Josh's Journal

8:33PM

 Been a while since I've used this.

Uhm...

So, what am I doing here again?

8:57PM

The following is what I've gleaned thus far from Human, All Too Human. Feel free to yell if you want.

"The moral man, however, presumes that that which is essential to his heart must also be the heart and essence of all things."

If so, the moral man is obviously in error in presuming and demanding absolute ethical conformity to his own standards from all people, regardless of their background, upbringing, or religious beliefs- and all of these can directly influence each individual's unique brand of morality. When confronted by a perceived moral affront, the moral man either argues or fights to either settle things as he would prefer or believe just. Is this any better than the social tyranny exhibited in the old Soviet Union and the United States government up to the '60s (and beyond)?

"One level of education, itself a very high one, has been reached when one rises above superstitions and religious concepts and fears and, for example, no longer believes in the heavenly angels or original sin, and has stopped talking about the soul's salvation. Once he is at this level of (intellectual) liberation, he must still make a last intense effort to overcome metaphysics."

Man must overcome, then, his belief in divinity and his "place" in the universe.

"Then, however, a retrograde movement must be necessary: he must understand both the historical and psychological justification in metaphysical ideas."

While metaphysical study should be left to history, it should also not be forgotten. Humanity has reasons for these thoughts and concepts, however useless they may be in a purely practical context.

"All human life is sunk deep in untruth; the individual cannot pull it out of this well without growing annoyed with his entire past, without finding his present motives (like honor) senseless, and without opposing scorn and disdain to the passions that urge one on to the future and the happiness therein."

Honor and morality, however appealing they may be, are irrational, empty hindrances to the human intellect. As Nietzsche states in aphorism 30, A common misconception (albeit an easily adopted one) entails the following: if a thought or opinion pleases us, it is good, and it is inherently beneficial and true. Likewise, if an idea torments and agitates, it must be false or negative. Nietzsche's "free spirit" would find it tempting to counteract this erroneous belief with the opposite, which, according to Nietzsche, is equally false: that if an idea fails to prevail or an opinion is troubling, it must be correct.

So how, then, do we make detached distinctions without becoming emotionally involved? How may we then determine what is "good" or "bad" on crude human terms? Is there any way to make such a distinction? Are the terms "good" and "bad," in this sense, as intellectually hindering as any other senseless extreme?

Furthermore, who are we to determine this for ourselves, with all of our individualized biases? Yet, there is obviously no other readily available or apparent source of intelligence known to us besides humanity itself. Humans are inherently illogical, inherently untrustworthy when lives are put into their hands- and yet we must rely on these people, ourselves. No one has ever successfully attempted to instate a universally applicable system of morals- not only because such a code does not exist, but because militant activities would be necessary. These activities in themselves would doom the movement immediately, simply because such a movement would be yet another form of social tyranny.

11:09AM

11:04AM - Hello, LJ folks.

Pah. Have fun with the retarded survey thingy.

60 questions

1. Where will you be when it turns 2007?
The world? Because if you think it'll just be turning 2007, well, heh, I have a few scientists I'd love for you to meet.

2. How did you get the idea for your MySpace name?
Well, a few gooey things in my skull were messing around...

3. What song are you listening to right now?
"Silence" by The World Around Josh's House.

4. Has the death of a celebrity ever made you cry?
I don't cry, you decrepit bag of buzzard barf.

6. Do you own an iPod?
Yes, but because my computer is an uncooperative lab rat, I can't do anything with it, although I would dearly love to.

7. What was the first thing you thought this morning?
"Whywon'tmomleavemethefuckaloneI'mTIRED."

8. What would be your ideal job?
Luthier, pornstar.

9. What will you do tonight?
Probably that whole "homeostatic function" thing. It's great, although I know a few people that could stand to do without it.

10. What's your favorite memory from last weekend?
See above.

11. What are the last two digits of your phone number?
I don't believe in phones, ye corruptin' society- destroyin' technology user!

12. What was the last thing you ate?
I'm not sure, but it was screaming in German.

13. What was last thing you drank?
Coke.

14. What was the last movie you watched?
"Diamonds Are Forever."

15. What/Who do you dislike at the moment?
Pat Robertson, gravity, and my copmuter.

16. What food do you crave right now?
Anything hot and meaty! (No jokes, you insufferable perverts.)

17. What did you dream last night?
Well, me and these three awesome people named Ash, Kim, and Shawn were hanging out.

18. What was the last TV show you watched?
M*A*S*H.

19. What is your favorite piece of jewelry?
My key necklace.

20. Name someone on your Top Friends who is just like you:
Hmm... Maybe Frank Burns.

21. You're playing blackjack. You're dealt a jack and a seven. Hit or stay?
Screw that. Bitch, I hop up on the table and go, "WHO WANTS A PIECE OF THE PIE?!" and smack my ass.

22. Who last text messaged you?
I don't text or get texted.

23. Are you on any medication?
Only since I started smoking marijuana.

24. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
The right one. My right, not your right. But that information is USELESS because you don't know if I sleep with my head at the foot of the bed or my head at the head of the bed!

25. What color shirt are you wearing?
Gray.

26. What is your favorite frozen treat?
Hmmm. Turkey Hill's Rocky Road ice cream. No, wait. Breyer's Mint Cookies N' Cream.

27. How many piercings do you have?
None, you turkey- lip- havin' beady- eyed bullfrog- looking damned bald- headed- goggle- eyed bespecled snappin' turtle.

28. What's your favorite store?
Hmm... I know I have a few but I can't think of themWAIT EARTHFARE!!!

29. Are you thirsty right now?
No, you sheep- tongue buzzard- face donkey- jive donkey dick.

30. Who's someone you haven't seen in a while and miss?
Ashley and Shawn!!!!

31. What did you do last night?
Oh, certainly nothing involving your mother, three stoned geese, and forty pounds of cranberry sauce.

32. Do you care what people think about you?
If I like them enough.

33. Have you ever done something to instigate trouble?
Hell yeah!

35. What are your font colors on AIM?
Pork.

36. Where do you live?
Inside four walls, duhrrrr.

37. Are you aggressive?
I don't think so.

38. Mobile Phone Network?
I don't know, actually.

39. What are you listening to now?
DIDN'T WE ALREADY GO OVER THIS, YOU PATHETIC ELEPHANT WITH BOWEL PROBLEMS?!

40. What is the thing that you would most like to change about yourself?
Pretty much everything.

42. What do you smell like right now?
A babbling lemony breeze floating over a clean, airy brook- wait a minute.

43. What's your favorite color?
Either gray, red, or black.

44. Do you like mustard?
Yes.

45. What do you tell yourself when times get hard?
"Stupid North Korea." (Only a few people will get that.)

46. Would you ever sky-dive?
YES!!!!!!! YES YES YES YES YES!!!!

47. Do you sleep on your side, tummy or back?
No, I don't sleep on YOUR side, you depraved pervert!

48. Have you ever bid for something on eBay?
No.

49. What do you think of Cary Grant?
I don't.

50. Do you enjoy giving hugs?
Sure!

51. Would you consider yourself to be fashionable?
NO.

52. Do you own a digital camera?
No...

53. What celebrities have you been compared to?
Unfortunately, Orlando Bloom and Keith Ledger. Or is it Heath Ledger?

54. Who is your favorite Star Wars character?
Boba Fett and Chad Vader!

55. Does it annoy you when someone says they'll call but don't?
Yeah, sometimes. Doesn't happen often, though, because not too many people call me.

56. What are you allergic to?
60- question quizzes.

57. Are you a jealous person?
Yeah, sometimes.

58. Do you ever feel guilty after eating meat?
No.

59. If you were born the opposite sex, what would your name be?
Ava Isabella Something.

60. What are you listening to now?
JESUS CHRIST THIS IS THE THIRD TIME YOU'VE ASKED ME!!!!!

61. What are you listening to now?
...I'll kill you.

9:22PM - Whydahellnot. Have fun, y'all.

( my xmas stocking )

Xmas Stocking

leave a gift for Innamorati your username: your gift: (30 characters or less) <input ... > get your stocking

I stole this. I TOTALLY STOLE THIS.

9:33PM - Christianity and Patriotism

From Men of Peace



In a book which Tolstoy called Power and Liberty, he spelled out his feelings about the way power led to violence.

"Power, then, is the united will of the masses, avowedly or tacitly transmitted to rulers chosen by the masses," he argued.

His military experience had taught him that the men who gave the most orders were least involved in the action. So he concluded that the men who are most directly concerned in events have the least responsibility for them. Men think that their rulers will make the decisions which determine events. But actually it is more complicated than this, and it is a product of so many forces in history that we can never know or evaluate them all.

"So in history, what we know we call necessity; what we do not know, we conceal under the name of liberty."

"To history, liberty is what we do not know about the life of humanity."

Provoked by the sentimental effusions that accompanied the visit of a Russian squardon to France in 1893, he burst out in "Christianity and Patriotism" with an attack on the whole basis of these military establishment, visits, and expenditures. The real cause of this affection, he says, is that France and Russia are getting ready to attack Germany. When sentiment has been properly whipped up, the order will be given "by God's grace" in the emperor's name.

"The bells will be rung, and long- haired men will throw gold- embroidered bags over themselves and will begin to pray for the slaughter." As for the men who must do the fighting, "They will get to freeze, starve, to be sick, to die from diseases, and finally they will arrive at the place where they will be killed by the thousand, themselves not knowing why, men whom they have never seen and never done them and can do them no harm."

Deutchland uber alles expresses both the philosophy and the fallacy of patriotism.

This sentiment is not at all exalted, but, on the contrary, very stupid and very immoral: stupid, because, if every state will consider itself better than any other, it is obvious that they will all be in the wrong; and immoral, because it inevitably leads every man who experiences the feeling to try to obtain advantages for his own state and nation, at the expense of other states and nations- a tendency which is directly opposed to the fundamental moral law recognized by all human beings: not to do unto another what we do not wish to have done to ourselves.

Patriotism goes clean against the principles of equality and brotherhood we profess. No matter how we have tried to conceal the teaching of Christianity, it has nevertheless trickled through to is so that we cannot help but see how incompatable patriotism is with its basic principles.

"Patriotism is slavery," says Tolstoy. It makes us promise in advance to do whatever the state demands of us, without knowing whether or not this will square with our conscience.

"There does not exist, and there has not existed, a case of aggregate violence committed by one set of men against another which has not been committed in the name of patriotism." From ruler to journalist, banker to teacher, "these persons consciously and unconsciously spread the deception of patriotism, which is indispensable to them for the maintenance of their advantageous position."

So the parades, the triumphal arches, the fireworks, the uniforms, the visits of state all create the pretense that something grand and necessary is being done, when in fact everyone would be better off if nothing of the kind were going on.

"Patriotism now presents to men nothing but the most terrible future; but the brotherhood of the nations forms that ideal which more and more grows to be incomprehensible and desirable for humanity." Tolstoy thought the change as inevitable as the falling of autumn leaves, for he assumed that men would be guided by reason rather than their passions.

If humans would only be bold to express the truth of the brotherhood of nations and the criminality of exclusive membership in one nation, says Tolstoy, a new and vital public opinion would develop, and we would escape the death cell in which we now live.

"If only!" It has always seemed such a small "if" to people who could see the truth clearly. The truth they have not seen is that men praise reason but they are moved by their passions and frustrations.

Writing to an American correspondent in 1896, Tolstoy said:

It is as impossible to unite patrioitism with peace, as at the same time to go out driving and stay at home. ["Patriotism or Peace."] What produces war is the desire for an exclusive good for one's own nation- what is called patriotism. And so to abolish war, it is necessary to abolish patriotism.

Everyone knows that war is bad, but no one dares admit that patriotism is the cause of it, or that it is a survival from barbarous times entirely inconsistent with Christianity.

Ironic, isn't it?

4:30PM - The Liar Paradox revisited.

"In the late medieval period, Buridan put the Liar Paradox to devious use with the following proof of the existence of God. It uses the pair of sentences:

God exists.
None of the sentences in this pair is true.

The only consistent way to assign truth values, that is, to have these two sentences be either true or false, requires making "God exists" be true. So, Buridan has "proved" that God does exist."

In which case we can now say:

Cars may stand up on two legs and walk.
None of the sentences in this pair are true.

Absurd, right?

9:52AM

I was rather bored this morning, so I posted this large- add- esque monster on that teenage horror known as MySpace. Someone should shoot me for partaking, but, eh, deal. :-P

Anyhow, there was no real point in posting this on here, as no one actually reads this. But I hope some anonymous user'll get a laugh out of it.

7:40AM - Stuff from the early forum.

theSaj: You can hang out with that red nosed freak that's always flying way up high....

7:59AM

Haaaaaaaaa, LiveJournal.

1:40PM

So, me and Kim are walking through the hall, and we see Bryan. As we pass him, this is how it goes.

Bryan: Save the trees!

Me: Kill the children!

Kim: Wipe your ass with an owl!

7:44PM - XDDD Ebonics.

I LOVE Urbandictionary.

Ebonics: "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, they're like, it's better than yours, damn right, its better than yours, I could teach you, but I'd have to charge."

English: "My frozen dairy treat brings all the male gender to the grassy area in the front of my residence. They say it is superior to yours. Yes, they are correct, it is far superior than yours. I could pass along this knowledge, but there would be a fee."

5:55PM - Are you down with OBG?

7:03AM - I FOUND IT I FOUND IT I FOUND IT!!!!

11:22AM - Voice recognition!

They gave us microphones to play with in computer applications. It's fun. However, my microphone tends to work miracles in several areas, most specifically sentence structure. Example:

"I like pie" translates to "I like but I."

How are you, then? Methinks about two people actually read this thing.

Microphone:  the that's helpful to But but but can accompany and!

What can it accompany? For that matter, what is "it?"

Microphone: Cockpit can't depend.

Oh, really. That's interesting. Cryptic asshole.

Microphone: critique apps will!

7:12PM

The Swami greets you!

7:23AM

^_^

I know, I've made my livejournal a gushy mess for all my non- readers out there.

 

7:52PM

gioauhsglaihaliruweg

^_^

Great. Awesome. Brilliant. Amazing. [Insert every adjective describing happiness, or a general sense of well- being in here.]

However, I am now sick, but oddly, I find I like the warm, tingly, lightheaded feeling. Just not the nose part. Hate that. But this feels unreal!!!! Ah!

*Slapped with edge of pile driver* Best to end this post before it plunges into a fake acid trip on part of the reader. Yes. You. I feel bad for you, making you read all this. *Offers... money?* 

I'm definitely not thinking clearly at this point, feel free to pelt hand grenades in my general direction.

7:29PM - The Book of Hienz, Chapter One

1:

1 In the beginning, there was a space shuttle in a void. A Ketchup bottle chillaxeth in this holy shuttle, and all shit was indeed good, for He would faithfully keep it real with his french- fried homies. The Ketchup was, is, and always shall be: His Crimson Holiness cannot be denied, like that of his noble french- fried homedawgs.

2 "Yea," saith the Lord of all condiments, "We shall indeed create a crib in which to throw bangin' parties. Let there be light!"

3 And there was light.

4 And then, saith the Lord of Tomatoey Goodness, "Let there be pimpin'!"

5 And there was pimpin'.

6 And in a likewise manner, the Earth was created. Living things sprang from the ground at His touch, hills rose and fell, streams gushed forth, and animals roamed the freshly created soil. His Crimson Majesty toured his creation on his bangin' whip and said, "It is good."

7 However, grand though He thought it all, the Earth was incomplete without a race of self- destructive, barely sentient, overdeveloped apes, so He created Carl. Carl was a dumb primate who fell out of a tree and died, so thus was created Adam.

8 Adam was a piiiiiiiiiiimp.

2:

1 The Lord of Condiments walked often with Adam, and they spoke as equals. Adam often walked with Lord 57, and called Him "friend." Adam was a friend, therefore, he was hooked up.

2 His Crimson Majesty knew of Adam's inherent idiocy. However, He never anticipated original sin.

3 Adam and the Lord were walking in the garden, sharing a shining, golden platter of french fries, when Adam abruptly grabbed The Lord's head and rotated his hands, causing a gush of red to spew forth, covering the sacred fries. Feasting upon the contents of The Creator and the divinely created food, he pronounced, "Dis shit be bangin'!"

4 Thus, Adam, hereafter dubbed Adam the Fuckwit, was banished from Paradise, known to mortals as Wendy's, to dwell in the desert and scrape and dig and toil and sweat for his sustenance.



This particular... monster was created thanks to the combined idiocy of Nick, Kevin, and myself.

7:23PM - The inexplicable hatred of God.