What's the point? I rarely bother to counter Tiger for the same reason I don't bother trying to dissuade Plunkett from his flat earth convictions. No point arguing with zealots and theological demagogues. I've heard it all before, they never argue in good faith, and frankly I find it all boring. In his heart of hearts, Tiger knows he's wormfood like the rest of us. I suspect they all do.
Faith is a personal choice, and I have no real issue with it as long as it doesn't become malignant--which in Tiger's case it has. People like Tiger have all and/or any number of private reasons for faith subscriptions, great and small, and pathologies underwriting their religious fervency. I have friends who are catholic, they're fine people. If I have to live in a world in which Religion persists, and I will, I'd prefer it to be Christianity, and I'd prefer the brand of it to be Catholicism. I've met enough Pentecostals, Baptists, and Anglicans to have formed a preference. A large part of Western values have been formed by Christian morality, and I suspect that the threat of hell and promise of heaven is all that keeps people like Tiger from taking an axe to their neighbours. They must be prevented from attaining too much power, however, because if they had remit unbound they'd take an axe to their neighbours on theological grounds via a pathway of some warped morality. They'd be no different from ISIS. Zip would probably welcome the return of witch trials, for example. Unfortunately, there's still far too many of our species that are far too money-brained to exercise compassion and general decency without carrots and sticks.
Ah, the predictable retreat. First James, now Fishalt — two men with two things in common: when
confronted with arguments they couldn’t answer, both tried to flee to the safety of another thread. A self-fashioned echo chamber, away from the discomfort of being made to think. It doesn’t exactly scream confidence — more like ideological triage.
Fishalt’s theatrical exit speech is particularly rich. He declares himself too enlightened to argue with “zealots,” which in modern atheistic code means “
anyone who challenges my assumptions.” This is the rhetorical move of someone who has mistaken derision for debate and arrogance for argument. He finds it “boring,” but what he really finds intolerable is a worldview that doesn’t
flatter his nihilism or offer the easy answers of scientistic dogma.
What is the other thing they have in common…oh yes….
a predilection for underage girls. James, who is drunk this Friday night is already making posts in this regard about a creepy video he posted the other night. For the record this is the one area despite their differences that he and James agree. Underage, illegal girls are attractive. Why people engage with them as normal people is their own business, but it’s not for me. Why anyone would choose to handcuff themselves to James is their business, however it seems a particularly stupid manoeuvre on Fishy’s part. “Stoopid is as stoopid does”.
Then the sermon continues: “Tiger knows he’s wormfood like the rest of us.” No, sir. That’s
your creed, not mine. You want the cosmos to be dead and cold so you can call it rational. You mistake despair for depth.
Your aesthetic nod to Catholicism — “I’d rather live in a world shaped by it” — is telling. You enjoy the fruit while spitting on the root. Your admiration is for stained glass, not truth; liturgy, not Logos.
And the trope that believers only behave because of hellfire — well, history begs to differ. The bloodiest hands of the last century weren’t religious fanatics but atheistic materialists: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. Your worldview has already had its test run.
It ended in mass graves.
You say I’m a demagogue. But I’m not the one running away.
You and James share more than disdain for dissent — you share a need to escape scrutiny. That’s not intellectual maturity. That’s Walter Mitty in a lab coat.
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