A thought

I have been thinking;

It seems we humans come in two flavors: the Dreamers, and the Guardians.

The Guardians use their wisdom to help society. Tempering the Dreamers by remembering the past.

The Dreamers use their dreams to push society forward, evolving it and shaping it.

The drawback to the Guardians is that sometimes they let fear control them and they get too stuck in keeping things the same or safe.

The drawback to the Dreamers is that sometimes they are unrealistic about their goals.

When the Guardians get too strong in our society, we stagnate. When the Dreamers get too much control, we overextend.

Usually, like a pendulum under ever increasing force, the Dreamers and the Guardians pull against each other until something breaks.

It's not wrong or right, no more than it is wrong or right for a river to flow downstream. It is the nature of Man.

I wonder if that is what has happened to the followers of Jehovah over and over again; after 1000 years, the Judaic religion came to a crossroads. The Dreamers pulled against the Guardians, the Guardians held firm. The Dreamers left. That was when Christianity was born. 1000 years later the Christians came to the same crossroads; the Guardians held firm, the Dreamers left and Islam was born.

It's been 1000 years, and the Guardians of Islam are starting to hold firm.

I wonder what the Islamic Dreamers are making?

About the smell of Roses and Violins

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

It's a long read, a very long article. Sit down, grab a cup of coffee, read it.

Trust me, you need to do this.

When you are done reading it, you'll understand how important it was to sit there and read this important article.

(No, this is not a Rickroll or a joke or anything of the sort, this is serious)

Thank you Ev, for bringing it to my attention, I'll be adding 10 minutes to all of my commutes because of this.

Ad Hominem

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

This is an interesting thing. I have finally found a word that describes one of my biggest pet-peeves with people.

for those whom don't know what this word means, and don't want to click the above link, allow me to sum up; Ad Hominem is when someone responds to an argument with an attack on a person's character or personal traits, rather than giving any reasonable counter-argument;

"I think abortion is bad because it is murdering children."

"Well, that's because you are a Republican."

Being a Republican doesn't make abortion good or bad. It has, in fact no bearing at all on the case stated by the person starting the argument. The problem is; if person A is, indeed, a Republican, what can he/she say? No? The argument is therefore stopped and person B "won"... but not for any good reason.

Why Guy, you may ask, did you post this in your Blog?

I'll tell you,

Ad Hominem is Latin for "argument to the man" or "argument against the man"...

More importantly it's Latin... Which has been dead for a looooooong time... this means that people were arguing Ad Hominem 2000 years ago.

No matter how many cars and planes and spaceships we have, humans haven't gotten any more complex in at least 2,000 years.

--Hominamiha!

a thought experiment

I have a little thought game to play for you folks out there (All three of you that read my blog):

Pick the one topic you most hate, most dispise, absolutely detest...

Do you have it in your mind?

That one topic that really makes your blood boil...

Can you see it? Clearly?

Now, flip it around and defend it. Defend it using the most reasonable and logical arguments that you can.

For example; let's say you are Pro-Life. Defend the Pro-Choice side (Or vice-versa).

I'll bet that it will make you very uncomfortable. I'll bet that you can't even do it. I'll bet that you end up saying outrageous, unreasonable statements like "I think Pro Choice is great beacuse I love murdering babies!"

We simply can't do it.

Why?

Because we are afraid. We are afraid that if we understand a viewpoint, we automatically agree with it. So instead we refuse to learn about "The Other Side". We rebel, we block it... and we get entrenched.

We are more likely to believe that the "Other Side" is naive, stupid, stubborn, dense, all kinds of interesting things...

We are more likely to believe the "Other Side" is less intellegent than us. That they don't have all the facts, that they didn't research it as much as we did...

Rather than try to look at both sides of the argument and come up with a solution for the problem, we will stand there, declare that a solution is impossible (This from the monkeys that learned how to fly in space) and insult the other side.

Which, since we don't actually know anything about the "Other Side"(because we are too afraid that understanding is agreeing), we do nothing more than prove that we really aren't all that bright...

We are more willing to turn our friends and family into enemies than to solve problems.

Now, here's the second part to this little thought experiment:

Did you just fight with a friend? A lover?

Recall your last fight with that person, take their side, and defend it.

I'll bet you can't do it. I'll bet you can't make their side make sense to you. No matter what you do it'll will always come down to you making up stupid statements; "I didn't take out the trash because I LIKE being lazy!" You won't be able to make it be reasonable. You are simply too afraid.

Interesting, isn't it?

The Cheyenne had an interesting thing to say about this, we have all heard it, but no one actually practices it any more;

"Don't judge a man until you have walked a thousand steps in his moccasins"

We aren't even willing to take one step, because we are too afraid that we might be caught wearing his moccasins...

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(Moon hoax people are just idiots! Yep... I can tell that I'll be practicing this thought experiment for a while...)