Random Thoughts Part 24

I haven't posted much on my Amazing Morse blog lately. It seems that politics have distracted me. For any interested in what I've been writing about, please check out my James Rozoff, Solutionist blog. And now for another batch of thoughts thought randomly:

Technology has not made humanity any wiser, it has only made us more dangerous.

Those who best demonstrate the values we wish to teach our children are the ones who should be most rewarded in our society. Do we wish to reward good sportsmanship or the physical ability to dunk a ball in a hoop? Do we wish to reward those doctors who save lives or those who implant fake boobs? Do we wish to reward those who amuse and distract us or do we wish to reward those who instruct and enlighten us?

When technology has acquired the ability to take care of all of our needs, perhaps then we will discover that one of our greatest needs has always been to care for others ourselves.

The bad behavior of another is not justification for our own bad behavior, it is a cry of help from someone who is in need of a good example.

Where once we had religious leaders or politicians telling us what was good or bad, we now have lobbying groups, advertisers, marketers, and public relations firms. Hardly an improvement.

We are fast approaching an age where we are capable of bringing to life every horror from myth, religion, and imagination to life. Man-beasts, rivers of blood, a world in flames. And yet we mock religion even as we go about proving the prophesies. How can a God exist who would create a Hell? No, it is we who are busily creating a Hell for ourselves. Would you have Him save us, or would you have us save ourselves?

The difference between a brand and a reputation is you can get rebranded but you can’t get rereputationed. A reputation means something. Don’t talk to people who use the word “branding”. They are the tools of Satan if they are not Satan himself.

Laws are feeble attempts to dissuade the masses from doing what they desire. The will of the masses is utmost, laws are what the minority attempts to keep us distracted with.

If we spent our time working on the areas in which we agree, we would have no time for arguments or conflict.

  

An idiot is capable of an insight that humbles the wise. It matters not the source but the perception that has been brought into being. The opposite is also true. Never assume something is brilliant because a brilliant person said it.

People admire strength, confidence and straight talk. When they can’t get it from the right sources, they’ll go elsewhere.

Americans consume art the way they consume food, supersized portions of low-grade high calorie, low nutrition mass-produced junk. Twinkies are not food and entertainment is not art.

The renaissance, that era everyone likes to point to as the time when humanity made its way out of the dark ages came about precisely because the people embraced the past. The name itself means “rebirth”, a bringing back from the past all that was good and vibrant and yet had been forgotten. You cannot move forward without an understanding of where you have come from. You cannot expect to grow something new without a connection to your roots.

Man has within him a capacity for stupidity so deep that even the very wisest can never hope to gauge it.

The foolish man is always afraid to say he doesn’t know and that is what gives him away.

True art costs. No one pays that cost more than the artist.

We are in an age that expects its art and its news to be provided for free. Nothing is free. If you do not help to support artists and journalists, you will not get beauty and truth but propaganda and advertisement.

I can’t help think Christians seriously overthink the Sixth Commandment. God did not use fine print.

People only appreciate prophets when the sky is burning, the ocean roiling, and a plague of locusts is on the land. They are quite easily dismissed before then.

There is in puritanism a degree of voyeurism. Too often the puritan is obsessed with the lurid behavior of others rather than concentrating on what is required by their own faith.

Dear scientists: if your government officials are so unaccountable to the knowledge you try to share with them, stop creating dangerous toys for them to play with. It’s time for scientists to go on strike.

Scientists are a lot like philosophers and mystics except they torture animals.

Simplicity is a lost art today. We drive cars hundreds of miles in order to run in a marathon, we drive to the gym to walk on the treadmill. We use riding lawnmowers to insure we have enough time to exercise. And we look at our smart phones instead of the window to see if it is raining.

The sleep of reason creates monsters. So too does the sleep of self-determination. When we surrender our will to rule ourselves it creates politicians.

All the tears that have ever been shed have only one cause: time. Whatever tragedies befall us they are but road markers reminding us of what has been and is no more.

I find myself becoming increasingly nostalgic for the past, but after all I suppose that is the only thing one can be nostalgic about.

Children today are introduced to screens before windows. They gaze first upon the interpretation man has made of reality before seeing reality as it is.