I’m sorry to come off strong and all but as my school we have believers that follow this. I dont mind in what you believe in for all seriousness BUT the pictures, some are a mockery that you are apperntly trying to put on catholics,jews,lutherians,e.t.c. We dont blast on your religion DONT BLAST ON MINE OR OTHERS! You guys want to be taking serious? well then do it proffessional..
-chris
I’m sorry to come off strong
Published by Bobby Henderson December 29th, 2007 in Hate Mail (and concerned criticism). 135 Comments
135 Responses to “I’m sorry to come off strong”
Do it professionally, and use spell check.
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please check the rest of the hatemail section, you will see that you guys ARE blasting us.
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This guy has obviously not noticed all the wicked things being done to pastas around the world, or the disdain the mainstream has for the words of saucy glory.
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“well then do it proffessional..”
This seems to be the case over and over again. People telling us to tighten up, but their mails are very difficult to read, due to all the errors. Ironic.
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wow! what school do you go to? i just want to know so i can be sure not to send my kids there. after all, i want them to learn grammar. get a life!
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Chris, I think you misunderstand. Few of us, if any, are interested in “Blasting On” anyone’s religious beliefs. What is being blasted here is the idea that although Jesus tells us to worship in secret, give alms in secret, pray in secret (Matthew 6), many Christians feel it is their duty to make society conform to their personal ethics. Jesus also said that if you carry the good news to a town, and they will not receive it, to “shake the dust of that town off your feet.” He does not say that you should get a bunch of your guys elected to the school board so you can change the rules to suit your perception of the message of Christ. At the Creation museum in Kentucky there is a sign at the entrance that reads “Don’t think, just Believe.” By Evolution or Creation, you have to admit that we ended up with a large, complex, and exceedingly capable brain. For God’s sake, use it. That’s what we really want.
Daryle
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He’s just upset because our Lord has bigger balls than his.
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Hmm… Perhaps you shouldn’t generalize for ALL Christians. I know several that I work with that are in my face all the time blasting my religion, and actually make fun of my worshiping His noodily goodness. One brought in a weird toy with a plate of spaghetti and some eyes in it. I asked her where his meatballs were, and hung it up at my desk and thanked her for the thoughtful gift. She goes out of her way to send me Christian themed holiday cards that talk about being blessed and whatnot. Yet, when I try to speak of how we should all thank Him for holding us down so we do not float off into space, she will not listen. And that’s just me… what about all the deaths perpetrated in the name of Jesus because they will not convert? Is that not surpassing blasting another’s beliefs? YOU may not, but please, do not do yourself such a disservice by lumping yourself with those that make it their goal to… at least we do not spread His message in a way that is wrapped in hate. For an example of who you are lumping yourself in with, please see: http://www.godhatesfags.com/
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Chris, your concern is noted. While there are some Pastafarians who are vocal in their condemnation of organized religion, particularly Christianity, most of us are quite content to live and let live. We are about “blasting” the ignorance of those who profess the desire to teaching ID in science classes, when ID does not meet the definition of science. If they wish to teach this BELIEF in schools, then it should be done in religion or philosophy courses. You do not condemn us to hell, and I appreciate that. However, I would like to ask you to PLEASE use your spell-check and proper grammar. Your missive would have been much easier to read and understand.
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If you take exception to any images, tell us which ones! A vague, generalized complaint hardly gives any idea of how to adequately respond. The message of this site, if you send the time to really read and try to understand, is to neither mock nor single out for special treatment any belief. Some individuals cross the line from time to time, but if you don’t understand that message I think you need to take more time to get to know us.
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Also, I don’t think you are coming across al that strongLY (adverb needed here!). In fact, titling your post that way almost guarantees it will be a weak, apologetic argument. Open, strong debate is nothing to fear! I realized a long time ago that if my personal beliefs can’t stand a little blast, from time to time, maybe my beliefs are not all that strong. If your faith is true, how can any words or images be a threat to it? But I do also have a preference for respectful debate, and that is one thing I try to contribute here for what it is worth.
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If you do want to come across strongly, post your reasoning and rationale clearly, and no apologies will be needed! And yes, I agree with others that the quality of the writing (grammar, etc.) is a reflection on the quality of the thinking behind any post.
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@kelly
“wow! what school do you go to? i just want to know so i can be sure not to send my kids there. after all, i want them to learn grammar. get a life!”
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Chris did say there are Pastafarians at his school, so maybe the place isn’t so bad, chris just being a very bad representative.
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“Do it proffessional [sic]“?
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Your letter oozes irony to the extent tht i threw up over my breakfast.
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It was pasta, by the way.
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i can’t take someone serious if they say “Taking Seriously”. It is “taken”
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Silly person. The purpose of the FSM is not to offend or mock. His Noodliness, in His infinitely saucy wisdom, merely wants us small meat-based organisms to think about some questions, such as:
If a bunch of people say they believe in something, does that mean others should be forced to teach it?
Is it possible that other people think that your beliefs are as silly and unsubstantiated as you think mine are?
Personally, I like people of other religions, and try to lead by example rather than proselytize. I generally pity non-Pastafarians, as they are going to miss out on all the beer. At any rate, all of us religious types ought to stick together, to battle Big Science and the lies they want us to teach in school.
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Aren’t lutherians people who make violins? Of course the FSM is opposed to violins, he’s a peaceful god.
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Why is it that all hate mail has terrible spelling?
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Chris, dear:
Your beliefs are your own, and I wouldn’t “BLAST” them. I wouldn’t “blast” them, either. I might ask you to defend some element or another, if you bring it up, which shouldn’t seem onerous to anyone in a religion which so reveres martyrs.
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Your spelling, grammar, punctuation, ability to conceive and express a point, however, deserve all the ridicule heaped upon you. Here’s a tip: spend a little more time learning what all the adults in your community are paying taxes for you to learn, and a little less fretting over whether you are being oppressed, and you’ll do fine. Trust me on this.
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Or you can continue contributing to the perception that your particular beliefs are primarily defended by the embarrassingly ignorant, which is a pitiful conversion technique, wouldn’t you say?
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1. Define this “We” that you talk of who aren’t “blasting” our religion because it seems like the comment “You are going to burn in HELL!” is “blasting”…
2. Who cares if it’s professional? Was your Jesus a professional?
3. We are being taken seriously. See the “Polk County decides not to pursue Intelligent Design” article.
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@ chris
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Im sorry to come off strong but “soma people like US AMERICANS dont have maps.” “And I believe that education in South Aafrica and THE IRAQ,…everywhere like such as therfore.” Blah blah blah.
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sincerely, Miss Teen South Carolina
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On a more serious note, if youre going to dabble in the forum of the intelligentsia….DO YOUR HOMEWORK FIRST DUDE !!
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Salutations
Paul M.
Windsor, Ontario
Canada…confirmed Pirate.
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“BUT the pictures, some are a mockery that you are apperntly trying to put on catholics,jews,lutherians,e.t.c.” Come again?
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@ irate Pirate (me)
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What I meant to say was,”U.S.” Americans…….
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Sorry about any ensuing confusion.
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Ramen.
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“I’m sorry to come off strong”
Then take a shower.
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I’m sorry, but I just can’t believe that this isn’t a joke. Are some people really this dumb? No, if this is authentic, I have reevaluating to do.
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Chris,
If you are willing to take a minute or two to type and post a comment on this site take another couple of minutes and click “About”. It will give you great insight to the Pastafarians.
Most usually do not blast religion but blast the posters who are being quite horrible to us. Generally, most hate-mailers come across as a bunch of religious fanatics that cannot spell and quite frankly come across as a bunch of hillbilly retards who cannot read.
So please take the time to get your facts straights about FSM.
Thanks
PS. In the future, copy what you have typed into any word processor and click spell check. Make corrections then paste back in here and submit.
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“Strong?” That was not strong. Poorly expressed and not strong. Please try again
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@rmw
“While there are some Pastafarians who are vocal in their condemnation of organized religion, particularly Christianity, most of us are quite content to live and let live.” – Except for happy clappy TV evangelists. They deserve a spirited mocking…and a Chinese burn.
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flyingspaghettiapostle, just a word in Saucy Love, our God HAS balls, the guy on the stick doesn’t; no point in arguing about this, it’s worse than apples and oranges, it’s Holy Meatballs and nothing.
chris: the only religious people I know that keep their religion to themselves and don’t “BLAST” others are the Jews and the Pastafarians. The rest, Christians, muslims and so many others, can’t have enough of “BLASTING” others. Not to mention, of course, harassing them in all manners imaginable, robbing them, torturing them, raping them, burning them alive, cutting them to pieces and, oh yeah, let’ not forget condemning them to eternal damnation and hell. Go read a little history, then read today’s news and then don’t worry about not “coming off strong”, try not to come off ridiculous.
If you have a reasonable argument, use it, otherwise, don’t embarrass yourself.
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Key word: apperntly [sic]. I assume you mean ‘apparently’ which means your argument has no basis. Sorry.
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Oh hang on. No I’m not.
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St John the Blasphemist
Saint of Alleged Stuff
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@Madd Dogg Charlie Dec 30th, 2007 at 1:09 am: “Aren’t lutherians people who make violins? Of course the FSM is opposed to violins, he’s a peaceful god.”
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Hahahaha! Another example of a too often neglected aspect of Pastafarianism: linguistic creativity. Shouldn’t Bobby mention that in a next (revised and extended) edition of the Gospel?
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It counterbalances nicely the poor language of hatemailers. But we’ll never be sure about those all being genuine…
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You miss the message of his wrathful taste.
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“We dont blast on your religion”? So tell me, what are you and all other hate-mailers doing right now?
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@Little Maru Dec 30th, 2007 at 6:47 am
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t believe that this isn’t a joke. Are some people really this dumb?”
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Yep…’fraid so :( Chris’s mail is mild and articulate compared to some we receive!
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Maybe he should read the hate mail section, and see that a lot of catholics DO blast us.
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It’s funny that the only thing he is opposed to is our pictures. All of our art is based purely on facts. And isn’t the fact that you posted this blasted us? Just sayin’.
RAMEN
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@Madd Dogg Charlie
“Aren’t lutherians people who make violins? Of course the FSM is opposed to violins, he’s a peaceful god.”
Very well said! RAmen.
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Why must we fight? We are all children of the flying spaghetti monster and he loves us all. Let us bask in his saucy goodness and rejoice.
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come on people,
as an atheist, just about everyone in my school hates me,
they’re freakin intolerable, even when I tolerate their Christianity.
But the second we create a religion (that is not more absurd than any other, mind you) the Christians get pissed at us.
Don’t they even understand it’s just a joke?
They take this “threat” against their “lord and savior” too seriously
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What kind of bullshit school do you go to? (no offence)
In my school, nobody gives a shit about who beleives in what.
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“Come off a little strong”? It takes more than CAPSLOCK to faze us. No death threats or anything? Come ON… You should have done this piece of hatemail “proffesional”.
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Take it easy! God doesn’t like the pictures anyways cuz he thinks he looks fat in them
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@RAmen Dec 31st, 2007 at 8:09 pm
“Don’t they even understand it’s just a joke?”
A joke!?!?
Why you Heathen..you!! ;)
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Hi there Everyone,
I see some of you are still around. I recognize Dutchpastaguy, Jean Bart, Wench Nikkiee, my friend Alchemist, and of course Bobby. I was here around last Feburary and wrote some stuff on having an objective morality as an atheist and having good reasons to be moral. After reading it, someone suggested that it needed more depth, a longer article or maybe even a book.
We’ll I’ve started it, but it hasn’t gone as fast as I would like. Part of the reason is that I really don’t have anyone to share it with and so that decreases my motivation. But lately I’ve had another spurt, and so I would like to suggest, humbly, that if anyone is interested such a thing that you look at what I have so far. It would be a great favor to me, but it might also be interesting to you, maybe.
I think I’m about half way done, but I could sure use some constructive criticism. It’s on the website attached to my name.
Hi Alchemist. How you been?
P.S. My Email is billtomlinson@mac.com
The article can be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA/
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I thought we were “doing it professional” and “being taken serious.”
Maybe it’s a hoax! GHASPE!
…
I doubt it, though. The Gospel says otherwise.
RAmen.
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@bill t
Welcome back, good to see you post again! I will read your article. As it is lengthy even in its unfinished form it may take a while.
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@DutchPastaGuy
Thanks that would be great. Wow, good to see you. Why did this place get moderated. There must have been some nasty stuff going around, huh? Did it have to do with some of those scary posts?
My girlfriend is off rafting the Colorado river for the next 19 days, so I have more of a chance of making some progress on my article. Kind of quiet around here.
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Hi bill – good to hear from you – hope you had a nice holiday and Santa brought you your every desire? The miserable sod forgot to send me the Brazilian women’s Beach Volleyball squad – again!
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Likewise for me – I’ll definitely give it a read too.
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Ah, the moderation :D Yes, that’s caused a few grumbles from some of the oldies – myself included. It kills the spontaneity and random daftness that really defined this site.
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Bobby was talking about having moderated/unmoderated versions of the threads, not sure what’s happened to that.
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All the best for 2008 everyone.
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That reply went missing again. Retry.
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Hi bill – good to hear from you – hope you had a nice holiday and Santa brought you your every desire? The miserable sod forgot to send me the Brazilian women’s Beach Volleyball squad – again!
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Likewise for me – I’ll definitely give it a read too.
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Ah, the moderation :D Yes, that’s caused a few grumbles from some of the oldies – myself included. It kills the spontaneity and random daftness that really defined this site.
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Bobby was talking about having moderated/unmoderated versions of the threads, not sure what’s happened to that.
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All the best for 2008 everyone.
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Hi Alchemist,
Moderation certainly does slow down the flow. I remember times when I would just here for a minute or two waiting for the next response to the last response, so that I could immediately respond. I guess this forces people to get a life outside of CoFSM. Is that a good thing?
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@bill
I quickly skimmed through ‘The Moral Atheist’ and one point that I think you missed (perhaps you didn’t and I didn’t see it so my appologies if that is the case) is the old ‘Is X good solely because God says so or does God say that X is good because it actually IS good?’ delemma. If X is only good because God says so than morallity is quite arbitrary in that God is only good because he says he is and if he said that murder was good than it would suddenly be ok to go about killing people. In this case religious folk seem to be in as much trouble as athiests. However, if God says that things are good because they ARE good, then morallity is not arbitrary and is independant of God. This makes it just as accessible to athiests as theists. The only difference is that theists have a celestial parent telling them which things are right and wrong while atheists will have to make use of reason to work out which things are right and wrong. I just thought you might like to address this in your work as I think it is a quite compelling argument for why theists are not morally priveledged.
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I thoroughly enjoyed “The Moral Athiest” and I think it is such a great read. I hope that you indeed finish it one day and I will support you by purchasing it to hope to pass on to others. It is a book I think everybody should read, no matter what religion you are from.
RAmen to you! The noodly one has blessed you with this creativity of writing!
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@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
Yes you are right that argument has to be presented at some point. I was thinking of using it later, but now I see that it should go in early on, maybe where I refer to the reasons that those who are religious for believing that an atheist cannot have an objective morality. But here’s the main problem I see with your argument. You say
” if God says that things are good because they ARE good, then morallity is not arbitrary and is independant of God. This makes it just as accessible to athiests as theists. ”
The theist could then say yes, god says of those good things that they are good because they are good but, that doesn’t necessarily make it accessible to atheists because only god, for some reason, can see what is truly good. They would have to claim that reason isn’t enough to discover the truth about good and bad. But then I suppose we could respond with “what is the reason that only god could see the good, and that reason isn’t enough?” putting the burden back upon the theist, for there doesn’t seem to be any apriori reason to believe that seeing what is good directly should only be accessible to god. But minimally the theist has to admit that if there is right and wrong, then it is independent of god. I believe most educated theists buy that argument.
Your argument, might provide a reason to suggest that principle #3, “following God’s law, is really redundant” for the theist. But that would mean, I suppose, that in justifying an action the theist wouldn’t just be able to say “just because god said it was right”
Excuse the rambling. It helps to write this out for me to try to get clear on it. You’re right, this is important, and I should figure out how to present it and see what it means to my ideas. Thanks
@Eric
Thanks for looking at it. You think it’s a good read, but sometimes I feel like it might not be organized enough to flow smoothly. Like I’m rambling, like above. I’m thinking of adding more titled sections to each chapter to counter that feel. What do you think about those thoughts?
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@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
Thinking some more about the issue. Suppose god is a utilitarian, basically wants to maximize the good in the world, and because he knows everything, he’s done a calculation in complexity theory that shows that if man tries not to eat beans on thursdays, that in the long run things work out a little better. It would be impossible for man to figure this out because it involves highly complex calculations and man is part of the system he’s calculating within.
So god, says “try not to eat beans on Thursdays” (he’s already calculated the effect of his own action of saying that).
Anyway, it would seem that the theist could argue that God knows specific rights and wrongs that we don’t because it involves long term consequence. Just a thought.
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Yeah DO IT PROFESSIONAL… start like all other non eastern religions and kill a few million people, followed by a thousand years of murder, persecution, and raping small boys… for Christ sake do it RIGHT!. I mean the ONLY thing I see you are doing correctly with FSM is making some money off of it.
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@ Bill
Having more organization won’t hurt you at all (unless each section has 1 sentence. Lol). I agree it could come off as a ramble, but thats the kind of writing it is really (to me). Its like a lecture you would receive at a university. Morality 101.
I noticed two typos, (you put goggle instead of google) but that is easily erased with proper editing and revisions.
One way that I’ve learned to make writing more powerful is to get rid of the first person articles, no I’s and my’s. That could be one way to lose some of the “ramble” feel from it.
Its a great idea and I hope to see it finished some day soon. The title might dissuade some people from buying it, thinking it might be another xtian hatred book, but no need to worry about that too much. I think its a great title for its purposes.
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@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
I took and hour walk thinking about your idea and how to fit it in. Man, this is exactly the right idea at exactly the right time. It fits perfectly into the next chapter on what it means to follow God’s law. It also helps incredibly in an argument I now am going to make on why we shouldn’t believe important moral things on faith. Thanks so much. I should have a first draft of chapter 8 written by tomorrow. You’re going to like it. Let me know your real name so I can give you some credit in my article/book/whatever.
The Moral Atheist: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
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“You guys want to be taking serious? well then do it proffessional..”
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This just kills me.
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okay, you don’t bash my religion
but other Christians do (of course, my real religion is atheism)
so I think I’ll just bash the religion of all the people that bash mine
oh wait, you share that religion, don’t you?
So, you share religions with them, you share religious bashing with them.
Not my fault,
I’m just not gonna take it from the other people who bash mine
catch what I’m saying?
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Man, what lag! It’s really not the forum that it was with this moderation thing. I guess the moderator sleeps. After a good 16 hours he should be refreshed enough to deal with a few hours work.
This was such a great place. I’m just wondering what the reason was to introduce a monitor. When I left here there were strange death threats or maybe that was a time I checked in later, I don’t precisely remember. Is that the reason.
Gosh, this was a great place. I guess I shouldn’t try to hold on to the past.
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Hi, Everybody…I just sent Bobby a nagging email asking why the moderating is necessary. (I must admit that I haven’t been on-site and reading for quite awhile…when school’s in session, my playtime on the computer is at a premium.) Was there really ugly stuff going on?
Hope everyone, ESPECIALLY WONDERFUL BOBBY WHO WILL ALWAYS BE DEAR TO ME AND WHO HAS A PRETTY FUNNY CHRISTMAS GIFT WAITING HERE FOR WHENEVER HE TIRES OF THAILAND, has a great 2008!
Martha
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@Bill
I see your point in that the theist could claim that we require God to let us know what is Good and Evil, but I don’t think this is what most are trying to say when they question the ability of atheists to be moral. Usually they seem to be saying that God is the base of morality and that without some god up in the sky there is no reason why one action should be good and another bad. For example I have heard many Christians say that Muslims are immoral (and vice versa) but I have yet to hear any claim that Muslims have NO GROUNDS for being moral. Theists seem to be saying of atheists, not that their moral structures are FLAWED (as the structures of other theists might be), but that without any god the atheist would have NO BASE for a moral structure. This is the idea that seems to prevail amongst theists who claim that atheists must be amoral and is the primary target of the Is-It-Good-Just-Because-God-Says-So argument.
Now a theist could claim, as you suggested, that only God can have direct knowledge of what is Good and Evil, but I don’t think this helps out much since for any given deity there is huge debate over what He/She says constitutes Good and Evil. For example, say you are a Christian and you want to know if killing your girlfriend is wrong so you consult the Bible. People come up with answers ranging from ‘Not ever’ to ‘Yes, if she is having an affair’ to ‘You are morally obligated to if she is Wiccan’. If imperfect reasoning is a barrier between atheists and morality it seems to be at least equally so for theists.
As for the possibility that God may be utilitarian, I don’t think this would help the theist for several reasons, not least of which is that it can easily be argued that the atheism of at least some individuals has led to increased utility. If then atheism is, in some cases, leading to increased utility, then atheism in those cases is (according to the arbitrary standard of Goodness) the morally correct choice; an uncomfortable stance for many theists. Another problem here is that while human beings may get the calculations wrong (how could we know that beans on a Thursday could lead to such disasterous consequences), we are still engaging with Morality when we try to make these calculations and are still moral people so long as we are TRYING to increase utility. I may inadvertently decrease utility by saving a mean person’s life, but if I was just trying to do good and was not aware how nasty the person was you would not say that I was acting immorally when I saved them.
So yeah, it is not a perfect argument but it certainly does cut off some lines of argument for those who would claim that atheists cannot be moral. I hope you have fun with it and with the rest of your writings!
Ramen
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@Eric
I’m going to look through it for “I”s and “My” and imagine changes and see what that does. What was the other typo or misspelling? I guess being a teacher would account for the textbook feel maybe. I was thinking that ‘ramble’ doesn’t describe it as well as ’stream of consciousness’.
I hadn’t though of the title as threatening, because I though of it as defensive. I’m merely trying to argue that it is possible for an atheist to be moral not that ‘all non-atheists are not moral’, but as you say even if it does seem threatening, I got to keep it. :-)
Thanks for your comments
@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
I see what you are saying. I have two parts to be argued against. That the atheist has no base for a moral structure and that even if he had a base there would be no good reason to be good. You are right that the first is easily dealt with and maybe I should have done that early on. Still, it is fitting nicely into the next chapter so I think I’m going to leave it there.
And I see your point that we could still be good people because of our intentions even though the results may not be that great. The theist could then argue, that if we are good people and there is a mechanism known to assure that our good intentions turn into good results, then ignoring that mechanism, would be irresponsible, and thus we would not be good people. But of course we have to have reason to believe that that mechanism really works. The theist may however claim that the mechanism is KNOWN” through faith.
From the theist’s point of view we may be well intended enough, and thus good people in the intentional sense, but not good people in the sense of doing things that make a better world. But as you suggest, the theist has a problem with knowing which God and which rules to follow, but they rarely acknowledge that, claiming that “faith” is sufficient justification, a rather peculiar contradiction, and to point out the contradiction is rarely helpful in the argument. Arguing with educated theists is a different enterprise presenting arguments to the average person. I think I’m trying to do a persuasive job with the latter. I think I’ll have chapter 8 up later today, pacific US time.
@Ramen
“Catch what I’m saying?” That you like presenting your arguments in sarcastic mode? I’m like that sometimes. :-)
I have no problems with people bashing atheism, if they bash it with good reasons. My claim is that there are no good reasons to bash atheism and I’m prepared to defend that position. However we may find some good reasons to bash some religions. We will see. It will primarily hang on the reasons, and being rational people we can assess the arguments in the open and let the chips fall where they may.
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@Everyone
Moving right along. I finished chapter 8 faster than I thought. It’s up now.
http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
Another thing I wanted to emphasize is that your argument is a good reason why a theist should believe in an objective morality but doesn’t address why an atheist should. I try to offer an argument for that also.
@ Eric
“I hope to see it finished some day soon.”
I’m on a roll now. I hope to have a first draft done before my girlfriend comes home in 18 days, with you guy’s help of course. :-)
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The typo I found earlier was an “are” instead of an “our.”
In the beginning of the 8th chapter it says: “we may which” but I think you intended “we may wish”.
In the sixth paragraph of the 8th chapter, it says: “Thus God would know, for instance, whether not ” and I think it should be “whether or not.”
I really liked this newest chapter because I am in the middle of an ongoing argument with my brother on how religion is “good” because it gives “stupid people” morals. I argue that Religion is a weapon usable by the masses to get their means done that we can seriously do without and that we can find morals without looking to the “ten commandments.” The 8th chapter is starting to culminate all of the previous ideas into one.
I can’t wait for the next chapters. Good luck!
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hey jackass go read the pages of hate mail
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“I’m sorry to come off strong…”
Actually you come across as week and feeble.
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“…but as my school…”
Hold on! Are you saying you are your own school? Is that a metaphor for something, like ‘my body is a temple’? Do you encourage underage kids to enter you? What the fuck are you talking about?
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“…we have believers that follow this.”
What FSM? Well good for them.
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“I don’t mind in what you believe in for all seriousness…”
Sorry you lost me. Seriousness has nothing to do with us!
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… BUT the pictures, some are a mockery that you are apparently trying to put on catholics, jews, lutherians, e.t.c.”
We don’t need to mock those religions. They do it themselves, we just point it out.
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“We don’t blast on your religion…”
Yes you do!
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“DON’T BLAST ON MINE OR OTHERS!”
Just try and stop me!
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“You guys want to be taking serious?”
I doubt most of us care.
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“well then do it proffessional..”
Well we would, but the idea of putting the fear of our god into small children doesn’t appeal to us. Nor does killing non believers. That’s just the crazy sorts we are.
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@Eric
Thanks Eric
I really appreciate your help and your encouragement. I hope to have another chapter done today, but we will see. Off to make those changes now. Thanks again
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@Eric and Captain NoBeard Scallywag and anyone else interested.
Well, again, I am cooking. Chapter 9 is up and I welcome criticism. I hope you find them as important as I do. I know there is a sense in which these thoughts are not truly profound and that everyone really knows this stuff after thinking about it, but the more I think about it the more obvious it seems.
I’ve seen strong hints of my proposal in everything from advice columns to movies. I just thought it might be nice to make it very explicit.
Be kind and respectful. It’s everywhere.
Anyway,
The Moral Atheist: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
Ramen
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@billtomlinson Jan 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 pm: “…
The Moral Atheist: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
Ramen”
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Bill, could you PUHLEESE change that background of yours in something more eye-friendly, like flat-out light grey? That relief makes the letters dance and hide, or else it’s my eyes…
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@Jean Bart and others.
Jean sent me an email suggesting that my background on the site made the doc hard to read. I responded by putting up another version. http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA2 . In the future I will also include a downloadable MS word version.
Thanks for taking a look.
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@Bill
I am fairly new to the site, but have been having a great time here. I agree that the moderation is putting a damper on things.
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I have just begun reading your book, and so far I am finding it excellent. Since you are looking for editing help, I have a few comments.
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I agree that the title might be a little off-putting. I think much of your target audience is made up of theists on the brink of discarding theism. Since most theists have it drilled into their head from a young age that “atheism” is a scary and evil thing, your title might stop them from picking up your book in the first place. I would suggest changing to a title that might appeal to that audience. I, alas, don’t know what that title should be, but I am thinking someone here can come up with just the thing. “Chicken Soup for the Questioning Soul” or “Morality for Dummies” would have serious copyright issues, but it would be nice to find something equally catchy.
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Secondly, I think that “I” and “my” references are entirely appropriate in your introduction, since you are talking about your purpose in writing the book. But then not in the rest of the text.
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And last, I see an awkward wording at the end of the introduction: “I care about the quality of life for humanity. I believe religion, especially religion based upon an afterlife, is a serious threat to this caring.” I don’t think that the religion of others threatens your “caring”, I think it threatens the “quality of life”. So you may want to reword this.
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I’ll keep reading more when I get a chance. I love the idea of asking for editing help here. If I ever get around to writing my book, I’ll have to use this same idea.
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RAmen
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@Bill
I see where you think that this stuff might seem “obvious” but it would only come obvious to those who have actually sat down to think about these things. I was not as enlightened into thought like previous chapters but it did bring up good arguments, such as “why do people do good things?” Questions like these can be assessed although there is no one right answer.
I liked your idea of what “good” is. I think if more people thought “I wonder how I would feel if this was done to me?” then there could be a lot nicer people out there. I was introduced to this as a child with the “golden rule.”
Keep up the insightful writing!
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@Ubi Dubium
Hey there! Thanks for the help. When Eric told me about my mistake with “are” and “our” I went back and did a search on “are” to find it. I didn’t, but I found so many bad sentences that I fixed. I don’t want to go back now and re read it carefully and edit it, because that will take away some of my energy of getting my ideas down, but I do appreciate others finding problems for me. Thanks for that “quality of life” find. I’ll see what I can do with it.
I have another sentence I was trying to rework but didn’t find any good way to do it. First sentence in chapter 2 “One of the reasons that the theist’s argument that an atheist cannot be moral has appeal is because to be be moral is at least about following rules of behavior……” Too many “that”s
Sorry for all the typos guys and all the awkward sentences, but thanks for the help.
@Eric
I agree that the “golden rule” is a good tool for giving children a sense of morality and why it is important. It does have some technical problems, but probably not for the child. If you like a particular thing like peanuts and wish others would share them with you, does that mean you should share your peanuts with others? Some are allergic. So to clarify the rule would require some thoughts about ‘kinds of behavior’, or otherwise the sexual masochist is going to be treating people badly by treating them the way he would like to be treated. I don’t see how to clean it up, but as you say it is a good starting tool. Surprisingly, it came from the bible.
Speaking of the bible. I was wondering if there might have been a mistranslation over time. It is said that you should love your neighbor as yourself. This seems way too strong. It’s really not possible to love all your neighbors. Some of them make it difficult by their very nature. Besides it takes away the specialness of love. Maybe what was really meant was “Respect your neighbor as yourself” That would fit well with my proposal. Just a side thought.
Thanks again Eric for looking at my stuff.
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@Ubi Dubium
P.S. You’re right. It’s not a threat to the act of caring itself. All of a sudden I don’t really like that whole paragraph. I’ll see what I can do.
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Hi everyone, and especially Eric and Ubi Dubium and possibly Captain NoBeard Scallywag and Jean Bart.
Chapter 10 is Up. As usual, I welcome criticism. I believe I can benefit from that, even if I don’t like it. I hope you find it interesting. Let me know, please.
It is now all back on one page with no weird background.
http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
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Hello again, to Eric, Ubi Dubium, Captain NoBeard Scallywag, Jean Bart and all others who are possibly interested.
I just finished chapter 11 and hope you guys and gals have a chance to read some of it.
I’m happy with the way it’s going and looking forward to your comments. I think it’s going to end up about 90 pages. If I use large type, I could make it look like a book. :-)
Maybe I need more pictures, you know like pictures of God, Buddha (takes up a lot of room), Mohammed. That would make it popular, I’m sure.
The Moral Atheist: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
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@bill tomlinson Jan 7th, 2008 at 1:06 am: “…Maybe I need more pictures, you know like pictures of God, Buddha (takes up a lot of room), Mohammed. That would make it popular, I’m sure.”
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You’ll never get the Jews nor the Muslim to give you pictures of their god, I’m afraid. But since it sin’t exactly a deities’ catalog you’re writing, that wouldn’t be much of an issue. Hindu Gods are very decorative, and the multple armed take up a lot of space too, especially when they hold something in each hand:
http://www.sanatansociety.org/hindu_gods_and_goddesses.htm
Since they come in various avatars, your book could become quite voluminous!
Roman and Greek gods are space-taking too, but they didn’t make it into our era in colour. Could make the book more classy, of course, since they’re more related to art, whereas the Hindu gods have a tiny bitsy kitschy side (outside India, that is: the Hindus themselves aren’t bothered by that aspect).
Front cover: a classy merge (morph) between a Greek (or Roman) and a Hindu god!
Back cover: an African god. Not to state that Africans are lesser than others, but to frighten the reader who closes the book after reading!
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Always to be found for typed nonsense, I say
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RAmen!
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I finished reading it last night and I thought that this chapter was very though provoking, for me at least. I started creating scenarios thinking to myself whether truth is relative.
Well you can of course publish a book with the size font that you want but I wouldn’t go over size 18 but I’m not sure.
You can put pictures, that would work to fill up some space. I’m having trouble thinking of more filler-options. Lol. But the book of course does not have to be the size of the bible for any kind of relevance or factuality. Hey, with less pages it might cost less to print. Lol
I wish I could have some constructive criticism but I’m at a loss at this moment. Keep up the good work, Bill!
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@Jean Bart
I was really joking about the picture of Mohammed, since that brought about a stir a while back, I thought I could be a little shocking. That cover idea is kind of fun though. We’d have to have a picture of FSM someplace too. :-)
Might be fun to have a book with pictures of all the gods of all religions, all that would allow it, that is. But I bet it’s been done (I say before I go to the internet and check)
@ Eric
Thanks again for the encouragement. I do need it a bit. It keeps me going to see that someone cares. You could think in terms of comments like ’such and such’ was unclear or needs to be expanded. This could be helpful.
I looked back at the earlier chapters this morning and they aren’t as bad as I thought I’d remember them to be. In all honesty, I don’t believe a small book is a bad idea. Most books, in my opinion, are too long. They usually could have said everything that they needed to say in about 2 chapters, but maybe that’s just my taste.
@Everyone interested.
I just finished chapter 12 and it’s up. My posts get buried sometimes here because the moderator seems to do mine first, probably because I live in U.S. time zone. So please check back here every day or two. I will continue to post at least every other day.
cya
The Moral Atheist: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
billtomlinson@mac.com
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yeah come on you know the religion ‘rules’ – youve got to do it ‘professionally’ like all the other religions. didnt you do the ‘how to express yourself and your religion professionally’ course? how can you expect people to believe your ideas about faith and the afterlife if you dont wear a suit and carry a briefcase?
(PS. im actually christian, and yes everything above is written with extreme sarcasm)
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“…BUT the pictures, some are a mockery…”
Uh, those pictures in which geebuz has been replaced with the FSM aren’t snapshots of actual events.
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Hey man we certainly dont get crazy about others believing what they believe, so why should you?
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Hi Everyone,
I’ve got chapter 13 and half of chapter 14 up in my book ‘the moral atheist’ i try to argue, defensively, that being moral and being an atheist are compatible notions. I think I have some things to say here. I’ve taught philosophy for 32 years and with the tools of philosophy I have tried to sort out the important issues for myself. I think there some things of general interest here. I speak to you because last February, you people and our conversations were what inspired me to expand on my idea that an atheist or even a Pastafarian can still be a good person and I have reason to believe you guys could be interested and more than that, be critical enough to give me some help, which i probably need.
Some here have been encouraging, especially Eric. I think it’s an important notion and if you would like to see my progress so far go to http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA The TMA stands for ‘The Moral Atheist’ the title of my book. Some think it is a bad title for the audience it is aimed at, those trying to change from thesis to atheist or pastafarian, but I have a hard time dumping it because it seems to me to be a grabber title.
Thanks to Eric and others for your support. If you would like to send comments to me, send to
billtomlinson@mac.com
P.S. I update this doc almost every day. Check in if you find it interesting
billtomlinson@mac.com
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@ bill tomlinson – just started reading it, as I’ve got a bit of a quiet lunchbreak today. I don’t want to comment on each little bit as I go because I’d rather consider the document as a whole, but what I’ve read so far seems nicely thought-provoking. Well done on the concept and on actually managing to get it written out. However, returning to the editing/formatting comments made above, I did just notice one awkward phrase in paragraph 12 of chapter 1 – “If the followers can keep from considering the uncertainty of his choice” – either follower/his or followers/their would be better. It may also be worth in these early stages numbering paragraphs to enable you to easily identify issues raised, although this would be best removed by publication stage to make it sit better on a page. Please excuse my jumping in with these points as a first response – both very minor and don’t impact on the overall document – but you did appear to be soliciting comments variously from the assorted throng on editing matters as well as content.
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Just to add further editorial comments – in chapter 3, in your section on major ethical theories, part 1 of your own theory would be more consistent if you used considerately, rather than considerate. More generally in Chapter 3, personally I’d like to see further expansion on the 3 main theories you’ve identified. There’s enough there to provide a steer for someone to follow up in further reading, but you cannot assume that all of your readers have a familiarity with philosophical principles and ethical systems. At the moment you’ve given enough detail to form a jumping off point for future, but I’m not necessarily sure there’s enough in the text for someone new to the arguments to follow your own case at the time of reading it, without trying to look up stuff as they go. If you’re envisaging e-publication, or maintaining it online long term, now might be the time to consider hyperlinks if you would prefer to keep your own comments brief.
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And I think the our/are reference that someone else picked up on above but you then couldn’t locate at the time could be in paragraph 19 of chapter 4, where you have writen “relecting on are weaknesses”. Again, small point, but worth correcting when you have time. Hate to have it look like I’m only bringing up negatives, because I’m enjoying what I’ve read so far but I had a job a few years back where I was doing some pretty detailed proof-reading/editing and it trained me up to notice this kind of thing. For what it’s worth, 3 really minor points in 5 chapters is actually a pretty low rate and this cetrainly isn’t meant to be critical.
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Hey Jennyanydots,
Thanks for the comments. This is great. I’ll go back and change that stuff now. In terms of publishing, I think would like to go the regular route first. It would be nice if this could reach a wider audience. The online thing now is just because I wanted to get some feedback and use the fact that people might be reading it now as a motivator for me to continue at a good pace.
I’ll see if I can find an easy way to number my paragraphs. As I sincerely suggested I don’t mind criticism. I don’t think my sentences are as well constructed as they could be, so I welcome that. I wouldn’t welcome a criticism that suggested everything was all wrong. Not because I can’t believe it, but because it would drain my energies right now and I need to get down the first draft. If some part of it seems wrong, I would like to hear about that. Thanks again. Back to work. I should have chapter 14 up by 4 PM eastern US time today 1/10/2008
I’ve taken Eric’s criticism and tried to minimize the use of ‘I’ and ‘me’, except when there is no other way to say it. I’ve started to sometimes use “us” and “we” referring to me and the reader. It seems to capture the right mood. Sometimes upon rereading I’ve found it reads like the ‘royal’ “we” and I definitely don’t want that. Too pompous. So if you see any of those, please let me know. But another thing: try not to “work” on it in a way that feels like work. But if anything jumps out at you, I’d definitely like to hear about it.
cya later and thanks
The Moral Atheist:Http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
billtomlinson@mac.com
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P.S.
I’m not that happy with use ‘he’ all the time to refer to the general person, but ‘he or she’ seems bulky and ‘they’ seems to not in agreement with subject, as in the statement ‘If a person is good, then they will go to heaven’. I’ve see some books that alternate between ‘he’ and ’she’ and for me that seems distracting. It’s as if I’m scanning the work to find the next occurrence of ‘he’ or ’she’ to see if the patter stays.
Anyway, any thoughts?
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Oops,
Please excuse all the words left out. I guess I am too impatient to check for my mistakes.
:-)
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hey Chris… don’t worry, I’ll be taking serious, and I promise to do it professional !……. muh ha hahahahaahaha HA HAHA HAAAH! Go back to your rad school and learn some grammar !
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Glad to be of help, Bill. I’m certainly not treating it as work – it’s much more enjoyable to read than the documents I was paid to do a few years back! A friend of mine is just completing the first draft of a novel and I’m probably going to provide the same level of detail to him too pretty soon, once he’s passed me a copy, so it’s good to get back into practice on something that isn’t 90,000 words first!
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OK, just finished reading chapter 6, and picked up a few more errors, all of the easily-done-when-typing-but-not-recognised-by-spell-checkers-as-wrong type. Again, not major issues, and believe me, I’m as guilty as anyone of doing this but it’s always harder to spot them in your own work. Not major issues, but can detract from ease of reading if left in.
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In paragraph 2 – “They terms seem to form”
Paragraph 6 of the section headed ‘Experience is the foundation of value’ – “These seems to me”.
In the section on ‘Acting kindly and being kind’ – “The intended consequent results in an action” – perhaps either consequence or of an action, depending on which was you meant that to be understood.
And a couple of points for the section on ‘Judging the kindness of others: In paragraph 1 you’ve got “maybe the best advise” – should be advice – and “in this way be can become better people”. Paragraph 3, I think the word “though” has escaped to before “emphasis”, rather than after (currently reads “this should not get too great an though emphasis”). In paragraph 4 you’ve got another our/are (”we our the primary caretaker”). Finally, paragraph 5 “is the ultimate goal and kindness and caring” doesn’t seem quite right – either something needs to complete the sentence, or it’s the goal towards, or of, or for, or something. In this para, you also need to switch insure to ensure in both instances.
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On stylistic grounds it might be worth excising the word ‘kind’ in its meaning of sort or type from your vocabulary for the duration of writing this – I did pick up on “another kind of knowledge needed to be kind” in the section titled ‘Knowledge and the wise person’ which could get a bit clunky if repeated too often.
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Having got the minor negatives out of the way, I’m certainly not saying the whole thing is completely wrong. I’m really enjoying reading it, and finding it very helpful as a way of clarifying some of the ideas and thoughts I’ve half stumbled through in my own mind over the years without articulating. It’s good to get the opportunity to read something thought-provoking like this at an early stage and see how the ideas evolve in the writing.
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@Jennyanydots
Thanks again. I actually found that problem with ‘kind’ a few times but was not being all the time. I’ve got to fix that, you are right.
Thanks for the other remarks also. I’m going to go back in fill out the standard theories a bit after I finish. I’m thinking four more days until the first draft is complete. It shouldn’t be too hard to clean it up, I hope. In the later chapters you can expect to find a greater percentage of problems, I think. I wanted to get the ideas down as fast as I could.
By the way, my earlier remark about leaving words out is about a post I made that somehow is still waiting to be moderated. If it gets posted, you’ll know what that was about. This moderation makes things a little weird. I guess Aristotle was wrong when he said ‘everything in moderation’ :-)
Chapter 15 is up and there are 4 chapters projected after that.
Thanks again. This is really helpful.
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@Jennyanydots
You may wish to download the latest, to keep from going crazy with the ‘kind’s. they’ve been replaced
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@Jennyanydots
P.S. You may not want to read anything past chapter 11 until I go through and clean it up. There seem to be a lot of bad sentences in a superficial scanning. I’ll try to fix some of it up tomorrow. cya
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“We dont blast on your religion DONT BLAST ON MINE OR OTHERS!”
You might not, but I tend to get several hundreds of messages telling me to convert to Christianity or burn in hell a year.
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Only getting short time breaks to read in anyway, so suspect you’ll have no difficulty going through the bits after chapter 11 that you wanted to play with before I get there. Notes below on the editorial stuff for chapter 7, and looking forward to the next bit tomorrow lunchtime.
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‘Human Rights’, para 1– “The class of class of concepts”. Also, para 2 – the way it’s formulated could be read as meaning either that torture is such a flagrant lack of respect that it shouldn’t be used on animals, or that the right not to be tortured is not applicable to animals. I know which meaning I’m assuming you to have but it might be a good idea to rework this for optimum clarity.
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‘How much knowledge is needed etc’ – para 1 – “as we did” might be a better construct than “like we did”. Para 4 – “that have been” rather than “that have be”.
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‘Minimal levels of respect deserved’ – para 4 – too, rather than to in the sentence beginning “I’m not to embarrassed”. Para 7 – “Feeling, learning, reflecting, choosing life forms.” – I’d suggest this isn’t a full sentence capable of standing alone, and should perhaps be preceded by a colon and joined to the sentence before.
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Hope these help. Best of luck with your last sections
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Hey Jennyanydots
Are you still finding it interesting? Do there seem to be any boring chapters? Im going to start from 8 today to start cleaning. I don’t remember when I stopped rereading carefully.
That ‘class of class of concepts’ looks like some sort of replace for the word ‘kind’. I replace kind with ‘type’, ’sort’ and ‘class’ depending upon what looked best in the context.
Thanks Jenny. I hope to clean a lot today. I’m in L.A. Where are you? I was wondering what our time lag is.
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P.S. Since you are probably proofing chapter 8 today, I’m starting on chapter 9. I’m sorry if 8 is real bad.
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@ anyone who is interested.
9-11 are cleaned up as best as I could. I had some help with a program on my computer that speaks text. I could highlight a paragraph and have it read it out loud. It helped a lot to read it and hear it at the same time.
The Moral Atheist: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
billtomlinson@mac.com
cya
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None of it is boring, and I’m very much enjoying reading it. Based in the UK, so of course we’ve got a double time lag whereby I post at a sensible time for me here, then it gets through moderation at a sensible time for the Prophet, then you pick it up at a sensible time for you, going through three separate time-zones in the process! Just read over chapter 8, and comments pasted below. Sorry this is quite a long post, and I hope it doesn’t look like nit-picking.
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Para 1 – could be helpful to put in something here that clarifies what you mean by the term “null set”. I feel like this is a term that hasn’t come up before and whilst I can make assumptions for the purpose of reading it, I have no way of knowing if my understanding is correct. I’d also suggest that where you’ve written “Because he doesn’t believe in a God” this shouldn’t be capitalised – it’s essentially querying the overall existence of gods, rather than referring to laws passed by one particular deity, and it then brings your writing more into internal consistency (e.g. in Para 3, where you refer to ‘no god’ but God’s law’)
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Para 2 – should be aN intellectual dilemma.
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Para 3 – “buy”, rather than “by”.
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Para 7 (NB – I have included your two principles as separate paragraphs here for ease of counting them) – much as I personally try to avoid capitalising this as a matter of principle, I suspect you might need to write “He (or She)” in order to make it absolutely clear in the sentence structure that you’re referring to ‘God’ rather than ‘the theist’, or rewrite it to avoid having 2 separate subjects of the sentence.
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Para 8 – “on Friday” rather than “of Friday”.
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Para 10 – possibly “computer which” rather than “who”.
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Para 12 – can’t think of a quick fix on this one, but you might want to look more closely at “a human being being evil”.
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Para 14 – perhaps “although it has in the past” might sit easier there to avoid repeating “but” twice in quick succession.
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Para 17 – “faith does not rationally entail by which God is the correct one” – not sure about the word ‘by’.
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Para 19 – “if”, rather than “it” in the phrase “for if he really needs this rule”.
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Para 20 – atheists plural. Also, I’m assuming that the suggestion of anger management courses is made somewhat tongue-in-cheek, based on the rest of your style, but can foresee your good theist reader taking this as an internal justification for disregarding the reasons behind this indignation.
Summary, Para 1 – perhaps either “independent of God”, “not dependent on God”, or simply “God-independent” rather than “God independent”.
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Para 2 – Is morality the object/our object, or is it objective? I’d also suggest perhaps show, rather than see.
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By the way – just to give you an idea of times – unless the board time attached to my message is utterly random and changed noodly with each message posted, I’m 3 1/2 hours earlier than the site is (i.e. that says 4.30 and I make it 1. Future comments on next sections will be sent by me at a similar time of day.
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one of the reasons this site was to show how idiotic any religion is
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@ Jennyanydots
A fairly clean version is now up. I’ve checked all the chapters from 8 on. They should be pretty good, but it’s like programming. There is always one more bug. I’m going to think a bit about style as I re-read it again.
cya
Hope things are going well for you.
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Not being taken seriously is the best part. We’re great at parties. But if we were taken seriously, I’d bet we’d get some kind of benefits (tax breaks for buying merchandise?)
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Things are going pretty well, thanks – hope it’s the same for you, and you’re not getting too frustrated with all the suggested changes I keep throwing out. Downloaded the most recent updates to read the next sections. OK, first thing is that I’m really enjoying this, and it does show in comparison with the previous chapter that you’ve gone over these ones in a lot of detail after writing down the initial ideas. No disrespect to the earlier one – I know it was a first draft – but these are a lot more polished. Hope the comments below are useful.
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Chapter 9
Para 4 – “we consider the question. Why should we do the right thing?” – should maybe form a single sentence, separated by : rather than .
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Para 8 – “we can think of ourselves and good people” – should say “as”.
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Para 9 – there, not their.
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Para 12 – “we must to be this sort of person” – the to is unnecessary. Also, “even if in fact”, rather than it.
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Para 13 – “Consider this etc” – isn’t currently phrased as a question, despite the ?. Plus I think the last sentence there should either read “a teacher by example” without the comma, or “a teacher, for example”.
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Para 20 – “might be have”?
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Chapter 10
Para 1 – the first sentence is quite long – I’d suggest either breaking it into two, or adding slightly more punctuation to make it flow better – if you try reading it aloud with only the single brief pause indicated by the current punctuation, you’re pretty certain to end up blue.
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Para 7 – “The probability we assign”, not “assigns”.
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Para 9 – “than you care” rather than “that”.
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Para 10 – “and would could be very boring” – which?
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Para 19 – “probable”, rather than “probably”.
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Para 24 – “in such a way”, not “it”.
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@Jennyanydots
You found a lot of stuff I didn’t find. If you are nit picking then it’s because those nits needed to be picked. Thanks
Throughout I refer to “the theory herein” a lot. What do you think of the idea of giving it a name? The objective morality, or the objective ethic. TOM or TOE.
Unfortunately TOE has been used in philosophy of science as referring to the Theory of Everything. Do you think acronyms are off putting?
Thanks again. After what you saw in this chapter, I no longer believe that the rest is as clean as I thought. We will see.
I had an idea for another chapter the other day but forgot what it was. Darn!
cya, thanks again for the help. Keep your eye out for boring chapters.
P.S. Your chapter 8 suggestions have been taken into consideration in the latest update.
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P.S.
I tried numbering the paragraphs in word but some of the formatting made it harder to read, especially when it came to bullit lists. Sorry
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@Jennyanydots
No frustration here at all. I actually look forward to your comments. I’m really excited about this. I think it could be an important book and I want it to be written as well as possible. I know I have a tendency to be too wordy. I’m going to look at that in next read. I also need to think about rearranging the insides of sentences, putting clauses at the beginning of a sentence instead of middle or end.
I have no consistent use of single and double quotes and need a system there.
If I say
He asked the question: “What is the meaning to life?”
does the questionmark go on the inside as I did here or on the outside of the quotation mark?
I’m at school now, the semester will start next week. I only teach one class one day a week this semester, so I’m still going to be putting in my major effort on the book. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do today, but I’ll incorporate your suggestions and at least those changes will be made today 1/17/08 by 5 pm. I believe thats 2 or 3 am on the 18th your time.
Thanks, thanks, and thanks again.
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@Jennyanydots
I don’t see how I can continue to miss these stupid mistakes, nor how given that, you can find them so easily. It’s strange. But I will try to forgive myself.
:-)
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Going to go read 11 in a few minutes, but thought I should maybe respond to the questions you’ve come up with here first. Personally, I don’t have a problem with acronyms, if they’re made clear – I work in a field that’s littered with them, and have a laminated sheet taped to my desk so I can keep track (might want to ask around to see how many people think they shouldn’t be used under any circumstances). I think it does make sense to give the theory a consistent name, but don’t just name it once then expect people to notice when you slip into the acronym without any fanfare after that. Give it a paragraph to itself where you say why you have called it that and attach the acronym to the backgraound wording at a very early stage so that it stands out and no-one can miss it and have to go back. Nothing more frustrating than suddenly realising someone has used an acronym term that you can only track down by looking back through the last few pages for any phrase that might invlove that combination of letters. I’d try to keep acronyms to a minimum – use a couple, consistantly throughout, but if you find that there’s more than half a dozen you want to use at different stages of the document you probably want to write most of them out in full.
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As for wordiness – you may have noticed I have a tendancy towards that myself. Also to rather over-use commmas and write very long sentences. On quote marks, use double for something that is being said, or of you’re quoting a reference, but single for titles of articles or books. Also use single quote marks within a fuller quote e.g. X has said “we need to be asking ourselves ‘what is the meaning to life?’” If the punctuation is part of the quote, it goes within, usually the case for most questions, unless you’re continuing the quoted phrase with a point of your own in which case you would maybe stick a comma after the quote mark (if that makes sense grammatically in the sentence, otherwise leave it out), add what you want to to the sentence or question, then put the ? after the full thing.
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Partly, it’s always easier to pick up on this in someone else’s work than your own. If you’ve written it, your brain glosses over what it really sees (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor) in favour of what it expects to to be there. Have you ever seen the message that occasionally does the rounds where every word is mis-spelt – the first and last letters are in the right place but everything else is shuffled, and you can still read it? It’s also partly that I hasd a decade of training in being generally observant through archaeology, then ended up spending a year carrying out incredibly detailed document checking – my first week I was given a guide to correct grammatical usage to read, and was expected to identify details like there being an extra space between 2 words, or they’d used affect instead of effect – that kind of thing. Think the height of intellectual stimulation was a half hour discussion over whether a phrase required a hyphen or not (and they wondered why I didn’t want the job on a permanent basis). I was reading absolute gibberish most of the time, but I did end up with some useful skills in pedantry which means I’ll pull out stuff not all of your readers will spot, but once they spot something, even if they don’t notice everything there’ll be a slight jarring each time they do get one. Nothing to forgive yourself for though – I can’t do this in my own documents, and tend to notice the typos just after I press send. One of my personal favourites was writing in a particularly important document that was going to our director that someone would “come in all gnus blazing”!
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OK, got there in between work-type stuff – sorry if this has caused delay in you picking up my comments today, but suspect they’d probably still take a bit of time to get through the moderation. Really enjoyed this chapter, and I apologise for the length of these comments – I think it’s been the longest chapter so far, so there was bound to be more scope for me to pick things up even after you’d checked it yourself. Again though, just compare this with the comments I made on chapter 8 and you’ll see that the comments are much less frequent in comparison with the number of paragraphs, just there’s a lot more bits to comment on. Hope you have a good weekend, and best of luck in thinking of the missing chapter again.
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‘Moral relativism as a case of relative truth’ –
Para 2 – might want to check this with a scientist but I have a feeling theory of relativity should be capitalised. Possibly also invariant theory under the same principle.
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Para 5 – “on the defensive”? Alternatively, I want to suggest that defense itself should be spelt with a c – it certainly is here, but I’m not sure if that’s one of the words spelt differently in America.
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Para 7 – “We’ll what does it mean” – either the apostrophe decided to set up home here independently or there’s a word missing. Also “correspondence”.
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Para 8 – shift the comma after “consider” two words further on. Also, “people in those realities people” – either drop the second “people”, or drop “people in” and add an apostrophe to the end of realities.
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Para 10 – “Also what is justified may BE relative”. Plus, I appreciate it’s particularly pedantic, but there’s no space between “were,” and “then”. Possibly “concepts OF belief etc”.
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Para 11 – Stand in/stand-in rather than a single word.
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Para 12 – check the quote marks – you’ve got a few instances here where you’ve opened it with one symbol and closed it with the other.
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‘Moral Truth’
Para 1 – you don’t need the comma after “we all have”.
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Para 5 – in general, single sentence paragraphs should only be used for real emphasis of a single, short point. It might be worth splitting this up a little bit more to make it clearer.
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Para 6 – might be better to be consistent in use of ‘one’ and ‘we’ in this para, especially the last sentence. Also “will” not “with not be against the flow of traffic”. Only other comment for the rest of this section is basically “wow”.
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‘Societies that are fundamentally different’
Para 1 – “the types of things THAT are right there”. Also, “if theIR fundamental definitions”.
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Para 2 – “strange”, not “stranges”.
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Para 4 – “this is not be enough” – no be needed.
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‘Kindness, respectfulness as universal’
Para 2 – “it’s hard to me imagine” – not sure if you just want to omit the “me” entirely or make it “for me to”.
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Hi Jennyannydots
‘Defense’ is american and ‘defence’ is british, according to dictionary.com
plus as I write this, my mac wants me to correct the spelling of the latter, being a US mac
Again, I cannot thank you enough.
Peter Klaver did not buy my argument in chapter 3, which I believe is essential. I see his point. Also, if he didn’t buy it, there will be others. So I reworked it a bit, coming back to my starting place that I had forgotten was my starting place. I think it’s a better chapter now. Take a look if you’d like
I’m glad you liked chapter 11. I have done a lot of thinking about the issues involved in this chapter. It is an important chapter basically because if you can believe in relative truth, you can isolate yourself against anyone who disagrees with you.
Thanks for the ‘wow’. I looked at it again, and I believe I see what you mean. These are strong and important arguments here. I’m glad you are reading this for content and not merely for my syntactical difficulties.
I was sort of kidding about ‘forgiving myself’ for my many mistakes here. I don’t really have that much ego to defend. Anyone who is as courteous as you can shoot me down with both barrels and I will not respond as hurt.
Here is something interesting, given the context of the rest. You say ‘apologise’. That’s another english/american difference in spelling like the earlier one you found. Funny. We use a ‘z’
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Hi Bill – followed the suggestion to go back to the earlier chapters that had had a major re-write. I like the reworking you’ve done, although going back over it did mean I spotted a couple of typos in the introduction I’d missed! Definitely welcome the increased detail on the theories in chapter 3, as I think it makes it much clearer to the lay reader. I agree this seems like a better chapter now. Both chapters are now much more thought-provoking, and I found myself re-reading particularly choice bits to savour the ideas represented in them. OK, I also found some ridiculously minor points to mention, but got a great deal out of the chapters overall. On the spelling differences, most words where you’ve used a z we would put s instead – I’ve been very conscious of having to keep reminding myself that they are right in the context of your work where I had to mark them for changing last time I was doing this sort of thing!
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Introduction, paragraph 9 – vulcanology, rather than volcanology, and para 10 – you missed a letter in “religious” – “particular religous positions”.
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Chapter 2 – para 1 – reasons doesn’t need a ‘.
Para 7 – unclear what you mean by “they are natural required”. Also, “they are worthY of praise”.
In general, this now seems clearer.
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Chapter 3 – para 1 – second comma should go after theory!
Para 4 – the word version is suggesting there should be a footnote tied to the end of this paragraph, but it doesn’t appear on the web version.
‘Major Ethical Theories’ – para 2 – “a” or “the” moral value, not “an”.
Para 7 – embarrassingly minor point to be picking up, but you missed the . off the end of the para. Yes, I really do spot this kind of thing when I’m reading something in full detail and I agree it’s rather pedantic.
‘The Theory’ – para 1 – “hear borrow” = “here borrowed”?
Para 17 – you don’t need the . after the ?’
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Hope these help a bit, and I’ll look forward to getting on to the next section.
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“We dont blast on your religion”
Um…yes. You do. You and your ilk rail constantly against anyone who is even the slightest bit different. I stand against you because you oppress everyone around you.
Mockery of stupid ideas (including the concept of a god that exists) is one of the best tools we have. If you don’t want to be ridiculed, don’t hold ridiculous beliefs.
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Oops – another one I missed last time – Chapter 5, para 3 of ‘The Moral Dilemma’ – “one side” rather than “oneside”. Decided to continue from the early chapters rather than jump ahead to make it easier to follow the train of your argument throughout, as you’ve redrafted so much to improve the clarity.
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Chapter 6 – ‘Experience is the foundation of value’ – para 4 – “as of intrinsically valuable” – either remove the of, or use “intrinsic value” instead.
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OK, reading a solid block like this, once they’ve had some editing, really does show the coherence of the theory so far. Overall, the first 11 chapters have raised some very important issues and I think it’s very well expressed. I know you’ve touched earlier on the generic style, particularly with reference to use of I/he/we/you/one – I’d agree that what you’ve got is quite informal, and there is, as someone earlier suggested, a resemblance to the style of a lecture, but I actually think that that’s an appropriate style for the type of work this is. The personal touch, and the analogies you’ve drawn, combine to make it a personal essay, rather than a text book, but I’m not convinced that ‘text book’ is the best way to convey these ideas and theories. By formalising the style too much, your arguments would lose a lot of their immediacy. My interpretation of this work is that, as well as to set out your theory, your aims are to make people think in more depth about their own attitudes, and to identify the reasons behind their personal ethical code. The style you’ve currently got in there is likely to be more effective at this than something dryer and more conventionally academic, not to mention making it more attractive to a non-specialist reader.
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@Jennyanydots
Thanks for looking at chapter 3 again.
It slows down my process of putting the latest version on the web to put in the footnotes. I’d have to do each one manually every time I updated. I guess this is just me being lazy again. :-)
Thanks again. Let me know if you lose interest. I lost Eric after chapter 11, maybe from boredom.
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@jennyanydots
I wanted to extra thank you for your encouragement. I sometimes question whether this is as important as I originally thought it might be. The thesis does not seem all that radical nor should it be very controversial. So why does it need to be said? But if it’s not that radical, why haven’t many people given up the idea that non-theists cannot be moral?
I’ve been talking to Peter, and he rightly pointed out that all of my arguments equally defend the agnostic. Sure. I just couldn’t name the book “The Moral Agnostic or Atheist”, but I have added a paragraph to it in recognition of his point.
I was checking out the field of publishers and got quickly overwhelmed. I’ve decided to go with the idea of an agent. I sent out 33 one page query letters today. I believe I am likely to get a response from most within the next two months. All of them seem to charge 15%. I don’t care about that part, I just would like to promoted it as best as possible.
If that doesn’t work out I’ve found a self publishing group called e-booktime.com that would make sure the book was available at Amazon, Borders and Barnes and Noble, but I wouldn’t have the advantage of someone working to promote it. I’ll try to also find out who e-booktime competes with before I decide who to go with.
It’s still a short book, only 98 pages, but I thought I could fill out about 100 more pages of a children’s book with lots of pictures on “Why God doesn’t exist.” Just kidding, I think. hehe
Anyway, thanks for your support. I need it sometimes.
Let me know if you want me to send you a copy of the query letter.
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….But its fun. And you know 4 a fact u bad mouth pastafarians to your friends. Its just ppls natural reaction to something they dont understand. so….. idk. get over it. the pics are funny.
peace love and pirates
RAmen
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@bill tomlinson
Hello Mr Tomlinson…do you still drive the technicolour dream car?
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@ Bill Tomlinson
I am a regular visitor of these pages but it was only recently that I noticed your book, which I read with great interest. Congratulations for your work.
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There are however some points that, in my humble opinion, need some clarification. The main one is when you present the theory (chapter 3): numbers one and two are OK but I would feel that number three should read “follow society’s rules”, not God’s law. I will try to explain why. Imagine two young persons, just a couple of months underage, who have sex in a most respectfull and caring way. This does not go against any of your three principles and yet it may be considered wrong because it breaks society’s rules.
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God’s laws are supposed to be eternal, contrary to society’s rules, which change over time. Today I believe that nobody would claim that a man caught picking wood on the sabbath should be stoned to death as we are told God’s law said (say?). Owning slaves and holy wars are other examples of what was once considered “right” and is now considered “wrong”, at least in our society. One could perhaps pretend that God’s laws had not changed, just our interpretation of such laws but then that is what I called society’s rules.
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This is linked with my second point, which is about moral relativism (chapter 11). I can see your point and, to a certain extent agree with you, in particular when you say that moral or ethics cannot depend on the individual. I would say however that moral or ethics (and also truth, by the way) do depend in a ceratin measure of the time and place. Therefore, persons in different situations may indeed have different concepts of “good”. I am not at all convinced by your language argument about “zzyzx”.
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Enough for now. If you are interested in further discussion let me know and I will e-mail you directly.
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Keep on the good work
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@Felix
My car is a little more 60s now. I went nuts the last time I painted it and it is now without rhyme or pattern. I’ll try to get a picture up for you, but it’s under a pile of snow now. :-)
@perna de pau
I’d like to pursue your idea that something is wrong because it doesn’t follow societies rules.
Take your example, the underage kids. Suppose you were arguing with someone who claimed it was wrong. Do you think their best defense that it is wrong would be because it is against the rules? Wouldn’t it then be appropriate to ask them if the rules were good ones or bad ones? If they claimed that that was irrelevant, I believe most would dismiss their argument.
There is no reason to follow a rule just because it is a rule, but only if it is a good rule to have. To me it seems that someone who follows a rule only because it is ‘a rule’ is merely a coward. I don’t believe most people would stop their defense with ‘just because it is a rule of our society’.
Anyway, something to think about. Thanks for your comments. I may be able to use this.
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@perna de pau
With respect to your relativism objection. Notice that you are saying that people may indeed have different concepts of “good”. But if they are different concepts, why are we using the same word to refer to different concepts. If they are really different concepts, give them different labels. See what I mean?
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OK, moving on now to look at the next unread bit, starting from chapter 12.
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Para 1 – “in are own ways”
Para 3 – “which OF our negative character traits”
Para 5 – “what are moral weaknesses are”
Para 10 – “if WE knew this was true of us”
Para 13 – “what are vices actually are”
Para 15 – “a person might make a commitment to oneself” – him or herself might be better here, to keep the link with “a person”, rather than saying “one might”, which I think would sound too much like the ‘royal we’ here. Also – “consequent” or “consequence(s)”? From your phrasing, I realise it could be a term that’s used to have a precise, technical meaning but I’ve never come across it in that context before – to me it seems more like a synonym for ‘resultant’ and feels as though there should be a word after it. Just ignore me if you know it is technically right.
Para 16 – stylistic point, but I was always taught you shouldn’t start a sentence with “but” – you can maybe get away with it occasionally for emphasis, but twice in a 4-sentence para could be over-doing it a bit.
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@ bill tomlinson:
On right and wrong: rules are, of course, not invented without a reason (at least they should not be). If they are there it is because it was felt that they were “good”. But my point was just that society’ rules seemed to make more sense than God’s laws. There is no reason why one should not also discuss whether God’s laws are right or wrong or to follow them just because they are God’s laws.
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It is interesting to note that the argument “because it is a rule of our society” does not seem convincing, as you say and I agree, while the argument “because it is God’s law” has been accepted by many for thousands of years. Anyway I very much doubt that if you are caught speeding by the police you manage to escape by discussing whether the rule (speed limit) is good or bad.
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On relativism I see what you mean but I still do not agree. People do have different perceptions of what is nice, beautiful, tasty or indeed good. This does not mean that there is no general agreement (it is not because I do not like it that a book, a film or a law is not good). My point was not to pretend that ethics are subjective but that ethics evolve over time and are therefore not absolutely objective.
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@Perna de Pau
On your first point. The reason I prefer the reference to ‘God’s law’ is precisely because it is inappropriate within religious tradition to ask if God’s laws’ are right or wrong. Instead, the religious are more likely to say ‘because God says so’. This carries more weight than ‘because society says so’ because everyone knows that societies change what they say.
I can’t imagine a reasonable defending the ‘rightness’ of an action by saying ‘because society says its right.
But if you think that it is always appropriate to ask ‘are society’s rules right?’ or ‘are god’s rules right?’ then that suggests that they not are part of the meaning of ‘right’, at least not the fundamental meaning.
On relativism, just because different people find different things tasty, doesn’t mean that the concept of ‘tasty’ cannot be objectively defined. If it could not be then you would not be communicating anything to me by saying such and such is tasty. The thing about defining ‘tasty’ is you have to do it by referring to a person. There is no such thing as ‘tasty’ without ‘tasty to who’.
Sometimes I think the difficulty of explaining this has more to do with many not having a formal understanding of what a definition is supposed to be.
Are you sure it’s ethics that evolves over time or is it instead our concept of ethics that evolves over time? I would suggest the latter. That as time goes by we get clearer understandings of what is right and what is wrong. Not only is slavery not right, it was never right.
Another consideration. If what is right is what is kind and respectful, are you suggesting that will change?
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@Jennyanydots
Thanks again. I just haven’t found a way to stop starting with ‘but’ in many cases. I suppose you’ve noticed that I have a lot of them. You are right though 2 ‘but’s close don’t make good reading. I fixed it.
But, hehe, you may have also noticed that I never begin a sentence with an “and”. And I never will.
:-)
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Been out for a few days and not had chance to read the next bit, but just thought I’d weigh in here on Perna de Pau’s suggestion. When I first read it, I felt very uncomfortable with the suggestion that God’s law was one of the three main requirements for morality, as it seemed to jar with the whole suggestion of the document explaining why atheists can be moral. I agree that once you reach that chapter and explain that it isn’t actually needed at all in the theory it makes sense – you couldn’t have that argument without first setting it up as part of the theory to look at closer but you do have to read quite a bit of this text before you get to a clear explanation as to why you put it in there. As a compromise, might it be worth setting something in place when you first refer to this list to clarify why it’s in there.
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Got through the next couple of chapters so I’ll leave you something to occupy your time over the weekend! Have a good one.
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Chapter 13
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Para 1 – “can be reduced it to the other two” – no “it”.
Para 4 – “is that it WOULD be able”.
Para 5 – insert punctuation of your choice after “possibilities”.
Para 10 – “This is what is aT stake”.
Para 12 – “In particular when the question comes up ‘…’” – re-ordering this would make it a better sentence. Try moving “comes up” to after the quote (and the ?) and see if you prefer the way that reads, otherwise it would be worth rewriting it more comprehensively. Also, “by asking ourselves ‘…” – you open the quote but don’t close it again.
Para 13 – I’m not convinced the opening sentence is as clear as it could be here – it might be worth checking it over to see if you can reword it to make it utterly transparent. The overall theme is understandable (assuming I understood it right, anyway), but I did have to read it very carefully.
Para 14 – you might want to put a “will” in here too (before “still be interpreted”).
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Chapter 14
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Para 1 – think “the” may not be needed before the title, unless it’s actually part of the title, in which case it should be formatted to match. Also, you either need to replace the “by” with a comma, or put a comma after the name and then say “HE introduces”.
After your suggested truth no. 7 (taking this as para 4, but wanted to make sure I identified it clearly as such so you can tie in any later comments to the right place) it should be “jump out at us”, rather than “we”.
Possibly a few too many instances of starting with “But” again in the rest of this section – you might want to consider them each in turn and see if you can rework any of these to bring it down again. I’d also suggest looking in particular at para 11 to think about clarity of that first sentence. I’d also be interested to see you expand on the parts of our mind affected by religion – is 7 a generally agreed figure, or a number you came up with? In either case, I’d recommending explaining why you say this, and preferably indicate what those bits are, or give somebody a reference to the medical or psychological studies to follow up on this. It’s an interesting concept that I think needs more explanation.
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‘Are we alone’ – Para 1 – “paying attention to are aloneness” – should be “our”. Also, being picky again, you’ve got a random space in between the end of the sentence and the .
‘Does life have no obvious meaning’ – para 2 – “feelings… don’t” or “feeling… doesn’t”.
Para 4 – either “by Peter Ward”, or “I read Peter Ward’s…” would be better better phrasing. Then “life may BE common”.
‘Are we ultimately responsible for our life’ – Para 3 – you need another word, perhaps “became”, before “totally responsible” at the end of this para.
Para 4 – not sure about the phrasing for “why this freedom…” I think the reader has to make too much of a leap in figuring out what you want to say, which opens it up to misinterpretation.
‘Is nothing certain?’ – para 2 – “he IS not being a good person”.
Para 3 – It’s been a long time since I did statistics, but something doesn’t seem to ring true on the probability thing. Can you find a mathematician able to clarify this – it seems to me that, unless you put a time frame in, the probability must be equal – either the car is there, or it is not. Is probability the right word here, or is chance more apt? I’m waffling here, because I really can’t recall how this is supposed to work but I’d advise checking it out with someone who does understand it.
‘No justice, no significance’ – para 2 – “insignificant”, rather than “insignificance”. Also “seem”, not “see”, and you might want to look again at “they should not have added here”.
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@Jennyanydots
I did attempt to explain what is going on with ‘God’s law’ when I said the following:
The first thing that may stand out here is that this theory is supposed to define right action for everyone, even (and maybe especially) the atheist. So what is rule #3 doing here? We’ll, we should keep in mind that this is meant to be a semantical theory of what right action is, which is to say that the proposed is intended to answer the question “What is conveyed when a person makes a claim involving ‘right action’?” I believe we can trace any such claim to one or more of these three principles.
This is really key in understanding the nature of my proposal. So if it is not clear here, I need to say it another way, or maybe add a few more paragraphs to clarify.
What do you think?
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@Jennyanydots
Thanks again Jennyany,
The three additional ‘existence pains’ are mine. I don’t have much psychological backup for them, but present them because they seem to have philosophical content and do seem to be things that people commonly wrestle with. I have made a few more notes on them in the latest version, which I will put up now.
With respect to probability, I forgot to mention that I have a bachelors in Mathematics. I also teach ‘Inductive logic’ sometimes where I present probability theory and statistics. The principle you’re referring to is called ‘the principle of indifference’, that if we have no reason to believe that one alternative is more or less likely than another then we assign them equal probability. But it doesn’t apply to my car in the driveway because I do have reason to believe it is more likely there than not. I parked it there. I have only twice in my life found that a car of my has changed it’s location without my knowledge. I suppose then my probability estimate should be closer to 99% than 95%.
I didn’t mean to throw an argument from authority at you. I just wanted to assure you that I do understand probability concepts quite well.
Note that if we used the same logic with the sun rising tomorrow, you would say it either will or won’t, 50%, 50% but because probability is involved in rational decision making, the 50%-50% estimate would not make it rational to plan very far ahead. If each day had that probability, then the probability of making it through the month would be about 1 chance in a billion, 931 chances in a trillion to be more precise.
Oops, i just realized that ‘billion’ in Europe has a different meaning. In England it means a million millions, but in the US it is merely a thousand millions. I don’t know how trillion works there, maybe a million billions.
Having said that, thanks a billion. :-)
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@jennyanydots
Is the book getting boring or too long?
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@jennyanydots
I’ve found one agent that might be interested. He’s requested a copy of the manuscript. I want to give you a bit of credit for helping me with this. Email me as to what title you would like.
billtomlinson@mac.com
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‘We dont blast on your religion’
have you actually read the rest of this hate mail section?
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when you say that you don’t “Blast” on our religion, you do, just read the other comments on the Hate mail. 90% of them are people screaming about burning in hell for eternity.
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I beg to differ. Read the hate-mail section of this site. Christians bash us all the time. I’m simply here to defend His Noodliness. And I believe you did just bash us right there.
Here’s to hoping His Noodly Appendage touches you,
-GM
RAmen
If you have any questions about, or just want to discuss the existence of the FSM, you can reach me at kanastag@comcast.net
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