What does she feel if she doesn't have the feeling that I have in my fingers

What does she feel if she doesn't have the feeling that I have in my fingers. Many people have been debating suicide lately because of the recent death of Robin Williams. My issue yesterday concerning this was specific to that one death and not suicide as a whole. The debate ranges from it is a sin, a cowardly act to it is our right as a person to stop living if we want and everything in between. It is a hard thing to understand from the outside. Seeing a person you know, gone by their own hand has no answers and leaves us wanting to understand what we did not know and can never know. It can haunt those close to it for years. I’m not sure this was always the case and is a problem unique into how your culture looks at self death. I’m not sure when the shift happened in history from choosing to die being acceptable to when it became a bad thing. People have willingly gone to their deaths as long as there have been communities and social groups. The distinction between what is an honorable death and what is not has not always been as clear as it might seem. Every culture that I’ve studied has some form of chosen death be it Seppuku, a return to the earth, soldiers volunteering for dangerous missions, ritual deaths, or another form of euthanasia. Most chosen deaths were a part of the moralistic code of the culture and the people dying welcomed death willing. That is not to say that these were melancholy people, the exact opposite appears to be true these people were proud, happy and loved life. However death is part of living and there is no escape from it eventually everyone one alive today will be dead. Sacrificial deaths seem to be bizarre but many people went to these deaths gladly and willingly and believed that what they were doing would benefit their family or community. When these sacrifices were captured people who wanted no part of their dying in this manner that is a different thing entirely because it isn’t the person’s choice. Somehow quantity of life regardless of quality of life became more important. Many of us can empathize with the idea of escaping unending physical pain from an illness which has no cure. However even then allowing a person to medicate themselves to death is bad but it is okay to sign a piece of paper that says if I die from this illness it is okay not to attempt to revive me. How is one any different than the other? Why should a person have to suffer for months knowing they will never get any better and only get worse? What makes one illness worthy of death over another? What about mental illnesses? There are some illnesses where there is no escape from being ill but only being managed to a point of stability. Most of us would not want that to be our own fate but others must continue on because of our own morality versus their desire not to go on. Why is it honorable to fall on a grenade but not to end the pain of cancer or to end the loss of self through dementia and Alzheimer’s? In the case of illnesses why would a person want to drain all their assets and leave their family nothing for the same end result but only prolonged their life artificially. Why is it okay to refuse any medical treatment but not to ask for right to die by one’s own choice or on one’s own terms? We can not know what one person is experiencing, no more than we can really know what they are truly thinking. What is bearable for you may not be for another. Certainly living is wonderful and most of us do not want that to end our lives because we see it from where we are and from a place of comfort. Our view might be different under different circumstances and perhaps it is more compassionate to allow those who want to leave to go on their own terms and not to worry about what we don’t understand about why they left. You don’t ever find those answers no matter how hard you look. Today’s title: Lyrics from Hefner’s Hymn for the Cigarettes Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

I might be out on a limb here Jack but you don't seem like a happy camper

Robin Williams is dead. Because he was well known this means something to everyone who knew the actor and comic. We didn’t really know him, we knew his work but what drove him is a mystery to most of us. It is a tragic end of a man’s life for his family however for the rest of the world is only a loss of what would have been or could have been not of who this person was but of his work. For most of us we still have the Robin Williams we love and it is really the same whether it be; the Fisher King, Professor Keating, Mork, Ms. Doubtfire, the stand up comic, the Centennial Man, Leslie Zevo or the many other characters brought to life by a vibrant actor. We have the Robin Williams we knew and can have him back on Prime, or the Flix or any station that is showing something of his body of work. He is gone for those closest to him never to come back. We the many mourn his death but we have not lost anything. The muses, Thalia and Melpomene, Comedy and Tragedy, The two faces for Theatre or acting you can’t have one without the other. It seems too that with great comedic actors there is a darkness that envelopes their lives, that the Yin and Yang life is that suffering is necessary to understand joy and to truly know loss you must first know joy. The work I do many people develop what is referred to as gallows humor. What we see isn’t enjoyable but is rather very tragic. To help others you can not allow yourself to carry the weight and be mired down by emotion so you find the humor in what is tragic. Eventually it becomes too much for many and they leave the work. What a weight Mr. Williams must have carried. Suicides impact our lives in a way that many other deaths do not. The “what” that killed the person is the person we mourn. There is no murderer unless you call the person a murderer which is what a suicide is, a self murder. We don’t want to think about the lost person in that light but we do on some level so we get angry at the person because we don’t understand why they did this to themselves and we say it is selfish. It isn’t like cancer or an accident where the illness is to blame or just happenstance is the culprit. In those times we assuage our feelings of loss in consoling words like, “it was their time” or “it was meant to be”. However our theologies tell us that suicide is an unforgivable sin, a hell worthy trespass so the solace of faith doesn’t always help us understand why this person has left us. I don’t know what demons Mr. Williams wrestled with, nor do I know the tragedy he saw in the world to allow him such a gift in bringing joy to others but not enough for himself. Whatever his reasons to leave this life behind are his and his alone. The loss is not ours or even the worlds but his family and his friends. That does not mean it isn’t sad for the rest of us who appreciated his work and were given moments of joy. To me his best works were his dramatic roles and not the comedic ones I always found them to be somewhat manic at times. And I wondered then as now was Robin leaking through all this time and we were all too busy laughing to see the burden on his shoulders. I don’t know. My prayers are for his family, for them he is gone and that they may find peace and understanding in his departure from their lives. The title today is a line from the film The Fisher King. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Am I me? Are you, you?

Who are you? How is it that you define you? When people ask who are you, what do you say? What made you decide that is who is you? Maybe you don’t know. Perhaps you define you by what you do. I do a lot of things but I wouldn’t necessarily say I am that thing. I walk but I’m not a walker, I sit but I’m not a sitter, I eat but I’m not an eater and so on and on and on. Which of the things we do becomes the thing that we see as ourselves. Is that me I see the same thing others see when they see me? Do they see a different me, not a better or worse me but just not what I see when I see me. Do they see that you do what you define as you or not. Have you ever asked someone who you are? Say you are an actor and your friends have never seen you act. Are you an actor or are you just their friend or a sister or brother or some other role in their life that you don’t necessarily have from them in your life. Well the sibling thing is different but is that all you are to them and not the “you”, you see as you. It doesn’t mean you aren’t an actor but to them you aren’t because it isn’t real for them in how they see you. I see myself a lot of ways but I’ve always been able to separate out that what I do for money as this isn’t really who I am as me, not entirely at least. I like what I do mostly but that isn’t me in total. I don’t know if I really know me. Part of me is a writer but do I write enough to be a writer. What is enough is there a limit or a sign you much write this much to be a writer. Do people have to acknowledge what you do for it to be what you are? Do they have to approve. Did Warhol call himself an artist or it that what other people have called him and the fact that I don’t think what he did is art make him not an artist. I don’t do enough doing of stuff that isn’t work or just not doing something. I work and I am a worker but that isn’t the “me” I see. I watch but I don’t see myself as a watcher. I game and I do think of myself as a gamer but I don’t know that I’m good at that and by some standards I’m not very good at being a gamer. However I like that I am a gamer. There are things I want to be but I’m not or at least not anymore. I’m alone but I’m not really a loner and I entertain myself well enough that I’m not lonely in my aloneness. Still I am alone. There are things I am but I no longer have to do. I am a parent but I don’t really have to parent my children anymore or at least not in the way that most of us think of parenting. Our roles change and we change or we don’t change. Either can be problematic but because you don’t have to perform tasks related to the you, you are doesn’t mean that isn’t who you are. Doing not doing, being not being? What does it all mean? I felt for sure I would have it all figured out by now. I still look at other people and think surely they have the answers they know who they are and what they are. Perhaps or are they like ducks on a pond above the surface it always looks calm but under the water there can be churning feet to move against a current. Maybe no one really has it all nailed down and they just fake it. I need to do more doing of stuff that defines me as me, the “me” I want to be, not necessarily the “me” you see. Do you need to do more stuff that makes you, you? Perhaps you are happy being the “you” others see as you or perhaps you are not. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Old Boy 2003 versus Old Boy 2013

A film review of two films, I will attempt to keep the spoilers to a minimum but be warned there will be a few. 2003 Old Boy Korean made cult hit 2013 Old Boy US Spike Lee film Both are based on source material which I am not familiar so when I read that 2013 is closer to the source material I don’t know if it is true or not. Let me start by saying, I am not opposed to remakes of films because they can retell a story in a way which will reach an audience who would not have bothered with the story at all. For example the films Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Let Me In are both Swedish Films which are very good however their remakes by the US are equally as good and retell the story in a way that is unique and still familiar to the original and in the case of Let Me In to the source material as well. I’m not familiar with The Girl with … source material. It is sometimes hard to see a film you like be remade and while I’m not a huge Spike Lee fan I don’t dislike all of his films and thought his version could be okay. He cast well known actors Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson and amazing new comer Elizabeth Olson. So I had hope that this would be a good film despite the fact that a lot of the talk before the film was released was negative and condemned Lee for even attempting to remake such a good film. I will say that Brolin, Jackson and Olson all played their parts well but there was something lacking which I have to say is in the writing and the directing because all of the actors have the ability to really draw the audience into a story and believe they are the characters come to life. When that doesn’t happen with good actors it is the writing and the directing which have failed. The pace of the 2013 movies felt off and just did not have a believable flow that in part is due to my seeing the 2003 version but also in part in how Lee moves the story. Both films takes place over a 20 year period, which the 2003 version does a better job of conveying than the 2013 version. In 2003 it starts with little character introduction and then fills in that the protagonist isn’t a very nice guy. In the 2013 there is some build up that the protagonist is not a good guy and then pulls you in to the story. I prefer the 2003 version because it puts the audience in the same shoes as the protagonist. The character doesn’t understand what is happening to him or why and neither does the audience. The captivity portion of the film, the 2003 version really brings home how being isolated for 20 years from any meaningful human contact can extract a heavy toll on a person’s mental well being. I think Brolin is certainly able to deliver that kind of performance but he isn’t given the material or directed in a meaningful way to give that performance. So in the 2013 version after the 20 years there isn’t any sense that the character is really damaged by his imprisonment like there in the 2003 version. The release in 2013 is lack luster even when not compared to the 2003 version. This however it the one spot 2013 outshines 2003, which are dramatic fight scenes. The point of the first fight in the film shows the depth of what isolation can do to person and their restraint and interactions with others. However 2013 backs away from aspect of the film after the fight and in the 2003 version this is explored widely and in different settings and not always in fights. The introduction of the other characters is good in both films with the exception of the main antagonist in the 2013 film. In the 2013 version I wasn’t drawn in enough by the story to really form an opinion on the antagonist character but in the 2003 version I didn’t like the character before he is even on the screen. The 2003 version has a main fight scene which 2013 attempts to recreate. As before the 2013 version goes big the way US movies do in fight scenes which are okay if you haven’t seen 2003, but falls far short in comparison. It fails not in way of action but in the 2003 version there is the feel of the closeness of the combatants and the rage of the protagonist against his jailers and his lack of self preservation and he is an older guy now too. In 2013 the space used in the film was too big and didn’t give the same feel of tightness and close quarters combat and Brolin doesn’t seem to be as lost as his 2003 counterpart. Is it fair to compare the two scenes like this? I have to say yes because the 2013 could have done the fight a much different way but because Lee decides to try to recreate almost the same fight scene punch for punch I can say he failed to do justice to the scene as a part of the whole story but it is more action packed than 2003 version. As the story goes on 2013 drops the ball in the plot in a big way in that the protagonist isn’t even aware of why the antagonist hates him and doesn’t have that ah ha moment of oh that’s why this is happening that is there in 2003. Lee tells the same follow the clues type of story but there isn’t a personal connection between antagonist and protagonist like there is in the 2003 version. In 2003 the antagonist plan is revealed that he has made the protagonist unknowingly commit a greater social wrong and in the 2013 it is the same social wrong doing. Because of the lack of the personal connection and the reveal in the 2013 movie is telegraphed so far in advance of the reveal it is not a shock for the audience and again that may be that because I was familiar with the story line that I picked up on the foreshadowing. At the end I wasn’t sorry I had watched the 2013 version but it did not have the same gritty feel as the 2003 version. There was an emersion into the story in the 2003 version that the 2013 version never really captured. 2013 had better action sequences in that they are bigger, faster, and with bolder effects but that comes with a bigger budget and better effects departments but even that does not make up for the lack of grit and emotion through out the rest of film. If you haven’t seen the 2003 version the 2013 version may seem to be a better film overall and if you aren’t a fan of foreign films with smaller budgets you probably won’t like the 2003 version much at all. I prefer the 2003 version but that is just my opinion and maybe someday I’ll read the source material and have a completely different opinion. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

L'etat, c'est moi

I am me. What does that mean, really? That I or you in the case of you reading me, who am I? or you? Looking back from far enough are there truly any individuals out in the sea of humanity. Certainly a very vast majority of us are singular in our entity with the exception of the conjoined and those in mid coitus. The latter only a temporary condition and in some cases very temporary. Are we truly as individual as we proclaim when we say, I’ve gotta be me. In the vast soup that is the social worlds we are influenced by so much and we see all the groups we have identified in the world. Some of them are labeled offensively and others not so much offensively but as descriptive of how they act or interact with others. Let’s take hipsters for instance as they seem to be a group who loudly proclaims it is important to be me and to shun the main stream. I can get on board with that idea, going with the flock isn’t always the best way to do things, progress stagnates, we become comfortable and comply more easily to those who would lead us not because we agree but because it is easier. So I get the whole be the tenth man argument; if 9 people say go right, why not go left. Well because sometimes it can really be a mistake, like a lethal mistake but largely there is no reason not to go left when everyone else goes right. The larger group isn’t always the most correct just because they have tradition or history on their side. It does take effort to stand on the outside of it all though and it is easy to get sucked back in. My observation is if all these people just want to be this individual not corrupted by the main stream why are most of the hipsters, remember we’re picking on hipsters for the moment, so readily identifiable. It is almost if they aren’t individuals at all but in fairness with nearly 7 billion people on the planet you are not a unique snowflake, blah, blah, blah what ever that guy said in his fight book. Which really isn’t all that insightful or shocking but I digress Harder than it may seem to say I am me, a oneness in the vastness of the world. It is possible though and as we mark up our flesh with ink and metal or gouge holes in to it for a way to be apart from the whole. Adopt a clothing style or lack of one, what ever it is that we do to be something different from everyone else. We still cling to others because we are social. Very few people have the ability to live apart. I think it is less common today because it is harder to break away from others or the influence of others. How long can you go without any interaction with another person? No talking, no games, no text messages, nothing that lets another person know you exist. They can’t see you and you can’t see them. Depending on your currently living situation that may be very nearly impossible. To cut ties, uproot and be you apart from others. What is the longest period of time that you have been out of contact with any other people and been truly alone. I don’t mean metaphysical aloneness though that is a whole different thing which you can me in a stadium full of people and be alone. For most of us including me the most I’ve been apart from others is measured in hours not days or weeks or even months. How can anyone truly be completely individual with that much influence in your life the number of variables to consider is staggering as to what means more or less or nothing. How can you be different, completely and uniquely different, not ironically different or just to be different that is fake difference and nobody has time for phonies. Before you stare down your nose at the bearded dude in jeans drinking a nonfat latte made with all lava grown Peruvian beans sitting on his bike reading a tattered paperback just remember he may not be a hipster. He may just be a guy who has a bike and likes a beard because it is easier than shaving and ordered a coffee from the first place he came across and the book may be anything. We may be anything and in all the sameness that is this world aren’t we all just a little bit different or in some cases a lot a bit different. You know the cliché don’t judge a book by the cover or even the one if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck. Before you dismiss someone because of the category you have put them and defined them as being a certain type of person ask how different are you and how many times a day are you dismissed as being just another one of those people, and not even known it. We miss so much of the world because we see but close our eyes and we hear but don’t listen. (Also I know that title has nothing to do with anything I've said, it usually doesn't I just like the way it fits but doesn't fit) Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Neener, Neener, I may or may not be a 5 year old

While I’m not what most people would call a sports fan. I know how most of the games are played and the major rules of the games but would be hard pressed to name more than a handful of people who play professional sport. That said I do like things within the sporting world and one of the things which gives me joy is that Lebron James lost again in bid for a championship win. As I’ve said I’m not a fan so I should give a hill of beans about any of it and I really don’t. I did not watch a single minute of basketball this year to include the championship games. However when I read the headlines that San Antonio had won defeating Miami I took joy in the knowledge that Lebron had lost. I don’t really know that much about him other than he is good at the game not necessarily great but better than most, but for some reason though I can not stand this man. I really should be indifferent about his success or failure in it all but I don’t like him. I do however like Dennis Rodman, more for his ability on the court back when he played and also for his understanding of the politics of basketball in the modern day. Back to Labron, he may be a genuinely nice man which does make it hard to justify this dislike. However I don’t care and I’m not alone in this. Lots of people don’t like him and by a lot I mean easily a million people if not more. People say he is arrogant, cocky, out of touch, disrespectful, didn’t pay his dues, disloyal and on and on. To say a professional athlete is arrogant is to say the sky is blue but I think many people misconstrue confidence as arrogant. To get to the top level of a game where thousands fail takes real skill not made up bravado you have to at some point cut it or you are out. Yes he may appear to be arrogant but you don’t hang your head with self doubt and make it to the NBA, so I can’t really fault him if he comes across as arrogant. I don’t watch enough nor care enough to listen to him speak to know if he is cocky or not but I’ll give him a pass and say that he may not be any more cocky than the next ten guys in the league. Not paying his dues. Kobe entered out of high school and while he did get some ribbing about it, it doesn’t seem to be the same level as Lebron. The corruption of the NCAA doesn’t make going to college a strongly valid point to argue about paying your dues especially if your college is as corrupt as the mafia if anything skipping college is just saying hey I’m going to make money for four years while you all hope you don’t suffer a career ending injury while in college. As to the other critiques of disloyalty and disrespect all of Cleveland can hate the man if they want for leaving but seems to me most ball players don’t stay in the same town anyway those days have gone away. Overall I can’t really put a finger on why I don’t like Lebron James, I just don’t. Perhaps he is the embodiment of everything I don’t like about professional sport in the modern day and just has the bad luck of being that for a lot of people. Because it doesn’t matter how well he does more people want to hate Lebron than seem to want to love him. ESPN is the propaganda machine for the church of sport, the announcers and field reporters at the missionaries and priest of this cult. Pontificating every morning, noon and night they way of the church of sport. The fervor and reverence made in the name of sport is so akin to religion it is scary. Masses are held in the cathedrals of sport every day of the week. High holy days are spread throughout the year and for some mass migrations / pilgrimages are made for the faithful to pay homage to the sport of their faith Is Lebron any guiltier than anyone else in the system? No he is not but for some reason he is the one at whom they cast stones and I’m guilty too. I have no reason not to like him but I don’t and as shallow as it sounds I probably won’t. Does Lebron give a shit about me or hell all the haters? Not even a little bit mainly because he can buy and sell any of a hundred haters ten times over. The thing to consider too is that Lebron is a symptom of a machine we made or at least allowed to be made and he is the Frankenstein come to life. So to say you hate Lebron in part you are saying you don’t like yourself and in the spirit of full disclosure that is true in my case but I don’t hate myself as much as I don’t like him but it does bother me a little that I take joy in his failure to succeed. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Politics and religion make me cringe a bit

Recently I was reading an article titled 9 signs you may be an intellectually dishonest atheist, by Andy. I’m going to guess it is not the same Andy who knows Buzz and Woody but just a guy named Andy or maybe a woman. Either way no other information about Andy was available. Andy posted his essay of 9 reasons on the site Christian vision. Now those of you who know me are probably asking then how the hell did you find this article. Randomly. One link led to another and then I found it. I don’t have the link back to the original blog but I think the title should be enough to get you there if you are interested. The article beings with a take and a spoiler of a movie. I can relate to this, a lot of lessons in life are in art. I disagree with Andy’s view of the film as it isn’t the only way to look at things occurring in the story but his take on it is certainly valid and one way to explain the events. Essentially the short film review set up the points of the article which is that we delude ourselves or hide from the truth. Andy decided that this applied specifically to atheist because it is for him an opposite view point than his own. I’m landing on that assumption in that Andy is a guy not for any reason other than it will keep things easier in my writing and that he is not an atheist because of where he posted the article. However some of the things he says apply to any point of view and the idea of intellectual dishonesty is the bigger thing being discussed. I have a sneaky suspicion that this idea isn’t really Andy’s idea and he is breaking one of his own points by repeating others ideas, but expanding on a general idea of dishonesty and inserting atheist as the target. The first point is that the intellectually dishonest will only seek out information with which they agree. While I will agree that many people do this but to be cliché a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Anyone who only looks at only one point of view isn’t an intellectual. No matter what the belief hold such a narrow view is dangerous. Andy goes so far as to say if you avoid anything that is contradictory to your own beliefs you are being dishonest. Again I can agree to a point. One of the great things about the internet is that there is easy access to information about anything. One of the worst things about the internet is that there is easy access to information about anything. If you avoid things in your browsing of the internet a lot of the time it is to make it easier to find what you are looking for rather than sifting through an endless sea of stuff and most of which is only regurgitated from something else and doesn’t not add to understanding. Andy uses several of his points to say that if someone disagrees with you they are viewed as stupid, it makes you angry or you are afraid to confront an opposing view. Well Andy sometimes people say really stupid things. I have been known to utter a few. Should we be more gracious, sure however it doesn’t make the stupid thing any less stupid but perhaps the better way to say that is ignorant meaning not informed. Anger, gets a bad rap these days as an emotion, which is really all about how people choose to express their anger not so much anger being a bad thing. Anger serves a purpose which is to change the world. Lots of things make people angry and if you just passively accept things as they are nothing changes and the world stagnates and dies. By the world I mean ideas, logic, reason, intelligence, ect. We do need to learn better ways to express anger but becoming angry about something does not make the person’s point of view less authentic. The last few points that Andy makes in his article are attacking the person with the opposite point of view rather than the idea, and that people don’t really know why they believe what they believe. I agree we don’t know how to argue as a society, by that I mean we don’t know how to disagree without taking it personally. I think this is especially true in the US as opposed to other westernized nations but the rest of the world fails in being able to disagree. Because you disagree with me does not always mean that you are less of a person, less intelligent or less what ever it simply means you have a different idea about something. Like the movie. However Andy’s main target are the atheists and that they hold an opposite view from his own concerning god. However do the masses follow along without a full understanding the why of any idea. Sure, it is easier that way, have someone telling you what to do, what to think is great. The article’s title is really an attack on people who see things differently than Andy it is name calling or designed to belittle while it is a veiled insult it is an insult and was meant to be an insult. I would venture to say that most of what gets tossed around as belief about any topic not just religion / or the lack of religion most people are really only repeating what someone else has told them. In my work teaching there are concepts which I talked about and felt that I understood them and I did well enough to explain them. However, I have developed a deeper understanding of the concepts in the years of teaching and can pass that on to others. The point is intelligence is always growing and just because you are not as well versed as someone else does not preclude you from speaking your mind. However if you are at an impasse in a discussion hopefully you seek out more information from others rather than resort to name calling or attacking the person and not the idea. Sun Tzu and others have said, knowing the enemy (opposing view) is as important as knowing your own strength (own view). I have paraphrased others because Andy says it is not valid to rely on greater minds in making arguments. Usually these are included not because the person doesn’t understand what they are talking about but to show that it is an idea that has lasted and in the case of Sun Tzu for several thousand years. Not that longevity of an idea lends to validity but that there is proof in that idea. The article penned by Andy is built on this corner stone to seek out knowledge to better understand your position and defend it. The thing is that while Andy makes his case that the atheist is the intellectually dishonest person he never once own that the people who share his values are as guilty of the same points he ticks off in disputing the idea of atheism as valid. I would say there are closed minded people out in the world who do not want to see the world in any way but how they were told by other that it should be. One of the rules I try to live by is never discuss religion or politics unless you are paid to do it. You are not likely to change anyone’s mind about and you will only serve to frustrate yourself. We need to learn how to argue and how to disagree or more to the point re-learn these skills and to see that extremes or one way thinking about any belief are bad even for those within the group. Why do you think the major religions are so splintered with sects and all the differing faiths within a religion? There is more that one way to see the world and not everyone is going to agree with your way of thinking. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015