I appreciate what he does very much, but even now he is not fully convinced. Men who take the trouble to present their former leftist credentials as proof of their humanity, instead of being mortified by it, have not crossed that divide. He tells us further that he is not left or right, but something in between. There is nothing in between.
He is not the gentle atheist, but the militant kind, and I realize his personal reasons are very legitimate. But they have also blinded him to the right. There is nothing on the right to keep him from being a majority of one.
There is everything in between right now. The shift in politics in this country has been huge and leaves not only Pat not knowing where to be politically but me also, traditionally a Conservative voter since age 18. Quite simply you always like to paint things in a machivellian fashion, James, and whilst well meaning and interesting, you are not always correct. Life isn’t all squares and boxes. Politics has shifted here considerably over 200 years and will continue to do so. My mother was and will always remain a Conservative atheist. A lot of people hate religion. And rightly so. It doesn’t discredit their opinion. Neither does being of the liberal left and having the cojones to state honestly you believed it meant justice and have seen it skewered into political correctness. Would that a few more on the Right had such honesty. No one political side holds all the answers and thus all the cards.
Alison, do you mean people who hate atheists or atheists who hate, well, despise is a better term, people who believe?
I don’t have a problem with atheists or agnostics. I do have a problem with militant atheists who pull stupid stunts like filing lawsuits trying to get the word God removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and things of that sort.
You either misunderstand me, Allison, or Machiavelli.
There is no middle. There is muddle. The combination of wine and sewage is sewage.
There are, however, different wines. The most difficult compomise is between two truths. That is an uncomfortable force, but also not a middle. Like liberty.
It is only by choice you take my comments personally. Well meaning but not always correct describes virtually everybody but serial killers. Of course I mean well but am not always correct. It humbles to think of the opinions I had only five years ago, and that tells me I will be humbled five years from now.
If you gleened a meaning from my post it should have been that Condell should be entirely comfortable with being a conservative atheist. But he is not there yet. He’s in a muddle.
Eric Hoffer-
The opposite of a religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
That would describe Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two of the great men who were gentle atheists. They were great as all great intellects are great, because they combine great intellect with humble souls, the rarest of feats, but far more rare for the atheist intellectual.
It is worth mentioning because Condell is close; it is only old resentments that holds him back.
I mean atheists who despise people of faith and take it to extremes. I find their tantrums and hatred quite loathesome at times. So, yes, totally what you refer to.
I don’t think Condell has to become a conservative atheist just because he rejects the current trends of liberalism, as though he was ever wrong about his political beliefs. I do think there is much to be gained from finding the middle way. Too often and for various reasons (not all of them unpredictable), the decent centre or middle way is weakened to pacify the indecent extremes. I think politics today is too dominated by hardcore left and right and see no reason he would want to sign up to either right now. Post Nu Labour who hoovered up
so many of the ideas of the Right in order to become electable, and post Bush, the world is a strange place. He may be an old school lefty but the values he outlined are hardly ones people would outright reject.
The thing about Pat Condell is that he is a regular guy with an honest set of opinions, putting his face on Youtube. Not a politician, media mogul, self serving journo or someone with an agenda. That takes guts.
I really don’t see Pat Condell as the gentle cynic much less the description you apply. Sorry :)
I am forced to re-read my post to see where and what arguments you are responding to. I would hate to think I am that unclear.
I don’t need anything from Condell that he has not already provided. He is a fine man.
There are so many issues involved in these things we call “right” and “left” that ultimately, you both have to be right.
I agree with Alison when it comes to religion…and some other things. Some politicians in office right now would like to pass laws against buying beer on a Sunday. Others would like to rip the Ten Commandments off the courthouse. Between those two, there is a great gap of middle.
But when we turn to the philosophy upon which these ideas are based, James is right. Our greatest potential for justifying our existences, comes from our individuality rather than from our group membership…or else, that is not so, and our individual identities represent nothing more than a waste of time and energy. And we have an obligation to make the most of our individual talents because a Higher Power put us here to do that very thing…or else that is not the case, and the point to our being here is to have fun.
We are in danger of lowering our pain threshold to such a nadir that we feel pain all the time…we are in danger of becoming so lazy that we’ll be like those egg-humans in Wall-E…or else, that is not the case and we have nothing to worry about, save for putting more and more liberals in office and making sure the “raaaaaacists” can’t say anything about anything.
Your actions make you a potentially wonderful person, or else the laws your wise beneficent leaders impose on you — no guns, no death penalty, progressive tax system — are what make you a better person.
Clarity is better than agreement, or agreement is better than clarity.
Political correctness is a healing balm, or a toxic agent.
On those things, James is absolutely right. There’s no in-between. Those who identify themselves with a middle-ground of their own making, are liberals who don’t know they’re liberals. And I don’t mean classic-liberals; I mean the modern unthinking kind. They’ve begun descending down the ten terraces.
See, it’s all the more devastating when delivered in a proper English accent.
Brilliant eh. Im on a roll this week :D
And yes Islam is shit, mysoginist muslims and asshats go well together and no, Libs, that doesn’t make you racist. Pat put it so well.
I appreciate what he does very much, but even now he is not fully convinced. Men who take the trouble to present their former leftist credentials as proof of their humanity, instead of being mortified by it, have not crossed that divide. He tells us further that he is not left or right, but something in between. There is nothing in between.
He is not the gentle atheist, but the militant kind, and I realize his personal reasons are very legitimate. But they have also blinded him to the right. There is nothing on the right to keep him from being a majority of one.
There is everything in between right now. The shift in politics in this country has been huge and leaves not only Pat not knowing where to be politically but me also, traditionally a Conservative voter since age 18. Quite simply you always like to paint things in a machivellian fashion, James, and whilst well meaning and interesting, you are not always correct. Life isn’t all squares and boxes. Politics has shifted here considerably over 200 years and will continue to do so. My mother was and will always remain a Conservative atheist. A lot of people hate religion. And rightly so. It doesn’t discredit their opinion. Neither does being of the liberal left and having the cojones to state honestly you believed it meant justice and have seen it skewered into political correctness. Would that a few more on the Right had such honesty. No one political side holds all the answers and thus all the cards.
I should add in here that frankly I have little time for atheist haters, anymore than I do for religious fanatics.
Alison, do you mean people who hate atheists or atheists who hate, well, despise is a better term, people who believe?
I don’t have a problem with atheists or agnostics. I do have a problem with militant atheists who pull stupid stunts like filing lawsuits trying to get the word God removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and things of that sort.
You either misunderstand me, Allison, or Machiavelli.
There is no middle. There is muddle. The combination of wine and sewage is sewage.
There are, however, different wines. The most difficult compomise is between two truths. That is an uncomfortable force, but also not a middle. Like liberty.
It is only by choice you take my comments personally. Well meaning but not always correct describes virtually everybody but serial killers. Of course I mean well but am not always correct. It humbles to think of the opinions I had only five years ago, and that tells me I will be humbled five years from now.
If you gleened a meaning from my post it should have been that Condell should be entirely comfortable with being a conservative atheist. But he is not there yet. He’s in a muddle.
Eric Hoffer-
The opposite of a religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
That would describe Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two of the great men who were gentle atheists. They were great as all great intellects are great, because they combine great intellect with humble souls, the rarest of feats, but far more rare for the atheist intellectual.
It is worth mentioning because Condell is close; it is only old resentments that holds him back.
I mean atheists who despise people of faith and take it to extremes. I find their tantrums and hatred quite loathesome at times. So, yes, totally what you refer to.
I don’t think Condell has to become a conservative atheist just because he rejects the current trends of liberalism, as though he was ever wrong about his political beliefs. I do think there is much to be gained from finding the middle way. Too often and for various reasons (not all of them unpredictable), the decent centre or middle way is weakened to pacify the indecent extremes. I think politics today is too dominated by hardcore left and right and see no reason he would want to sign up to either right now. Post Nu Labour who hoovered up
so many of the ideas of the Right in order to become electable, and post Bush, the world is a strange place. He may be an old school lefty but the values he outlined are hardly ones people would outright reject.
The thing about Pat Condell is that he is a regular guy with an honest set of opinions, putting his face on Youtube. Not a politician, media mogul, self serving journo or someone with an agenda. That takes guts.
I really don’t see Pat Condell as the gentle cynic much less the description you apply. Sorry :)
I am forced to re-read my post to see where and what arguments you are responding to. I would hate to think I am that unclear.
I don’t need anything from Condell that he has not already provided. He is a fine man.
‘There is no middle. There is muddle’
I disagree. In short.
Another man who knocks seven bells out of liberalism (whilst not rejecting it) is Nick Cohen. Good book. “What’s Left?:How Liberals Lost Their Way”
There are so many issues involved in these things we call “right” and “left” that ultimately, you both have to be right.
I agree with Alison when it comes to religion…and some other things. Some politicians in office right now would like to pass laws against buying beer on a Sunday. Others would like to rip the Ten Commandments off the courthouse. Between those two, there is a great gap of middle.
But when we turn to the philosophy upon which these ideas are based, James is right. Our greatest potential for justifying our existences, comes from our individuality rather than from our group membership…or else, that is not so, and our individual identities represent nothing more than a waste of time and energy. And we have an obligation to make the most of our individual talents because a Higher Power put us here to do that very thing…or else that is not the case, and the point to our being here is to have fun.
We are in danger of lowering our pain threshold to such a nadir that we feel pain all the time…we are in danger of becoming so lazy that we’ll be like those egg-humans in Wall-E…or else, that is not the case and we have nothing to worry about, save for putting more and more liberals in office and making sure the “raaaaaacists” can’t say anything about anything.
Your actions make you a potentially wonderful person, or else the laws your wise beneficent leaders impose on you — no guns, no death penalty, progressive tax system — are what make you a better person.
Clarity is better than agreement, or agreement is better than clarity.
Political correctness is a healing balm, or a toxic agent.
On those things, James is absolutely right. There’s no in-between. Those who identify themselves with a middle-ground of their own making, are liberals who don’t know they’re liberals. And I don’t mean classic-liberals; I mean the modern unthinking kind. They’ve begun descending down the ten terraces.
Man, he can rip ass, and Gordon’s right, it does sound better with a proper Brit accent!
And given my being totally pissed off about the Dallas bomb plot wrapped up yesterday by the Feds, I love Pat more and more.