Rev. Jerry Falwell Dead

dkst0426 wrote:

What's really scary is the number of people denouncing Jerry Falwell's message of "hate" with an equivalent amount of vitriol, as if two wrongs make a right.

The sad part is that the tremendous amount of good that this person did is going to be overlooked. How would any of you like that to be your legacy on this earth?

bootlegger10 wrote:

Right...how many posts on here have been the "good riddance" and "glad that fucker is dead" posts? If it were just one or two, but it is all of you hateful fuckers.

zstillings wrote:

This post would be completely plausible if this was an isolated instance. Unfortunately, it is not. This type of hatred is a daily occurrence on this board.

Byrnzie wrote:

I like your second signature by the way. Have you read either of these books...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Straw-Dogs-Thoughts-Humans-Animals/dp/1862075964/ref=pd_bowtega_3/203-9211971-0743950?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179285149&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heresies-Against-Progress-Other-Illusions/dp/1862077185/ref=sr_1_18/203-9211971-0743950?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179285149&sr=1-18

Amazon.co.uk Review
John Gray's Straw Dogs attempts to present a world view in which humans are not central and which argues against the humanist belief in progress. The heart of the book is summed up in the idea that modern humanists have still not come to terms with Darwin, still not come to terms with the idea that humans are like other animals. Christians and modern humanists in the Platonic-Cartesian tradition typically think of humans enjoying a special relationship to God, or a special status in nature in a way that other animals do not. Even the great debunkers--philosophers such as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Heidegger--end up making human beings the centre of things or the end point of some world-historical process. By contrast, in a Taoist, Shinto, Hindu or animist culture Darwin's discovery would have been easily accommodated since these faiths see humans and other animals as kin.

In short, for Gray, humanism is nothing more than "a secular religion thrown together from decaying scraps of Christian myth". Gray champions James Lovelock's view of the Earth as a self-regulating system whose behaviour resembles, in some ways, that of an organism. The Gaia hypothesis is the backdrop to Gray's apparently relentless pessimism about the fate of humankind. What it teaches us is that this self-regulating system has no need of humanity, does not exist for the sake of humanity, and will regulate itself in ignorance of humanity's fate.

Straw Dogs can be usefully compared with Mary Midgely's excellent Science and Poetry since both take off from the view of man as animal while sharing similar views about the cultural role of philosophy. Both encourage us to overcome the Platonic-Cartesian-Kantian philosophical tradition while stressing the importance of Gaia in emphasising our essential continuity with the physical and natural world. For Gray, humans "think they are free, conscious beings, when in truth they are deluded animals". Straw Dogs could have been made to stretch for 500 large pages. Instead you get 200 small pages of gold; simple, concise, riveting.--Larry Brown