Still Waters No Longer Running, Derp.

jank · 22-12-2011 3:29pm

Maybe, but why stoop to his level?

ironingbored · 18-02-2012 6:03pm

Where does one even begin to disect this vacuous drivel?

Bunkered view of reality limits discourse

JOHN WATERS

THE RUNNING story about the closure of the Vatican embassy is revealing concerning the undertows of Irish life, thinking and feeling. The intelligence that the embassy was among the cheapest of Ireland’s diplomatic missions finally belies the pretence that this was an economic decision, laying bare an opportunistic act of neurotic bigotry by militant atheists seeking to impose their myopic beliefs on the rest of us.

It has taken three months for the worm to turn. It is remarkable that, over this period, and notwithstanding implacable media hostility towards the Catholic Church, the story did not go away. Labour’s slithery agenda is caught in the headlights, and the Taoiseach will need to move decisively to avoid long-term contamination.

The mechanics of this turnaround are forensically interesting: the slow-burn of public opinion feeding through Fine Gael backbenchers, keeping the issue flickeringly on the agenda through Christmas. But such an exercise takes us only so far towards understanding. For things to unfold as they have, it was necessary for some strange process of combustion to occur in the depths of the Irish psyche, and atypically to burst out into the public realm. This suggests that conventional public wisdom is wildly wrong about the condition of Irish Catholicism, that some secret, latent energy exists and waits to manifest itself in some unexpected way.

Should this be surprising? If you drive around Ireland on Sunday mornings, your progress is impeded at various intervals by the parked cars of the Catholic faithful outside their churches. These are not Martians, but normal Irish citizens who pay taxes, read newspapers, play golf, have sex and eat sushi. Yet the media conversation gives few hints of their continuing existence.

Underlying the inevitable ideological prejudices infecting our media, there’s another dynamic, relating to language and reason, which has disabled the public conversation’s capacity to move between the physical and metaphysical worlds. Increasingly many media organs seem incapable of dealing with the metaphysical at all, other than in the ironic and disdainful manner of a vegetarian waiter in a steak restaurant.

The everyday media languages of economics and politics are utterly incapable of jumping the gap to the great mysteries of human reality. Try this: talk for 15 minutes about the European debt problem, then stop and try immediately to speak about God, the origins of consciousness or the prospect of eternity. Tricky? Conventional culture is nudging us towards the conclusion that this difficulty arises because of an intrinsic implausibility of religious belief.

But the Pope, speaking last September at the Bundestag, suggested a different explanation: we increasingly employ a reduced form of reason for dealing with things pertaining to the life of the man-made bunker that is modern reality. On a Newstalk programme last Sunday I debated the Vatican embassy closure with, among others, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, one of the more bunker-minded of the new crop of Labour Party TDs. In response to my characterisation of the closure as motivated by extremist secular-atheist bigotry, Ó Ríordáin said I sounded “like something from the 1950s”.

The tactic is recognisable as deriving from a particular, present-centred view of reality and “progress”. But his riposte also made visible the difference between thinking based on staring at the bunker’s ceiling and thinking that arises from gazing at the horizon of human possibility.

Christ did not come in the 1950s, but, historically speaking, roughly 1,950 years before. In truth, though, the dates of His birth and death are somewhat irrelevant, because His coming occurred outside time and space. It never “began” to happen and is still happening. In Christian terms, we remain at year zero.

If you try to grasp such a concept in the language of a Labour Party manifesto, atheism may seem a “rational” response. But this is a trick of the bunker. The reduction of reason in our culture has forced a widening gap in the public mind between the store of words adaptable to politics, sociology and economics, and the diminishing cache capable of summoning up our deeper situation.

The problem is not merely that everyday public conversation comprises almost entirely words of the former category, but that, by the insinuation and consolidation of the bunkered view of reality, the other store of words has been rendered unusable, invisible and potentially obsolescent.

This is why ostensibly Catholic politicians seem to feel that, while exercising public authority, they must function in some kind of “neutral”, secular fashion, caving in to radical bigoted agendas because they lack the words to argue. Even if the Vatican embassy was not symbolic of Irish Christian faith, it has become a visible pretext for something much deeper than international diplomacy. The controversy has caused some spark to jump the gap between these two forms of reasoning – manifesting in political discussion as the fear of loss of electoral favour or affection, but also making visible a perspective blocked by the squat, dense bulk of the bunker.

CiaranMT · 19-02-2012 12:54am

This thread seems to be updated less and less. I can only take this as a good sign

robindch · 19-02-2012 12:56am

ironingbored wrote: »

Where does one even begin to disect this vacuous drivel?

Waters really ought to try writing without a thesaurus. Every second adjective he uses is, at best, the second-cousin of the one he oughter.

Can't read two sentences of the man without thinking of Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, Mark Twain's savaging of James Fenimore Cooper, the author of The Last of the Mohicans and much other hogwash. Twain's essay is below, and in terms of English usage, it's up there with Orwell's Politics and the English Language.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hns/indians/offense.html

ironingbored · 17-04-2012 2:48pm

The greatest argument against religion in the Irish Education system.

Thanks John!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0413/1224314681378.html#.T41eh7ejMJU.twitter

Delirium · 17-04-2012 3:00pm

ironingbored wrote: »

The greatest argument against religion in the Irish Education system.

Thanks John!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0413/1224314681378.html#.T41eh7ejMJU.twitter

No longer will our children be told they are Christ’s chosen ones, but instead the accidental offspring of the pointless oozing of primordial slime, units of meat and bone, existing for random junctures by bread and rules in an originless, meaningless and indifferent universe.

If only the poor children had parents to bring them to church. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Sarky · 17-04-2012 3:26pm

Wow, he jumps straight from "no religious instruction in schools" to "OMG THEY WILL MAKE US ALL NIHILISTS"

Seriously, that man is crazy.

ironingbored · 17-04-2012 3:34pm

koth wrote: »

If only the poor children had parents to bring them to church. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

The truth is the majority of parents want catechism and sacraments in schools because they are either too lazy or too unwilling to go through the necessary study and preparation for communion and confirmation.

Penn · 17-04-2012 3:52pm

I think that's literally the stupidest thing I've ever read on the internet. I never dreamed this day would actually come. I kinda don't know what to do with myself now that the search is over.

mikhail · 17-04-2012 5:28pm

ironingbored wrote: »

The greatest argument against religion in the Irish Education system.

Thanks John!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0413/1224314681378.html#.T41eh7ejMJU.twitter

I'm not giving that twit another page view. Every time I hear the term "aggressive secularist" I think of the ignorant, hateful bile people like him spew every day about how any world view but their own ends in misery and depression in spite of that moronic idea being unable to withstand the simplest scrutiny.

Calibos · 17-04-2012 5:36pm

You know, I am still waiting for that mythical 'Intelligent' arguement from the man on the street, the intelligensia, theologian, Prime Minister, President or.......Pope!

From top to bottom its the same drivel. One would think the arguements would get more sophisticated as one went up the 'intellectual' ranks so to speak. The only difference between what the rural pastor in hicksville or the Vatican Astronomer with a PHD in Astrophysics says is not the quality of the arguement but the quality of the verbosity of its delivery.

Intelligence(for some), laziness or a lack of intellectual curiousity for others and the ability to mentally compartmentalise for the rest seems to cover everyone. However, nowhere will one find an actual bona fide 'intelligent' arguement even from those that should be well capable of one.

Knasher · 17-04-2012 6:14pm

There is a nice juxtaposition between the response of the scientific community towards the attempts to remove evolution in America and the response of the religious community (or rather the subset of those who object) towards the removal of religious assumptions in the Irish curriculum. Science brings evidence, examines every single objection raised by the anti-science lobby and demonstrates exactly how and why they are flawed, religion just brings barely cogent statements which allude to, but don't actually elaborate upon, some great threat if they aren't given their way.

Turtwig · 17-04-2012 11:59pm

Knasher wrote: »

There is a nice juxtaposition between the response of the scientific community towards the attempts to remove evolution in America and the response of the religious community (or rather the subset of those who object) towards the removal of religious assumptions in the Irish curriculum. Science brings evidence, examines every single objection raised by the anti-science lobby and demonstrates exactly how and why they are flawed, religion just brings barely cogent statements which allude to, but don't actually elaborate upon, some great threat if they aren't given their way.

That's because religion knows that ultimately it's about who shouts the loudest.

joseph brand · 18-04-2012 10:44am

Similarly, either Christ came to save man, died on the cross and rose on the third day, or he was a crazed, before-his-time hippy with a crucifixion complex, who succeeded in duping 20 billion people over 2,000 years.

What's Waters' stance on the duping of billions of muslims, hindus, mormons, etc etc?

To be a Christian is not merely to believe the coming of Christ is the most important event in history, but to have changed one’s sense of history as a linear unfolding to an understanding of a process in which time and space converge on the single moment of the Resurrection.

This is not a fable intended to adorn moralistic homilies about negative equity and ghost estates. It is the most true thing that ever was or will be.

Matthew 27:52
And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose.

Not really a single moment. Definitely 'the most true thing that ever was or ever will be'. Whatever he means there.

Personally I think Waters writes in a similar style of waffle to William Lane Craig. Afraid to write succinctly and clearly. If you feel that 'the game is up', just try to confuse people with your verbosity. Waters prefers to write from behind his thesaurus. Going on his murky writing style, he should be called 'Muddy Waters'.

vibe666 · 18-04-2012 10:56am

i think it's about time Waters had electrodes clamped to his gonads that automatically give him a jolt every time he uses the word 'reality' in the context of a religious fable. maybe with the voltage increasing a bit with each jolt.

Nodin · 18-04-2012 1:27pm

ironingbored wrote: »

The greatest argument against religion in the Irish Education system.

Thanks John!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0413/1224314681378.html#.T41eh7ejMJU.twitter

He seems more fundamentalist as time goes on....with any luck he'll soon renounce things not in the bible, such as motorised transport, electricity and the keyboard.

goose2005 · 18-04-2012 2:21pm

Either words mean something or they don’t. Either God made the world, or He/he did not. There are no other options, and deciding between these two presents a stark choice concerning the meaning of everything. Similarly, either Christ came to save man, died on the cross and rose on the third day, or he was a crazed, before-his-time hippy with a crucifixion complex, who succeeded in duping 20 billion people over 2,000 years.

Sounds close enough.

seeing_ie · 20-04-2012 12:32pm

CiaranMT wrote: »

All I'll say on John Waters is, thank f*ck he's posing nude, writing awful songs, and spouting claptrap, and that he doesn't have a role to play in deciding legislation in this country.

Himself and David Quinn wwwrrrrreck my head.

Don't forget the taking of hallucinogens in graveyards.

Not criticizing though, just curious as to how this practice squares with church doctrine.

Isn't he a member of some quango that does have an input into deciding legislation btw?

eblistic · 20-04-2012 1:54pm

seeing_ie wrote: »

Isn't he a member of some quango that does have an input into deciding legislation btw?

He's on the board of the Broadcasting Authority, somehow.

Galvasean · 20-04-2012 2:12pm

eblistic wrote: »

He's on the board of the Broadcasting Authority, somehow.

Considering the crimes against radio he often commits

recedite · 20-04-2012 2:17pm

seeing_ie wrote: »

Don't forget the taking of hallucinogens in graveyards.

Not criticizing though, just curious as to how this practice squares with church doctrine.

Hallucinogens in the graveyard of a mental institution

Read here; the man is terrified of death. Wasting his life worrying about dying.
Only one kind of organisation offers a way to cheat death; by promising everlasting life. And he grabs at that straw like a drowning man grabbing at anything that might float.

He's entitled to his own delusions, but he makes the age old mistake of thinking he is doing everyone else a favour by forcing these beliefs on society at large.

fitz0 · 08-06-2012 12:09pm

He's back, and in flying form.

Belief in transubstantiation not a matter of yes or no

JOHN WATERS

Shutting out mystery reduces everything to a soup of simple understandings, easily digestible by the greatest number

I WOULD be interested in an opinion poll indicating how many people believe in opinion polls. For example, when Ipsos MRBI conducts a survey on behalf of The Irish Times, how many believe that the views of its sample of 1,000 people are representative of those of the entire population?

One presumes the answer would have to be greater than 50 per cent – to justify the continuance of this objectively anachronistic ritual. What is the basis of this trust? How scientific is it? How rational? What, for that matter, is rationality?

Does “rationality” involve a requirement to understand the processes you claim to believe in or trust? If so, how many people could tell you, off the top of their heads, that the margin of error in any particular aspect of an opinion poll is calculated by multiplying by two the square root of the result obtained when the quantum at issue is multiplied by 100 minus itself and the answer divided by the sample?

Give me transubstantiation any day – much easier on brain, mind and reason. (How many people, by the way, believe the mind and the brain to be separate entities, and what proportion of the population believes reason to be sited in one, the other or both at the same time? And how “reasonable” are these beliefs?)

Seriously: to what extent must certainty and understanding be combined for a belief to qualify as “rational”? Is it enough that other people may be counted upon to understand the theory of something? Or is it necessary that some inscrutable process or ritual be enacted in public for a length of time sufficient to suggest, by virtue of its remaining unchallenged, that it makes unimpeachable sense? Either or both, it seems.

Yet many people who believe in things they do not understand – because, for example, “experts” assure them the theory makes sense – feel free to dismiss as “irrational” or “unscientific” views held on comparable grounds by other people. This seems to suggest that what is termed “rationality” can at least sometimes be merely an ideological posturing on the basis of fashion and cultural consensus, which is not what the dictionary proposes as a definition.

One thing that fascinates me about polls about religious beliefs – such as this week’s Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI – is the ideological smugness that accompanies them. The questions have the appearance of being sincerely posed, but the subtext is invariably rooted in a cynicism that depends for its assurance on a limited perspective and a narrowness of terms. The unstated purpose is always to dramatise the creeping of “enlightenment”. Personally, I would find difficulty discussing transubstantiation with my best friend – not because I have problems with the doctrine but because such matters are impossible to discuss in the language we use for politics, shopping and sex. Is it possible to squeeze such understandings into the 157 words our media use on a daily basis to explain reality and the human condition? What I would say in response to a question about transubstantiation to an Ipsos MRBI pollster, I just don’t know.

It might cross my mind that, if I said I believed that the bread and wine is transformed into the body and blood of Christ during the Consecration, I might be held up an example of someone who (ludicrously) believes in “supernatural” phenomena, whereas if I said that I rejected such a belief, my opinion might be used to bolster a predetermined sociological analysis having something to do with the relative intellectual conditions to be located in fields and streets.

All things considered, I think I might pass. (I wonder what proportion of people, when asked such a question, say that it is not a question to which you can give a yes or no?) Pope Benedict, speaking last year in Berlin, compared the reduction of reason imposed on our cultures to a concrete bunker with no windows, in which mankind affects to have created the conditions for human life.

The bunker shuts out mystery and the greater part of reason. It reduces everything to a soup of simple understandings, easily digestible by the greatest possible number – to be regurgitated in opinion surveys for the consolidation of the status quo. It is the bunker soup that makes opinion polls “work”, rather than any absolute characteristics or understandings of human nature.

This coming week, the 50th International Eucharistic Congress takes place in Dublin, offering an opportunity for Irish Catholics to find their way out of the bunker and glimpse a richer form of reason than one that imposes itself day to day in the man-constructed concrete world.

I recommend in particular the exhibition Through the Eyes of the Apostles: Life Transformed By a Presence, which might enable opinion pollsters to extend the range of their questions. By the way, since scientists do not know how matter originated, what exactly is a non-“supernatural” explanation for the meaning of life?

John Waters speaks at the International Eucharistic Congress on June 12th. On June 15th he appears at the Dalkey Book Festival in conversation with David McWilliams, on his new book, Was it for This?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0608/1224317501929.html

For an article that damns what he sees as the oversimplification of the world by reason, he presents a simplified version of that reason. The irony is lost on him, I would suspect.

Surely if he does believe in the literal truth of transubstantiation he can answer either Yes or No. As far as I know, no explanations were asked for in the survey. I don't know is a dishonest answer, you either believe in it or you lack belief in it.

Penn · 08-06-2012 12:16pm

Give me transubstantiation any day – much easier on brain, mind and reason.

Sarky · 08-06-2012 12:25pm

He must ne a troll. He MUST be. Nobody could be genuinely that f*cking stupid.

Nodin · 08-06-2012 1:58pm

I WOULD be interested in an opinion poll indicating how many people believe in opinion polls. For example, when Ipsos MRBI conducts a survey on behalf of The Irish Times, how many believe that the views of its sample of 1,000 people are representative of those of the entire population?

One presumes the answer would have to be greater than 50 per cent – to justify the continuance of this objectively anachronistic ritual. What is the basis of this trust? How scientific is it? How rational? What, for that matter, is rationality?

Does “rationality” involve a requirement to understand the processes you claim to believe in or trust? If so, how many people could tell you, off the top of their heads, that the margin of error in any particular aspect of an opinion poll is calculated by multiplying by two the square root of the result obtained when the quantum at issue is multiplied by 100 minus itself and the answer divided by the sample?

Like a crappy UFO/Mystery "documentary". 'If up is down and down is up, and real is dream, then there is no reason there can't be a soul eating squid beast in the Poddle"

"objectively anachronistic" - That's a paddlin. With the re-enforced paddler.

Personally, I would find difficulty discussing transubstantiation with my best friend – not because I have problems with the doctrine but because such matters are impossible to discuss in the language we use for politics, shopping and sex. Is it possible to squeeze such understandings into the 157 words our media use on a daily basis to explain reality and the human condition?

Or John, it's just that you're incapable of expressing yourself and communicating a concept.

Nodin · 08-06-2012 2:01pm

Sarky wrote: »

He must ne a troll. He MUST be. Nobody could be genuinely that f*cking stupid.

He has a good job in the Times. His work gets approved and validated by his peers. He is therefore immune to the scrutiny and criticism that would create a more balanced less arrogant view. Bit like Liz Taylor.

Dades · 08-06-2012 2:15pm

So hang on... "reason" keeps us in the bunker, and believing any old unsubstantiated shíte lets us out?

Gotcha. But can I keep my kids in the bunker, please?

Gbear · 08-06-2012 3:29pm

The way he says the word "rationality" as if he knows what it means.:rolleyes:

Whatever about the content of the article, the purpose of communicating is, er, communication. Writing is supposed to be about conveying an idea.

It's like he doesn't understand this principle and thinks it's about finger exercise or trying to confuse people as much as possible.

He's such a gob****e.

Penn · 08-06-2012 3:32pm

Give me transubstantiation any day – much easier on brain, mind and reason.

I'm sorry... I just can't get over this line. It's been making me laugh since I read it.

It's the equivalent of saying "That's the why" when a young child keeps asking questions.

Turtwig · 08-06-2012 3:37pm

Um, seriously got to ask here how much does this guy get paid for this rubbish?

Still Waters No Longer Running, Derp.

Comments