Jake:
>Geeze, Reed. I do what I can. Talk about putting terrible pressure on me.
>Please remember that I am a humorless, bloodless, cold, android/spock hybrid
>type of rationalist - (we ALL are, don't you know?). My creativity quotient
>is well below room temperature. And most of that is spent trying to lower
>your expectations, so that I might occasionally exceed them.
>
>If you keep putting undue pressure like this, I just might slit my mylar
>wrists and let the oil drain out.
Could someone please tell me why, after I've had a conversation with someone for a while, they always tend to say bad things about themselves? KJS did it, now Jake is doing it. It strikes me as some sort of formallized gesture of submission...but with a bitter ironic overtone. I'm not trying to defeat you, Jake, so you don't have to say bad things about yourself to get me to lay off. All you have to say is something like..."Hmm...I guess you may have a point, let me think about it."
Geeze, Jake. I'm not asking you to capitulate right here in front of God and everyone...I'm just asking you to reconsider your feelings and thoughts about God and faith...to ask yourself if, like, you could cut religious people a little slack, you know? Like, maybe you could even enjoy the beauty and the rapture? Maybe you could shop around for a church...I'd bet you could find one you like. If you don't feel that need...well, maybe you could ease up a little on people who do find joy and solace within the divine.
I never called you a Nazi, Jake. I never called you a robot. If you were a robot, then I wouldn't waste my precious breath. But you are a human, flesh and blood...passion, pain, perversions, and potential. There is a universe of human experience out there to enjoy...and some of it, some of the sweetest, the juciest pulp...is spiritual, religious, and trancendent.
LIFE is only contradictory if YOU are contradictory. Why? Why not just try a taste? Are you so afraid? Of what?
That it might be TOO GOOD?
Sweet Jesus! How foolish is that?
Reed
Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------