2010.02.04
"Without a belief that you will be rewarded or punished after the end of your life--what drives morality among your people? . . . I know that you're a good person. Where does that goodness come from?"This passage is quoted in Gabriel McKee's "The Gospel According to Science Fiction", a survey of various SF books with religious implications my mom got me for Christmas
"I behave as I do because it is right for me to do so . . . by the standards of my people."
"But where do those standards come from?"
"From . . . from our conviction that there is no life after death! . . . A person's life is completely finished at death; there is no possibility of reconciling with them, or making amends after they are gone. . . . If I wrong someone . . . under your worldview I can console myself with the knowledge that, after they are dead, they can still be contacted; amends can be made. But in my worldview, once a person is gone . . . then you who did the wrong must live knowing that person's entire existence ended without you ever having made peace with him or her."
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.
Damn it, Google searches for "Romper Stomper" are dominated by some dumbass skinhead Russell Crowe movie. I miss the toy + show.
S'funny, kind of, how the old school bathroom white earbuds and synch cables clash with the new Apple look of glossy black with silver trim.
I love (read:hate) when an MS browser considers XML "active content" to be blocked -"DONT THEY KNOW HOW DANGEROUS INFORMATION CAN BE?"