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Thursday, August 30, 2007
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TRUST ME!
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Beethoven may have been killed by his own doctor, according to a Viennese pathologist. Had this discovery been made in the 1930s, the doctor would have been identified as a Jew. And if you were to ask an anti-Semite today, he would tell you the killer-doctor must have been a Jew – no doubt about that. Why a Jew? Why not? For two thousand years they have not only suspected but asserted and continue to do so today that our Lord Jesus Christ was a phony and a blasphemer. Who is right? Jews or Christians? We are told for most of her life Mother Teresa doubted the existence of god and the divinity of Christ. But when she was alive she sang a different tune. If you can’t trust Mother Teresa, whom can you trust?
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Trust me. I know better. I am more sincerely committed to the Cause, whatever that may be, than anyone you care to mention. Do not criticize me because I am beyond criticism. That indeed is the subtext in everything we say; and notwithstanding the fact that most people don’t give a damn about what we think or say we think (not always the same thing), we continue to beg for their trust and to assert our superiority, even when we know we deserve neither. Who has ever been beyond criticism? Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi? Not only they had their share of critics but also mortal enemies, and this not among hostile foreigners but among their fellow countrymen. Socrates was condemned to death by Athenians, Gandhi was assassinated not by a Muslim but by a fellow Hindu, as for Jesus: according to the eminent contemporary theologian, Mel Gibson…
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Friday, August 31, 2007
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JUNGLE
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Readers may be divided into several distinct categories:
Children who are spoiled brats and think they are smart enough to understand everything they read, including matter intended for adults.
Adults who are advanced cases of arrested development.
Self satisfied egocentric narcissists who are convinced (or have been brainwashed to believe) we live in the best of all possible worlds, we never had it so good, we are in good hands, god in his heaven above is on our side, and anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy of the nation who should be hanged from the nearest tree. (You would think the only way for an Armenian to subscribe to this Leibnizian school of thought is to expunge our past).
The smart-ass know-it-all garbage mouth bully who operates on the self-serving assumption that his brand of perverted patriotism justifies racism, violations of human rights, fascism, and massacre – if not literal than verbal. (This type is rare but because he suffers from chronic verbal diarrhea and loves the effusions of his own outpourings, he gives one the impression of being not a single nut but an entire unruly mob.)
And then there is the well-meaning but essentially timid reader who doesn’t want to get involved, adopts a passive stance and thus promotes and legitimizes the Ottomanized hooligans among us. We owe the jungle of our Internet discussion forums to him more than anyone else.
And if I speak with some degree of authority on these different types of reader it’s because at one time or another I have been all of them.
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Saturday, September 01, 2007
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IN PRAISE OF TOLERANCE
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Frequently spoken lies:
“I know better,”
“I am better,”
“I am right,”
“You are wrong,”
“I know it for a fact.”
*
Man is prone to confuse fact with fiction. Case in point: for millions of years men believed the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and when someone came along and dared to say otherwise, he was threatened with torture and death…all in the name of a god who is truth and love.
*
A dogmatist is one who explains things he doesn’t understand.
*
There is a realm somewhere in which everything that doesn’t make sense here makes perfect sense there. But so far man has failed to discover the location of that realm.
#
*******************************************
TRUST ME!
*******************************************
Beethoven may have been killed by his own doctor, according to a Viennese pathologist. Had this discovery been made in the 1930s, the doctor would have been identified as a Jew. And if you were to ask an anti-Semite today, he would tell you the killer-doctor must have been a Jew – no doubt about that. Why a Jew? Why not? For two thousand years they have not only suspected but asserted and continue to do so today that our Lord Jesus Christ was a phony and a blasphemer. Who is right? Jews or Christians? We are told for most of her life Mother Teresa doubted the existence of god and the divinity of Christ. But when she was alive she sang a different tune. If you can’t trust Mother Teresa, whom can you trust?
*
Trust me. I know better. I am more sincerely committed to the Cause, whatever that may be, than anyone you care to mention. Do not criticize me because I am beyond criticism. That indeed is the subtext in everything we say; and notwithstanding the fact that most people don’t give a damn about what we think or say we think (not always the same thing), we continue to beg for their trust and to assert our superiority, even when we know we deserve neither. Who has ever been beyond criticism? Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi? Not only they had their share of critics but also mortal enemies, and this not among hostile foreigners but among their fellow countrymen. Socrates was condemned to death by Athenians, Gandhi was assassinated not by a Muslim but by a fellow Hindu, as for Jesus: according to the eminent contemporary theologian, Mel Gibson…
#
Friday, August 31, 2007
*********************************************
JUNGLE
****************************
Readers may be divided into several distinct categories:
Children who are spoiled brats and think they are smart enough to understand everything they read, including matter intended for adults.
Adults who are advanced cases of arrested development.
Self satisfied egocentric narcissists who are convinced (or have been brainwashed to believe) we live in the best of all possible worlds, we never had it so good, we are in good hands, god in his heaven above is on our side, and anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy of the nation who should be hanged from the nearest tree. (You would think the only way for an Armenian to subscribe to this Leibnizian school of thought is to expunge our past).
The smart-ass know-it-all garbage mouth bully who operates on the self-serving assumption that his brand of perverted patriotism justifies racism, violations of human rights, fascism, and massacre – if not literal than verbal. (This type is rare but because he suffers from chronic verbal diarrhea and loves the effusions of his own outpourings, he gives one the impression of being not a single nut but an entire unruly mob.)
And then there is the well-meaning but essentially timid reader who doesn’t want to get involved, adopts a passive stance and thus promotes and legitimizes the Ottomanized hooligans among us. We owe the jungle of our Internet discussion forums to him more than anyone else.
And if I speak with some degree of authority on these different types of reader it’s because at one time or another I have been all of them.
#
Saturday, September 01, 2007
**********************************************
IN PRAISE OF TOLERANCE
****************************************
Frequently spoken lies:
“I know better,”
“I am better,”
“I am right,”
“You are wrong,”
“I know it for a fact.”
*
Man is prone to confuse fact with fiction. Case in point: for millions of years men believed the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and when someone came along and dared to say otherwise, he was threatened with torture and death…all in the name of a god who is truth and love.
*
A dogmatist is one who explains things he doesn’t understand.
*
There is a realm somewhere in which everything that doesn’t make sense here makes perfect sense there. But so far man has failed to discover the location of that realm.
#