Quotes, for the sake of wasting time

"These seances are intercut with concert footage, during which the band typically sings the lyrics through once and then gets mired in endless loops of instrumental repetition that seem positioned somewhere between mantras and autism. The music is shapeless, graceless, and built from rhythm, not melody; it is amusing, given the undisciplined sound, to eavesdrop later as they argue in a van about whether they all were following the same arrangement."
-Roger Ebert, on the music of Neil Young & Crazy Horse

"I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don't...Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life as a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that."
-Spike Lee, offering the most ridiculous generalization masquerading as criticism I've heard in a while, and I'm not even that big of a Coen brothers fan.

"astenou6 you's da faygot spiderman is teh greatest marvel superhero character ever not because of his powers but, because of what he represents your to much of a noob to get taht!"
-Youtube user Ace48071, spreading the Spider-Man gospel in ways I could only hope to emulate.

"So here is the problem. Homo sapiens has been on the planet for 100,000 years, but apparently for more than 95,000 of these years he accomplished virtually nothing. No real art, no writing, no inventions, no culture, no civilization. How is this possible? Were our ancestors, otherwise mentally and physically undistinguishable [sic] from us, such blithering idiots that they couldn't figure out anything other than the arts of primitive warfare?"
-Dinesh D'Souza, undeservedly proud of his new counter-theory against "the atheists" claiming that it makes no sense that God would only choose to intervene in human affairs sporadically over the last 5,000 years (I generally have little regard for anything anyone says over the internet, and I include myself, but I was heartened to see people on D'Souza's site ripping apart this argument fairly readily).

Oh snap, you been shylock'd!

In case you haven't heard, it's the new Fox news game show: respond to any attacks on Fox News' character by showing ridiculously Jewed-up pictures of the perpetrators. This is what Steve Doocy and co. tried to do on Fox & Friends in a segment in which Doocy was complaining about some attack against Fox News leveled by The New York Times. So they showed an obviously doctored photo of the reporter in question, Jacques Steinberg. Compare below (courtesy Media Matters):

Seems kind of weird. They also took down another "attacker," Steven Reddicliffe:

What the hell? The question isn't whether or not Fox News actually did doctor these photos: obviously, they did, and a spokeswoman for the company said that it is common practice on cable news networks to photoshop pictures of people, but why do it this way? First of all, this is some terrible, me-level photoshopping. Second of all, it looks like pictures straight out of 30s German propaganda, and not even the good stuff, like Leni Riefenstahl. Can you imagine them taking a picture of, say, Al Sharpton, and doctoring some huge red lips on it? Shameful.

And yet some people say that anti-Semitism is not a factor, or is unimportant compared to various other forms of prejudice. As if it's a contest.

Vanity Fair has gotten into the game, posting a bunch of ridiculous photos of Fox News personalities, although in this case I would imagine it would not be in their best interest to shylock somebody already Jewish, like Bill Kristol. Speaking of Bill Kristol, I just saw the movie Arguing the World and I would like to talk about it at some point. Not that it has anything to do with Bill, but the deep lack of respect Irving Kristol's peers now hold for him is telling, I think.

Atheism is always moral and necessary

Here's an article I wrote for The Cornellian (I don't know if it's going to be published or not) about Percy Shelley and the necessity of atheism. It was initially written as a response to an offhand comment my professor made last block about how atheists are generally viewed as "opinionated" and "contrarians."
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You wouldn’t know it by the recent litany of books on the subject, but there was a time when writing something refuting the idea of a God, and specifically a Judeo-Christian God, could get you into a lot of trouble. Percy Bysshe Shelley found this out when he published a pamphlet entitled “The Necessity of Atheism” in 1809, calling into question the idea that believing in a benevolent God was always a morally just viewpoint. Shelley published the pamphlet anonymously, but was still kicked out of University College, Oxford, when he refused to deny authorship. He would of course go on to become one of the best and best-known of the pure romantic poets, many of them, like Shelley, firm unbelievers.

Shelley was among the first prominent atheists to argue that much cannot be explained by rational science, but assigning certain phenomena to supernatural forces is neither morally nor scientifically sound. “God is an hypothesis,” he wrote, “and, as such, stands in need of proof: the onus probandi rests on the theist.” You can’t claim to know something without proof, and if you don’t give me sufficient proof, why can’t I reject it? I myself, as an atheist (a term I don’t necessarily approve of, but I’ll get to that later), decided at a very early age that it is best to stick with what is observable, with the corollary that anything I observe could, of course, always be wrong. With that as my guiding force, I simply see no need to believe in God, and it seems more and more people are coming to the same conclusion every day.

Is there a change in the air? One would think so, based on the phenomenal success of a number of recent books, all dealing slightly differently with the problem of faith: Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Sam Harris’ Letter To A Christian Nation, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and, most recently, John Allen Paulos’ Irreligion. All of these books, particularly Hitchens’, have made quite a mark on the New York Times bestseller list, suggesting that there is an audience for fiery anti-religious polemics even in a country where at least one of the top-tier presidential candidates denies the existence of evolution. Of course, with their success has come a healthy amount of criticism, not only from religious figures but also supposedly “liberal” sources such as Michiko Kakutani, the chief book critic at The New York Times, who remarked that, “[a]t their worst, these books simply spewed invective against religion, helping to ratify believers’ accusations that atheists and agnostics lack respect for others’ convictions (something believers are frequently guilty of themselves).”

Well, no. It is quite possible to be a fundamentalist atheist incapable of being anything other than petty and mean-spirited, but I don’t think that any of these authors (save perhaps Paulos, whose book is the only one I haven’t read) fit that bill. Dawkins describes himself as a “cultural Christian” and celebrates certain religious events like Christmas. Hitchens has always professed a great deal of respect for other cultures and customs, going so far as to say, “I think that religious literacy is very important,” if only in that a lot of great literature is in some way indebted to The Bible, whether it be something like Milton’s Paradise Lost or the poems of William Blake. Dennett has similarly acknowledged that religion is a useful source of mythology. These are atheists who are contemptuous of religion, but one shouldn’t confuse that with being contemptuous of religious people. There are people who are openly hostile towards any individual professing religious views, but there are people like that on the other side of the debate as well.

The term “atheist” is problematic anyway because it encompasses such a broad range of cultural attitudes, political views, and states of mind. It is a term haphazardly defined by the absence of any particular point of view, and as a result, several prominent nonbelievers would like to see the word be abolished altogether, as it seems to suggest that there is a movement of like-minded individuals who gather in certain groups and think in certain ways. This is definitely not what is happening (although Dawkins happen to be the leader of a group of rationalists known as “brights,”—it’s not quite the same thing). Some, like the philosopher A.C. Grayling, have suggested that non-believers should instead go by the name “naturalists,” being linked by their rejection of any suggestion of supernatural governing agents. This seems to make sense to me, but a name is really nothing but a name, and in my quest to prove that there is no objective “truth” to anything, I’ll wear any tag you give me proudly.

I have no problem with people professing their religious freedom in whatever way they deem fit, as long as they aren’t hurting children or committing heinous crimes against unwilling participants. I would expect anyone else to encourage me to not do the same. I personally don’t care if anyone wants to pray in a public school, as long as they aren’t making my kids do it, and I think there are hundreds of more important problems than whether or not the Ten Commandments are on display in any particular courthouse, even if I think some of the individual commandments are pretty backwards and all of them could be successfully argued against. And if you decide to use your religion to justify bigoted, hateful, or stupid views, don’t expect me to sit back and act like I respect what you are saying. I will challenge anyone to debate me, and I will win, because I have science and rationality on my side.

I have several friends who consider themselves atheists, and none of them view non-belief as an absolute. I and several million other people merely believe that atheists, and American atheists in particular, act as a counterweight: we provide an important role in keeping our country from sliding into a religious police state governed by a book that is as contradictory as it is morally troubling, which is the exact opposite of what people like Mike Huckabee would want. Atheism is nothing more or less than necessary in a free society, and even if you don’t agree with it, don’t make the mistake of claiming that it subscribes to any sort of dogma other than, as Shelley says, “nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be considered worse or better for his belief.”

Been a long time

Sorry I haven't been updating this much. There are several reasons why this is, not the least because I was just in an incredibly busy class that I didn't know if it was proper to write about it, what with my name being so Googleable these days. I was just in a class called Reading in the Content Area, which is basically an Education class in which we studied different literacy theories, some of which I can definitely say have more value than others. Part of my class was actually going to a high school every day for two weeks, from 8-11 on every weekday except Friday, when I would spend the whole day there. This turned out to be an exhausting process. I was very unsure about whether I would blog about it, considering there are all sorts of privacy issues regarding my fellow teachers and students, and what's more I'm not sure the experience was all that positive.

Anyhow, even beyond that my life is just a torrid mess anyway. I'm really jonesing for another English class, but I'll have to wait a month--this block I have Secondary Arts & Languages, which is more or less the same class as last time. This means more visiting the same school. Hopefully I will have to talk less about Hannah Montana. No, don't ask me to explain what I'm doing.

What have I been doing with my time these days? Well, aside from fucking everything up, I've been writing a fair amount and reading even more. It must have been a wise person who said, "We write...so that we do not get more pissed off than we already are." I've been delving into a lot of fiction (okay), poetry (not so good), and essays I just sent into The Cornellian after I got a reply saying that I shouldn't complain until I have myself contributed something of value. Yes, I finally relented. I will post these all in due time, probably this evening actually.

Did anyone see Mitt Romney drop out of the race? Wonderful news, even if his concession speech was nothing but more Republican tomfoolery:

Europe is facing a demographic disaster. That is the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality. Some reason that culture is merely an accessory to America’s vitality; we know that it is the source of our strength. And we are not dissuaded by the snickers and knowing glances when we stand up for family values, and morality, and culture. We will always be honored to stand on principle and to stand for principle.

I think a weakened faith in the Creator is exactly what some of us could use right now. In fact, one of the articles I wrote for The Cornellian (I wrote a bunch, just in case) is about exactly that. I will post it later, even though I think I've made pretty much all of the arguments already in these pages.

You can also look forward to some writing on Philip Roth (I'm in the midst of reading all of his novels, in order of publication), the situation in Gaza, composing music for the upcoming Fuel open mic night, being a miserable individual, my roommate playing Persona 3, my fear of Hillary Clinton's inevitable nomination, and my love-hate relationship (mostly love) with L.A.M.F.

Sorry everyone. It's not like you care.

My letter to Ev

Here's the letter I just mailed back to Ev Cherrington. I believe the phrase you will be searching for is "fish in a barrel," but sometimes it matters a lot to state the obvious.
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Mr. Everett Cherrington:

Thanks very much for your letter and comments. I can't say I appreciated them, but it certainly gave me a lot to think about. I would like to address some of the points you made, beginning with the pamphlet you gave me from the "ex-gay" organization Exodus International.

The central point I was trying to make in my editorial was that I think it is an absolutely worthless endeavor to form an argument based on what I and many people believe to be a work of fiction. We could go on all day talking about what could possibly be true and what isn't true in the Bible, but in the end it carries no moral or intellectual truths in it that I couldn't otherwise either reject or come up with myself. That's why I complain when people like Eric Chamberlin use scripture in order to prove any point: it is simply not possible, scientifically, to prove that the Bible is inerrant, but there is plenty of proof to the contrary.

The pamphlet entitled "What the Bible Says About Homosexuality," in this regard, is an absolutely disgusting and misleading piece of Christian propaganda, and I would suggest you actually try to seek out and talk to gay people in the community that do not see a need to become born-again and are happy the way they are. I know you are trying to argue that it is essentially a humanist position to want to "save" gay people rather than kill them like the Nazis did, but in my mind, a life of forced, unreasonable shame can be a fate worse than death. The fundamentalist Christian position that homosexuality is somehow a "choice" has been proven demonstrably false, and the fact that you still claim it as fact merely paints Christianity as a cultish philosophy utterly opposed to new ideas or ways of thinking. But then again, isn't that all religion, at its core?

The pamphlet bewilderingly states that members of the gay community are, "aggressively pushing for acceptance of their lifestyle." Oh, how awful that must be, the fact that they don't want to be discriminated against and they want the same rights as everyone else. Quite an agenda. It's the same agenda that Jews had in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s and yes, the same agenda that Christians had during the days of the Roman empire, when they were being fed to the lions for professing their beliefs. And yet somehow you have come to believe that your beliefs trump all others, and that it is right that certain people should be discriminated against, as long as it's not you. Some would say there is a thin line between your way of thinking and hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan; I say that line is nonexistent. It's hate, pure and simple.

You also said in your letter something that I've heard many Christians argue when I bring up the point of how simply barbaric and amoral a lot of the Bible is: you say, "the standards were high and God desired for people to obey; children to obey their parents [...] but Jesus came to die for our sins in abolishing the law. Many other commands in the [Old Testament] are not followed in modern times as they are no longer applicable." Presumably, you are referring to my aside that Deuteronomy 21:18-21 demands that disobedient children be stoned to death. To you, Jesus' sacrifice made it so that this portion of the Bible is no longer relevant. I don't know how one goes about cherry picking which parts of the Bible are still relevant and which aren't, but I know that many people have very differing opinions, and these differing opinions lead to wars and death. I tend to view death and murder as morally abhorrent, but I guess you don't as long as it's on the cause of "righteousness," whatever that means.

I have carefully considered everything you have said to me and I reject all of it, happily and wholeheartedly. I feel I am a better person for not believing the dangerous and divisive aspects of the Bible, or the Quran or anything else. As such, I can live my whole life without feeling guilty or shameful because I am afraid of some invisible, petty deity is judging me, and I can be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, new people and new activities. But it's not enough that merely I think this way, and that's why I wrote a letter to the Tribune. I believe the Bible has been a horrible impediment of world civilization and I am prepared to argue this with anyone. That doesn't mean that I hate anyone who professes a religious view, and it never did. In fact, many of the people I love the most are religious for different reasons, and many of the things I love about those people stem from their religion. However, this is not about them, this is about people like you who choose to justify hate and bigotry under the guise of religion.

I hereby extend an offer to a debate, whether in a public or private forum, so I can perhaps communicate these grievances and maybe even ask you a few further questions. In any case, feel free to write back, but please don't bother arguing with me unless you want to use logical arguments based on reasoning and observation. Otherwise I'm just not going to be very receptive.

Sincerely,
Nathan Sacks

I have at least one fan

My dad showed me a letter I got in the mail sometime recently from a character named Everett Cherrington, also known as "the God-socks man," regarding a letter to the editor I sent to the Ames Tribune quite a long time ago (unfortunately, I can't find it on the Tribune's website, although I'm sure it's there somewhere). Basically, my very brief article addressed concerns I had about another editorial, written by Eric Chamberlin, that basically lambasted the Tribune for its supposed "homosexual agenda." I'm not kidding, there are like two people in Ames that actually believe this is true and write to the paper regularly about it.

Anyhow, I wrote a letter back, basically pointing out that those who choose to invoke the Bible to justify bigotry or anything else are wasting their time, that I don't view the Bible as inerrant truth and neither do most of the people I know, that hate speech is hate speech whether or not it is religious in intent, etc. Anyhow I got some nasty responses, far greater than what I'd expect for such an innocuous thesis, with nearly all of them stating how "angry" of a young man I must be (a comment that made me furious, of course).

Ev's took a long time to come, though. Here's his letter:

"Nathan,
I'm sorry you're so angry at the world for how you perceive gays are treated. In Deut. 21 God is just in his judgment because people were under the law. The standards were high and God desired for people to obey; children to obey their parents.
But Jesus came to die for our sins in abolishing the law. Many other commands in the O.T. are not followed in modern times as they are no longer applicable.
When Jesus died it was to fulfill the law; to pay for man's sins. We're all sinners in need of repentance. When we repent (change our thinking about God); admit we're sinners and ask him for forgiveness then we're "born again." Then when we die we can go to Heaven and not to Hell where one pays for his or her sins.
Please carefully consider what the enclosed pamphlet has to say.
Sincerely, Ev Cherrington"

Also in this letter was a pamphlet from an organization called Exodus International, a supposed "worldwide network of 'ex-gay' ministries." It basically details one man's quest to reject his own homosexuality in favor of God. It's full of revolting, misleading so-called facts:

"Today, many denominations have fully embraced homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle. How did this come about? The main reason is a shift in this century from reliance on God's Word to reliance on the latest scientific findings and personal experiences."

Aaargh! I don't feel I need to comment on this right now, but I will write a swift response to him, and I will probably post it up here when I have the chance.

The day before...

Two days without blogging this early in the game is not a good sign. I need to step up, but as always, I find myself at a loss of what to say. I was just studying for my final, one that promises to be possibly the easiest final of my college career. All night I've been reading about neoclassicism, minimalism, postminimalism, etc. in bite-size chunks, and I think I have a pretty good grasp on the classical music end of things. Regarding the popular music end? Not even a challenge, not even gonna study. A day or so back I had a quiz where I was asked to match certain musical artists to their genres, and the choices were like the Sex Pistols, Nirvana, the Bee Gees and Talking Heads. Needless to say, it was very easy.

One interesting thing I have noticed in the news is Germany's latest declaration regarding Scientology as a dangerous cult. Of course I am inclined to agree, for reasons more personal than one might expect, but this seriously infringes on anyone's right to religion. Now, I can understand that Scientology might pose a physical threat to certain people, and it is a very strange and seductive religion that has no qualms about fucking over its constituents. To a certain extent, that is their own fault, and the subjugation and brainwashing of kids is an unfortunate side effect of living in a semi-free democracy, and anyway Christians and Jews do it plenty too.

On the other hand, I understand that this is Germany we are talking about, and they know a thing or two about dangerous cults that restrict the essential freedoms and rights of humans. They must have a genuine concern, although I have yet to read what it actually is. It seems to me this all stems from Tom Cruise making some Nazi movie in Germany. Why all the Tom hate? Can someone explain this to me? Why no Travolta hate? He was the one who made the Passion of Scientology (which, I'm almost ashamed to say, I saw on opening day).

Regarding the "personal reasons" I was referring to earlier: my dad told me that a friend of his had a daughter who committed suicide as a result of monetary pressure from her Scientology church. At least that's what he said, I don't know if she readily admitted this before she killed herself. Sadly, this does seem to be how Scientology operates, at least according to L. Ron Hubbard:

"A Suppressive Person or Group becomes fair game. By FAIR GAME is meant, may not be further protected by the codes and disciplines or the rights of a Scientologist."

Basically, their doctrine is to completely destroy and demoralize anyone who dares criticize them. Well, I'll be one of many and call them out. Scientology is a crazy cult that does innumerable damage to defenseless children and adults alike. The church itself can be indirectly linked to the murder or suicide of several people within the church, yet they seem to operate outside the law. I don't care how wonderful Jerry Maguire or Road Hogs is, it is our duty to point this out.

Google Video treats

Via the "Christopher Hitchens Appreciation Society" on Facebook, on which I am a proud member and contributor, I found a link to something called "The Four Horsemen," a two hour-long discussion between the Hitch, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett, the four individuals that many would consider to be the vanguard of the new atheist movement, although two of them (not Dawkins or Dennett) would probably be appalled to find that they were labeled as part of any such group or movement. Here's a link to both hours. I think this is in Hitchens' house in D.C., as I remember it from when he did a tour of it in his C-Span interview:

Hour 1
Hour 2

That Sam Harris is quite a dish, isn't he? I've read God is not Great, The God Delusion, and The End of Faith, but not Dennett's book. That's something I will do over break.

Also, I think it's about time I read a lot of books challenging all these claims and arguing for religion. Are there any books like that that I could read and take seriously and don't use the Bible as a primary source?

Huckabee is not affable and charming, he's a jerk

In a crowded field of scumbag competitors who, among their ranks, think that the official American policy on religion is monotheism, hang out with child molesters, take campaign donations from hate groups and John Mayer, and seemingly have no brain cells whatsoever, one can almost be forgiven for thinking that Huckabee seems like an acceptable alternative. This is wrong. This is another example of how the lesser evil argument is not going to do anyone any amount of good.

For anyone in this country who thinks that people should be allowed to believe (and not believe) as many gods as they want (and I would hope that there are many of you out there), Huckabee's religiosity is appalling. I have no problem with anyone getting a degree in theology, but just take a look at what Huckabee has said about homosexuality in the past:

"The governor regards 1968 as the dawning of ‘'the age of the birth-control pill, free love, gay sex, the drug culture and reckless disregard for standards.'"

Furthermore, his comments in 1992 that we should quarantine people with AIDS has gotten a certain amount of attention, as has his comment that, "Homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle." These sort of comments should not be tolerated by anyone who believes that discrimination is wrong, as opposed to permissible, which apparently these fuckers think is not a problematic thing to say.

The man does not believe in evolution. This is the 21st century. This is insane. I don't care how many profiles he gets in the Jesus York Times or Newsweek, he's still a bigot just like the rest of them (yes, including Ron Paul). I really wish the press would stop giving people like that a platform and allow non-bigoted republicans (yes, I know you're out there) a chance to say something. If I had to choose a republican candidate right now, I'd choose John McCain, despite his lame Woodstock comment (being a prisoner of war and having your balls electrocuted is sweet, I guess).

God, some of these blog posts are just no-brainers. Just be glad I didn't call this post "I hate Huckabee."

The closest thing to celebrity yet

I thought I'd mention this before the White House erases this from its web site. On December 10, president George W. and the White House staged a Hanukkah reception/minstrel show to prove that our president can impart understanding on at least some religions. His guest-of-honor/token Jew this year was Yehuda Pearl, the father of deceased journalist Daniel Pearl, famously beheaded in Pakistan by Muslim extremists (you may remember they made a movie about him with Angelina Jolie). Daniel Pearl also happened to be my second cousin, and while I'd never met him, my mother has, and she maintains regular contact with Yehuda.

Anyhow, cousin Yehuda called a few days back to tell my mom that he had been invited by Bush to be part of this celebration, and he asked if he could borrow the menorah that belonged to my great-grandfather, Chayim Pearl. I guess my mom agreed and shipped it off to the White House, temporarily. So the menorah normally on my kitchen wall has been touched by Bush. My mom told me that as soon as she gets it back, she's going scrub the hell out of it.

For anyone wondering, my middle name is not "Pearl" but "Pour-El," a far less interesting but more Kryptonian sounding translation that my maternal grandfather uses as a last name.

And no, I'm not good with Photoshop.

EDIT: In the interest of fair play, I should direct you to Christopher Hitchens' recent article "Bah, Hanukkah: The Holiday Celebrates the Triumph of Tribal Jewish Backwardness." He is absolutely right about everything, of course, except maybe his assertion that Greek society was inherently more intellectually vibrant than Jewish society, when I'm sure there were exceptions. Expect this to be the first of many Hitchens references.