Eideard

“We could go down to the store and get a bottle of pop.”
“Or we could just sit here.”
“Or we could go down to the store and get a bottle of pop.”
“Or we could just sit here.”

Richard Dreyfuss reads the iTunes EULA

Cut to the chase, and listen to the “Effective Until” reading. It’s the keeper.

A.C.Grayling says his book…doesn’t attack religion, it’s a positive book, there’s nothing negative in it. People may think it’s against religion – but it isn’t.” But then he says, with a mischievous twinkle: “Of course, what would really help the book a lot in America is if somebody tries to shoot me.”

With any luck it shouldn’t come to that, but Grayling is almost certainly going to upset a lot of Christians, for what he has written is a secular bible. The Good Book mirrors the Bible in both form and language, and is, as its author says, “ambitious and hubristic – a distillation of the best that has been thought and said by people who’ve really experienced life, and thought about it”. Drawing on classical secular texts from east and west, Grayling has “done just what the Bible makers did with the sacred texts”, reworking them into a “great treasury of insight and consolation and inspiration and uplift and understanding in the great non-religious traditions of the world”. He has been working on his opus for several decades, and the result is an extravagantly erudite manifesto for rational thought…

Who does he think will read The Good Book? “Well, I’m hoping absolutely every human being on the planet.” He’s sure that a lot of people will wonder just who he thinks he is, to have written a bible, but doesn’t appear particularly troubled by this prospect. “The truth is that the book is very modestly done. My wife did give me a card,” he giggles, “that said, ‘I used to be an atheist until I realised I am God’. And I know that on Monty Pythonesque grounds there’s a good likelihood that in five centuries time I will be one, as a result of this.” He lets out another little chuckle. “But I certainly don’t feel like one now, that’s for sure.”

The little jokes and kindly bearing can make Grayling sound quite benignly jovial about religion at times, as he chuckles away about “men in dresses” and “believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden”, and throws out playfully mocking asides such as, “You can see we no longer really believe in God, because of all the CCTV cameras keeping watch on us.” But when I suggest that he sounds less enraged than amused by religion, he says quickly: “Well, it does make me angry, because it causes a great deal of harm and unhappiness…”

… We have to try to persuade society as a whole to recognise that religious groups are self-constituted interest groups; they exist to promote their point of view. Now, in a liberal democracy they have every right to do so. But they have no greater right than anybody else, any political party or Women’s Institute or trade union. But for historical reasons they have massively overinflated influence – faith-based schools, religious broadcasting, bishops in the House of Lords, the presence of religion at every public event. We’ve got to push it back to its right size.”

Atheists, according to Grayling, divide into three broad categories. There are those for whom this secular objection to the privileged status of religion in public life is the driving force of their concern. Then there are those, “like my chum Richard Dawkins”, who are principally concerned with the metaphysical question of God’s existence. “And I would certainly say there is an intrinsic problem about belief in falsehood.” In other words, even if a person’s faith did no harm to anybody, Grayling still wouldn’t like it. “But the third point is about our ethics – how we live, how we treat one another, what the good life is. And that’s the question that really concerns me the most.”

Exactly the same round robin of reflection I encountered and resolved when still a teenager. The atheist part came first and easiest. Studying materialist philosophy – especially as a dialectic, a mirror of physical processes in science – took a bit more work and brought an enormous amount of satisfaction in knowledge.

A study habit I’ve never lost and never will.

Whiskey river, take my mind…

Thanks, Helen. I think.

“I tell you, you really had me scared there for a moment!”
(How it could have ended, if only…)

I just figured it out. Mubarak could have won over the masses if only he had had the good sense to open a Twitter account:

7:30 am
Just had breakfast. It was ok, but probably not as good as you get at home. Please don’t believe everything you hear. Everything I eat is brought to me, and you know that nobody fixes for other people with the same care as if they are cooking for themselves.

8:15 am
Just received a letter from Obama. It sounds almost like a threat. You people think you have it rough. Imagine being me.

8:45 am
I just received a call from Hillary Clinton. They ARE threatening me. At least that’s how I take it. NOW do you believe that I am the unlucky one?

10:30 am
Had a nap. Refreshed now. How are you all doing? How I wish I could be in the streets with you. I miss you all.

12 noon
Some of you have written me some nice messages. I appreciate that. You have been able to see my predicament. I never wanted to be a leader. I wanted to be a simple carpenter. I always liked working with tools.

1:00 pm
I can hardly believe my good fortune. Many many people are writing me kind messages and encouragements, and I realize now that opening a Twitter account is one of the best things I ever did.

2:30 pm
My military informs me that the crowds are beginning to disperse. People are starting to spread the word that I am not such a bad guy. I have tears in my eyes as I type this.

3:00 pm
My military tells me that the palace is easy and quiet now, and that I would probably be greeted with cheers if I ventured out. I want to believe them. I do know that you have all been very kind since I opened my Twitter account this morning.

4:30 pm
Back inside. I did it. I got up the courage to go out and meet you, my people. I didn’t expect to be hoisted upon shoulders with cheers of “We love you!”, but that is precisely what happened.

6:00 pm
CNN is now reporting that the Egyptian people now feel that this has all been a terrible misunderstanding. Things are changed, and everything is returning to normal. I guess that the internet does have a place after all. I promise to send out Tweets every day. I never knew that it would mean so much to you.

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Go ahead and click them. You know you want to.

RedneckBank.com

Somebody in marketing sat up all night picking his navel to come up with this.

Related Link: Consumer Reports Money Blog: Redneck Bank

A southern pochard duck stands on the head of a hippo at Berlin zoo.

Take it easy on the bamboo juice.