Thursday, December 17, 2009

We get email: reason can't be trusted

Hello there.

Did you consider that reaosn and evolution are concepts in crisis since the developement of modern semantics? I think Chomsky explains it better in his conference about biolinguistics. But the destruction of positivsm is something that happened in the late XIX century. Evolution and reason are no longer concepts to be trusted anymore. I was wondering if you read the work of post structuralists like Derrida or Lyotard, even Heidegger in the early XX century let that statement cristal clear. But the real doubt was... you are concient of all this I'm saying and you choose not to brought it up in the show cause believers are three steps behind it, or you actually don't know it :S

Thanks for reading!


Dear *****,

Thank you for pointing out that reason does not matter. After reading your letter, I have concluded that you are, in fact, an imaginary platypus named Phil. As such, I have decided to let my talking anthropomorphic ceiling tile answer your letter for me. Please let me know when you hear from him.

Sincerely,
Russell Glasser
The Atheist Experience

23 comments:

  1. Well that was about as coherent as gibberish. There were sentences and English words but I could not detect anything meaningful. I guess we are all too primitive to comprehend the truth when it is so clearly presented and right before our eyes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A lot of names thrown there for the sake of making an argument out of nothing, and I am being generous. I doubt he understands much, of anything, of the works of those intellectuals he mentions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well at least he didn't try to use reason to establish that reason can't be trusted. That would have made him look like some kind of idiot!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wanda: "But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?"
    Otto: "Apes don't read philosophy."
    Wanda: "Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it!"

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds like my women's and gender studies courses. They were fun, and they did have some excellent things to say, but the postmodernist and post-structuralism epistemological theories missed the boat on a number of things I think

    ReplyDelete
  6. Foucault, Derrida et alia have a lot to answer for.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @Derrick:

    That is a great xkcd, but I think this one is also pretty relevant.

    "Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're not understood is not cleverness."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good thing EEA got to you first, Russel. I think I love you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Was that a philosophy mad-lib?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi. I think I just a got a message from your ceiling tile.

    ReplyDelete
  11. nice cultural ref there Russ... Interestingly enough that movie was the first time I'd heard of Nietszche (another reason it is just awesome)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Reminder chumpish a hadaway boob cadging superannuated cuticle?

    ReplyDelete
  13. I think the original writer got a little crazy with the thesaurus button in word.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I think Ing said it best. Really.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nice answer Kazim. Nothing more to be said on an email like that. Very funny though!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Clearly, the writer is an intersection between Thor's, Zeus's and Spongebob's farts.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Interesting that your correspondent should mention Chomsky alongside Derrida and Lyotard in the same email. Here is what Chomsky thinks of post-modernism:

    http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

    I strongly recommend reading this, it is hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  18. "I think Ing said it best. Really."

    Parasyncemuffin *nods sagely*

    ReplyDelete
  19. I don't think PoMo will ever recover from the stake Alan Sokal drove through it's heart.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

    You can keep Chomsky. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  20. It looks to me as though there was a sudden and precipitous IQ drop in this post after "early XX century". And, of course, reason and evolution are inextricably linked; the fate of one must decide the fate of the other.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Yes, sincerity77, Chomsky roll his eyes a bit at postmodernism. He also spoke about it a bit at the web address below, it is one of my favorite essays of all time.


    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1995----02.htm

    ReplyDelete
  22. hey kazim... you just called that poor guy **** thats sooo low!

    Now seriously... I mean... " I think Chomsky explains it better in his conference about biolinguistics."

    **** you don't understand it... then you don't fuking bring it up!

    Have a nice day.

    ReplyDelete

PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.

This blog encourages believers who disagree with us to comment. However, anonymous comments are disallowed to weed out cowardly flamers who hide behind anonymity. Commenters will only be banned when they've demonstrated they're nothing more than trolls whose behavior is intentionally offensive to the blog's readership.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.