Nonlinearitate

 

 

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Ca un mucegai sănătos

M-am întors de la Telega. De la zăpada curată și de la textura fluidă a crengilor și a dealurilor și a mușuroaielor acoperite de stratul cel alb, m-am întors la colțurile drepte și la cenușiul betonului de Dristor.

E seară. E aproape 11 noaptea. Și ca atîtea alte dăți, mă ridic și mă uit pe fereastra de la sufragerie, la vale, peste gîrla Dîmboviței, peste blocurile din Vitan și Balta Albă, pînă hăt departe, spre Piața Sudului. Suntem norocoși: stăm într-un bloc de-ăla turn, de 10 etaje, care pe lîngă că nu are nici un alt bloc în fața sa, mai și este înfipt chiar în buza văii, de unde începe să se lase coasta spre Dîmbovița de dincolo de Vitanul Vechi.

Combinația asta de etaj superior și de lipsă de obstacole și de cocoțare de mini-faleză ne dă o priveliște privilegiată, de textură urbană întinsă la picioarele noastre. În stînga, centrala termică aia dinspre Glina scuipă fumul alb din coșuri. Lîngă ea sclipesc luminițele de la hotelul ăla nou, de lîngă Tîrgul Auto Vitan. O reclamă roșie în noapte. Și peste tot, blocuri blocuri, lumini, ferestre, pîlpîieli de viață. Blade Runner de Dîmbovița. Cyberpunk de Crevedia. Sprawlul post-comunist.

Și, ca și în celelalte seri, îmi dau seama că am în față exact imaginea unei răni pe cale de tămăduire. A unei bube care se cicatrizează urît, dar se cicatrizează. Mă uit la toate luminițele astea care sclipesc pseudo-aleatoriu în ferestre, rămășițele sărbătorii marketizate de Crăciun, la toți Moși Crăciunii care își fîlfîie pixelii ieftini în ferestrele de termopan, creînd o textură isterică, de icoană cu leduri, de bord de taxi indian, de manea tehno de Ferentari. Dar în loc să mă sgîrie pe cornee, imaginea asta pe care o știu prea bine mă bucură. Mă fericește. Îmi întărește senzația de libertate pe care o simt de ceva timp in hoitul meu de sociolog cu bască și blog care a citit prea mult William Gibson în tinerețe.



Pentru că toate aceste fîcîieli de leduri de Moș Crăciun în comă vin să rupă rigoarea cenușie, aliniamentul castrator tras pe planșeta bauhausiană de comuniștii preadornici să sufoce variabilitatea, zvîcnirea, zguduirea, mahalaua, libertatea, creșterea naturală și necontrolată. Nemernicii de bolșevici care vroiau o țară murdară în asepticismul ei arhitectural, o cîrcăleală de spital de retardați mintali care să își tîrască creierul într-o continuă spălare cotidiană de sinapse.

Și nu le-a ieșit. Slavă Domnului cel inexistent, nu le-a ieșit. Și-au luat-o în freză de la istorie. History with a vengeance. Bucla distopică se închide. Blocurile nu au dispărut, cum ar fi vrut unii robespierreni urbani de după 1989. Tot alea sunt. Peste ele însă a crescut o mîzgă semiotică, o brambureală de întorlocare de semne și de diferențe, de mici știrbiri ale liniei drepte și ale rigorii sterpe. Colo un Moș Crăciun cu leduri roșii. Dincolo o casă cam țigănească, cu acoperișul în tot soiul de culori de lindab turbat, dar care rupe monotonia de beton de Leana Totalitara. Mai jos o biserică nou construită. Un platan în fața ei, într-o interecție recent redesenată. Un bloc de patru etaje proaspăt reabilitat termic, care hodoronc-tronc și-a mai tras și o mansardă, un nivel în plus, cum ar veni, fără lift, evident, dar care rupe însă ritmul plictisitor al celorlalte blocuri de patru etaje cu acoperișul orizontal, pe care înfloresc tot soiul de antene și de pete de smoală.

Tot o cîrcăleală de cîrpeli și de diversificări și de variații felliniano-bollywoodiene, de viață, bă dragi cititori, de viață, de bube și de puroi și de mucegai din care se ridică damful de mîl cotidial fertil, de manea din care se vor naște coacervatele urbane noi, generațiile de oameni (mai) liberi la minte, indiferent ce minte o fi aia, chiar și îmbîcsită de telenovele și de visurile de cîștig facil și nemeritat. Mahalaua de cyberpunk de Crevedia a prezentului meu care crește pe ruinele trecutului vostru totalitaro-bauhausian.

Că al meu nu e. Trecutul meu e la 100 de km mai hacana, mai spre deal, mai spre munte. Spre Boșilcești și spre Măceș și spre Mărtin și Rotunda și spre toate coastele alea sărăcăcioase pline de cătină și de gherghini și de corni și de aluni și de frasini și de ulmi și de pruni. Mulți pruni, care dau multă țuică, pentru cei care nu se uită nici măcar la telenovele. Alt mucegai, cu altă sevă de viață ratată într-însul...

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Locul unde vreau sa imbatranesc

Nu, pe bune: e un tapshan in coasta Macesului, chiar inainte sa intre drumul in padure spre Boshalceshti, o poiana neingradita de unde se vede tot Bustenariul si pe urma peste, dincolo de primele picioare de deal, spre campie, spre Teleajen si spre Ploiesti si spre Baicoi si spre Cocorastii Caprii, si drumul de la Campina la Ploiesti, DN1-ul de E60. Noaptea, cand e limpede, e fain sa te duci acolo si sa privesti la luminile din departare.


Dar ieri am fost pe zi, putin timp dupa ce s-a oprit ninsoarea. Si asa arata locul pe care, cand o sa aflu cine stapaneste acolo, o sa-l cumpar si o sa-mi fac casa sa imbatranesc privind soarele cum apune si luminile Ploiestiului...


PS: Nu strivitzi corola de minuni a zapezii sa incepeti sa bombaniti ca pozele sunt asa si pe dincolo. Sunt facute cu telefonul, stralucitorilor. M-am dus acolo sa trag aer in piept si sa-mi iau ramas bun de la Telega, nu sa fac pe pozarul profesionist...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Black and White

That's why comics are great.

Batman - Black and White (various artists, 1996)

Klaus Janson: Good Evening, Midnight

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Azi si acum doua saptamani

Acum doua saptamani

Azi

 

  

 

Pai cum mama ma-sii sa pleci de aici, mai stimatz cititori?

Ceea ce va doresc si Dvs.

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O analiza pertinenta

Si pentru ca tot vorbeam despre irlandezi si despre problemele lor contemporane, sa echilibram balantza si sa scoatem in evidentza shi partea faina a Insulei de Smarald: un articol bine scris, dar mai ales si mai ales bine gandit, despre evolutia jocului in ultimii zece ani.

Nu, imi pare rau. Ma vad nevoit sa va dezamagesc: acest articol nu este pentru voi astia, nashparlii intelectuali care venitzi aici pentru cheap thrills and statistics and laughter. Acest articol este pentru cei care citesc cu ochii plini de noroi si cu gleznele umflate de zapada.

:)

[...] Their solution is to provide more protection around the ball-carrier. Just as the return of the rolling maul meant clusters of forwards had to remain on collective duty close to the line-out, so clumps of players have to be vigilant around the tackle area.

Groups of players are good for the game -- as essential to the release of the solo runner and the standing ovation from a full house as a sweetly timed pass and a carefully run angle.

It was not so long ago that we were talking about the field being too small nowadays for the professional game. Now that large numbers of players have to inhabit small pockets of space, the congestion is easing. The signs are encouraging that rugby is playing itself out of trouble.

Now all we need is another change of emphasis and a return to some healthy rucking. Feet are more important than hands at the breakdown, generating quicker release of the ball. Speed of delivery is the next problem for the coaches to solve. We are but one swift action away from a beautiful game.

Articolul il puteti citi aici. Jocul il putetzi juca oriunde. In minte, pe iarba, pe noroi, pe zapada. Pe branci...

:)

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Sa-i ajutam pe irlandezi sa fie liberi, si nu prosti la cap

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

“Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”
George Carlin, 1999

“Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”
Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909

“If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”
Frank Zappa, 1989

“The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.”
Salman Rushdie, 1990

“I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”
Bjork, 1995

“We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.”
Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009

Este vorba despre protestul irlandezilor la adresa statului irlandez de a introduce legea blasfemiei. Acum, proaspata, de la inceputul lui 2010. Ei au scos in evidenta 25 de afirmatii publice care, dupa legea actuala, ar trebui sa fie considerate blasfemie si pedepsite ca atare. Toate cele 25 de blasfemii le gasiti aici.

E nashpa sa fii cu creierul patrat, nu-i asha, mai ortodocshilor, mai stralucitorilor, mai pateticilor? Nasol, dar adevarat. Drept pentru care e cazul sa spunem lumii ca traim intr-o lume perfectibila, adica nashpa. Therefore, hai, spread the word, pacatoshilor. Spread the word of mighty fredom.

:/

Courtesy of Dragos Bora.

PS: Pentru ca site-ul cu blasfemiile s-ar putea sa fie in curand inchis de oamenii proshti la cap, le pun si aici pe toate. Just in case.

* * *
From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.

Publication of 25 blasphemous quotes

In this context we now publish a list of 25 blasphemous quotes, which have previously been published by or uttered by or attributed to Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern.

Despite these quotes being abusive and insulting in relation to matters held sacred by various religions, we unreservedly support the right of these people to have published or uttered them, and we unreservedly support the right of any Irish citizen to make comparable statements about matters held sacred by any religion without fear of being criminalised, and without having to prove to a court that a reasonable person would find any particular value in the statement.

Campaign begins to repeal the Irish blasphemy law

We ask Fianna Fail and the Green Party to repeal their anachronistic blasphemy law, as part of the revision of the Defamation Act that is included within the Act. We ask them to hold a referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Irish Constitution.

We also ask all TDs and Senators to support a referendum to remove references to God from the Irish Constitution, including the clauses that prevent atheists from being appointed as President of Ireland or as a Judge without swearing a religious oath asking God to direct them in their work.

If you run a website, blog or other media publication, please feel free to republish this statement and the list of quotes yourself, in order to show your support for the campaign to repeal the Irish blasphemy law and to promote a rational, ethical, secular Ireland.

List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

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A Much Needed Approach

It has become fashionable to dismiss evolutionary thinking as "biological reductionism". [...] The underlying premise is that cultural anthropology and sociology deal with complex levels of organization that exhibit emergent properties, and the concepts appropriate for description and analysis at lower levels are inadequate when applied to the social sciences. Attributing behavior to genes is therefore seen as an inappropriate effort at reductionism. This view contains a kernel of truth but is frequently incorrect in its application. We have considered at some length the mischief that flows from a naive understanding of the interplay of genetic and epigenetic events in determining behavior. I will not belabor that point further. I suggest, however, that there is still another area of misunderstanding that needs the spotlight directed on it. In general, the interfaces between academic disciplines in science are defined by emergent properties, and in this respect the line that has been drawn between the social and natural sciences is not unique. The field of chemistry exists to understand the stuff of which the world of our senses is made. This stuff, of course, consists of electrons and the elementary particles of atomic nuclei, but one can know a lot about elementary particles and not be adequately prepared to understand why CO2 is a gas and SiO2 is a rock. Similarly, the self-replicating chemical systems of cells represent another level of molecular organization with their own distinct properties.

Nevertheless, it is equally true that an understanding of chemical bonding in terms of atomic structure brings order to chemistry, and the enormous advances in this century in biochemistry and molecular biology would not have been possible without an appreciation of the various kinds of chemical bonds that exist in cells. The study of the chemistry of life was destined to flounder about in a hopeless fashion when our anchoring concepts were limited to chemically undefined colloids, coacervates, and soups. To be able to write on paper the primary structure (the sequence of amino acids) of a protein molecule is an organizing principle of the greatest importance, but it will not, in itself, show us the shape of the molecule in aqueous solution or how the molecule interacts with a substrate in enzymatically catalyzing a critical metabolic reaction. The latter are properties that follow from a more complex level of organization, but that, in their turn, can only be understood in a context that is consistent with, and incorporates the concepts of, the rest of physics and chemistry.

A similar relationship exists between the social sciences and biology. During the last thirty years, knowledge of the nervous system has increased at an ever-accelerating pace, and it is possible to identify a couple of its organizing principles. First, the dynamic properties of the nervous system are based on the propagation of impulses along nerve fibers and the interactions between cells that occur at structures called synapses. In a sense, synapses are analogous to chemical bonds, and not so many years ago many of us thought we understood the rules by which synapses work. Today it is clear that we understood only some of the rules; the discovery of neuro-active peptides and slowly acting synaptic transmitters and modulators makes it clear we still have a distance to travel. A second organizing principle of the nervous system is that in general particular functions are handled by specific populations of cells. This fact was obscured for a number of years because of the existence of parallel processing and other anatomical complexities, but today most neurobiologists enter the laboratory in the morning believing that the complex functions of higher neural circuits that generate behavior, including the mental activities of the human brain, will ultimately be understood in terms of (at the very least!) these two general principles.

All of this has to do with proximate cause. There have been some very interesting and parallel theoretical advances in evolutionary biology during the past twenty years that address matters of ultimate cause and that are of equally potential importance for the social sciences. By this I do not mean that anthropology, human psychology, and sociology will "reduce to biology" any more than biology has reduced to chemistry. Each level of organization is presented with properties that derive from the fact of organization and that have to be studied on their own terms. But those terms must relate to the rest of science or the exercise will be of no lasting value. The evolutionary concepts deal not primarily with physiology and chemistry but with biology's historical dimension: evolution. Evolution enters science with biology, but it is an exercise in self-deception to suppose that it leaves the cast when the social sciences come onto the stage. Cognitive psychologists certainly understand that their explanatory models must not only have heuristic value at their own descriptive levels, but, in some final sense, must also relate to the functions of neurons. Similarly, a larger problem facing the social sciences is to generate a theoretical architecture that neither clashes with biology nor consists of such exclusive structures that it is ultimately rendered irrelevant. "Biological reductionism" can be used to trivialize evolutionary biology in an effort to keep it at arm's length, but this is an unworthy goal. The social sciences will have matured only when they are firmly grounded in, and consistent with, the rest of our understanding of nature. In this enterprise, biology and the social sciences should work together, for the discovery of principles that can unite hierarchies and cut across species will enrich our knowledge and our lives. To date, only evolutionary biology offers that framework.

The Biological Roots of Human Nature. Forging Links between Evolution and Behavior
Epilogue: Concerning "Biological Reductionism"
Timothy H. Goldsmith, Oxford University Press, 1991

PS: Cartea o gasiti aici.
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Power poop

Sau, pe limba lui Nichita si a lui Eminovici: sa facem din rahat bici.

Nu, pe bune. Putem sa harnessam (chiar, cum se traduce in romana "to harness") puterea rahatului si sa-l transformam in energie, cu acest prilej scapand natura de manjirea apelor cu reziduurile... alea, stiti voi, reziduurile cah.

Cel putin asa spun unii de prin Occidentul ala decadent care nu vrea sa asculte de intzelepciunea shi de puterea sovietelor.

Un exemplu de analiza de dependenta de cale. Si de science made fun.

Lol. Enjoy the smell of wisdom.

:)

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Nimic nou sub soare

Cristi citeste lucrurile care conteaza.

Ceea ce va doresc si Dvs, stimatzi patimashi intr-ale umorilor telectual-partinitoare. Citeste tot...