andrew_jorgensen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrew_jorgensen) wrote2004-02-02 07:21 pm
andrew_jorgensen) wrote2004-02-02 07:21 pm
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From, in rough order of appearence on my friends list, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gehayi, scrollgirl and londonkds: do I believe . . .
In God? No. I'm an agnostic, so I think that the existence or non-existence of God is not subject to rational proof; but I'm also an atheist, so I'm pretty sure it's non-existence.
In ghosts? No.
In aliens? I'm pretty much with the consensus here: there's too much universe for there not to be other instances of intelligent life evolving, but there's also too much universe to make day-trips to Earth for a little sight-seein' and maybe some anal-probin' common or likely.
In Bigfoot? No.
In fairies? No.
In ESP? Unlike KdS, I need a plausible mechanism before I could accept that there's much credibility to ESP.
In superstition? I believe that people are superstitious. "When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way." I also, controversially, believe that Talking Book is a better album than Innervisions
In equal rights for gays? Yes.
In equal rights for women? Yes.
In psychics? I believe they should have equal rights. Including an equal right to be prosecuted under anti-fraud legislation.
In appearance? I'm a materialist, so I don't think there's much that exists that is resistant to observation. I also believe that though perceptions are our best guide to the world, they are definitely not purely objective.
In auras? I have a headache, so, right now, yes.
In true love? Yes.
In happy endings? I don't much believe in endings -- other than death, of course, which in some limited circumstances can be happy.
In abortions? Roe works for me.
In Santa? No.
In soulmates? Yes.
In magic? In a young girl's heart, how the music can free her, whenever it starts And it's magic -- if the music is groovy -- it makes you feel happy like an old-time movie. I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul; but it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll.
In evolution? I believe that species change over time, yes. I also accept Darwinian evolution: descent with modification governed by natural selection. I even, in fields like linguistics, accept more Lamarckian mechanisms of evolution.
In cloning? I support stem-cell research ("therapeutic cloning"). Human "reproductive cloning" I think is a tempest in a tea cup -- it just doesn't work right now. When it does work, I'll have no problems with it -- a clone's just an identical twin born much later -- but I don't really see the incentives in making clones.
In fraggles? The Jim Henson things?
In werewolves? No.
In vampires? No.
In miracles? I believe that miracles occur but not that they're miraculous.
In existing thylacines? There are definitely species whose current existence we are now unaware of; and I would not be surprised were we to, coelacanth-like, find that some species we are convinced are extinct are still extant. However, I think that we've found just about all of the large land-based predators we're ever going to find. Tasmania is not a big place, after all. (Not that I knew what a "thylacine" exactly was upon seeing the word, though I've read about them before. Thanks to everyone who has spread the definition with the meme.)
In Nessie? 65 million years is a long time to go without any record of Plesiosaurs.
In existing dinosaurs? I believe that birds are an offshoot of dinosaurs, but I believe that mammals are an offshoot of mammal-like reptiles, and I'm perfectly willing to say that the mammal-like reptiles are all extinct. This is a question of taxonomy, not existence.
In interracial marriages? I think that Rick Santorum should be allowed to marry his dog.
In adoptions? What sort of Grinch doesn't believe in adoptions? Is this a trick question?
In saving the rainforests? Yeah.
In saving dying species? Yes. Especially if human intervention is what is causing the extinction in the first place.
In the human race? Yes.
In recycling? I recycle. I'm skeptical that plastics recycling is cost-effective, either economically or environmentally, but I still do it. I've been tempted to mail all bottles marked with a chasing-arrow 6 to Proctor & Gamble, cash on delivery.
In blue tigers? Wasn't there a tiger dyed black that was the hot subject of conversation at the Vancouver ATPo meet?
In tattoos? I once greatly desired a tattoo on my right forearm: a ring of flames all the way around with, at the center, an exasperated devil banging his head against a typewriter. The caption would have read, "Hell is for humorists." Now I prefer my self-expression to come through LiveJournal icons, and unless I can get an animated .gif needled into me, tattoos will seem a poor substitute.
In plastic surgery? I have no problems with plastic surgery, but real breasts are better.
In love in general? Yes.
In animal rights? Uhhh, I think animals should be treated with respect and without wanton cruelty. I'm not particularly incensed by necessary medical testing, though. Of course, defining "necessary" is the crux of this.
In the death penalty? Absolutely not. It awards too much power to the state; it grants to prosecutors an infallibility that is antithetical to liberty; it ends up being applied in arbitrary and racially injust ways; and it reduces the morality of the nation to that of the lynch mob. Bloodlust is a natural reaction to serious crimes, but I retain enough residual Hobbesianism to think that the point of civil society is to temper our natural reactions.
That winning a Super Bowl with a field goal is poor form? Yes. Field goals are a consolation prize: they're what you get when you can't get the ball into the end zone. Playing for a field goal is the dominance of coaching over playing as the determinant factor in a football game. Moreover, football is largely a sport where large Americans (and the occasional Samoan) smash into each other; putting a game into the hands of a tiny, often half-barefoot, European seems somehow unpatriotic.
In <lj-cut> tags? Less and less. I think they reduce the chances of being read by friends' friends by at least seventy percent. Plus, I'm on broadband now. Of course, if you're inserting pictures and not cut-tagging them, it's best if you include WIDTH= and HEIGHT= parameters in your IMG tags.
gehayi, scrollgirl and londonkds: do I believe . . . In God? No. I'm an agnostic, so I think that the existence or non-existence of God is not subject to rational proof; but I'm also an atheist, so I'm pretty sure it's non-existence.
In ghosts? No.
In aliens? I'm pretty much with the consensus here: there's too much universe for there not to be other instances of intelligent life evolving, but there's also too much universe to make day-trips to Earth for a little sight-seein' and maybe some anal-probin' common or likely.
In Bigfoot? No.
In fairies? No.
In ESP? Unlike KdS, I need a plausible mechanism before I could accept that there's much credibility to ESP.
In superstition? I believe that people are superstitious. "When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way." I also, controversially, believe that Talking Book is a better album than Innervisions
In equal rights for gays? Yes.
In equal rights for women? Yes.
In psychics? I believe they should have equal rights. Including an equal right to be prosecuted under anti-fraud legislation.
In appearance? I'm a materialist, so I don't think there's much that exists that is resistant to observation. I also believe that though perceptions are our best guide to the world, they are definitely not purely objective.
In auras? I have a headache, so, right now, yes.
In true love? Yes.
In happy endings? I don't much believe in endings -- other than death, of course, which in some limited circumstances can be happy.
In abortions? Roe works for me.
In Santa? No.
In soulmates? Yes.
In magic? In a young girl's heart, how the music can free her, whenever it starts And it's magic -- if the music is groovy -- it makes you feel happy like an old-time movie. I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul; but it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll.
In evolution? I believe that species change over time, yes. I also accept Darwinian evolution: descent with modification governed by natural selection. I even, in fields like linguistics, accept more Lamarckian mechanisms of evolution.
In cloning? I support stem-cell research ("therapeutic cloning"). Human "reproductive cloning" I think is a tempest in a tea cup -- it just doesn't work right now. When it does work, I'll have no problems with it -- a clone's just an identical twin born much later -- but I don't really see the incentives in making clones.
In fraggles? The Jim Henson things?
In werewolves? No.
In vampires? No.
In miracles? I believe that miracles occur but not that they're miraculous.
In existing thylacines? There are definitely species whose current existence we are now unaware of; and I would not be surprised were we to, coelacanth-like, find that some species we are convinced are extinct are still extant. However, I think that we've found just about all of the large land-based predators we're ever going to find. Tasmania is not a big place, after all. (Not that I knew what a "thylacine" exactly was upon seeing the word, though I've read about them before. Thanks to everyone who has spread the definition with the meme.)
In Nessie? 65 million years is a long time to go without any record of Plesiosaurs.
In existing dinosaurs? I believe that birds are an offshoot of dinosaurs, but I believe that mammals are an offshoot of mammal-like reptiles, and I'm perfectly willing to say that the mammal-like reptiles are all extinct. This is a question of taxonomy, not existence.
In interracial marriages? I think that Rick Santorum should be allowed to marry his dog.
In adoptions? What sort of Grinch doesn't believe in adoptions? Is this a trick question?
In saving the rainforests? Yeah.
In saving dying species? Yes. Especially if human intervention is what is causing the extinction in the first place.
In the human race? Yes.
In recycling? I recycle. I'm skeptical that plastics recycling is cost-effective, either economically or environmentally, but I still do it. I've been tempted to mail all bottles marked with a chasing-arrow 6 to Proctor & Gamble, cash on delivery.
In blue tigers? Wasn't there a tiger dyed black that was the hot subject of conversation at the Vancouver ATPo meet?
In tattoos? I once greatly desired a tattoo on my right forearm: a ring of flames all the way around with, at the center, an exasperated devil banging his head against a typewriter. The caption would have read, "Hell is for humorists." Now I prefer my self-expression to come through LiveJournal icons, and unless I can get an animated .gif needled into me, tattoos will seem a poor substitute.
In plastic surgery? I have no problems with plastic surgery, but real breasts are better.
In love in general? Yes.
In animal rights? Uhhh, I think animals should be treated with respect and without wanton cruelty. I'm not particularly incensed by necessary medical testing, though. Of course, defining "necessary" is the crux of this.
In the death penalty? Absolutely not. It awards too much power to the state; it grants to prosecutors an infallibility that is antithetical to liberty; it ends up being applied in arbitrary and racially injust ways; and it reduces the morality of the nation to that of the lynch mob. Bloodlust is a natural reaction to serious crimes, but I retain enough residual Hobbesianism to think that the point of civil society is to temper our natural reactions.
That winning a Super Bowl with a field goal is poor form? Yes. Field goals are a consolation prize: they're what you get when you can't get the ball into the end zone. Playing for a field goal is the dominance of coaching over playing as the determinant factor in a football game. Moreover, football is largely a sport where large Americans (and the occasional Samoan) smash into each other; putting a game into the hands of a tiny, often half-barefoot, European seems somehow unpatriotic.
In <lj-cut> tags? Less and less. I think they reduce the chances of being read by friends' friends by at least seventy percent. Plus, I'm on broadband now. Of course, if you're inserting pictures and not cut-tagging them, it's best if you include WIDTH= and HEIGHT= parameters in your IMG tags.
Ah,
I feel much the same way; I refer to myself as an intellectual agnostic but an emotional atheist. Though it's more complicated than that - I believe we can't know, but I think there's no god. By 'believe' I mean, 'when I consider the question as objectively as I can,' which is why I call myself an intellectual agnostic, and when I write 'think' I mean, 'when I take all my beliefs, experiences, prejudices, etc, into consideration,' which is why I call myself an emotional atheist. I also like calling myself an atheist because, honestly, there's a part of me that thinks stopping at agnosticism is being wimpy about it.
Appropos of other stuff, - see, now, I'd do this meme, but I pretty much agree with everything you wrote, and you've written it better. So my version would be a poor second to yours, or I could just link to yours, and either way it'd be wimpy. And we can't have wimpiness running rampant through our LJs, can we?
no subject
Re: Ah,
The wimpiness of agnosticism has been stated many times, usually to point out that saying, "I don't think we can prove or disprove the existence of God," isn't really an answer to the question, "Do you believe in God?" I know that Douglas Adams in particular was forceful (http://www.americanatheist.org/win98-99/T2/silverman.html) on this subject, saying, "In England we seem to have drifted from vague wishy-washy Anglicanism to vague wishy-washy Agnosticism - both of which I think betoken a desire not to have to think about things too much." I think Stephen Jay Gould preferred the term agnostic specifically because it had reconcilliatory aspects; and, indeed, T.H. Huxley coined, and Darwin adopted, the word at a time when atheist was being used interchangeably with Satanist and Mahometan.
You should do the meme. I'm sure that there are parts of this I have left fallow that you'd cultivate.
no subject
*thinks*
*feels sleepy*
*puts off till tomorrow what could be done today*
Wordy McWord on the death penalty, btw. I am gong to memorize your answer--so efficient--and rattle it off every time someone asks me.
Chris also came up with the only reply that stymies those who go on to say "but how can you be against the death penalty but think that abortion is okay?" I now say "I would gladly give up abortion if it meant that all forms of killing, including the death penalty and war, were outlawed." So far, that holds 'em.
Re:
Of course, I have a sneaking respect for people who do value the sanctity of life so much as to oppose both the death penalty and legal abortion; however, often it's people who support both who end up getting my vote, unfortunately.
no subject
Of course, as I said in my response, I've never seen any evidence that convinces me that ESP exists. But to refuse to even consider the possibility because of inability to imagine a mechanism strikes me as putting theory too far over the empirical.