Reflections of a stormy petrel

I did get the sense that you missed the point of some of the initial comments, though the threads quickly spun off in various other directions.

Why not be grateful to Clapton for e.g. deciding to practice his craft, or record the album? There are some aspects of it which one could legitimately be grateful to him or his teachers etc. for. Of course those aspects are nowhere near all of it, but I would not say that the door is closed to gratitude completely for an atheist.

Of course once we get into being "grateful to the universe", that is just an anthropomorphism and cannot actually be gratitude as to a person.

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Up to a point. But when you are actually being blown away by - in this particular case - his live performance during the concert for Bob Dylan's thirtieth anniversary, that seems to me to miss something. And it stood out in my view just because that particular concert featured so many great musicians and half a dozen of the greatest guitars in the world - and STILL Clapton stood out.

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But when you are actually being blown away by - in this particular case - his live performance during the concert for Bob Dylan's thirtieth anniversary

The other posters hadn't even necessarily seen the concert, though, and I'm not even sure it's the case that everyone has necessarily had that kind of transcendent artistic experience in their lives. A lighthearted post prompted by a subjective experience probably isn't the place to stand or die on philosophy if people aren't "getting" it.

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It happened. And if you poke your head out to

johncwright's blog, you may notice that there was a much more fierce clash going on about the issue of health care. Altogether I have had an interesting evening.

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I think it may be better if I don't give my opinion on the health care thread here. :)

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I am finished anyway - I am not going to touch that thread again.

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...I will not touch any thread that a certain female appears in. There are things that sane people do not inflict on themselves.

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There are things that sane people do not inflict on themselves.

I think that might more broadly include insisting on having the last word in a thread on health care. :)

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I tried to disengage, but I could not let someone have the last word when that last word amounted to a positive lie about everything I believe and stand for. I was even asked whether I sympathized with euthanasia, for pity's sake! How can anyone leave things like that unanswered, especially knowing the kind of lies that already circulate in great herds about fandom?

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Fair point. And I actually read the thread in its entirety now; it is more productive than the early sampling I had read had lead me to believe.

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It was going somewhere, until a certain female butted in. After which, I was too revolted to go on.

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whether I sympathized with euthanasia

...Do you?

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Thou shalt not kill.

Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done to Me.

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Interesting. Do you also oppose people who help people who can communicate their wish to die die?

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Ah, in that case we are talking about cowardice. I never thought it was a moral virtue or that it needed to be encouraged. As it happens, I am marginally involved in the disabled movement, and I regard this kind of filth as an excuse to get rid of disabled people by making them feel useless and a burden.

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Do you deny the fact that there are people who have to cope with tremendous amounts of pain that has nothing to do with others making them feel useless, and who may in some cases (such as if there is no hope for improvement) wish to put an end to it? Is it this you call cowardice?

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Wherever I hear a person feeling that their life is not worth living, I hear the echo of someone else's selfishness. "Whatever you have done to the least of these you have done to Me" includes "Any time you have allowed or encouraged one of these to feel that the life I gave is not worth living, you have nailed Me to the cross again - and spat in My face for good measure."

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Does it mean that whenever you hear someone saying that someone else's life is worth living you do not hear any selfishness?

I don't understand. You see a terminally ill patient who depends on technology or drugs to keep them formally alive - a life not even remotely resembling the one they used to have - and you see some other people's selfish interest to get rid of the person?

I couldn't understand the relevance of the stories.

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If you did not understand the point of the story of a woman who died of cancer with her whole life unfulfilled, and still managed to spread light and love and courage around her, I might as well stop wasting my time. You will never get it.

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Say, do you notice how seldom you address anything I say directly, at face value?

And with the story and the bio - I did not read them carefully, because they are long and because last time you sent me to read an essay of yours I did so, and it proved to be of little relevance, with the relevant part included in less than a paragraph. Then I didn't mind spending the time. Now I do.

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That is because you use ideas as weapons, to defeat enemies. Not as things worth entertaining for their own sake. It is always a search for the case that will contradict or break what I am saying. And as it happens I have heard them all before. My reaction to any defence of euthanasia is very simple: keep your filthy hands off the old and sick or I'll duff you up. I do not intend to prove anything to you, since I have long since concluded that you do not intend to have anything proved to. Quite simply, and quite practically, I stand against it and I regard it as filth. That is all you need to know, to know how to deal with me on this matter.

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