Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why do meaningless threads go on the longest?.....

Hey, I know that one!

Did you read Evangeline as well? Maybe we were in the same high school English class. We had copies of it that were old enough that we found the nams of some of the class members' parents in them. Also included were comments such as, "In case of flood, stand on this book. It is very dry," and "In case of fire, throw this book in."

With a filt daker, the dorny stilberts cavishly revorted the pelthious hampol.

I don't remember reading Evangeline, but there's a lot from literature classes I don't remember.

How about Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?

Nope, missed that one. Mrs. Mefferd (to her credit and with my thanks) did drag us through a lot, though, including Bobby Burns. "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie." (Insert snickers.)

Very good, I had to Google that one. I'm not much on sci fi but always meant to read The Hitchhikers Guide. What brought the Vorgons to mind, news reports of our now fated Super Committee?

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Kinda sounds like the Campfire, doesn't it?

No, more like society in general since the beginning of civilization.

Good verse.

Kierkegaard makes sense to me.....

"What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action.
The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.
I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing."
-Soren Kierkegaard

Whoa! That nonsense verse theme suddenly took an ominous turn.

Or maybe not if you're not into old-time existentialism.

Eat bertha's mussells.

Al,

That's a good quote too!

Lady Lythely

Step softly now and loft the mop
To knock the tassled tumblys off
Or rub upon the ruffled rim
And flick the fluff all off again

Dust the rust encrusted bust
Her shape shows off her means
And proves the age old adage
The end justifies the jeans

- 2006

Relativist to the bone. Your country was not founded on such principles (Canada, unfortunately may have). Truth must come from an external source. What would you say if I told you that everything you thought was good was actually evil and vice versa? To attempt to prove me wrong using truth from within would be useless.

As another example: what's true for {him} is that to be fulfulled in life, {he/she} must strap this bomb to his chest and go blow up that train.

Why is the above example wrong? It's not if you believe Kirkirgaard's load of crap.

You guys think you know "meaningless", eh?

Well, I want you to know I had about 3 hours of interaction with the Veteran Administration today. Beat that if you can....

We're not generally that sophisticated. There are exceptions, but you gotta remember the Sniper Rifle thread right? Whiskey, Wimmen and bad lies, that's us.

+1

UncleJesse,

What we have here is a failure to comprehend.

I did NOT say that I agreed with the Kierkegaard quote (though to a certain extent I do), I just said it was a good quote--meaning that it's a useful quote from a noted philosopher.

There is always a conflict between the individual and society as a whole. Apparently you haven't read enough of the conflict between the founding fathers before the Constitution was hammered out. They did NOT all sit down and write out the Constitution in one totally agreeable sitting.

In fact they had widely varying opinions: Some believed that freedom of speech was dangerous, and others believed the same of the right to bear arms, the reason those two amendments are the first in the Bill of Rights. Including both was a compromise among intelligent people about what is important to a free society. They all had come to somewhat different conclusions about the balance between the individual and any government, partly through observing what had and had not worked throughout human history.

Similarly, Kiegkegaard never suggested that anything anybody thinks is "right" is right--though some humans do come to that conclusion. Instead he was stating another version of the eternal conflict between the individual and society. It may not agree with your version of that conflict, but he never suggested that blowing up a train (or anything similar) was "right."

"Under suitable conditions an egg becomes a chicken. And there are no chickens born of stones."

John, you nailed it. Anything taken to it's extreme can get pretty herky. Kierkegaard's conflicts with his own line of thinking is apparent with another quote from him:

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."

My all time favorite quote on existentialism comes from comedian Stephen Wright:

"I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it." - Steven Wright

Good shootin'. -Al