GOD (SORRY YOU DON'T EXIST) IF WE HAVE TO SING ABOUT SOMETHING IT MIGHT AS WELL BE ABOUT PHILOSOPHERS

Look just because I'm a philosopher it doesn't mean I Kant have a sense of humour (did you see what I did there?). Anyway, THE CURMUDGEONS are doing Christmas songs in their posts and I don't want to be left out. Unfortunately almost all of the bloody things include references to Jesus and god and stuff. Don't those songwriters realise that god is dead?

Here's something to keep you going though:

MONTY PYTHON THE PHILOSOPHERS SONG


If this offends you then you can listen to this:


MOSTLY GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS SONG


Don't thank me. In analysing gratitude and the conditions under which it is called for, philosophers have generally tried to account for all the cases in which we find it natural to use gratitude terms (“grateful”, “thankful”, etc.). We use such terms in a broad range of circumstances: it sounds natural to say, for instance, “I am grateful that it did not rain on my wedding day;” “grateful someone happened to walk by as I was being mugged;” “grateful to someone for trying unsuccessfully to help me;” “grateful for someone’s well-wishes.” The breadth of circumstances in which we invoke gratitude terms would suggest that gratitude, generally, is the response a person should have to something good—that is, to benefit or “favour” (Walker 1980–1981)
 In this case you may consider that the posting of the songs was no bloody good then you wouldn't be grateful you ungrateful bastards.

UTILITARIANISM AND THE ETHICS OF GOING TO WAR

It's sad that we've come to this. Angry Jesus and his cohort of evil have forced our hand in going to war against vile and despicable behaviour. Sorry Chair but I do not think we can look the other way here.

We have legitimate authority and as the greater association of bloggers have a monopoly  when it comes to deciding when to go to war.

We have just cause. and have good (moral) reasons for going to war: an enemy  has recently committed a major form of aggression against us; an enemy is likely to commit aggression against an ally of ours; there is a serious humanitarian problem in that this enemy has total disregard for the feelings, safety and well-being of serious and sincere bloggers.

We have the right intention. Our actions will satisfy the just cause even after the war is over.

This is a last resort. Our Chair has remonstrated through proper channels to which AJ and his dodgy cronies have paid no attention. The time for action is now.

We will be proportionate in our retaliation. While we will adopt 21st century methods and not storm in waving swords like a bunch of lunatics we nevertheless need to recognise the violence used by Baxter and give him a taste of his own medicine. This could be in the form of doctoring his bottles of wine (although he drinks such horrible shit I don't know what worse things we could put in it).

IS GOD DEAD OR IS HE MERELY PLAYING POSSUM?

My doppleganger Frederich Nietzsche proposed in 1882 in his collection of essays The Gay Science (don't get too excited - in 1882 'gay' had a totally different meaning than it has today) that god was dead.

"Ja, das mythical being that Robert believes in is kaputt - ja?"

Poor old Fred got a bit of stick for that but to be fair, this was almost 2000 years after the christians had any sort of inkling that their god(s) were up to anything, and they hadn't been doing much else so it was reasonable to assume that the old guy(s) had popped their clogs by then.

As for me I tend to play the long game. I was educated by Catholic believers - well meaning ones I'm sure and was force-fed instructed in the catechism and other beliefs of the catholic oriented christians.
Without doubt I owe my sense of conscience, ethics and morality to these teachings but, to be fair to other reputable schooling institutions I could also have acquired these elsewhere. There is however some residual itching - not belief- more like the concept of a 'bob each way'. The canny catholics devised a way that you could go through life being a proper arsehole and screw your way (in every context) without any fear as long as you repent on your deathbed. Then you get all the goodies as it were if in fact god(s), heaven and all those other things exist. It's like a pensioners Gold Card that gets you free entry.

I see myself as an atheist in that I don't believe in any of the religions and all of the nonsense that they expound. Don't get me wrong though I'm not a total denier as I do believe that the people behind all the nonsense actually existed (not all of them obviously as I doubt there was a woman with ten arms and another with an elephant head) but the prophets like Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha and the 'saints' and good people walked this earth. A good many of them were probably suffering from various mental illnesses or had ingested hallucinogenic substances but, to them, their experiences were real. The problem is in other people, particularly acolytes taking it all a bit too literally.

If I have the chance though on my deathbed I'll be pledging allegiance to the whole lot of them ...'just in case'.

ANTS OR PLANTS*

* It would help to have an Australian or American accent when reading this Post title.


The other evening after a blazing hot day I noticed that the plants in pots on the deck were looking a bit dry. The saucers that the pots sit in were totally dry so I decided to water them. I like plants and, apart from destroying weeds and trimming hedges and trees I don't like to hurt them.

I started to water them, filling each pot until the soil is properly moistened and water filters through and starts to fill the saucers. On one big pot I noticed as I was watering that some ants were in the saucer. "Get out of there I said to them" but I don't think they understood. They knew that something was going on though as their activity increased. As some trickles of water started to glow into the saucer they got a bit more active and some climbed up out of the saucer ... but not all. Suddenly the water filtering through the pot whooshed out and filled the saucer. From an ants perspective this would have been like a tidal wave. Bye bye ants.

I felt sorry for the ants. I try not to hurt insects except when they are really bugging me (bugging me - did you see what I did there?) like flies, mosquitos and cockroaches. The big question though is - what's more important - the welfare of the plants or the ants?

I'll have to ponder on that for a while.