What we like to do for fun

This dialogue follows that posted Saturday, March 22

From Joe to Moristotle

You smiled...I thought at best you would roll your eyes.

I think we both think that each other's words are empty. Not really sure about your religious tracts comment. I could accuse you of reading atheist tracts. Fact is we both look at the same facts and interpret them differently.

As for Leviticus and Numbers, The Mosaic (Moses, Leviticus and stuff) Covenant was temporary. The New Covenant is a relationship with God, through Christ.

You said responsible parents can know how to raise their children...my question is how? What is your guide? Do you use past experience? Society norms?

I have started my quest reading your blog. Lot to read through. I do thank you for offering opportunities to strengthen my beliefs and study more about what I believe. I will try not to make you repeat yourself.


What else you like to do for fun? I know you like to read and watch movies. You have any other hobbies? Do you like sports...you are in a good area to like college sports. Are you a Tar Heels fan?

From Moristotle to Joe

First, thanks for asking what else I like to do for fun. I had been just about to ask you whether you planned to watch the basketball game between Arkansas and North Carolina this evening. While I do hope that Carolina wins, I wouldn't call myself a fan. I don't like to watch any sports events. I hope Carolina wins only because I work with a lot of people to whom it's important, and they would be in a better mood tomorrow if Carolina won. Plus, Carolina is "supposed" to be the best this year, and a lot of people would be really dejected if they didn't play in the championship game.

But bottom line is that I think collegiate athletics have gone way too far when it comes to money and fanaticism. Same for professional sports. All are emblems of a trivial popular culture. Actually, my attitude is not new. I felt roughly the same way when I was a high school student. At a basketball game I attended as a senior (I guess), I was struck by how mindless seemed the wild roaring of each side for its own team. I think I was then under the sway of some classical Greek ideal of competition not as defeating an opponent but as attempting to be the "best you can be," where you can as sincerely congratulate members of the "opposing" team as you can the members of "your own" team. And you can feel as sorry for any participant's failure as you can for that of another.

I don't know whether the way I do gardening qualifies as a hobby, but I generally enjoy messing about the yard, doing the things that are necessary to keep it looking good and so on. Also, although it isn't necessary, I very much enjoy taking out bird feed every morning and taking in the feeders at night that a raccoon or possum might otherwise attack. Of course, I enjoy watching birds visit the feeders. I even enjoy watching squirrels trying to get at the food. There was one the other day draped around the long thistle feeder, eating as much of the minute grains as it could. I don't begrudge these little creatures their food, however they can get it.

My son and I sometimes play Boggle, and I used to play Scrabble and chess quite a bit, but it's been a long time. Sometimes I'll try to sneak a few pieces in on my wife's jigsaw puzzle.

I actually enjoy just doing the daily chores, making the bed, preparing breakfast, making the dinner salads, keeping the place looking tidy. I don't believe in life after death. I see that the present life, whatever its condition, is precious and ultimate. That includes the present life of others, human or otherwise. Thus, I try to do good. My sense of authentic self demands it. I suppose that my attitude is that such life is holy.


Now back to the beginning. Did you really think that I would "roll my eyes"? Please tell me a little more about what you were thinking when you wrote the original sentence about "uncaused First Cause"; that is, why did you (apparently) think even at the time that I would not be impressed by it?

I don't agree that we both think that each other's words are empty (in general). I was commenting only on one particular phrase you used. Please don't overgeneralize. That's rather like hurling rocks back at me. Try to be more responsible.

Joe, it's almost impossible for me to believe that you're serious when you ask how can responsible parents know how to raise their children. Are you that unread? If you don't know the answer, then I certainly don't have the time to explain it to you.

My "religious tract" comment came from my own experience with such literature, in which highfallutin, philosophical-sounding phrases are bandied about in a display of presumed wisdom, and it's hard to tell whether the author really believes it or is just trying to console the readers of such publications. I can't be sure from your response, but you seem to be implying (or trying to give the impression) that you have never read such things.

The recent books of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, as well as Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason and Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian—all of which I have read and am fairly certain you have not—are not "tracts." Your tossing "tract" back to me (as though it were a ball and you hoped I'd fumble it and it would bounce up and fall through the hoop to score you a point) does not flatter you. (Do you own a dictionary? The American Heritage Dictionary defines "tract" this way: "A distributed paper or pamphlet containing a declaration or appeal, especially one put out by a religious or political group.") If you can't rise above that sort of playground brawling style, then I really don't wish to participate, and you should go find someone else to work off your testosterone with.

Reading opposing points of view (such as my blog) for the purpose of strengthening your own beliefs....Please, if you would, do let us know how it goes. If you want to note progress in comments on particular posts, go ahead, as I'll be automatically notified that you've done so and will see your comment.

From Joe to Moristotle

Wow, I have asked you twice now about how you raised your kids. How did you teach them right and wrong and you still have not answered. You could have easily said: Joe, I read this book or that book, or I raised them based off my experience of how I was raised. No, I am not asking for your advice on how to raise my kid...just curious on how an atheist knows right from wrong, and how that translates to raising their kids.

Uncaused First Caused relates to the explanation that the universe just didn't happen, that an Intelligent Creator started it. I assumed tone from your email...because it seems like you are getting frustrated, or at best you feel I am wasting your time. I know tone is really impossible to deduce from email, so please forgive me for making an assumption on your tone. I am not really in the business of impressing you. I am just trying to figure out more about what you believe. It seems our emails always turn into this...me saying something, you telling me I am wrong and I don't read enough, me stating something I did read, you telling me how that it's ridiculous, etc.

I am not trying to win points with you or beat you at a game. I do not own a dictionary...I just go to dictionary.com.

From Moristotle to Joe

Joe, the way I'm feeling at the moment is that I don't see any future in our continuing to try to discuss this. We seem to rub each other the wrong way. Or at least you sure rub me the wrong way; I can't tolerate your taunting, take-no-prisoners style of debate. (That's what I had in mind by referring to your testosterone. You strike me as a particularly "alpha" male, and I've never liked the type.)

But, since you are insisting so, I'll say that we raised our kids many years ago and I don't remember very well what we did. I don't believe we read them Bible stories. We probably read some Dr. Spock. We had moral sensibility (humans have it as an evolved species; evolutionary biologists are studying it now) and we tried to reinforce it in our children. We were also educated people. Our daughter (as she revealed to me a month or two ago in a comment on one of my posts) decided "as a kid" (probably fifth or sixth grade) that there was no god, but I know few people more considerate and good than she is. My son seems to be agnostic; he likes to "believe in the possibility of God" and appreciates some wonderful music that its composers' attributed to their sense of "God." He, too, is a fine, upstanding, sensitive, considerate person. So, Joe, try to lose your parochial, self-serving opinion that atheists have to be bad people.