The Arc Bends

The marriage equality decision handed down by the conservative-leaning Roberts Court, and Bree Newsome's heroic climb up a 30 ft flagpole to bring down the Confederate flag that disgraces the South Carolina state Capitol, are historic cause to reflect and celebrate this Independence Day.

I am reminded of the beautifully poignant words that encapsulate my world view and my deeply-held optimism:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
― Martin Luther King Jr.

If I've learned anything about the human plight here where we find ourselves in the outskirts of the Milky Way, it's that the bending of that arc requires occasional courage and unrelenting persistence.

The Bard from Asbury Park says it best:

It is time to move forward. The country that we carry in our hearts is waiting.
—Bruce Springsteen

REFEFENCES

• As Fox News mourns, the rest of us have an Independence Day to celebrate by Joan Walsh, Salon, 3 July 2015.
• Chords for Change by Bruce Springsteen, New York Times, 5 August 2004.
• Extended Interview with Bree Newsome, Who Climbed Flagpole & Took Down SC Confederate Flag, Democracy Now.

The God Pot

Hopi Bowl

I do not worship gods. I am neither theist or atheist. Theism like atheism, is philosophical quicksand.

My life is a flicker of light - too short for the ball and chain of theism or atheism.

Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
― Stephen Stills

Attributing human features and foibles to a deity is naive and absurdly human-centric. My theist friends ascribe human traits to deities. It's inexcusable, but I still love you.

A leap of faith is antithetical to critical thinking. Theists, while otherwise lovable, charitable, or admirable, are disqualified as critical thinkers.

Atheists fancy themselves critical thinkers. Atheists are typically smart people trapped by the same narrow thinking as theists. Theists and atheists are the A and B sides of the same vinyl record.

Atheists often quote Epicurus as argument against the existence of god.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
― Epicurus, 341–270 B.C

Shang Dynasty Pot

Note the personification of god. Benevolent god or malevolent god, why bother? It's drivel.

The notion of a benevolent god or a malevolent god is not a particularly illuminating tack. Existence and non-existence arguments are the pet topics of blowhards and gas-bags, neither of whom are particularly good observers or listeners.

So What Then?

If pushed to arrange my existential thoughts into a framework, it would be a framework consisting of two classes of stuff:

1. Stuff that's well-understood like the earth-bound erosion and transport of big rocks into smaller and smaller rocks, or the laws of earth-bound thermodynamics, and 
2. Stuff that's not well-understood like particle physics or human consciousness. 

A personal tendency, more for convenience than out of reverence, worship, or fear, is to relegate all of the not well-understood stuff into the god pot for further review and study.

Humanity's god pot holds all the stuff humans don't understand.

The god pot has indescribable volume. We cannot know its extent. That's why it exists - for further review and study. It is precisely this absurd pursuit that keeps us alive. This, it seems, is our quest. We want to feel like we're adding, however inconsequentially, to the pot of human knowledge.

One might be tempted to hypothesize that over the short blip of humanity, the pursuit of knowledge, the quest to know that which is knowable, would have rendered the contents of the god pot infinitesimally smaller. But no dice. That line of thinking is also naively human-centric.

Anasazi Bowl

So here we are.

I, for one, am unwilling to commit to a leap of faith. Nevertheless like most of my species, I have notions. Notions are like superstitions. Everyone has them.

My chief notion is that knowledge is like the conservation of energy. I suspect the sum or volume of all knowledge is constant. Also like the conservation of energy, knowledge cannot be created or destroyed, rather it changes state within the context of humanity.

Insomuch as there is an indescribable amount unknown, our god pot remains constant. When we learn something individually or collectively, we remove something from the god pot, but the void quickly fills with another unknown.

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
― Carl Sagan

Humanity's god pot is as real as our collective ignorance. In the human mind, god exists.

"When I joined the band I didn't know any of the tunes, and when I left the band I didn't know any of the tunes!"
― Keith Jarrett reflecting on playing in Miles Davis's band

Why are Funny People Never Conservatives?

Are there any conservative comedians?

A conservative comedian is as much of an oxymoron as noisy silence.

Some of the most pointed commentary & illuminating discourse comes from comic figures. Some of my personal favorites are Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Larry David, and Jon Stewart.

Are there any conservative-leaning comedians that are actually funny?

• Dennis Miller? Not funny.
• Larry the Cable Guy? Not funny.

The only conservative comedian who makes us laugh is Stephen Colbert - and his schtick is a spoof. Ironically, Colbert is funny because, in character, he exposes the pointless indefensibility of a self-righteous, conservative viewpoint.

The best political comedians illuminate the absurdity or hypocrisy of any institution. Religious institutions are a ripe target. Mort Sahl takes aim with

Most people past college age are not atheists. It's too hard to be in society, for one thing. Because you don't get any days off. And if you're an agnostic you don't know whether you get them off or not. ~Mort Sahl

The hypocrisy of political dogma is ripped by George Carlin's pointed joke about the absurdly hawkish nature of conservatism,

Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. ~George Carlin

Chris Rock's solution to gun violence seems both absurd and pragmatic

Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost $5,000. Because if a bullet cost $5,000, we wouldn't have any innocent bystanders. That'd be it. Every time someone gets shot, people will be like, ''Damn, he must have did something. Shit, they put $20,000 worth of bullets in his ass.'' People would think before they killed somebody, if a bullet cost $5,000. ''Man, l would blow your fucking head off, if l could afford it. l'm gonna get me another job, l'm gonna start saving some money, and you're a dead man! You better hope l can't get no bullets on layaway.'' So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you won't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back. ''l believe you got my property.'' ~Chris Rock

Lenny Bruce was succinct in his assessment of justice

In the Halls of Justice, the only justice is in the halls.
~Lenny Bruce

Waxing deftly about our proclivity to political expedience, Groucho Marx quipped,

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

Fallibility

Comedians instinctively understand and exploit human foibles. Conservatives ignore them. Conservatives live in the haughty and delusional atmosphere of human exceptionalism and infallibility.

I contend,

Whenever you feel infallible, you're poised for a comic fall.

How many social conservatives are scandalously discovered ostensibly "hiking" the Appalachian Trail or desperately looking for love by toe-tapping in the MSP airport rest room?

It is almost impossible to be conservative and also be funny, because

Being funny is about being human.

Stand up comedy is a profession about collective humanity. On the other hand,

Conservatism will always carry the distinctly un-funny encumbrance of individual exceptionalism.

Comedy has always been centered about human-kind’s collective fallibility. I don't see that changing any time soon.

I would, but I need the eggs

One of the most beautifully human soliloquys is found in the closing scene of the virtuosic Woody Allen comic film Annie Hall, where narating protagonist Alvy Singer illustrates his point about the need for human connections:

...this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs."