Re: [TIED] Re: We, the weed

--- Glen Gordon <glengordon01@...> wrote:

> I used to be a Christian but I found that the Gay Pride Parade was way more
> fun.

You're right. I often wish I was gay... (actually, my ex is bi, and she
marched in at least one gay pride parade when she was living in NYC)

> Back to seriousness. I grew up in a Jehovah's Witness household (as
> "Bible Belt" as you can get) and if there's anything a JW can't stand is the
> concept of "evolution" (or homosexuality, or AIDS, or smoking, or blood
> transfusions, or swearing, or gym teachers, or...). They REALLY take things
> literally from the Bible, from creation to the Tower of Babel. When I'm
> around my family, sometimes I feel like I'm hanging around a bunch of drug
> addicts. Discussing topics with them is absolutely futile because they know
> that they are right and I'm wrong, regardless of the knowledge or
> experiences I have.

Huh. I was raised in a fundamentalist church (basically a very conservative
Presbyterian-Baptist-semiPentecostal amalgam), eventually ended up a Roman
Catholic. And the Catholic church is quite liberal and tolerant compared to
what I grew up in.

Concerning evolution: I'm not a strict creationist, but I have doubts about
evolution, mainly because I haven't been impressed enough with the evidence we
have now -- plus nothing can't become something on its own. If there was a Big
Bang, where did it come from? (Not meant to be a plug for God or religon or
anything.)

> This brings us to an important and sad life lesson about humanity that I
> would like to share with yous - There will always be those that believe
> rather than rationalize, those that trust what can't be seen more than
> what's before them, those that love their precious god above their own
> family. We can't help them. I have nothing against faith but it's when one's
> belief overrides reasoning that it starts to get scary, much like dimentia,
> depression, schizophrenia or other mental illnesses that anyone on this list
> may be diagnosed with. ;) It goes for religion, linguistics or any of the
> sciences.

Amen.

In the culture I grew up in -- and this kinda ties to IE-related topics -- that
more than a few considered Africans and African-Americans to be subhuman. And
the Jews were supposed to be such sworn enemies of Christianity. And you had
to be Baptist to get to heaven, and God help you if you're a heathen Methodist.

Most of these cases are pure ignorance. But what scares me is when someone
takes ideas such as Indo-European palaeontology or what not, and turns it into
an entire argument for Aryan supremacy or what not. (Anybody remember the
highly anti-African book _The Bell Curve_ by the way?)

DaW.

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