ΩI still haven't recovered from what was either 3-day blitz-flu or food poisoning. It was heavy - nerve-twitchy achey joints headache nausea gas bloat depression lethargy - typical all-round body hurt. Though this bout didn't last the two weeks of the December one. So I don't have a lot of perspicuity. That's a dangerous time to write.
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I like the idea that religious fundamentalism can be somehow reconciled with a secular state, but then like I said I'm in an ill frame. In the case of American Christian fundamentalism, Catholic and/or Protestant, we're talking about people who believe that when they die their real existence begins. Eternity. That all this is is a test, and all that matters here is how you do on the test. We will leave this troubled world behind. Also dominion over the animals and all.
It's the mirror of God, or a mirror that God holds and people see themselves in it. With all this glory all around it. People who believe that will not be bothered with respecting differing opinions.
To you it's an opinion, to them it's the way things are. Asking someone who believes at that depth to treat their belief as an opinion is farcical. Your life is secondary to that; your opinions are opinions, theirs are truths.
Add in what has become the necessity for delusion, the bitter reality contrasted with the warm glow of Disney-spirituality and mediated family living, and the resistance is total. We're going quickly into an arena of life and death struggle, like much of the rest of the world, but we're dressed and armed as cartoons. A lot of the illusions of right and wrong that have sustained this golden moment in America will become detrimental. But I don't have anything to replace it with. Just animal stuff, growling and snarling, and deceptive cunning. And that's not really a philosophy.
posted by Juke at 1:18 AM [edit]