[DMCForum] We're all stupid, and smart, and in between...

["Josh Haldeman" <jhaldeman@xxxxxxxx>]

Hey Rich,

I don't think I have to defend Flavia here...she's a big girl and is more than capable in her own right, but I couldn't let your e-mail go without antagonizing everyone a little further with this discussion.  haha!

I met you at my tech session last year, (I think it was) and I have the utmost respect for you.  Any person who can tear down, and rebuild his engine in less than half a day, basically on his own, is not lacking in intelligence in the least!  

Having gone through it, (and in fact being an educator at a two year college now) I can tell you that I don't believe that intelligence can be taught at a two or four year institution.  I believe that intelligence comes from having the ability to absorb knowledge through the things and people that you surround yourself with throughout your life.  You meet a lot of people in a college setting granted, but if you go out and experience the world, as you have, I think you meet a lot more!

Sartre, the philosopher, in addition to condemning organized religion as a crutch, also condemned organized education in the same way.  Flavia is familiar with that, through her time spent in Europe.  She's been to at least 5 different countries that I know of, and when I first met her, she told me she was from Jupiter! (haha) Seriously, she's had some good life experience of her own.  She just hasn't yet learned that there are dumb non-religious people too.  It wasn't meant to be an attack in any way.  Just a statement of her experience.  Hopefully, she'll continue learning, and find that there are a lot of dumb atheists too.  I would hope that everyone here can recognize that everyone has their moments of lucidity, stupidity and everything in between, and that besides a very few people, there is no one who is completely smart or completely dumb all the time.  I recall reading once that quite often, even someone perceived as super intelligent as Albert Einstein would accidentally date his papers early in the year with the year before it.

I personally grew up in a neighborhood where 90% of the people around me were of the catholic faith...yet my parents (Methodists) raised me confirmed agnostic.  We went to churches when my Dad was playing his trombone in a brass choir there.  I got to experience a lot of different faiths early on that way, and I really don't know what to believe about God, but I do know that it seems like a lot of religions like brass music.  So they can't be all bad!

I'm getting off track a little.  What I want to say is that we'd miss your knowledge and experience a lot Rich, if you stopped coming to social events!  Please reconsider.

- Josh


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: cruznmd 
  To: DMCForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2005 12:30 PM
  Subject: [DMCForum] Re: All people of faith are dumb, and so am I apparently.


  Is that what you call it Marc, a "difference of opinion"?

  I've just been called "dumb" by a young girl whose life experience 
  is probably limited to mid-west America and New Jersey who's never 
  even met me just because I have faith.

  I don't sign my posts with "Jesus is Lord", I don't proselytize and 
  I support your right to decide not to follow a faith and I sure as 
  hell don't make fun of people who make that decision or make blanket 
  statements regarding athiests/agnostics or whatever.

  To me, that wasn't a difference of opinon. It was a slap in the 
  face. It's exactly the same as being lumped into the same catagory 
  as "rednecks" and "hon's" and caucasian modular-home refuse by Mike 
  Pack simply because I sometimes attend parking-lot cruise-in's. He's 
  met me twice for 5 minutes. We don't have "civil discourse" here. 
  It's venomous and denigrating. I try to keep my mouth shut but I'm 
  torn between wanting to rise above it, and outrage at being 
  indirectly insulted and slandered by many posts that pop up here. 
  Sometimes I feel like I have to defend myself even though I haven't 
  been directly named.

  It's so much safer to make insulting and stereotyping statements 
  than to call someone by name isn't it? You people might as well just 
  say "Rich is dumb white-trash because he goes to cruise-ins and uses 
  religion as a mental crutch because he believes in a God, and he 
  doesn't have a college degree."

  Personally, I don't feel that 10% mutual interest in something as 
  trivial as a car is enough to overcome the other 90% contempt 
  someone has for me because of my personal views. Why would I want to 
  associate myself with such people?

  As far as institutes of "higher education" enlightening people to 
  the fact that there is no god, I think what Flavia was trying to 
  convey, is that often religion is used as a mental crutch by -some- 
  weak minded people who need someone to tell them what to do with 
  their lives. I agree, BUT I contend that a college education does 
  not eliminate this character flaw. ANY organization could fill that 
  void in a weak person's life, including belonging to a protest group 
  at a college. What if I said that Flavia was weak-minded and needed 
  to get her self-fulfillment by belonging to a group of bigoted 
  people who trash people of faith? I doubt she'd enjoy being stereo-
  typed by me very much that way.

  I'm almost 34 years old and I have visited at least 10 foreign 
  nations, I have served in a combat zone, I have stood on the polar 
  ice pack at the North Pole conducting science experiments covered by 
  National Geographic, and I have -life experience-. I'm so sick of 
  large groups of late-teen and early 20-something's who've barely 
  been out of their hometowns screaming that they know what's best for 
  me just because they watch CNN and because they are attending an 
  institute of "higher learning".

  That's why I'm done with the social functions.

  Rich A.
  #5335

  --- In DMCForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Marc Levy <malevy_nj@xxxx> wrote:
  > With people who have different opinions on various
  > topics of discussion?





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