COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, April 05, 2008

The New "New Deal"

___________________

Franklin Roosevelt's
First Inaugural Address, 1933

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.

Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York: Random House, 1938), 11–16.

_______________________

Everything old is new again. Doesn't Roosevelt's speech seem eerily applicable to today? Credit crisis, banking crisis, confidence crisis, a nation in despair looking for a messianic figure. A candidate with the promise of hope and happy days here again. It's looks like deja vu but I believe this current crisis has been fueled and aggravated by the steady onslaught of bad news purveyed for political and ideological reasons. This pervasive and sustained fearmongering has once again become pandemic and brings despair, panic and riot.

I don't mean to claim that the credit crisis isn't real or that food prices aren't rising but I believe that the real crisis is within ourselves. This is a problem humans have had since the beginning of time. For the developed world, it is a fear of material loss, for the third world, it is food insecurity. But such is the nature of man. No matter how advanced or intelligent or educated or rich we think ourselves to be, we have the same human nature that the first man had. One generation after another is caught up in the continuous historical loop of boom and bust, good times of excess followed by bad times and repentance. It's the same as it ever was and for now, we'll just have to take our medicine as our "chickens come home to roost."

54 comments:

  1. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things.

    Whatever the case may have been then, when unemployment was 20 or 30 percent, and people were really hurting, today, it seems to me 'our common difficulties' don't just concern 'material things.' Even with the energy crisis, we have answers, if we would. We've had answers all along to the energy problem, but both parties just fumble along.

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  2. And Hillary probably dreams about being able to say these words--

    It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

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  3. Bobal:Whatever the case may have been then, when unemployment was 20 or 30 percent, and people were really hurting, today, it seems to me 'our common difficulties' don't just concern 'material things.

    After 9-11, we weren't asked to forgo material things, we were actually asked to keep consuming so the economy wouldn't crash. When we embark on the supposedly "existential" and multi-generational War on Terror, we aren't asked to plant victory gardens and buy war bonds and turn our tires in for our boys in jeeps to use, we are given a tax rebate which is paid for by selling 30 year Treasury notes to our future enemy, so we can keep buying that same enemies' cheap stuff which our own factories can't produce anymore.

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  4. Right. Things aren't all that bad. Some people argue 9/11 was actually good for the economy. Now at the end of Bush's reign are things looking a little dicier. Around here, though, you wouldn't know it. If you can't survive here today you aren't trying very hard.2% I think our unemployment rate is. Local paper is filled with want ads. I admit my view may be skewed by my local surroundings here.
    Help the unemployed--stop immigration.

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  5. Wheat prices have been the shits forever, until now, that, and the ever more costly, bigger machinery = larger farms, fewer farmers, fewer farmers needed to do the work. I don't like it. A small bustling town is a good thing. If you wanted to farm small now, I don't know where you'd get the small machinery. Have to have a good shop I quess. They mention the Indians. It's interesting. The Plains Indians hadn't been hunting buffalo for very long. The Sioux were a Mississippi people, who got pushed north into Minnesota and became a canoe people, then got pushed into the plains, where, as Campbell says, their myths have a timeless air, but they were only there a couple hundred years. It's cold, that's for sure. Our federal ag agent here, who lived right next to me for awhile, was from the Dakotas. We noticed last summer, driving through, you can homestead a house in some of those Dakota towns now, if you can figure out how to make a go of it, once it's given to you.

    I don't think they will ever have the erosion problems again. Lesson has been learned. And a lot of it is chem/fallow now. The big plow a thing of the past.

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  6. You should also post the "New Bill of Brights," noting as well they were proposed in the middle of wartime (1944).

    Thank God he died.

    Unfortunately it is has now been resurrected by the UN and progressives as "human security," the supposed new replacement for national security issues.

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  7. Actually, it's been expanded upon. Human security as it is conceived also consists of environmentalism, psychological trauma, etc. Virtually everything under the sun.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_security

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  8. Cutler: Actually, it's been expanded upon. Human security as it is conceived also consists of environmentalism, psychological trauma, etc. Virtually everything under the sun.

    Don't forget "freedom from consequences".

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  9. Freedom from truth, or consequences.

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  10. Bobal: What about gout?:)

    I used to get the gout as a side effect of my meds, and there's no urge to use a smiley emoticon, lemme tell you.

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  11. I learned to control it through diet, and drinking lots of tea and water. Man, though, you wake up with it in the morning--can't get out of bed.Indomethicin, miracle drug.

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  12. If you have gout, don't take aspirin.

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  13. Bobal: If you have gout, don't take aspirin.

    The Indomethecin Industry doesn't want people to know about Cherry Juice. I'm not talking about the sweetened stuff you find in the kool aid aisle, but pure cherry juice. Turns gout off like a light, whether you get it in your toe or your knee.

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  14. From Wikipedia, following up on the Nat'l Geographic story:

    Western North Dakota is currently in an oil boom, and the oil reserves may hold up to 400 billion barrels of oil, 25 times larger than the reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Long called the "Saudi Arabia" of wind energy, North Dakota has the capability of producing 1.2 billion kilowatt hours of energy. That is enough to power 25% of the entire country's energy needs. Wind energy in North Dakota is also very cost effective because the state has large rural expanses and wind speeds seldom go below 10 mph...

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  15. Cherry juice. Good to know. I'll write that down. Thanks.

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  16. "Do you believe that blue silver winged dragons live out of sight above the clouds? If you do not believe they exist is that equivalent to believing they do exist. Is the 'faith' equal?"

    At the risk of starting a holy and unholy war at the bar:

    Noting that after reflection I agree with you to an extent, there's more, at least circumstantial, evidence to believe in God or theology in general than silver wing dragons. Among other things, the fact that nearly all human societies, coming from different environments and premises, came to agreement on the existence of the supernatural.

    I'm hardly someone who believes in the authority of numbers ("1 man can be a moral majority."). It could be psychological or sociological in origin. Nevertheless, it probably something to take into account. I.e., give em a call when there's such a consensus on silver wing dragons and it might be worth a second look.

    The (to this date) absence of any scientific theory to explain how, in the very beginning, something can come from nothing, is also still out there. Though that also raises the question of where the supernatural would have come from itself...

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  17. HEY WHIT,

    That is your best post ever, really! Quite perceptive in my view. Not only does ones mood closely track your physical nature, so too our moods and the economy. They all mesh very tightly. People really were quite depressed during the the depression. Ever been depressed? it sucks.

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  18. Yes Cutler, but that is the point of the Dragon example from the atheists point of view - one needs reasons, evidence, in order to believe. The problem with God from a scientific point of view is you can not falsify the question and thus test it. So, I think it is wrong to assert that atheism is just another form of faith.

    The best argument I've seen for the existence of God is the intelligent design argument. Evolution can also explain that phenomenon as well though so you get back to faith. And once you accept that it is faith based it become quite amusing to see Christian assert their religion is the better one, or Muslims, or Jews, or Buddaists. Sadly folks feel so strongly about the ascendancy of their faith they are willing to kill many many people to buttress their argument.

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  19. Among other things, the fact that nearly all human societies, coming from different environments and premises, came to agreement on the existence of the supernatural.

    Cutler, Joseph Campbell says the reason is we got the same elementargedanken (elementary ideas), which basic thought forms get expressed in the varying volkergedanken(ethnic ideas). Trouble is, folks take the volkergedanken as Absolut truth, and we have wars. The muzzies are most famous for this error, the hindoos least.

    Then there's ashgedanken.

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  20. 'The main point that has here been so vividly illustrated is that in the phenomenology of mythology and religion two factors are to be distinguished: the non-historical and the historical. In the religious lives of the "tough mnded", too busy, or simply untalented majority of mankind, the historical factor preponderates. The whole reach of their experience is in the local, public domain and can be historically studied. In the spiritual crises and realizations of the "tender minded" personalities with mystical proclivities, however, it is the non-historical factor that preponderates, and for them the imagery of the local tradition--no matter how highly developed it may be--is merely a vehicle, more or less adequate, to render an experience sprung from beyond its reach, as an immediate impact. For, in the final analysis, the religious expeience is psychological and in the deepest sense spontaneous; it moves within, and is helped, or hindered, by historical circumstance, but is to such a degree constant for mankind that we may jump from Hudson Bay to Australia, Tierra del Fuego to Lake Baikal, and find ourselves at home.

    In the present chapter dealing with shamanism, that is to say, we are touching lightly the problem of the mystical experience--which is non-historical and yet, wherever it appears, gives sense and depth to whatever imagery may be cherished in the local tradition, cultivated by the local priests, and more or less crudely utilized for social ends and a bit of spiritual comfort by the local populace. The shaman represents this principle on the primitive level, as do the mystic, the poet, and the artist in the higher reaches of the culture scale.

    I should like to suggest, as a basic hypothesis, therefore, a correlation of the elementary idea with the mystical and of the ethnic idea with the historical factors just described. The elementary idea is never rendered or experienced except through the medium of the ethnic, and so it looks as though mythology and religion could be studied and discussed on the historical plane. Actually, however, there is a formative force spontaneously working, like a magnetic field, to precipitate and organize the ethnic structures from behind, or within, so that they cannot finally be interpreted economically, sociologically, politically, or historically. Psychology lurks beneath and within the entire historical composition, as an invisible controller.'

    Campbell

    Thus, it was foolish for the soviets to try and wipe out religion, because it springs from within, and it is likewise foolish to think that the local expression of the elementary idea is God's Own Truth, and maintain that it's only my society that possesses the truth.

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  21. You guys probably don't know who this is, but Randi "Fire Don Imus" Rhodes was suspended from Err America for calling Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton f'in whores. This suits Dr. Rachel Maddow fine, her show has been expanded to three hours at R.R.'s expense, and she's even filling in for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC these days.

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  22. ash: People really were quite depressed during the the depression.

    Not really. Americans built the Empire State Building in about 14 months in 1930-31 (today that's how long it takes to
    get a permit to build a tree house). The talkies came out in color, it was the golden age of radio, people began to fly commercially between continents, and most important of all, prohibition was repealed.

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  23. Sat Apr 05, 05:45:00 PM EDT

    Until there's a proven hypothesis, there's always room for an opposing theory. Can atheism explain how something (the world) came from nothing? If it can’t, then I’d consider putting your tent in its camp an act of some measure of faith.

    ---

    Thanks for the stuff bob, I'll take a longer look at it when I've got more time.

    On another topic, a lot good and some bad here.

    Above all, I always like people who are blunt.

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  24. Should be "holistic" hypothesis.

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  25. "On another topic, a lot good and some bad here."

    To be clear, by good and bad, I mean analysis. Almost all of it being depressing (since that's the word of the day).

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  26. And there was a God before there was matter, or energy?

    Is not God energy?
    How could there be a God, without energy?

    If there was energy, and then matter, then it is physics.

    When and what created the Creator?
    If energy and matter did not always exist, together.

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  27. The more interesting tie, to FDR's speach and then today's "crisis" and proposed solution.

    Russell Company, traders in opium and investors in Yale's real estate.

    Frederic Adrian Delano, Franklin D. Roosevelt's uncle, was born in Hong Kong, China on September 10, 1863. His father , Warren Delano II, was at that time a partner in the shipping firm of Russell and Company based in that city.

    FDR's grandfather was President of Russell Company, the same Russell Company trust that maintains the Skull & Bones.

    Small world, around the White House, aye
    All connected, at the hip, by blood and marriage

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  28. "The (to this date) absence of any scientific theory to explain how, in the very beginning, something can come from nothing, is also still out there. Though that also raises the question of where the supernatural would have come from itself..."

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  29. That is a current theory, not a fact nor even a hypothesis.

    Theories change, as they are not facts.

    There has always been matter, there has never been nothing, that's my theory, I'm stickin' to it. Prove to us that there ever was, "Nothing".

    Even if the theory you promote, cutler, is accurate, which I doubt. There was energy, or there was no God, either.

    God is what?
    Mohammed's God or Zeus?

    God is science, that men do not understand it, not sciences fault.
    Have faith ...

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  30. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  31. Bobal citing Campbell(?)

    "Psychology lurks beneath and within the entire historical composition, as an invisible controller."

    ...and then there was all that talk about 'mystical'.

    I remember, from way back, in my philosophy of religion classes the reference to 'mystical experiences' or 'numinous religious experience'. some folk get these experiences, this sense of God, the Ghia, being one with the world and they then posit the existence of God. If you do LSD there is often the tendancy to get this experience. This links to the psychology notion as cited by Bobal and also, to what I think is perceptive in Whits post, to things in general. We view the world though out 'rose colored glasses' or dark ones as the case seems to be and that then changes the 'world'. The world is as we perceive, it, at the base level, cannot really be otherwise.

    To aeanea's point, sure there are happy people during a depression, they are, in general, outliers. The bad economic times makes folks...depressed, depressed folks make for bad economic times. Have you ever been low on blood sugar? Have you noticed how endorphins kick in upon exercise? Our moods, our behaviour is very closely wed to our physical condition. Our physical condition is very wed to our psychological condition. Take some extacsy and the world is a glorious and happy place (or so I'm told). It be interesting from an economic perspective if those pumped up on E actally spend more. I've heard bar owners complain those kids just dance and drink water though...bottled probably.

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  32. Cutler said...
    "The (to this date) absence of any scientific theory to explain how..."

    Science is a method. Basically, to be science, you must be able to posit a question that is answerable by testing; it must be falsifiable. You never prove anything in science, unlike math. In science you simply find evidence which confirms a theory. A negative result disproves a theory. Elegance determines the pecking order of theories.

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  33. Cutler: Can atheism explain how something (the world) came from nothing?

    Theism says the world came from nothing too. When atheists ask for evidence of the source of the world, theists always produce nothing.

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  34. ash: To aeanea's point, sure there are happy people during a depression, they are, in general, outliers. The bad economic times makes folks...depressed, depressed folks make for bad economic times.

    Sheryl Crow sings a song, it goes:

    My friend the communist
    Holds meetings in his rv
    I cant afford his gas
    So Im stuck here watching tv

    I dont have digital
    I dont have diddly squat
    Its not having what you want
    Its wanting what you've got


    The message is that a bad economy only depresses those who stake their happiness on having material goods. It costs too much to drive where I used to go hiking, so now I get all my exercise in my garden.

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  35. DR: Is not God energy?

    Pure energy is light (or X-rays, or infrared), mediated by photons. When God said, "Let there be light" the implication is that there was not light (energy) until he said it.

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  36. Fortunately I haven't lived through and economic depression...yet. I would feel pretty darn bad if I had trouble feeding, clothing, and housing my kids. I can do without the SUV without too much emotional turmoil, but that other stuff...

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  37. I can't imagine what it'd be like to lose my house...

    ...I'd be a mite bit depressed methinks.

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  38. ...I guess I could always simply turn to God and be HAPPY.

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  39. Theists produce a bureaucracy and a political meme to advance the interests of like-minded theists. That's where it starts and that's where it ends. The rest of it is to entangle people in ornamentation, be that poetry psychology philosophy superstition history law etc.

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  40. Jesus was a theist. He didn't produce a bureaucracy (the people -some of them-who came after him certainly did) to advance the interests of like minded theists. He seems to have had a gut full of the theists of his day. He seems to have left everything behind, town, family, life itself. Granted he was an exceptional guy.

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  41. The world is as we perceive, it,--
    taking out the I think misplaced comma = The world is as we perceive it.

    Blake said something similar, but mockingly--something like--The world is as it seems to be, to those to whom it seems to be--

    The ox perceives the world differently than the lion. The tree that brings one man to tears of joy, is just an object in the way to another man. The fish perceives not as the frog, nor the monkey as the man.

    The states are set forever, a man passes through.

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  42. Well, I'm going to the casino to win a global warming machine--big car drawing tonite--wish me luck!

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  43. The only record we have of Jesus is the record created by those who came after him. For all intent and purpose, Jesus is their creation. He is, because they said he is. And what he is, is what they chose to say he is.

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  44. In other words,

    Jesus was created by that bureaucracy, and that bureaucracy was created by Jesus.

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  45. American Man Detained, Disappeared, and Tortured By Rogue Canadian Government

    The only record we have of Jesus is the record created by those who came after him. For all intent and purpose, Jesus is their creation. He is, because they said he is. And what he is, is what they chose to say he is.

    That's true up to a point, but even a neutral observer wouldn't claim--I hope--that that means nothing in the narratives are true. That he was a wandering preacher, that he told parables, that he was a healer, and so on. We can say he didn't begin a Platic Academy to carry on his teaachings, that he left nothing in writing, etc.

    To use another figure, John the Baptist was a theist, and didn't produce a bureaucracy. Rather he went to the wilderness. Maybe we can say, impressive theists often have bureaucracies built in their name after they are gone, perhaps in ways they would have been ashamed of.

    The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.

    No new car for me tonite.

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  46. Here's a good article on capital gains. Obama doesn't know what he is doing, as revenues will fall.

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  47. Bob,

    That would not make Jesus a deity to be worshipped, let alone for Jesus to be written about. The Jesus theology is a construct of Rome, and it follows well developed constructs already in existence that were simply readapted for Roman political use and consumption.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw

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  48. The Romans were Italians, which means they were European, which means they were white -and the Romans ran everything in Jesus' country.

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  49. That would not make Jesus a deity to be worshipped, let alone for Jesus to be written about.

    Right, but reading the writings of those that have, and comparing them, one to another, you can come to some conclusions about the life, regardless of attributing divinity to the guy. One of which is, he was a Jewish theist. The folks that wrote the gospels said, he's more than that.

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