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Memo to Rick Santorum
 
 
04 August 2005 @ 08:34 am
Memo to Rick Santorum  
Fuck you, you dissembling fuck. I heard you this morning on Morning Edition just as I was leaving for work, bloviating about how the reason the question of where our species came from is important is because if it was just random chance then there's no necessity for morality. Let me tell you, sir, that the atheists and evolutionists—not necessarily equivalent sets, mind you—I know have more morality in their fingernail trimmings than you have anywhere within a ten-meter radius of your wizened little heart. Small-minded, bigoted twits like you may not be able to envision a reason to treat each other well absent some authoritarian patriarch in the sky, but that's only because you can't even bring yourself to treat others well after your professed pal J.C. set the example. Compassion and tolerance are so much more important when life on this tiny rock is the only life we'll ever have, but your only idea of compassion is to force the 14-year-old girls you've rendered ignorant into bringing more hungry, poverty-stricken babies into the world, and your only idea of tolerance is to slither your way into one of the most powerful posts in American government and then whinge endlessly about how so-called Christians like you aren't allowed a place in the public discourse. I may not believe in God, but I do believe in evil, and you're its simpering mug. Eat primordial soup and die, but I mean that in only the most compassionate way. Fucker.
 
 
Current Mood: angry
Current Music: California Guitar Trio w/Tony Levin, "Bohemian Rhapsody"
 
 
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Bob Howe[info]bobhowe on August 4th, 2005 01:45 pm (UTC)
Amen.
Ken[info]steelbrassnwood on August 4th, 2005 02:19 pm (UTC)
Go Bill! The actual quote is as follows:
Is there a purpose for our lives or are we just simply the result of chance? If we're the result of chance, if we're simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us--in fact it doesn't put a moral demand on us, than if we are the creation of a being that has moral demands.
There are two things that trouble me here. One is your point, that it's pathetic to behave morally only because you're afraid of some supernatural being that looks like Charlton Heston. If the mere existence of poor people, of the sick, of war, doesn't put a "moral demand" on you, then you are in my book morally deficient.

But also, there's this rejection of any beauty that's not intentionally created. What is so bad about being "the result of chance"? Is a sunset or a waterfall a "mistake of nature"?

Anyway, Santorum is proof that evolution doesn't always work.
William Shunn: Bilmo: Red Devil[info]shunn on August 4th, 2005 02:50 pm (UTC)
But also, there's this rejection of any beauty that's not intentionally created.

And amen. I personally find a chance-derived universe to be more beautiful, awe-inspiring, humbling, and downright miraculous than one intentionally created, and I plan one day when I'm a better writer to write a novel based on that predicate. Meanwhile, here's something that godless evolutionist Richard Dawkins had to say on the subject:

What would have offended [educator Frederick William] Sanderson about teaching the Young Earth view is not just that it is false but that it is petty, small-minded, parochial, unimaginative, unpoetic and downright boring compared to the staggering, mind-expanding truth. ("The Joy of Living Dangerously," from A Devil's Chaplain)
PixelFish[info]pixelfish on August 4th, 2005 04:49 pm (UTC)
I always like to think of the bit in Watchmen where Dr. Manhattan is explaining the importance of thermodynamic miracles.
William Shunn: Watchmen Smiley[info]shunn on August 4th, 2005 05:00 pm (UTC)
Oh, yes. I ♥ Alan Moore!
PixelFish[info]pixelfish on August 4th, 2005 05:02 pm (UTC)
I heart him too.

Did you see the trailer V for Vendetta movie that's coming out? I had hopes for it, but then I found out Moore had publically dissociated himself from the movie, AND that the Wachowski Brothers had their fingers in the movie pie, which makes me dubious. (But we still got a V mask when we went to Comic-con because it still looks cool.)
William Shunn: Watchmen Smiley[info]shunn on August 4th, 2005 05:14 pm (UTC)
I haven't seen the trailer, only the posters. But I too get a sinking feeling, mostly from the fact that the Wackedoutski Brudders seem to me to have declined as filmmakers with every movie they make. (I say this as a huge fan of Bound.)

But it definitely gives me a (bad kind of) chill when the author disclaims the movie project.
♥ tree ♥[info]tritia on August 4th, 2005 02:23 pm (UTC)
Well said!
markbourne[info]markbourne on August 4th, 2005 02:35 pm (UTC)
[nodding and applause from this coast]
Keikaimalu[info]keikaimalu on August 4th, 2005 03:53 pm (UTC)
Well done indeed, sir.

It has always struck me as odd that some Christians don't get how atheists can be moral. Serious logic flaws there. To me, being moral because it is Right is far more compelling and convincing than being moral because a Santa-Claus God is making a list and checking it twice.
PixelFish[info]pixelfish on August 4th, 2005 04:48 pm (UTC)
Why do they never seem to grasp that do the Right Thing without hope of reward or eternal bliss, but to only make the world a better place, is one of the highest orders of morality?

I mean, a lot of the religiously inclined do the Right Thing (and I'd question their application of Right Thing a lot of times) because God told 'em to, or because they fear things, or because in the end, they'll be showered with Glory, or some such shit.
alyx: alyx baby[info]planetalyx on August 4th, 2005 06:58 pm (UTC)
Thanks to Dan Savage...
I had forgotten Santorum was a name and not just a dirty word...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Love
William Shunn: Watchmen Smiley[info]shunn on August 4th, 2005 08:35 pm (UTC)
Re: Thanks to Dan Savage...
Eww. What a perfect definition for santorum!

(I ♥ Dan Savage! I used to be a faithful reader of "Savage Love," beginning from when I lived in Seattle, but somehow I fell out of the habit of picking up the Voice. My loss.)
alyx[info]planetalyx on August 4th, 2005 09:25 pm (UTC)
Re: Thanks to Dan Savage...
It doesn't have to stay that way... he has an LJ feed.
William Shunn: South Park Bill[info]shunn on August 4th, 2005 09:28 pm (UTC)
Re: Thanks to Dan Savage...
Whoa!
William Shunn: Bilmo: Blushing[info]shunn on August 4th, 2005 10:28 pm (UTC)
Re: Thanks to Dan Savage...
(RSS feed [info]savagelove now on my friends list. Thanks!)
alyx: Alyx-Giddy[info]planetalyx on August 4th, 2005 10:40 pm (UTC)
Re: Thanks to Dan Savage...
Enjoy!
m.j.euringer: Johnny[info]deadscrypt on August 4th, 2005 11:41 pm (UTC)
Up until I read this I thought I had a marked corned on fire shooting out of my eyes.

I am truly humbled, sir.
William Shunn: Watchmen Smiley[info]shunn on August 5th, 2005 12:22 am (UTC)
I, in turn, am honored as fuck. You are the Sire of Ire.
Fuck you, you dissembling fuck. I heard you this morning on Morning Edition just as I was leaving for work, bloviating about how the reason the question of where our species came from is important is because if it was just random chance then there's no necessity for morality. Let me tell you, sir, that the atheists and evolutionists—not necessarily equivalent sets, mind you—I know have more morality in their fingernail trimmings than you have anywhere within a ten-meter radius of your wizened little heart. Small-minded, bigoted twits like you may not be able to envision a reason to treat each other well absent some authoritarian patriarch in the sky, but that's only because you can't even bring yourself to treat others well after your professed pal J.C. set the example. Compassion and tolerance are so much more important when life on this tiny rock is the only life we'll ever have, but your only idea of compassion is to force the 14-year-old girls you've rendered ignorant into bringing more hungry, poverty-stricken babies into the world, and your only idea of tolerance is to slither your way into one of the most powerful posts in American government and then whinge endlessly about how so-called Christians like you aren't allowed a place in the public discourse. I may not believe in God, but I do believe in evil, and you're its simpering mug. Eat primordial soup and die, but I mean that in only the most compassionate way. Fucker.
 
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