Quotable commandment

The list is a long one, and quite serious in tone. However, today it’s this one standing out most:

4. Search for what is true, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

On Saturday I’m going to write about a movie I watched regarding this very thing. I’d do it now but it’s a film that deserves more than a random smattering of thoughts slapped down and I’m still in the midst of processing what I got out of it. A rare experience with movies, I have to say.

Quoteable Twitter Bio

Nathan Fillion sure has a lot of followers. Anyway, I love his bio:

It costs nothing to say something kind. Even less to shut up altogether.

Good advice, Sir. Good advice.

Quotable Magician

How tall is Penn Jillette? He’s all awesome.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

I totally agree with this sentiment. I would rather live my life knowing I’ve done all right by people than deal with folks bearing grudges. Some of that I can’t help, I suppose. No doubt my dislike of some beliefs might bother people enough to condemn me to a place I don’t believe exists.

Reminder to those people: hell can only be a useful fear tactic for people who believe there’s a heaven they might miss out on. For anyone else, it’s a very empty threat.

H/T to Kat for having the quote on her sidebar.

Quotable comparison

This is an impromptu part two related to the previous quote. This from Helium.com comparing the differences between Jules Verne and H.G. Wells:

Verne is one of the more optimistic science fiction writers of all time and despite the drama of his writing, books like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon and Journey to the Center of the earth all used science as a method of empowering the characters. He looked at science and saw a blossoming of wondrous possibilities, this most evidenced in Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Whereas with Verne it was about romance and character driven dramas, Wells would use the medium to make a point about mankind itself. He criticizes the stratification in English society in his book the time Machine and in The War of the Worlds he seems to imply our technology will destroy us. Before it was even thought of he predicted the splitting of the atom. When this happened he was horrified… he encouraged governments not to pursue the technology but they did anyway… he died a bitter man.

So it’s not like the debate between futuristic formats is a new one. And I think it was Robert J. Sawyer who’d mentioned in a talk that Wells is better known (better liked?) specifically because he didn’t throw so much technical jargon into his books. Verne’s tech-specific accuracies are all well and good, but the science in them is somewhat dated now and a description of every exact measurement of the 20,000 Leagues vessel’s every gear and knob shouldn’t be the reason people want to read the book, unless they’re really into victorian steampunk and want to build the thing.

There will always be ones who are in it for the science, and others who’ll be in it for the plot and the people. I don’t think one way is more right than the other.

Quotable Sci-Fi Author (but not one I’ve read)

State what you need and the universe delivers..

Charles Stross explains his hatred of space opera like Trek and Battlestar and offers up his thoughts on what makes real science fiction the good stuff:

I use a somewhat more complex process to develop SF. I start by trying to draw a cognitive map of a culture, and then establish a handful of characters who are products of (and producers of) that culture. The culture in question differs from our own: there will be knowledge or techniques or tools that we don’t have, and these have social effects and the social effects have second order effects. … And then I have to work with characters who arise naturally from this culture and take this stuff for granted, and try and think myself inside their heads. Then I start looking for a source of conflict, and work out what cognitive or technological tools my protagonists will likely turn to to deal with it.

Star Trek and its ilk are approaching the dramatic stage from the opposite direction: the situation is irrelevant, it’s background for a story which is all about the interpersonal relationships among the cast. You could strip out the 25th century tech in Star Trek and replace it with 18th century tech — make the Enterprise a man o’war (with a particularly eccentric crew) at large upon the seven seas during the age of sail — without changing the scripts significantly. (The only casualty would be the eyeball candy — big gunpowder explosions be damned, modern audiences want squids in space, with added lasers!)

Not if the Captain in question gets to be Johnny Depp…

Ah well, good point he makes anyway. What’s the purpose, a romance set in space, or a space adventure that might include a romance when people tire of blowing up aliens?

Random Acts of Poetry – Herrick’s eroticism

Upon the Nipples of Julia’s Breast
by Robert Herrick

Have ye beheld (with much delight)
A red rose peeping through a white?
Or else a cherry (double graced)
Within a lily? Centre placed?
Or ever marked the pretty beam
A strawberry shows half drowned in cream?
Or seen rich rubies blushing through
A pure smooth pearl, and orient too?
So like to this, nay all the rest,
Is each neat niplet of her breast.

(found here)

Quotable International Blasphemy Day

Another day not on my fucking godforsaken calendar…

So, some quotes nicked from thinkexist.com

Robert J. Ingorsoll:
“This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves”

Thomas Paine:
“Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities”

G.K. Chesterton:
“Blasphemy itself could not survive religion; if anyone doubts that, let him try to blaspheme Odin.”

And a couple from Famous Quotes and Authors

T.S. Eliot:
“Genuine blasphemy, genuine in spirit and not purely verbal, is the product of partial belief, and is as impossible to the complete atheist as to the perfect Christian.”

Anonymous:
“There is but one blasphemy, and that is injustice.”

Quotable Desmond Tutu

I linked to this article already to discuss the Dalai Lama’s opinion of technology and the peace process, but a little further down the article is this gem:

Tutu, who issued his thanks via video from South Africa, said religion has often been used almost diabolically to encourage such things as xenophobia and homophobia.

“I sometimes wonder how people could ever think that God is a Christian,” he said. “The spirit of God is wider than any one particular faith.”

Did I not say something similar myself just the other day? Indeed I did:

God can be an all encompassing concept. Christianity is not.

Huh. I allow myself a little moment of awesome.

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K, over it.

Quotable distinction between morality and holiness

Found in a post by Proud Atheists that questions some brutal/sadistic behaviours promoted in the bible:

No.. You atheists have it wrong.

Christianity doesn’t teach morality. It teaches holiness.
Morality is simply a reflection of the social norms of your society. But the rules of holiness never change.

Nobody would argue that smashing a baby against a rock is a moral thing to do. But it is a HOLY thing to do, and will gain you favor in God’s eyes.

Holy shit.

That is all. I now return you to your regular scheduled reading of blogs.

Quotable Camel

Dromedary Hump ponders Bruce Sheiman and wonders why he wrote, An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off with Religion than without It (a book the camel won’t be reading):

As for religion “growing more prevalent” … where exactly? Certainly not in industrialized progressive nations, where religiosity is in decline. No, it’s growing in third world countries where lack of education, abysmal poverty, drought, starvation, disease, institutionalized genocide and utter desperation make people susceptible to proselytizing by missionaries who dangle blankets & food in one hand while holding out a Bible or Koran and a promise of a better life after death in the other. What exactly does this prove?

What indeed?