sophistry Q It is dangerous sophistry to contend (see relativity) that spiritualism (and other "isms" like mysticism, deism, organizedreligionism, paganism, astrology, neuroeroticism, blather, icq or other forms of pseudocommunication) and rationality are related like varieties of peaches, cherries, oranges, strawberries or bananas. Nope. They are related like grapes and a granite brick. These ism's are not processes for making decisions on the basis of reality. So they are not rationality. Rationality is a single thing and dangerous to avoid when it should be applied. (See the blathe on it.) Some of the isms might help uncover reality (emphasize "might"), many of them make a person feel good, and that's okay, but that often means avoiding reality or confusing nonsense for reality. The terribly mistaken notion that these things are substitutes for rationality is one basis for the statement of reality in the blathe on rationality: "[F]olks are so fertile that the rate of failure when not using the big_r is nearly a perfect 1.000." You surely know enough about baseball to know what that means. It is not the case that all of the isms are to be avoided. However, the isms should never be confused for some sort of substitute for rationality. They are not a substitute, and to attempt to substitute when rationality should be used is an invitation to utter disaster. (See the blathe on rationality.) It is not the case that rationality should be practiced at every breath. Rationality should be practiced when important decisions, especially ones about the course of one's own life (alone or together with one or more others) or important decisions that will affect others' lives, need to be made. Then decisions need to be made on the basis of what reality observably, testably is, not on what one's real or imagined guru, musician or astrological chart makes you think it might be. It is usually good and healthy to be crazy in most life situations, where rationality is not required to maximize the probabilty of right decisions. The reason for this desirability of being crazy is that being crazy sometimes reveals what realities are that later need to be applied in reaching a decision using rationality. 000309 ... amy oh... i see. you were asking for my horoscope! here it is: Using all the standard safe-sex precautions, Leo? I hope so. I trust, too, that you're not slipping under the covers with cute psychotics you just met at a bar or posting your nude photos and home address on the Internet or trying to steal the spouses of ex-cons. On the other hand, sweetheart, I urge you not to overprotect yourself from the healthy and worthwhile risks that real love always asks you to take. There is no such thing as absolutely safe intimacy! If you want to tap into the heart's unpredictable riches, you must be willing to open yourself to wisely chosen gambles. 000309 ... Brad 'tis but mere sophistry to say otherwise.... 000309 ... Q The horoscope, which indeed I already had and so was not asking for, is full of so many holes so large as to make its very existence questionable. I will address just one example. In fact, every one of my friends is an ex-con, admittedly for having done nothing worse than inhale, so I'm not supposed to go after any of my friend's spouses? You mean I need to do the bar scene? Yuk. Notwitstanding the nearly complete vacuousness of the horoscope, I will nonetheless rest my case on but a single word of it - "wisely" in the second from last line. 000309 ... tarin 1 trust = receiving signals without deliberate attempt to manipulate information. 2 deliberate attempt to manipulate information = control. 3 trust = letting go (of control). 1 logic = active manipulation of propositions to produce a desired outcome, or a close approximation of one. 2 logic = control. therefore, the nature of logic is distrustful. logic arises with distrust. trust is when you dont have to be active in controlling. when you trust, there is no need to control. there is no need for logic. when you trust. this has been an act of logic. 000509 ... marjorie i am still trying to convince you i'm twisting when i have to i'm sophistry your queen and i'm feeding you my logic with a golden spoon 000520 ... oon fuck 051217 ... pete the tool used to bridge the gap between where harper says he wants canada to go and the ways he proposes to get there... 051217 what's it to you? who go blather from