches who have survived for eons and eons and eons. The fact that scientists know what they don't know is knowledge in itself. You seem to be enthralled not only with metaphysics but quantum physics, Delano. They are both mind blowing, not to mention mind expanding. When you shift into their sphere, nothing is impossible. Reality fluctuates. One of my flights into free thoughI convinces me that memory and imagination are phenomena that allow me to travel back in time...

I think an argument can be made that a great deal of a child's behavior is learned. Little kids have to become socialized and this involves teaching them how to get along with others. That's what kindergarten is for. Small children are not as angelic and sweet as we would like to believe. They are self-centered, can exhibit agressive and cruel behavior toward their peers and are reluctant to share. Manners and consideration for others do not come natural to them. This is learned behavior.

You guys seem to be attributing to Jazz what is really the domain of Blues. They are two different genres, you know. Jazz is about improvisation and free styling and subsets of it like Dixieland and Ragtime are up beat cheerful music as opposed to the Blues which are laments about the sorry vissitudes of life that black people have fallen heir to. A Jazz musician can, of course, play a blues selection if he so desires, but when he is being true to his craft, he is immersed in the cerebral pursuit of impromptu artistry rather than the repetitive drone of misery that typifies the Blues. Troy, what continues to fuel my opposition to you on the subject of race is that in wanting everybody to be viewed as the same, you stifle the diversity which makes life interesting. You don't seem to appreciate the uniqueness of being a facet of the whole, as exemplified by an individual belonging to a race. In fact you seem to be fixated on robbing people of their identity, believing that uniformity is on a par with equality. Not so. Life is an ongoing struggle full of variables, and problems of race like other challenges are a part of the struggle. Justice can be elusive, but it is not non existent. Without adversity there are no victories and without victories there is no sense of accomplishment, - an idea Frederick Douglass espoused. This is where the noble intent comes in, as opposed to wishful thinking and fretting. Athough we would like to be able to influence Fate, like inspiration, it is a mystery that resides in some mystical realm just outside our line of vision. And, yes, this is my "belief".

I stand by my statement that a child can naturally distinguish that a person looks different from himself. (Your sister noticed this) Accepting the difference is a learned reaction. I agree that black women of every color give birth to babies of every color. But it's rare that they give birth to a baby with coloring that is dramatically different from its parents. It's not that uncommon that family dynamics spawn a child who resents the color of his mother and vice-versa. The conflict over the difference in appearance can be a manisfestation or an exacerbation of repressed hostility that has its origin in xenophobia. I also know of cases where infants would scream and cry if they came face to face with someone who looked different than the family members they were used to seeing. There are also cases where adopted children turn out to look different than their parents and a subtle rift is created in the child's mind. Nobody is denying that the government is racist.

Verrry Interesting. Do you think that if you're stopped by cops for driving a fine car in an upscale white neighborhood, or if you try to challenge a bunch of rednecks and demand that they not refer to you as "boy" that these offenders will be impressed if you whip out this chart? Theory always looks good on paper, but the way it plays out in life is another story. A pack of hyenas doesn't give a damn if the prey they're stalking for their evening meal is a "liger", which is a big cat that is the result of a lion and tiger mating, Race is, as race does. Society determines your station in life more than your DNA. And circumstances favor the individual adapting to society whether by choice or by coercion. And the perceiving of another person as looking different from you is not learned behavior on the part of a child. Whether they decide to regard you with suspicion for not resembling them is also a natural reaction because of the xenophobia that resides in our brains. Racism that involves deliberately persecuting others because of their skin color is, of course, learned.

We're dealing with simplistic solutions here. But reality can be complicated. A lot of racism has to do with people being able to see the differences between themselves and others. Color blindness is a myth. That's why bi-racial people are now crying "discrimination" because Blacls and Whites can see that they don't exactly look like them. Even children can make a distinction and they learn to naturally discriminate at an early age. Later their color bias can become racism. So I question whether racism and injustice can be eliminated if the concept of race is dismantled. People gravitate toward their own kind, in the case of black people, perhaps because misery loves company. Yes, "class" is emergining as another way of categorizinng people, but this doesn't keep middle class Whites from distancing themselves from middle class Blacks. Race seems to me to be a case of natural selection that transcends idealistic demands for equality. The human species is more concerned with domination than democracy.

I'd say the mind works through the brain. The brain is tangible, but the mind is spiritual. It's like body and soul. Inspiration is spontaneous; it just comes to you from The Source of all thought. An idea is the fruition of inspiration. Khalil Gibran says: "life and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not the crystal, and who knows but that a crystal is mist in decay." Kinda like the notion that: "thoughts become things". Over the past few years, I have have developed a problem with recalling names. I've discovered that if I feed all the information I know about the person whose name I've forgotten, and visualize how they look, once I turn my thoughts to another subject, my sub conscious mind will spontaneously spit out the forgotten person's name... So my brain is like a computer that processess data fed to it by my conscious mind. If I go through this routine at night and fall aslleep, when I wake up in the morning, I will know the name... When people say they'll "sleep on it" when trying to make up their mind about a dilemma, there's really something to this. The mind works while you sleep and sorts things out. Intuition or ESP is a primitive instinct that civilization has dulled. This whole subject almost defies words because it's about the abstract.