I'm currently watching the Phils at the Marlins. Willis vs. Leiber. A brief recap of the first four innings:
long rain delay to begin
benches have already cleared once, no punches
D-Train and the Big Jew have each thrown a pitch behind the other
Miguel Olivo gave Abe Nunez a concussion when he accidentally hit him on a follow-through
Gonzalez was ejected for arguing a bad call
Phils are up 2-1. This is looking interesting.
However, the point of this post is not the game. It's the Phils' ever-growing DL. The reigning NL MVP has missed two weeks but should be back soon. Ryan Madson just returned. Tom Gordon just recently started walking after arm trouble and a respiratory infection and probably won't be back this season, if ever. Fabio Castro, their only bullpen lefty, was recently demoted. And then yesterday, Brett Myers gave up 4 runs in the bottom of the ninth, then grabbed his arm and walked off the field after hearing a popping sound and feeling a shooting pain. Awesome.
How bad have things gotten in the pen? The Phils just called up a guy who started the season in single-A, presumably to close. Maybe he'll be our Papelbon, but somehow I doubt it. This is the Phillies we're talking about.
Allow me to be the first to propose the only logical nickname for a fat-looking closer named Mike Zagurski: "Bronco."
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Philly has the best fans in sports: Reason #78
Because they're counting down the losses until the Phillies become the first professional sports franchise to lose 10,000 games.
In semi-related news, the Phillies are apparently so desperate for bullpen help that they're going after retired closers. Best line from that story: "Alfonseca and Geary have had stints of competence, then slid."
In semi-related news, the Phillies are apparently so desperate for bullpen help that they're going after retired closers. Best line from that story: "Alfonseca and Geary have had stints of competence, then slid."
Friday, May 18, 2007
A pair of phenomena that I think might be related ...
1. The Phillies are 9-6 since Brett Myers became their closer. They recently reached .500 for the first time all season. During that stretch, his numbers look like this:
10.1 IP
1 ER
5 H
4 BB
15 K
5 SV
With an ERA and WHIP both below 1. I would say Charlie Manuel's gambit is working out pretty well.
2. And yet I don't hear anybody in the national sports media (nor in Philadelphia's) eating shit about it. Pretty much everybody said it was the stupidest move they'd seen all year, the mark of a desperate manager trying to save his job (I agreed with the last part, but not the first). Moving the ace to the bullpen? Craziness.
Or not. But don't expect Steven A. Smith or Howard Eskin or Jayson Stark to admit that they were wrong. Instead, they'll ignore the fact that they said it and assume that their readers are too stupid to remember news from three weeks ago.
Unless the Phils wind up in the playoffs, in which case I guarantee you everybody from Joe Morgan to the corpse of Harry Carey will be talking about how brilliant the move was.
10.1 IP
1 ER
5 H
4 BB
15 K
5 SV
With an ERA and WHIP both below 1. I would say Charlie Manuel's gambit is working out pretty well.
2. And yet I don't hear anybody in the national sports media (nor in Philadelphia's) eating shit about it. Pretty much everybody said it was the stupidest move they'd seen all year, the mark of a desperate manager trying to save his job (I agreed with the last part, but not the first). Moving the ace to the bullpen? Craziness.
Or not. But don't expect Steven A. Smith or Howard Eskin or Jayson Stark to admit that they were wrong. Instead, they'll ignore the fact that they said it and assume that their readers are too stupid to remember news from three weeks ago.
Unless the Phils wind up in the playoffs, in which case I guarantee you everybody from Joe Morgan to the corpse of Harry Carey will be talking about how brilliant the move was.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
This shouldn't be missed
My good friend Colin, who is wicked smart, left a comment in the "I promise ..." post that's a ways down now. He's correcting some of my assertions about science, and also adds quite a bit to the argument. It shouldn't be missed by anyone who thinks this conversation is interesting. Most interesting to me is that by submitting string theory as a more rational potential explanation for the origin of the universe than god, I may be throwing stones from a glass house.
I'll be posting something soon about the consciousness issue Justin brought up, but I think it's best if we pace ourselves and allow each post to get a little time before it gets shoved down. That's why I'm keeping this one short.
I'll be posting something soon about the consciousness issue Justin brought up, but I think it's best if we pace ourselves and allow each post to get a little time before it gets shoved down. That's why I'm keeping this one short.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
I lied ...
One of the reasons I commented earlier is because I think this God thing has some potential and didn't want to see it derailed. Hopefully it won't be, so I guess I can't resist jumping in. I should really wait to see if Seth posts anything, so that this discussion might still make some small amount of sense to a person who reads this blog for the first time tomorrow, but instead I'll offer what I have as far as the rationality of believing in God or not believing in God.
Insofar as I can try to summarize the opposing points of view on this presented thus far:
Seth's: Believing in God is a rational position because neither human consciousness nor the creation of the universe can (yet) be explained as physical processes, and therefore cannot be explained by science, and therefore can reasonably be attributed to God.
Connor's: Believing in God is either irrational, or at least a less rational position than atheism, because science has historically disproven the apocrypha of religion and will likely continue to do so to the point of explaining human consciousness and the creation of the universe through advanced scientific theorum such as string theory, et. al.
Let me be the first to say that I'm coming from a less rational perspective than either of my predecessors'. I have neither an advanced degree in religion (Seth) nor a longstanding concrete religious belief based on significant amounts of reading, introspection, and consideration (Connor). Instead, I have a longstanding but uncomfortable and uncertain religious belief based on youthful indoctrination, introspection in the wake of traumatic experience, and a prodigious fear of death and the unknown. I am a lapsed Catholic obsessed with death; I view God as a guillotine.
In other words, I consider myself an agnostic. Connor has said before that being an agnostic is a copout, a position I don't disagree with. Being an agnostic is essentially saying, "I don't know if there's a God, and so I doubt the capability of humans to answer that question, and therefore I'm going to fornicate and debase myself for all of my remaining days and try to convince myself that I'm avoiding the fundamental difficulty of being human, which is wondering about God, the afterlife, and, by extension, the purpose of existence." Or, at least, that's what it means for me.
However, while it may be a copout, I would also argue that it's a rational position. And, since arguing whether or not something is a rational position without taking or advocating that position is also sort of a copout (sorry, Seth), I further will go out on a limb and say that I think being an agnostic is actually the most logical of the three positions. I mean, if we're going to try to talk about divinity in logical terms, isn't it most logical to say that we can't?
This is interesting to me both because I'm an agnostic relative to the question of God, and because I consider myself -- probably more strongly, in fact -- an agnostic in the other sense of the word, meaning that I doubt the availability of complete or ultimate knowledge. Unlike Connor, I don't think humans will ever be able to completely understand the world. Unlike (I'm assuming) Seth, I don't think that last sentence is a compelling argument in support of the existence of a higher being.
Which leaves us with three relatively well-delineated and fundamentally different positions on the most significant and timeless question of human existence. I feel like there's some potential for disagreement here. (Millions of Crusaders, Inquisitionists, terrorists, and mass murderers throughout history agree.)
The related topic that interests me most, however, is the one I broached to Connor near the end of our argument on Tuesday, after cracking something like my eighth Guinness of the night: what about the afterlife?
Connor has, in the past, joined many other atheists I've met or read who have criticized religion as an opiate, particularly because it promises an afterlife that is better than this one. I agree with this criticism wholeheartedly as a social comment: the conviction of an afterlife is not a good thing for human society in this life. An individual who cannot wait for a better life in Heaven or Wherever doesn't care much about doing anything to improve life on this planet (or in this country -- observe the destructive force that is evangelical Christianity, the second most heinous form of contemporary religion behind only radical fundamentalist Islam). This is nothing new; Edward Gibbon famously named the rise of Christianity as one of the primary reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
However, that's really neither here nor there in a discussion of the rationality and/or tenability of religious beliefs themselves. The question I have, and the question I want to ask, is the same one I posed to Connor:
What do atheists think happens to human consciousness when its vessel dies? Is it really as simple of an answer as believing that it is the end of that being's existence? Do atheists imagine the lifespan of consciousness as being from the moment of birth to the moment of death?
I think this is important for a number of reasons. First, consciousness is a sticking point in this and any discussion of divinity. Whatever our disagreements regarding the term, I think we all would agree that there is something about the mentality or awareness of humans that is unique among known beings. Science may one day be able to explain consciousness, as Connor posits. But right now, it can't. So, in the meantime, does the atheist worldview assume that consciousness is a physical process not yet proven as such, and that it begins at birth and ends at death?
This strikes me as just as significant a distinction as the varying views on the nature or existence of God. The two ideas -- God and the afterlife -- are inextricably related. And one of my primary sticking points with atheism -- one of the reasons I cling to the word agnostic -- is that I think the end of consciousness I just described seems too easy.
To wit: I've often heard atheists describe religion as a comfort, but in fact it seems, at least to me, that the atheist idea of death as an end is actually the most comforting one. (Their idea of God, it should be noted, is almost indubitably the least comfortable one.) For me, the idea of consciousness ending at the moment of death has long seemed like the most desirable outcome. (Indeed, though this will surely sound more disturbing than it should, I've long felt that the most desirable eventuality of life was not being born at all.) That way, nothing you do really matters in the long term. There is no reckoning.
Perhaps that makes me a cynic; maybe it's just because I'm Catholic, and death for us is painted (often literally) as pretty much an eternal cleansing via indescribable pain. If you're lucky, you get Purgatory, which is not quite eternal. But, I would argue, the nature of Catholicism is such that few of its practitioners dare to presume their spot in Heaven. To Protestants, who seem to do that much more readily, perhaps their theist afterlife seems most comforting. I can't speak with any authority about Muslims or non-Christians. (I can hear the cries already, echoing from Appalachia: "Hegemonist!")
And I don't think I've quite wrapped this up, but morning is advancing, so I'll leave it here for now. I'm going to lull myself to sleep by listening to the new Wilco album. Perhaps soon I'll write a long post ripping it and we'll really have some fun.
Insofar as I can try to summarize the opposing points of view on this presented thus far:
Seth's: Believing in God is a rational position because neither human consciousness nor the creation of the universe can (yet) be explained as physical processes, and therefore cannot be explained by science, and therefore can reasonably be attributed to God.
Connor's: Believing in God is either irrational, or at least a less rational position than atheism, because science has historically disproven the apocrypha of religion and will likely continue to do so to the point of explaining human consciousness and the creation of the universe through advanced scientific theorum such as string theory, et. al.
Let me be the first to say that I'm coming from a less rational perspective than either of my predecessors'. I have neither an advanced degree in religion (Seth) nor a longstanding concrete religious belief based on significant amounts of reading, introspection, and consideration (Connor). Instead, I have a longstanding but uncomfortable and uncertain religious belief based on youthful indoctrination, introspection in the wake of traumatic experience, and a prodigious fear of death and the unknown. I am a lapsed Catholic obsessed with death; I view God as a guillotine.
In other words, I consider myself an agnostic. Connor has said before that being an agnostic is a copout, a position I don't disagree with. Being an agnostic is essentially saying, "I don't know if there's a God, and so I doubt the capability of humans to answer that question, and therefore I'm going to fornicate and debase myself for all of my remaining days and try to convince myself that I'm avoiding the fundamental difficulty of being human, which is wondering about God, the afterlife, and, by extension, the purpose of existence." Or, at least, that's what it means for me.
However, while it may be a copout, I would also argue that it's a rational position. And, since arguing whether or not something is a rational position without taking or advocating that position is also sort of a copout (sorry, Seth), I further will go out on a limb and say that I think being an agnostic is actually the most logical of the three positions. I mean, if we're going to try to talk about divinity in logical terms, isn't it most logical to say that we can't?
This is interesting to me both because I'm an agnostic relative to the question of God, and because I consider myself -- probably more strongly, in fact -- an agnostic in the other sense of the word, meaning that I doubt the availability of complete or ultimate knowledge. Unlike Connor, I don't think humans will ever be able to completely understand the world. Unlike (I'm assuming) Seth, I don't think that last sentence is a compelling argument in support of the existence of a higher being.
Which leaves us with three relatively well-delineated and fundamentally different positions on the most significant and timeless question of human existence. I feel like there's some potential for disagreement here. (Millions of Crusaders, Inquisitionists, terrorists, and mass murderers throughout history agree.)
The related topic that interests me most, however, is the one I broached to Connor near the end of our argument on Tuesday, after cracking something like my eighth Guinness of the night: what about the afterlife?
Connor has, in the past, joined many other atheists I've met or read who have criticized religion as an opiate, particularly because it promises an afterlife that is better than this one. I agree with this criticism wholeheartedly as a social comment: the conviction of an afterlife is not a good thing for human society in this life. An individual who cannot wait for a better life in Heaven or Wherever doesn't care much about doing anything to improve life on this planet (or in this country -- observe the destructive force that is evangelical Christianity, the second most heinous form of contemporary religion behind only radical fundamentalist Islam). This is nothing new; Edward Gibbon famously named the rise of Christianity as one of the primary reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
However, that's really neither here nor there in a discussion of the rationality and/or tenability of religious beliefs themselves. The question I have, and the question I want to ask, is the same one I posed to Connor:
What do atheists think happens to human consciousness when its vessel dies? Is it really as simple of an answer as believing that it is the end of that being's existence? Do atheists imagine the lifespan of consciousness as being from the moment of birth to the moment of death?
I think this is important for a number of reasons. First, consciousness is a sticking point in this and any discussion of divinity. Whatever our disagreements regarding the term, I think we all would agree that there is something about the mentality or awareness of humans that is unique among known beings. Science may one day be able to explain consciousness, as Connor posits. But right now, it can't. So, in the meantime, does the atheist worldview assume that consciousness is a physical process not yet proven as such, and that it begins at birth and ends at death?
This strikes me as just as significant a distinction as the varying views on the nature or existence of God. The two ideas -- God and the afterlife -- are inextricably related. And one of my primary sticking points with atheism -- one of the reasons I cling to the word agnostic -- is that I think the end of consciousness I just described seems too easy.
To wit: I've often heard atheists describe religion as a comfort, but in fact it seems, at least to me, that the atheist idea of death as an end is actually the most comforting one. (Their idea of God, it should be noted, is almost indubitably the least comfortable one.) For me, the idea of consciousness ending at the moment of death has long seemed like the most desirable outcome. (Indeed, though this will surely sound more disturbing than it should, I've long felt that the most desirable eventuality of life was not being born at all.) That way, nothing you do really matters in the long term. There is no reckoning.
Perhaps that makes me a cynic; maybe it's just because I'm Catholic, and death for us is painted (often literally) as pretty much an eternal cleansing via indescribable pain. If you're lucky, you get Purgatory, which is not quite eternal. But, I would argue, the nature of Catholicism is such that few of its practitioners dare to presume their spot in Heaven. To Protestants, who seem to do that much more readily, perhaps their theist afterlife seems most comforting. I can't speak with any authority about Muslims or non-Christians. (I can hear the cries already, echoing from Appalachia: "Hegemonist!")
And I don't think I've quite wrapped this up, but morning is advancing, so I'll leave it here for now. I'm going to lull myself to sleep by listening to the new Wilco album. Perhaps soon I'll write a long post ripping it and we'll really have some fun.
I have to admit it
For the first time in the history of this blog, I'm going to admit you're right.
I didn't get upset by what you wrote because I know it's true. After putting that post together for a couple of days, I finally published it about a half-hour before I was done with work today. I spent no small amount of time going through and revising what I wrote, but I didn't concern myself with whether or not the form should in fact be revised. That's what I started thinking about roughly 15 minutes after I published, and ever since I've been regretting it more and more, because I'm pretty sure that I look exactly like the kind of pretentious jackass I often rail against. Moreso, I come off as disingenuous, because I state up front that I'm not intending to mock Seth and then proceed to use a device that can't help but come across as snarky and demeaning. It doesn't help when I leave in something like "You've got to be joking me, right?"
I considered, once I got home, taking down the post and re-working it, but what shred of journalistic ethics I have left in me compelled me to simply sit there and accept criticism as it came. If I was willing to publish in the first place, then taking it down makes me a coward.
So, sorry Seth. Your argument deserved better than that. I hope you'll understand that on issues I feel strongly about (this is clearly one of them) I have a tendency to resort to facile argumentation tactics even though I really don't need to. I hope I haven't discouraged you from bothering to participate, because what you wrote really did get me interested.
About the only thing I do disagree with you about, Justin, is the issue of citing sources. The process of linking is incredibly tedious, and I don't think I ventured too long into any particular subject that wasn't central to what I was saying. A notable example of an exception is the "god can be disproven" vs. the contrapositive, which was a statement that Seth made. Part of the problem with my statement is that the wording is awkward; it kinda sounds like god's existence has been disproven, which is not a statement I'm willing to make. What I am saying is that like any other concept, the veracity of the god hypothesis can theoretically be disproven, just like any other theory one cares to present. That is, provided we're willing to work on solid ground; the biggest issue with the god hypothesis is that it's loaded with unfalsifiable premises, and ultimately conclusions.
What I should have written, and could have if I hadn't decided to take the lazy route, was that the issue with positing that a belief in god — no matter whether they be the deistic terms set forth by Seth, or the more standard judeo-christian terms used by a large hunk of the population — is rational is that you must then provide evidence. I don't believe the difference between something being logical and rational is semantic; a logical argument must simply have a conclusion that correctly follows from its premises. A rational argument is one based on reason, which in this case means that the premises are up for verification as well. The premises that Seth used to arrive at his conclusion are, I believe, flawed because there is no compelling reason to attribute any phenomena in our universe to a supernatural being or occurrence. Conversely, the "physical" side of the aisle has consistently provided verifiable premises that have led to reasonable conclusions. I do not believe that, in examples of unexplainable phenomena, that there is an equal probability of the answer being supernatural vs. non-supernatural, because there hasn't yet been an instance in which the supernatural has explained anything. Bringing it back to the issue at hand — the creation of the universe — the point I was trying to make was that the theories that have been put forth from various areas of the scientific community can be verified, even if they haven't been yet. The converse explanation of a supernatural creator does not offer anything to be verified; it's presence in the argument is based solely on the fact that it hasn't been disproven. Ultimately, if we are to say that a belief in something is rational, one must be willing to substantiate it outside of stating — however correctly — that none of the other explanations offered can be proven.
Again, I wish I had just said that from the beginning, and left it there.
As for whether or not science has actually proven anything, I still don't quite see where you're coming from. Science, of course, has proven a lot. Even the vast majorities of "theories" have been verified to the point where they are accepted as fact, or a scientific law. Admittedly, the big ones — evolution, the big bang, etc. — are still considered theories because there some loose ends to be tied up. Likely, in the cases of both, those loose ends will never be tied up because they both deal with natural history, and we lack a complete record of everything that's happened since the inception of life and the universe. But those are exceptions; the vast majority of what we "know" has in fact been proven by observation. As for proof vs. disproof, I don't think it's a matter of value as much as it is approachability: The process of proving something is exponentially harder than the process of disproving. To use a practical example, the various theories offered up for why things fall toward the earth instead of floating were, at one time, all equally disprovable. As our ability to measure improved, all of those theories except one — the theory of gravity — were summarily discarded. Once the process of whittling down had taken place, it was then up to the interested parties to prove the theory. Once they did, it became a law. The distance traveled between it being the last acceptable theory for the observed phenomena and its acceptance as a law was, as far as I can tell, much longer than the distance traveled between the other theories and their being discarded.
In conclusion, I hope I've redeemed myself somewhat with this post. It does bother me that what I wrote earlier came off as insulting. While I'm usually comfortable creating friction, as Justin stated it's always just meant to be some fun between friends. It's obvious from the response thus far that whatever frivolity I intended to make the final cut, in fact, didn't.
I didn't get upset by what you wrote because I know it's true. After putting that post together for a couple of days, I finally published it about a half-hour before I was done with work today. I spent no small amount of time going through and revising what I wrote, but I didn't concern myself with whether or not the form should in fact be revised. That's what I started thinking about roughly 15 minutes after I published, and ever since I've been regretting it more and more, because I'm pretty sure that I look exactly like the kind of pretentious jackass I often rail against. Moreso, I come off as disingenuous, because I state up front that I'm not intending to mock Seth and then proceed to use a device that can't help but come across as snarky and demeaning. It doesn't help when I leave in something like "You've got to be joking me, right?"
I considered, once I got home, taking down the post and re-working it, but what shred of journalistic ethics I have left in me compelled me to simply sit there and accept criticism as it came. If I was willing to publish in the first place, then taking it down makes me a coward.
So, sorry Seth. Your argument deserved better than that. I hope you'll understand that on issues I feel strongly about (this is clearly one of them) I have a tendency to resort to facile argumentation tactics even though I really don't need to. I hope I haven't discouraged you from bothering to participate, because what you wrote really did get me interested.
About the only thing I do disagree with you about, Justin, is the issue of citing sources. The process of linking is incredibly tedious, and I don't think I ventured too long into any particular subject that wasn't central to what I was saying. A notable example of an exception is the "god can be disproven" vs. the contrapositive, which was a statement that Seth made. Part of the problem with my statement is that the wording is awkward; it kinda sounds like god's existence has been disproven, which is not a statement I'm willing to make. What I am saying is that like any other concept, the veracity of the god hypothesis can theoretically be disproven, just like any other theory one cares to present. That is, provided we're willing to work on solid ground; the biggest issue with the god hypothesis is that it's loaded with unfalsifiable premises, and ultimately conclusions.
What I should have written, and could have if I hadn't decided to take the lazy route, was that the issue with positing that a belief in god — no matter whether they be the deistic terms set forth by Seth, or the more standard judeo-christian terms used by a large hunk of the population — is rational is that you must then provide evidence. I don't believe the difference between something being logical and rational is semantic; a logical argument must simply have a conclusion that correctly follows from its premises. A rational argument is one based on reason, which in this case means that the premises are up for verification as well. The premises that Seth used to arrive at his conclusion are, I believe, flawed because there is no compelling reason to attribute any phenomena in our universe to a supernatural being or occurrence. Conversely, the "physical" side of the aisle has consistently provided verifiable premises that have led to reasonable conclusions. I do not believe that, in examples of unexplainable phenomena, that there is an equal probability of the answer being supernatural vs. non-supernatural, because there hasn't yet been an instance in which the supernatural has explained anything. Bringing it back to the issue at hand — the creation of the universe — the point I was trying to make was that the theories that have been put forth from various areas of the scientific community can be verified, even if they haven't been yet. The converse explanation of a supernatural creator does not offer anything to be verified; it's presence in the argument is based solely on the fact that it hasn't been disproven. Ultimately, if we are to say that a belief in something is rational, one must be willing to substantiate it outside of stating — however correctly — that none of the other explanations offered can be proven.
Again, I wish I had just said that from the beginning, and left it there.
As for whether or not science has actually proven anything, I still don't quite see where you're coming from. Science, of course, has proven a lot. Even the vast majorities of "theories" have been verified to the point where they are accepted as fact, or a scientific law. Admittedly, the big ones — evolution, the big bang, etc. — are still considered theories because there some loose ends to be tied up. Likely, in the cases of both, those loose ends will never be tied up because they both deal with natural history, and we lack a complete record of everything that's happened since the inception of life and the universe. But those are exceptions; the vast majority of what we "know" has in fact been proven by observation. As for proof vs. disproof, I don't think it's a matter of value as much as it is approachability: The process of proving something is exponentially harder than the process of disproving. To use a practical example, the various theories offered up for why things fall toward the earth instead of floating were, at one time, all equally disprovable. As our ability to measure improved, all of those theories except one — the theory of gravity — were summarily discarded. Once the process of whittling down had taken place, it was then up to the interested parties to prove the theory. Once they did, it became a law. The distance traveled between it being the last acceptable theory for the observed phenomena and its acceptance as a law was, as far as I can tell, much longer than the distance traveled between the other theories and their being discarded.
In conclusion, I hope I've redeemed myself somewhat with this post. It does bother me that what I wrote earlier came off as insulting. While I'm usually comfortable creating friction, as Justin stated it's always just meant to be some fun between friends. It's obvious from the response thus far that whatever frivolity I intended to make the final cut, in fact, didn't.
God hates dishonest argumentation
I don't plan on discussing the content of your latest post, Doyle. We had it out for hours in person over essentially the same topic on Tuesday, and I don't feel like doing it again in cyberspace. I'll leave Seth to respond as he sees fit.
But I have a real problem with the tenor and form of your argument, and it's a problem I've had approximately 1000 times in other arguments with you, at least to some degree. These same tendencies are why the notion of a blog in which I argue with you has sometimes seemed tedious to me, and why I've occasionally wondered whether it's worth continuing to do it. It's one thing when you do this with me, or with Ryan, or with people you know relatively well. We know you enough to know what you're really like, outside of arguments and offline. And obviously I like that person, or we wouldn't be such good friends. However, I think it's another thing entirely when you argue in this manner with people you don't know all that well.
You're not a child, and I don't presume to scold you. But I am going to explain why I dislike this particular style of argumentation, which is not the only one you use, but which appears often enough for me to comment on it.
I respect the fact that you synthesize your knowledge and knowledge taken from other sources into a coherent argument (thought I wish those sources were given more credit). And I appreciate your willingness to take up the most significant question of human existence and propose an alternate view. But aspects of your argument (I'll specify in a second) are irresponsible and unreasonable, and they make you look far more overbearing and polemical and virulent than you really are, at least in my estimation.
The first is the line-by-line format. It's a petty device designed to make another author look stupid, which explains why it originated at FJM. That pedigree should also make you question the form's legitimacy in educated debate about topics such as God and the universe; many philosophers have taken issue with comments far "denser" than Seth's, and I don't recall ever seeing any of them critiquing them line-by-line like a high school English teacher. I think this form has become a crutch for you, and I think it's irresponsible. It obviously inhibits meaningful consideration of another's argument in favor of nit-picking, dithering, and mockery. The last time I used it on you, during the Modest Mouse discord, I recall you responding furiously. It's a cheap way to warp the other person's argument to your own devices, ignore their overall premises, and inflate small-scale, sentence-level gaps in logic out of proportion and context. To steal your favorite bromide, you're better than that.
Another is your tendency to associate both yourself and your opponent with camps of people. This almost invariably takes the form of making yourself some sort of moral warrior and your opponent one of the weak-minded masses who are ruining the world. It's also the very definition of a common rhetorical fallacy. In your latest post, you associate yourself right away with a group of people who are responsible enough to fight the evildoers of the world through atheism. (On a side note, I find the idea of feeling compelled to preach on religious matters, even against the existence of god, alarming and protozealotous; it strikes me as inverse born-again-ism.) Also early on, you label Seth a deist, which is an awfully presumptuous move, considering the basis of his overall argument (more on that basis later) -- basically, the only way you can excuse calling him a deist is to do it based on an isolated excerpt of his post, which is one more example of why the line-by-line format is irresponsible and dishonest. Later, you essentially call him an idiot with another of your worn retorts, the "you're joking, right?" I would encourage you to imagine how you would feel if somebody said that to you in an argument. You've used it on me before, and trust me: it's maddening and pretentious. And finally you accuse him, quite unfairly, of being "in league" with people who wish science would just "put down (its) beakers." (I substituted "its" for "our" to reflect the perhaps underemphasized fact that none of us, including you, has held a beaker or solved an equation in years, if ever.) I sincerely doubt that Seth belongs to that group of people.
A third, and among the most bothersome, is your unwillingness to present any sort of support for statements that direly need it. For example, your claim that "we absolutely can disprove the existence of god," and its extension, in which you claim that science has already accomplished much in pursuit of that goal. I don't believe either of those on their face, nor, I think, would most reasonable, educated people. If you're going to make a claim like that, you need to provide some examples, cite some studies, name some scientists, or otherwise give us some reason to believe what you're saying other than that you said it. I'm sure you'll say it's obvious and insult my intelligence for asking, but it's not obvious, and, on the contrary, an intelligently constructed argument takes none of its claims for granted. You've made other claims in the same vein, but that's by far the most glaring.
Another problematic tendency is not to cite your sources. I understand that we're not running an online scientific journal here; I realize nobody, me included, wants to have to put a Works Cited at the end of posts. However, I know you pretty well. I know that you don't have much in the way of a scientific background. (Neither do I, and I freely admit that.) I also know you're reading a book about atheism and that you have the internet. So I have to assume that much of your argument regarding string theory and branes and such is taken from somewhere else -- unless that asshole teacher of ours in English 255 covered that stuff during the days I missed. In other words, I think your lack of attribution of that material makes your argument both harder to believe and of suspicious provenance, and further that it does so unnecessarily. Your major premises, I would wager, are yours alone. So why make us wonder what parts of your logic are yours, and what came from somebody else with whom you agree? It certainly doesn't make a person any less smart if he uses sources -- nobody expects you to come up with the Theory of Everything from scratch.
There are a few others I could discuss. You take up the mantle of science or discard it completely as you see fit, depending on whether it supports your point at the time. You misrepresent Seth's argument a number of times. At least twice you employ textbook red herrings, and another time you call one of his points a red herring when it clearly was not. You patently misrepresent the scientific process when you say that "any time we cannot empirically prove a scientific theory, it is discarded." I know you'll disagree with that, since we spent hours yelling about it the other day, but I strongly urge you to consult any high-school science teacher about whether or not a scientific theory can be empiricially proven (and, while you're at it, science's relative valuation of proof as opposed to disproof).
However, far and away your most disturbing argumentative tendency is to ignore and/or distort and/or misconstrue the other person's argument until it seems patently ridiculous and false. Look no further than this last post. Seth was not arguing that God created the universe! Reread his argument, and let that idea sink in. He never said God created the universe. He explained how it's a rational position to think that God created the universe. There is a difference, and no, it's not semantic.
For an illustration of the difference between the two, look at your own argument. Your own essential argument takes this form:
1. Science can and will disprove the existence of God.
2. Anyone who believes in God is wrong.
You talk about positive content, and even try to provide some, and yet your entire argument is about how wrong other people are. Seth's is not. Seth is explaining how one position on an issue is a rational one. The thing is -- and I know this is anathema to you -- he never says it's the only rational view! In fact, he never says that atheism isn't rational.
And that's why there is a huge, significant difference between your argument and his. He elucidates one view while allowing for others. You attack others as a way of supporting your own. You probably think it's academic to allow for other possible viewpoints, but it's not. It's just argumentation and analysis. Believing others are wrong does not make you right, and those who are right rarely prove it by showing how wrong others are. Even when you claim to be offering "positive content," all you're really doing is questioning the opposing view. Why believe in God? Why not believe in God? Why don't you explain the latter, instead of asking the former? That would be positive content. And that would also be a hell of a lot harder. You often profess your dislike for academics, and yet your entire "philosophy" at the end of your post is predicated on rhetorical questions directed at the opposition. You don't say why we should believe what you believe. You say why we're stupid for believing what we believe. That's awfully academic, awfully patronizing, and pretty fucking hard to swallow.
This may sound like a rebuke, and I suppose it is, but it really wasn't written in anger or in hopes of upsetting you or proving you wrong (which I can't hope to do here, since I didn't even discuss the topic itself). I'm just sick of seeing this same style of argumentation. You know I don't dislike you. I shouldn't have to tell you that. I regard you highly as both a person and -- this is rarer, for me -- as a writer. I've told you that repeatedly. And I understand that this probably sounds really patronizing. But I just don't understand why you tend to be such an absolutist in these arguments: you are right, and anybody who disagrees is wrong. It's uncalled for and unreasonable, and I think you'd convince a lot more people if you stopped doing this sort of thing.
But I have a real problem with the tenor and form of your argument, and it's a problem I've had approximately 1000 times in other arguments with you, at least to some degree. These same tendencies are why the notion of a blog in which I argue with you has sometimes seemed tedious to me, and why I've occasionally wondered whether it's worth continuing to do it. It's one thing when you do this with me, or with Ryan, or with people you know relatively well. We know you enough to know what you're really like, outside of arguments and offline. And obviously I like that person, or we wouldn't be such good friends. However, I think it's another thing entirely when you argue in this manner with people you don't know all that well.
You're not a child, and I don't presume to scold you. But I am going to explain why I dislike this particular style of argumentation, which is not the only one you use, but which appears often enough for me to comment on it.
I respect the fact that you synthesize your knowledge and knowledge taken from other sources into a coherent argument (thought I wish those sources were given more credit). And I appreciate your willingness to take up the most significant question of human existence and propose an alternate view. But aspects of your argument (I'll specify in a second) are irresponsible and unreasonable, and they make you look far more overbearing and polemical and virulent than you really are, at least in my estimation.
The first is the line-by-line format. It's a petty device designed to make another author look stupid, which explains why it originated at FJM. That pedigree should also make you question the form's legitimacy in educated debate about topics such as God and the universe; many philosophers have taken issue with comments far "denser" than Seth's, and I don't recall ever seeing any of them critiquing them line-by-line like a high school English teacher. I think this form has become a crutch for you, and I think it's irresponsible. It obviously inhibits meaningful consideration of another's argument in favor of nit-picking, dithering, and mockery. The last time I used it on you, during the Modest Mouse discord, I recall you responding furiously. It's a cheap way to warp the other person's argument to your own devices, ignore their overall premises, and inflate small-scale, sentence-level gaps in logic out of proportion and context. To steal your favorite bromide, you're better than that.
Another is your tendency to associate both yourself and your opponent with camps of people. This almost invariably takes the form of making yourself some sort of moral warrior and your opponent one of the weak-minded masses who are ruining the world. It's also the very definition of a common rhetorical fallacy. In your latest post, you associate yourself right away with a group of people who are responsible enough to fight the evildoers of the world through atheism. (On a side note, I find the idea of feeling compelled to preach on religious matters, even against the existence of god, alarming and protozealotous; it strikes me as inverse born-again-ism.) Also early on, you label Seth a deist, which is an awfully presumptuous move, considering the basis of his overall argument (more on that basis later) -- basically, the only way you can excuse calling him a deist is to do it based on an isolated excerpt of his post, which is one more example of why the line-by-line format is irresponsible and dishonest. Later, you essentially call him an idiot with another of your worn retorts, the "you're joking, right?" I would encourage you to imagine how you would feel if somebody said that to you in an argument. You've used it on me before, and trust me: it's maddening and pretentious. And finally you accuse him, quite unfairly, of being "in league" with people who wish science would just "put down (its) beakers." (I substituted "its" for "our" to reflect the perhaps underemphasized fact that none of us, including you, has held a beaker or solved an equation in years, if ever.) I sincerely doubt that Seth belongs to that group of people.
A third, and among the most bothersome, is your unwillingness to present any sort of support for statements that direly need it. For example, your claim that "we absolutely can disprove the existence of god," and its extension, in which you claim that science has already accomplished much in pursuit of that goal. I don't believe either of those on their face, nor, I think, would most reasonable, educated people. If you're going to make a claim like that, you need to provide some examples, cite some studies, name some scientists, or otherwise give us some reason to believe what you're saying other than that you said it. I'm sure you'll say it's obvious and insult my intelligence for asking, but it's not obvious, and, on the contrary, an intelligently constructed argument takes none of its claims for granted. You've made other claims in the same vein, but that's by far the most glaring.
Another problematic tendency is not to cite your sources. I understand that we're not running an online scientific journal here; I realize nobody, me included, wants to have to put a Works Cited at the end of posts. However, I know you pretty well. I know that you don't have much in the way of a scientific background. (Neither do I, and I freely admit that.) I also know you're reading a book about atheism and that you have the internet. So I have to assume that much of your argument regarding string theory and branes and such is taken from somewhere else -- unless that asshole teacher of ours in English 255 covered that stuff during the days I missed. In other words, I think your lack of attribution of that material makes your argument both harder to believe and of suspicious provenance, and further that it does so unnecessarily. Your major premises, I would wager, are yours alone. So why make us wonder what parts of your logic are yours, and what came from somebody else with whom you agree? It certainly doesn't make a person any less smart if he uses sources -- nobody expects you to come up with the Theory of Everything from scratch.
There are a few others I could discuss. You take up the mantle of science or discard it completely as you see fit, depending on whether it supports your point at the time. You misrepresent Seth's argument a number of times. At least twice you employ textbook red herrings, and another time you call one of his points a red herring when it clearly was not. You patently misrepresent the scientific process when you say that "any time we cannot empirically prove a scientific theory, it is discarded." I know you'll disagree with that, since we spent hours yelling about it the other day, but I strongly urge you to consult any high-school science teacher about whether or not a scientific theory can be empiricially proven (and, while you're at it, science's relative valuation of proof as opposed to disproof).
However, far and away your most disturbing argumentative tendency is to ignore and/or distort and/or misconstrue the other person's argument until it seems patently ridiculous and false. Look no further than this last post. Seth was not arguing that God created the universe! Reread his argument, and let that idea sink in. He never said God created the universe. He explained how it's a rational position to think that God created the universe. There is a difference, and no, it's not semantic.
For an illustration of the difference between the two, look at your own argument. Your own essential argument takes this form:
1. Science can and will disprove the existence of God.
2. Anyone who believes in God is wrong.
You talk about positive content, and even try to provide some, and yet your entire argument is about how wrong other people are. Seth's is not. Seth is explaining how one position on an issue is a rational one. The thing is -- and I know this is anathema to you -- he never says it's the only rational view! In fact, he never says that atheism isn't rational.
And that's why there is a huge, significant difference between your argument and his. He elucidates one view while allowing for others. You attack others as a way of supporting your own. You probably think it's academic to allow for other possible viewpoints, but it's not. It's just argumentation and analysis. Believing others are wrong does not make you right, and those who are right rarely prove it by showing how wrong others are. Even when you claim to be offering "positive content," all you're really doing is questioning the opposing view. Why believe in God? Why not believe in God? Why don't you explain the latter, instead of asking the former? That would be positive content. And that would also be a hell of a lot harder. You often profess your dislike for academics, and yet your entire "philosophy" at the end of your post is predicated on rhetorical questions directed at the opposition. You don't say why we should believe what you believe. You say why we're stupid for believing what we believe. That's awfully academic, awfully patronizing, and pretty fucking hard to swallow.
This may sound like a rebuke, and I suppose it is, but it really wasn't written in anger or in hopes of upsetting you or proving you wrong (which I can't hope to do here, since I didn't even discuss the topic itself). I'm just sick of seeing this same style of argumentation. You know I don't dislike you. I shouldn't have to tell you that. I regard you highly as both a person and -- this is rarer, for me -- as a writer. I've told you that repeatedly. And I understand that this probably sounds really patronizing. But I just don't understand why you tend to be such an absolutist in these arguments: you are right, and anybody who disagrees is wrong. It's uncalled for and unreasonable, and I think you'd convince a lot more people if you stopped doing this sort of thing.
Monday, May 14, 2007
It'll only happen once, I promise
In the past, I've considered going in non-sports directions with this blog, but it's pretty obvious that everyone likes it best when we stick to the fun stuff. However, since a certain grant-scamming friend of ours decided to take a long-promised crack at making a rational argument for God's existence in the comments section of the last post, I'll allow myself the luxury of entering into one of my favorite running arguments. If you don't feel like reading this kind of shit, don't go past this point, and wait until I make the promised post about "common knowledge" in baseball and how terribly flawed it is (I think that's what I promised to write about ... it's been so long). And, as always, if anyone wants to keep this going, I'm game.
Considering the density (as in volume) of Seth's comments, I'm going to do the cut-and-paste method of returning fire, though I'm taking great care to not sound snarky. Whatever I may think of Seth's argument, I certainly don't think it's worthy of derision. Just some thought, and eventually debunking.
First off, all this talk about whether or not God exists is pointless.
I know this isn't central to what you wrote, but I still take issue with it. It could be safely said that there may be no more important thing to talk about these days. In case you haven't noticed, pretty much every fucked up thing that's happening in the world today is being done by people who claim to be doing "God's bidding." Any rational person that understands that there either is no god, or at least is willing to dismiss the concept of an interventionist god, has the responsibility to fight this rampant ignorance at every opportunity.
But, I'll leave that for another day.
That's not the central question, in my opinion, because there's no way to actually know.
I don't believe this for a second. It's a common saw for theologians, who rely on our agnostic tendencies to do the heavy lifting for them. But it's a smokescreen; we absolutely can disprove the existence of god, provided we don't allow the "unfalsifiable" definition in play. Some people think it's already been done, others not so much. But to say you can't figure it one way or the other doesn't jive with the body of scientific work we've done to this point. I'll place my bet on science coming through in this regard; how confident do you feel taking the other side of that action?
Rather, I'm simply referring to the being(s) who created mankind. The only attributes I can derive about this being is that (s)he's more powerful and more knowing than mankind, but (s)he's not necessarily omniscient or omnipotent. Finally, I make no claims about his/her morality.
OK, so you're a deist. Honestly, I'm cool with that. Most of my favorite historical figures were deists, too, though in many of their cases I suspect they were really atheists trying to avoid the stigma of not buying into the supernatural. But deism is ultimately non-threatening, because you propose the existence of an irrelevant being. We're cool on this tip, because the only god that could possibly exist is like the one you propose. It's definitely a "he," though.
First, in consciousness studies, there a debate about the “Hard Problem,” which simply stated, is how does consciousness originate? Some scientists believe, incredulously in my opinion, that consciousness is merely a physical process and so they go about studying the brain hoping to make the link between physical processes and consciousness. Until they can make that link, which of course I (and numerous other scientists, philosophers, and theologians) don’t think they ever will, it’s rational to believe that consciousness is not merely yet another physical process, especially when the empirical evidence leans (if not proves) that consciousness is fundamentally different than physical processes.
Some "scientists" believe in Intelligent Design. Some "scientists" believe that the "soul" weights 21 grams. Some "scientists" propose that dinosaurs and humans lived side-by-side. I cannot worry myself with what some "scientists" say, no more than I can theologians. What we can worry about is scientific consensus (or near-unanimity, which is more common and almost as telling), and failing the availability of that, perhaps a little bit of Occam's Razor until science picks up the slack.
Riddle me this: Why anyone would be more incredulous at the suggestion that "consciousness" is the result of a physical process than they would be at the suggestion that a divine being, who exists outside of the physical realm, created the universe and the Earth and, after waiting a few billion years, decided to grab a particular group of primates and give them "consciousness" (I'm assuming that you at least accept the theory of evolution, and thusly admit that humans evolved into the state we're in today), which he didn't want any other species to have? As far as I can tell, one seems befitting a children's book, and the other just looks like a work in progress.
And tell me how your representation of god-given consciousness would be less ridiculous sounding than mine.
Awareness of a physical object and the physical object itself are two fundamentally different things, and cultures all around the world have historically recognized this by making the distinction between mind and body.
I'm not mocking you here, really, because I do understand your point about how ubiquitous the mind/body dichotomy is throughout human history, and it's worth considering. But it is important to note that throughout human history, we've almost always worshipped interventionist deities, considered women to be the lesser of the genders, condoned corporal/capital punishment, and warred over religion. Just because we've shown an inability to shake (or disprove) some beliefs doesn't make them any more valid.
I’m simply suggesting that until scientists can prove otherwise, it’s rational to believe this. Of course, if consciousness doesn’t come into being through a physical process, then it must come into being through a non-physical process. So there you have the first argument: it’s rational to believe in God (as defined above) because it’s rational to believe that consciousness came into being vis-Ã -vis a non-physical process.
Folks, what we have here is an honest man, and that's why I respect Seth in spite of our disagreements. He is openly using the "God of the Gaps" argument as a proof, instead of trying to dress it up like most theologians. In syllogisms like this, god is immediately granted the default position, despite a complete lack of justification for that being the case. Here's a quick breakdown:
A) Consciousness exists;
B) Consciousness cannot be explained (yet) by any physical phenomena in the human brain;
C) All things that are unexplainable by known physical laws/properties must have a supernatural explanation;
Ergo: The existence of human consciousness is proof of a supernatural "creator," or at least justifies a belief in such a creator.
Your argument is logically sound, provided we're willing to accept the premises. But why should we? We hold science to an exacting standard, and any time we cannot empirically prove a scientific theory, it is discarded or brought back to the drawing board. This is the way it should be, and you're right to say that science has not resolved the issue of consciousness yet. But suddenly your evidential standards disappear when god enters the picture; despite the fact that not a single phenomena on this planet or the observable universe has ever been empirically linked to a supernatural phenomena, it is still trotted out as a potential answer. How many times does that theory need to fail before it's finally drummed out of the process?
Second, I’ll accept whatever science concludes about the origins of the universe, but then I’ll ask: what caused it?
Dunno. But lots of really, really smart people are working on it, so get back to me in a couple of years.
At some point along the causal chain, scientists will not be able to answer this.
If you have any proof of the veracity of this statement, or even a compelling reason to believe it's likely, present it. Otherwise, it might be advisable to hedge.
And by the way, if fifty years from now it turns out the universe wasn’t created through the Big Bang but through some other process, my question will remain: what caused it.
I assume that such a radical departure from a near-perfect theory would imply that, to the contrary, we've discovered the impetus for the creation of the universe and it's inconsistent with the big bang. The reason I'm willing to state that assumption is because no observable phenomena or existing (and accepted) mathematical or physical law contradicts the general principle of the big bang theory; in fact, the beauty of the big bang is that it's based on one of the most fundamental concepts in the physical world, the Theory of General Relativity. The only area of the theory we can't prove anything about right now is its impetus, so that's really the last step.
It's important to note what I've done here: I admit that the big bang might be wrong. It's possible, though so unlikely as to make for a pretty poor topic of conversation. Its perfection as a theory stems from how well it's worked with the new information we've gathered since it was originally proposed. However, its titanic flaw as a theory is that it can only give us some hints as to why we can't yet explain the problem of causation. But it has given us hints; I'll get to that in a second.
Getting back to the Big Bang, it seems to be that there are a few options for theorizing its origin: nothing caused it, God caused it, we don’t know caused it.
This is oversimplification to the extreme. First, the "nothing caused it argument" is a red herring, since no one really has legitimately proposed it as an answer. No matter the differences between theologians and non-theologians w/r/t to the beginning of the universe, the one thing we can all agree on is that something happened.
However, while your cohort may be neatly bundled in theory No. 2, you won't find that unanimity among the scientifically minded or oriented. In fact, there are lots of theories that vary in how well they stand up to observable phenomena/physical laws. Examples can be found here, here, and here. And that's what I found in about a minute.
What do all these theories have in common, besides not having been proven? None of them require any more suspension of disbelief than the sentient creator argument does. Much less, actually, since they're all hinged to some kind of scientific theory that can be proven (even if those theories alone cannot prove the extrapolated theory). God, on the other hand, is in direct violation of every physical law we know, and pretty much any other one we could possibly come up with.
As for the third option, the one that most scientists profess, if we don’t know what caused the Big Bang, then it’s perfectly rational to believe that it was caused by a being. After all, it was either caused by a physical process or a conscious process, and since, according to option 3, we don’t know which, then it is perfectly rational to believe that a conscious being was responsible.
As was the case with the consciousness argument, the supernatural does not get the benefit of being a default position. Furthermore, you offer us only a binary decision — it's either physical or god/consciousness — without justifying the elimination of other options or the presence of god as a choice. This is Science 101: No one rides for free. If anything — a theory, idea, law, proof, concept — wants to be included in the scientific process, it must justify its inclusion. At no point in time has the god hypothesis proven, scientifically, to be any more valid than theories regarding the existence of wish-granting genies, UFOs, lesbians who don't carry grudges against men, demons and Mike Hargrove's excellence as a baseball manager. The only difference between the god hypothesis and the others is that you're considered a fucking lunatic by the vast majority of people if you believe in the latter grouping, and you're a de facto dead man walking as a political candidate if you admit to not believing in the former.
When you say that we can't show a physical process that served as the impetus for the big bang, you're doing so based on the fact that many people have proposed that it was created by a certain physical process, and then tested those hypotheses in an open manner, ultimately concluding that the theory (at least in its state at that time) does not pass muster. That is an intellectually honest process, which encourages progress and criticism (the backbone of knowledge). But when you (or others) say that the other alternative is a conscious process, there is no willingness shown to actually test such a theory. What weak "science" has been done on creationist theories is never open for examination, and even then nothing of note has come out of those rigged processes (most religious leaders criticize the efforts of some to lend scientific credence to theistic beliefs because it's usually nothing more than another opportunity for ridicule from the opposition). Despite the fact you're willing to use the scientific process to eliminate the possibility that a physical process is the underpinning of the creation of the universe (or at least claim that it's not (as?) rational to believe in such a thing), you claim that the alternative cannot be held against scientific standards. To borrow a hackneyed phrase, what's good for the goose is good for Jesus.
(Yes, I know, you're not arguing for the Abrahamic god; it was just meant to take the edge off)
Actually, I’d go so far as to say it’s the more rational choice, because if the Big Bang were caused by a physical process, then it’s unclear why scientists have no epistemic access to this information.
No sarcasm: This is a joke, right? It's one thing to allow that there's justification for deistic tendencies, but it's another to say that it's more rational than the alternative, which is simply dealing with the facts and waiting for those we don't have yet to come in. And of course it's clear why scientists have no access to this information: Our instruments and known theories, if not our brains, are not sophisticated enough to figure it out. String theory, the rock star of theoretical physics, has hit a wall in recent years after a long period of exponential gains. But the vast majority of people within the field believe that it's just a matter of time before someone or something allows us to break through that wall. If that's the case, string theory is our most likely candidate to explain the origins of the universe. But right now, considering where string theory could take us is to still operate in the abstract.
Furthermore, you betray some ignorance of the big bang theory in some of your statements to this point. The big bang posits of a singularity, or the generally agreed-upon point of origin for the universe, based on the theory of general relativity. But while general relativity can bring us to the singularity, it can't make us drink: GR breaks down at the point of the singularity because the values are infinite (if I'm wrong about any of this, please correct me ... I'm no physicist). And, if we've got a breakdown of one of the most fundamental physical theories at the beginning of the universe, it's completely rational to expect that the rest of them aren't applicable either. Now, this doesn't yield much in terms of positive content: Just because we can prove that a bending, or breaking, of our universe's physical laws took place at its inception point doesn't mean we know which laws did apply, or how the laws we live by were altered in that state. As the years go by, however, our guesses are becoming more educated, if not bolstered by evidence or theoretical probability. The one thing most people in the field will tell you is that the answer is probably mind-bending, since it could potentially involve the introduction of three times as many dimensions, or a metaphorical super-universe in which our universe is like a bubble floating through space. Does all of that sound totally, utterly, super-crazy? Sure! And so does believing in a sentient creator. The only difference is I won't believe in branes until they're proven; you believe in god until its proven otherwise.
I want to finish with what troubles me the most about theistic arguments: They almost never have positive content. I have yet to hear a single theory as to how god created the universe, or even why it's rational to believe that it's possible that god created the universe, that isn't based entirely on the "gaps" argument (both of your defenses fit this description). And, truthfully, it is only in the land of the gaps that theists have a leg to stand on, since it only requires a willingness to accept one faulty premise (God is an acceptable explanation for anything that can't be explained by science) for it to be logical. That I, and other atheists, are unwilling to accept that faulty premise is where the line in the sand is drawn.
However, worshipping within the gaps, metaphorically speaking, is an unenviable situation. Those gaps get smaller every day, and even within those gaps there is no real evidence that god is an acceptable answer; it's only that god has yet to be ruled out completely. Plus, there's always the footsteps of science coming; to borrow a metaphor, your cohort is betting the under on the growth of scientific understanding of the universe. Every advance that is made in knowledge brings us closer to the day you lose your bet, and once you've lost your money it's lost forever. That doesn't sound like a wise gamble to me.
I know I've already written a lot, but I don't want to end without making this a fair fight. Right or wrong, you were willing to place on digital paper a thesis, and it would be wrong of me to think that by simply picking your argument apart that I've accomplished anything. I remarked earlier that my beef with theistic explanations is their lack of positive content, but I have yet to offer much in return.
So here's my philosophy, wrapped in the kind of rheotrical question historically adored by theists: What's the point in believing in God if he is what you say he is? You've eliminated the idea of god as intercessor, which removes the primary motivation for most of his worshippers in the world. And, despite the fact that I think believing in this sort of deity to be equivalent to worshipping the Easter Bunny, at least it makes some sense as to why someone would waste his or her time bothering. Every kid in the world believes that it's entitled to get things for no better reason than simply desiring those things; those who pray to god in hopes of some kind of divine favor strike me as never having grown out of that phase. Nevertheless, I see at least a motivation to maintain this form of supernatural belief, much like I understand why people who make money by "contacting the dead" are best off if they believe in ghosts.
But it's you deists who truly confuse me, and I'm writing this knowing that almost all the people who regularly read this blog fit into this category, even if you still claim to be Christian. You tell me that god is nothing more than an ambivalent chemist, who stirred up the universe, baked it in the oven, left it to dry on the counter and then promptly left for a tennis match and forgot all about it. Well, OK, but who cares? If god has no active role in our world, our lives, or universe, what's the point of even believing in him? This does not, to me, sound like the kind of god who comes with a heaven, so I can't imagine it's because you expect some kind of reward in the afterlife. This does not, to me, sound like the kind of god who can provide someone with peace of mind, or a better understanding of self, or a moral code to live by, so I can't imagine it's because of the myriad benefits religious apologists attribute to spiritual belief despite reams of evidence to the contrary (OK, maybe that's unfair ... it does have that effect for some people, and more power to 'em). And this does not, to me, sound like the kind of god that gives a flying fuck if you believe in him or not, so I can't imagine any motivation to even bother mentioning him.
Furthermore, why is it preferable to attribute a phenomena to "god," as opposed to "igorance?" Most of the things that have been attributed to supernatural phenomena in historical civilizations have been proven today to be completely explainable. It seems ludicrous today to think that drought serves as a message from a scorned deity, yet we seem to forget that such an explanation was as "rational" in the time of the Roman Empire as believing that a supernatural being kicked off the big bang is today. Haven't we learned better by now than to think that such ignorance is a permanent state? It seems that anyone who has studied history would be prone to at least lean toward the side of science, which has racked up every single victory over theistic mythology since pretty much the dawn of time.
Lastly, the reason I bristle at the idea of god as the impetus is that it encourages us to just put down our stupid beakers and accept the divinity. You may not feel that way — I hope not, at least — but that's certainly the way most of the people you're in league with feel. I have no desire to censor certain beliefs — I don't care if you think that we should worship the snail darter as the most advanced species in the world, provided you do so on your own time — but I certainly don't think ideas as such should be introduced in science classes, where students are supposed to be introduced to the factual world. If a student in science class asks what caused the big bang, the appropriate answer is that the jury is out, but a few hours on wikipedia will likely surface some interesting theories of varying levels of probability. And that's the end of the discussion, because there's lots to learn that we know is based in fact. If someone wants to learn about god, go to church or take theology classes; no other subject in the academic cannon can suffer the indignity of speaking of unfalsifiable theories as if they exist on the same plane as hard science.
I know this is probably overkill on the subject, but it was just too much fun to get into. Also, I offer you a posting account on the site, so you're not stuck leaving responses in the comments section. Lastly, come harder.
Love,
Diesel
Considering the density (as in volume) of Seth's comments, I'm going to do the cut-and-paste method of returning fire, though I'm taking great care to not sound snarky. Whatever I may think of Seth's argument, I certainly don't think it's worthy of derision. Just some thought, and eventually debunking.
* * *
First off, all this talk about whether or not God exists is pointless.
I know this isn't central to what you wrote, but I still take issue with it. It could be safely said that there may be no more important thing to talk about these days. In case you haven't noticed, pretty much every fucked up thing that's happening in the world today is being done by people who claim to be doing "God's bidding." Any rational person that understands that there either is no god, or at least is willing to dismiss the concept of an interventionist god, has the responsibility to fight this rampant ignorance at every opportunity.
But, I'll leave that for another day.
That's not the central question, in my opinion, because there's no way to actually know.
I don't believe this for a second. It's a common saw for theologians, who rely on our agnostic tendencies to do the heavy lifting for them. But it's a smokescreen; we absolutely can disprove the existence of god, provided we don't allow the "unfalsifiable" definition in play. Some people think it's already been done, others not so much. But to say you can't figure it one way or the other doesn't jive with the body of scientific work we've done to this point. I'll place my bet on science coming through in this regard; how confident do you feel taking the other side of that action?
Rather, I'm simply referring to the being(s) who created mankind. The only attributes I can derive about this being is that (s)he's more powerful and more knowing than mankind, but (s)he's not necessarily omniscient or omnipotent. Finally, I make no claims about his/her morality.
OK, so you're a deist. Honestly, I'm cool with that. Most of my favorite historical figures were deists, too, though in many of their cases I suspect they were really atheists trying to avoid the stigma of not buying into the supernatural. But deism is ultimately non-threatening, because you propose the existence of an irrelevant being. We're cool on this tip, because the only god that could possibly exist is like the one you propose. It's definitely a "he," though.
First, in consciousness studies, there a debate about the “Hard Problem,” which simply stated, is how does consciousness originate? Some scientists believe, incredulously in my opinion, that consciousness is merely a physical process and so they go about studying the brain hoping to make the link between physical processes and consciousness. Until they can make that link, which of course I (and numerous other scientists, philosophers, and theologians) don’t think they ever will, it’s rational to believe that consciousness is not merely yet another physical process, especially when the empirical evidence leans (if not proves) that consciousness is fundamentally different than physical processes.
Some "scientists" believe in Intelligent Design. Some "scientists" believe that the "soul" weights 21 grams. Some "scientists" propose that dinosaurs and humans lived side-by-side. I cannot worry myself with what some "scientists" say, no more than I can theologians. What we can worry about is scientific consensus (or near-unanimity, which is more common and almost as telling), and failing the availability of that, perhaps a little bit of Occam's Razor until science picks up the slack.
Riddle me this: Why anyone would be more incredulous at the suggestion that "consciousness" is the result of a physical process than they would be at the suggestion that a divine being, who exists outside of the physical realm, created the universe and the Earth and, after waiting a few billion years, decided to grab a particular group of primates and give them "consciousness" (I'm assuming that you at least accept the theory of evolution, and thusly admit that humans evolved into the state we're in today), which he didn't want any other species to have? As far as I can tell, one seems befitting a children's book, and the other just looks like a work in progress.
And tell me how your representation of god-given consciousness would be less ridiculous sounding than mine.
Awareness of a physical object and the physical object itself are two fundamentally different things, and cultures all around the world have historically recognized this by making the distinction between mind and body.
I'm not mocking you here, really, because I do understand your point about how ubiquitous the mind/body dichotomy is throughout human history, and it's worth considering. But it is important to note that throughout human history, we've almost always worshipped interventionist deities, considered women to be the lesser of the genders, condoned corporal/capital punishment, and warred over religion. Just because we've shown an inability to shake (or disprove) some beliefs doesn't make them any more valid.
I’m simply suggesting that until scientists can prove otherwise, it’s rational to believe this. Of course, if consciousness doesn’t come into being through a physical process, then it must come into being through a non-physical process. So there you have the first argument: it’s rational to believe in God (as defined above) because it’s rational to believe that consciousness came into being vis-Ã -vis a non-physical process.
Folks, what we have here is an honest man, and that's why I respect Seth in spite of our disagreements. He is openly using the "God of the Gaps" argument as a proof, instead of trying to dress it up like most theologians. In syllogisms like this, god is immediately granted the default position, despite a complete lack of justification for that being the case. Here's a quick breakdown:
A) Consciousness exists;
B) Consciousness cannot be explained (yet) by any physical phenomena in the human brain;
C) All things that are unexplainable by known physical laws/properties must have a supernatural explanation;
Ergo: The existence of human consciousness is proof of a supernatural "creator," or at least justifies a belief in such a creator.
Your argument is logically sound, provided we're willing to accept the premises. But why should we? We hold science to an exacting standard, and any time we cannot empirically prove a scientific theory, it is discarded or brought back to the drawing board. This is the way it should be, and you're right to say that science has not resolved the issue of consciousness yet. But suddenly your evidential standards disappear when god enters the picture; despite the fact that not a single phenomena on this planet or the observable universe has ever been empirically linked to a supernatural phenomena, it is still trotted out as a potential answer. How many times does that theory need to fail before it's finally drummed out of the process?
Second, I’ll accept whatever science concludes about the origins of the universe, but then I’ll ask: what caused it?
Dunno. But lots of really, really smart people are working on it, so get back to me in a couple of years.
At some point along the causal chain, scientists will not be able to answer this.
If you have any proof of the veracity of this statement, or even a compelling reason to believe it's likely, present it. Otherwise, it might be advisable to hedge.
And by the way, if fifty years from now it turns out the universe wasn’t created through the Big Bang but through some other process, my question will remain: what caused it.
I assume that such a radical departure from a near-perfect theory would imply that, to the contrary, we've discovered the impetus for the creation of the universe and it's inconsistent with the big bang. The reason I'm willing to state that assumption is because no observable phenomena or existing (and accepted) mathematical or physical law contradicts the general principle of the big bang theory; in fact, the beauty of the big bang is that it's based on one of the most fundamental concepts in the physical world, the Theory of General Relativity. The only area of the theory we can't prove anything about right now is its impetus, so that's really the last step.
It's important to note what I've done here: I admit that the big bang might be wrong. It's possible, though so unlikely as to make for a pretty poor topic of conversation. Its perfection as a theory stems from how well it's worked with the new information we've gathered since it was originally proposed. However, its titanic flaw as a theory is that it can only give us some hints as to why we can't yet explain the problem of causation. But it has given us hints; I'll get to that in a second.
Getting back to the Big Bang, it seems to be that there are a few options for theorizing its origin: nothing caused it, God caused it, we don’t know caused it.
This is oversimplification to the extreme. First, the "nothing caused it argument" is a red herring, since no one really has legitimately proposed it as an answer. No matter the differences between theologians and non-theologians w/r/t to the beginning of the universe, the one thing we can all agree on is that something happened.
However, while your cohort may be neatly bundled in theory No. 2, you won't find that unanimity among the scientifically minded or oriented. In fact, there are lots of theories that vary in how well they stand up to observable phenomena/physical laws. Examples can be found here, here, and here. And that's what I found in about a minute.
What do all these theories have in common, besides not having been proven? None of them require any more suspension of disbelief than the sentient creator argument does. Much less, actually, since they're all hinged to some kind of scientific theory that can be proven (even if those theories alone cannot prove the extrapolated theory). God, on the other hand, is in direct violation of every physical law we know, and pretty much any other one we could possibly come up with.
As for the third option, the one that most scientists profess, if we don’t know what caused the Big Bang, then it’s perfectly rational to believe that it was caused by a being. After all, it was either caused by a physical process or a conscious process, and since, according to option 3, we don’t know which, then it is perfectly rational to believe that a conscious being was responsible.
As was the case with the consciousness argument, the supernatural does not get the benefit of being a default position. Furthermore, you offer us only a binary decision — it's either physical or god/consciousness — without justifying the elimination of other options or the presence of god as a choice. This is Science 101: No one rides for free. If anything — a theory, idea, law, proof, concept — wants to be included in the scientific process, it must justify its inclusion. At no point in time has the god hypothesis proven, scientifically, to be any more valid than theories regarding the existence of wish-granting genies, UFOs, lesbians who don't carry grudges against men, demons and Mike Hargrove's excellence as a baseball manager. The only difference between the god hypothesis and the others is that you're considered a fucking lunatic by the vast majority of people if you believe in the latter grouping, and you're a de facto dead man walking as a political candidate if you admit to not believing in the former.
When you say that we can't show a physical process that served as the impetus for the big bang, you're doing so based on the fact that many people have proposed that it was created by a certain physical process, and then tested those hypotheses in an open manner, ultimately concluding that the theory (at least in its state at that time) does not pass muster. That is an intellectually honest process, which encourages progress and criticism (the backbone of knowledge). But when you (or others) say that the other alternative is a conscious process, there is no willingness shown to actually test such a theory. What weak "science" has been done on creationist theories is never open for examination, and even then nothing of note has come out of those rigged processes (most religious leaders criticize the efforts of some to lend scientific credence to theistic beliefs because it's usually nothing more than another opportunity for ridicule from the opposition). Despite the fact you're willing to use the scientific process to eliminate the possibility that a physical process is the underpinning of the creation of the universe (or at least claim that it's not (as?) rational to believe in such a thing), you claim that the alternative cannot be held against scientific standards. To borrow a hackneyed phrase, what's good for the goose is good for Jesus.
(Yes, I know, you're not arguing for the Abrahamic god; it was just meant to take the edge off)
Actually, I’d go so far as to say it’s the more rational choice, because if the Big Bang were caused by a physical process, then it’s unclear why scientists have no epistemic access to this information.
No sarcasm: This is a joke, right? It's one thing to allow that there's justification for deistic tendencies, but it's another to say that it's more rational than the alternative, which is simply dealing with the facts and waiting for those we don't have yet to come in. And of course it's clear why scientists have no access to this information: Our instruments and known theories, if not our brains, are not sophisticated enough to figure it out. String theory, the rock star of theoretical physics, has hit a wall in recent years after a long period of exponential gains. But the vast majority of people within the field believe that it's just a matter of time before someone or something allows us to break through that wall. If that's the case, string theory is our most likely candidate to explain the origins of the universe. But right now, considering where string theory could take us is to still operate in the abstract.
Furthermore, you betray some ignorance of the big bang theory in some of your statements to this point. The big bang posits of a singularity, or the generally agreed-upon point of origin for the universe, based on the theory of general relativity. But while general relativity can bring us to the singularity, it can't make us drink: GR breaks down at the point of the singularity because the values are infinite (if I'm wrong about any of this, please correct me ... I'm no physicist). And, if we've got a breakdown of one of the most fundamental physical theories at the beginning of the universe, it's completely rational to expect that the rest of them aren't applicable either. Now, this doesn't yield much in terms of positive content: Just because we can prove that a bending, or breaking, of our universe's physical laws took place at its inception point doesn't mean we know which laws did apply, or how the laws we live by were altered in that state. As the years go by, however, our guesses are becoming more educated, if not bolstered by evidence or theoretical probability. The one thing most people in the field will tell you is that the answer is probably mind-bending, since it could potentially involve the introduction of three times as many dimensions, or a metaphorical super-universe in which our universe is like a bubble floating through space. Does all of that sound totally, utterly, super-crazy? Sure! And so does believing in a sentient creator. The only difference is I won't believe in branes until they're proven; you believe in god until its proven otherwise.
I want to finish with what troubles me the most about theistic arguments: They almost never have positive content. I have yet to hear a single theory as to how god created the universe, or even why it's rational to believe that it's possible that god created the universe, that isn't based entirely on the "gaps" argument (both of your defenses fit this description). And, truthfully, it is only in the land of the gaps that theists have a leg to stand on, since it only requires a willingness to accept one faulty premise (God is an acceptable explanation for anything that can't be explained by science) for it to be logical. That I, and other atheists, are unwilling to accept that faulty premise is where the line in the sand is drawn.
However, worshipping within the gaps, metaphorically speaking, is an unenviable situation. Those gaps get smaller every day, and even within those gaps there is no real evidence that god is an acceptable answer; it's only that god has yet to be ruled out completely. Plus, there's always the footsteps of science coming; to borrow a metaphor, your cohort is betting the under on the growth of scientific understanding of the universe. Every advance that is made in knowledge brings us closer to the day you lose your bet, and once you've lost your money it's lost forever. That doesn't sound like a wise gamble to me.
* * *
I know I've already written a lot, but I don't want to end without making this a fair fight. Right or wrong, you were willing to place on digital paper a thesis, and it would be wrong of me to think that by simply picking your argument apart that I've accomplished anything. I remarked earlier that my beef with theistic explanations is their lack of positive content, but I have yet to offer much in return.
So here's my philosophy, wrapped in the kind of rheotrical question historically adored by theists: What's the point in believing in God if he is what you say he is? You've eliminated the idea of god as intercessor, which removes the primary motivation for most of his worshippers in the world. And, despite the fact that I think believing in this sort of deity to be equivalent to worshipping the Easter Bunny, at least it makes some sense as to why someone would waste his or her time bothering. Every kid in the world believes that it's entitled to get things for no better reason than simply desiring those things; those who pray to god in hopes of some kind of divine favor strike me as never having grown out of that phase. Nevertheless, I see at least a motivation to maintain this form of supernatural belief, much like I understand why people who make money by "contacting the dead" are best off if they believe in ghosts.
But it's you deists who truly confuse me, and I'm writing this knowing that almost all the people who regularly read this blog fit into this category, even if you still claim to be Christian. You tell me that god is nothing more than an ambivalent chemist, who stirred up the universe, baked it in the oven, left it to dry on the counter and then promptly left for a tennis match and forgot all about it. Well, OK, but who cares? If god has no active role in our world, our lives, or universe, what's the point of even believing in him? This does not, to me, sound like the kind of god who comes with a heaven, so I can't imagine it's because you expect some kind of reward in the afterlife. This does not, to me, sound like the kind of god who can provide someone with peace of mind, or a better understanding of self, or a moral code to live by, so I can't imagine it's because of the myriad benefits religious apologists attribute to spiritual belief despite reams of evidence to the contrary (OK, maybe that's unfair ... it does have that effect for some people, and more power to 'em). And this does not, to me, sound like the kind of god that gives a flying fuck if you believe in him or not, so I can't imagine any motivation to even bother mentioning him.
Furthermore, why is it preferable to attribute a phenomena to "god," as opposed to "igorance?" Most of the things that have been attributed to supernatural phenomena in historical civilizations have been proven today to be completely explainable. It seems ludicrous today to think that drought serves as a message from a scorned deity, yet we seem to forget that such an explanation was as "rational" in the time of the Roman Empire as believing that a supernatural being kicked off the big bang is today. Haven't we learned better by now than to think that such ignorance is a permanent state? It seems that anyone who has studied history would be prone to at least lean toward the side of science, which has racked up every single victory over theistic mythology since pretty much the dawn of time.
Lastly, the reason I bristle at the idea of god as the impetus is that it encourages us to just put down our stupid beakers and accept the divinity. You may not feel that way — I hope not, at least — but that's certainly the way most of the people you're in league with feel. I have no desire to censor certain beliefs — I don't care if you think that we should worship the snail darter as the most advanced species in the world, provided you do so on your own time — but I certainly don't think ideas as such should be introduced in science classes, where students are supposed to be introduced to the factual world. If a student in science class asks what caused the big bang, the appropriate answer is that the jury is out, but a few hours on wikipedia will likely surface some interesting theories of varying levels of probability. And that's the end of the discussion, because there's lots to learn that we know is based in fact. If someone wants to learn about god, go to church or take theology classes; no other subject in the academic cannon can suffer the indignity of speaking of unfalsifiable theories as if they exist on the same plane as hard science.
I know this is probably overkill on the subject, but it was just too much fun to get into. Also, I offer you a posting account on the site, so you're not stuck leaving responses in the comments section. Lastly, come harder.
Love,
Diesel
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Just a tease
I've got a biggums coming soon, but here is a quick TSTIHAD from TGWNA BFF Joe Morgan:
Joseph Feldstein (Stamford, CT): Behind Glavine, Maine, Perez, and Pelfrey who should be that 5th starter until Pedro returns?
SportsNation" height="11" width="24"> Joe Morgan: I really like Maine and I think he will be a very good pitcher. I think the Mets are going to win the East.
Honestly, if you're one of Joe Morgan's kids and you read this chat, you've got to be a little worried about the pops, right? Doesn't he sound like he's going to be forgetting where he put his teeth soon? (Correct answer: Wrapped around Frank Robinson's dick)
Anyway, I've been reading The God Delusion, and despite the fact that I'm only about 100 pages through after a couple of days, it's already beginning to adjust the way I see things (obviously not in terms of religion; more in terms of how I view people who continue to believe in things despite mountains of evidence that proves the opposite is correct). Here's another Q&A from the Morgan chat:
Muggsi (Newport, Rhode Island): Hi Joe, please answer a Tigers question for me. I'm curious about the work that Lloyd McClendon is doing with Curtis Granderson. He's not striking out as much (for now), and he seems to be a little more patient. But he always seems to be in 0-2 counts. Should this be addressed, and if so, will he become a better hitter because of it? Thanks for your response.
SportsNation" height="11" width="24"> Joe Morgan: He will be a better hitter with patience and and once he learns how to handle pitch counts. You do not want to be 0-2. I talked to him last season and he is a very smart player, and I think he will be a very good player. I think McClendon can really help him if they work together.
While this really is the perfect example of a Joe Morgan response to a question -- he doesn't actually ever answer the question, he mentions that he talked with the player at some point and has something obliquely nice to say about said player, thinks the player will be "good," and gives some unnecessary dap to a manager/coach that only Joe Morgan thinks is actually competent -- that's neither here nor there. What is important is that Joe's not alone in thinking that 0-2 counts are a product of poor pitch counts/discipline. While this certainly can be the case, I wonder if it really is?
That's a rhetorical question; I already know the answer. I'll write more about this, and other TGD-inspired perspectives, after I manage to get the other half of TGWNA the F off my couch.
Joseph Feldstein (Stamford, CT): Behind Glavine, Maine, Perez, and Pelfrey who should be that 5th starter until Pedro returns?
SportsNation" height="11" width="24"> Joe Morgan: I really like Maine and I think he will be a very good pitcher. I think the Mets are going to win the East. Honestly, if you're one of Joe Morgan's kids and you read this chat, you've got to be a little worried about the pops, right? Doesn't he sound like he's going to be forgetting where he put his teeth soon? (Correct answer: Wrapped around Frank Robinson's dick)
Anyway, I've been reading The God Delusion, and despite the fact that I'm only about 100 pages through after a couple of days, it's already beginning to adjust the way I see things (obviously not in terms of religion; more in terms of how I view people who continue to believe in things despite mountains of evidence that proves the opposite is correct). Here's another Q&A from the Morgan chat:
Muggsi (Newport, Rhode Island): Hi Joe, please answer a Tigers question for me. I'm curious about the work that Lloyd McClendon is doing with Curtis Granderson. He's not striking out as much (for now), and he seems to be a little more patient. But he always seems to be in 0-2 counts. Should this be addressed, and if so, will he become a better hitter because of it? Thanks for your response.
SportsNation" height="11" width="24"> Joe Morgan: He will be a better hitter with patience and and once he learns how to handle pitch counts. You do not want to be 0-2. I talked to him last season and he is a very smart player, and I think he will be a very good player. I think McClendon can really help him if they work together.While this really is the perfect example of a Joe Morgan response to a question -- he doesn't actually ever answer the question, he mentions that he talked with the player at some point and has something obliquely nice to say about said player, thinks the player will be "good," and gives some unnecessary dap to a manager/coach that only Joe Morgan thinks is actually competent -- that's neither here nor there. What is important is that Joe's not alone in thinking that 0-2 counts are a product of poor pitch counts/discipline. While this certainly can be the case, I wonder if it really is?
That's a rhetorical question; I already know the answer. I'll write more about this, and other TGD-inspired perspectives, after I manage to get the other half of TGWNA the F off my couch.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
It's official ...
Brett Myers is now the Phillies' closer. I'm betting he will be for the rest of the season, barring injury.
Now if we can only find some use for Freddy Garcia ...
In unrelated news, tell me this isn't the most inane column you've ever read. Forget all the stuff that gets exaggerated and beaten to death -- booing Santa, for instance, which happened 30+ years ago -- the town's treatment of Donovan McNabb is the one thing that really makes me wonder about Philadelphia. He's clearly the best quarterback in the history of the franchise, almost single-handedly turned the franchise around, and yet all the media and fans do is go out of their way to assassinate his character.
Yet they adored AI.
Now if we can only find some use for Freddy Garcia ...
In unrelated news, tell me this isn't the most inane column you've ever read. Forget all the stuff that gets exaggerated and beaten to death -- booing Santa, for instance, which happened 30+ years ago -- the town's treatment of Donovan McNabb is the one thing that really makes me wonder about Philadelphia. He's clearly the best quarterback in the history of the franchise, almost single-handedly turned the franchise around, and yet all the media and fans do is go out of their way to assassinate his character.
Yet they adored AI.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Oooh-wee!
Don't really want to divert attention away from the long post about Josh Hancock I just put up, but I just saw this on the 700 level: Trotter and Brown might be demoted.
The Trot thing isn't a huge surprise, considering his KIAA (Knee-Injury-Adjusted Age) of 39. I bet he'll still be in there on first and second down, though.
Sheldon's a different story. Dude was arguably their best corner in 2005 and has single-handedly won them a couple games in the last few years (I'm thinking particularly of the rally he started with a beautiful pick-six against the Chefs a couple years back, and a similar play against the Cowgirls either that year or last). Do I smell a move to safety? Please? (Do yourself a favor: mute your speakers before clicking that.)
On the bright side, I get to drop my new favorite nickname much more next year if William James starts: "The Philosopher." Get it? Because everybody confuses the James brothers? (Henry was the fiction writer.) This could be the biggest stroke of luck for lit dorks since Arizona had a starting d-end named "William" Carlos Williams.
The Trot thing isn't a huge surprise, considering his KIAA (Knee-Injury-Adjusted Age) of 39. I bet he'll still be in there on first and second down, though.
Sheldon's a different story. Dude was arguably their best corner in 2005 and has single-handedly won them a couple games in the last few years (I'm thinking particularly of the rally he started with a beautiful pick-six against the Chefs a couple years back, and a similar play against the Cowgirls either that year or last). Do I smell a move to safety? Please? (Do yourself a favor: mute your speakers before clicking that.)
On the bright side, I get to drop my new favorite nickname much more next year if William James starts: "The Philosopher." Get it? Because everybody confuses the James brothers? (Henry was the fiction writer.) This could be the biggest stroke of luck for lit dorks since Arizona had a starting d-end named "William" Carlos Williams.
On Tragedy, Death, and the Difference
Two days ago I began a post about the sports media's response to Josh Hancock's death -- ESPN's, particularly, although the response seemed uniform across the major outlets. I started it -- for me, that means like 1000 words -- and then put it away because I didn't have time to finish. The gist of my argument was that prominent members of the baseball media, particularly Gammons, Wojo, and Stark, were abusing the word "tragedy" and needlessly deifying a relatively insignificant person simply because he was dead and used to play baseball. I find that treatment nauseating, mostly because I think it actually trivializes the life of the person in question; in other words, I was not arguing that Josh Hancock's death was insignificant, or underestimating its effect on those close to him -- merely pointing out the hypocrisy of how the sports media treats its dead.
Well, now things are a bit more complicated. It turns out Hancock had a bit of a history of driving around late at night and getting into accidents, and also that he had a few drinks that night (some with ESPN's own Dave Campbell), and may have been drunk. It's worth noting that nobody knows for sure whether he was drunk; the only evidence I've seen is a statement by a couple that saw him hours before the crash, and toxicology reports have yet to be released. And then, in a typical bit of megalomania, Tony LaRussa threatened to go ballistic on the media for having the gall to report that a dead man might have been to blame for his own death.
I began my previous post with a link to a Phils/Braves gamer that didn't focus on the game itself nearly so much as Tim Hudson's performance in the wake of his grandmother's and Hancock's deaths. Hancock was his teammate at Auburn, and apparently was still a friend, although I have to wonder whether they were truly still good friends, or whether a reporter asked him if he was close to the dead guy and Hudson didn't want to say "not really." It makes a much better story if they were close. But that's idle speculation: the point is that the story clearly made Hudson out to be courageous for doing his job so soon after a pair of losses.
I don't think that's so courageous at all. I'm not saying it's easy to pitch eight good innings -- not under any circumstances, much less while thinking, at least occasionally, about a dead grandmother and a dead former college teammate -- but I don't think it took courage. (Note: the story didn't use the word courageous. I'm just trying to make a distinction here.)
And here's why: Tim Hudson is a 31-year-old man. It's never easy to lose a family member, but let's face it: by 31, most people have lost at least a grandparent. It's an unfortunate probability at that point. She had apparently been sick for some time. Again, I'm not saying her death is any less traumatic, but it's not so remarkable for a 31-year-old man to go to work and do his job shortly after his ailing grandmother has died. It happens every day in offices across America. And it happens because losing one's grandmother to a long illness at the age of 31 is not a tragedy. It's just life.
Which brings us to Josh Hancock and the matter of his untimely death. Presumably -- if you read the article, it's fairly obvious -- that was the main focus of the article's tragedy/courage angle. His grandmother might have merited a mention, but Hancock got the first line, as well as more page space. The implication is that Josh Hancock's death was tragic, and there's more of an argument for that: he had just turned 29, had finally established himself with a team after a career lived on the margins (he was a Phillie three years ago and I can't remember ever hearing of him, so that should tell you something about his early career).
But I don't think Josh Hancock's death was a tragedy. And I didn't think it was before the news broke about his respective driving and drinking habits.
Before I proceed with this, a disclaimer. I often bristle at human behavior in the wake of death. And I am rarely able to make myself understood when that happens. So before I elucidate this tragedy vs. death argument, let me first assure you that I would attribute a whole lot of adjectives to Josh Hancock's death: sad, premature, devastating for those who knew him well, lamentable, etc. Although I know almost nothing of him, it's also safe to say that he was a remarkable person, simply because the he was good enough at what he did to reach the most elite level of competition. He wasn't a great major leaguer, nor even a good one, but let's not forget how hard it is to make the majors. And, really, the death of anybody is a terrible event in many ways, especially for those who have to live on without them.
However, his death was not a tragedy, as Gammons and Wojo and Stark all proclaimed it.
Dictionary definitions typically make a convenient refuge for equivocating assholes whose argument cannot support itself on logic. However, since I'm arguing once again against the media's sensationalist abuse of language, it's worth investigating the linguistic definition of tragedy. (All ensuing material taken from the Oxford English Dictionary Online.) The word comes from ancient Greek, and every modern English usage stems from the type of play:
1. A play or other literary work of a serious or sorrowful character, with a fatal or disastrous conclusion: opp. to COMEDY1 1. {dag}a. In mediæval use: A tale or narrative poem of this character.
Including the definition which applies to Stark & co.'s usage, which is figurative:
3. fig. An unhappy or fatal event or series of events in real life; a dreadful calamity or disaster. (Cf. COMEDY1 4.)
The scribes in question could fall back on the dictionary and say that Hancock's death was, definitively, a tragedy: a fatal event or series of events in real life.
However, that's not the sum of the definition -- which indicates that the event must be of a scale that constitutes a "dreadful calamity or disaster," neither of which Hancock's car wreck was. And it certainly doesn't fit the contemporary connotation -- that oft-forgotten other half of a word's meaning -- which, I think, necessitates a larger scale of significance. A tragedy is a fatal event that kills a lot of people -- a bus crash, a ship sinking -- or one that's significant to a large number of people -- Princess Di's death -- or one whose significance is inflated by exacerbating circumstances: the death of a child, deaths which the person could not possibly have anticipated or prevented, deaths in ways we consider odd: baseballs to the temple, murder, congenital defects.
Josh Hancock's death fits none of those conditions. And that certainly is not his fault -- he's beyond caring how people categorize his death -- which is something I never said and don't want to imply. This is not about Josh Hancock. This is about how we treat death. And what I'm trying to say is exactly this:
Death is not tragic, in and of itself.
Tragedy is defined by circumstances. We just like to think that death is tragic, and like to say it too, because it helps us think of death as remote and odd instead of as something that's coming to all of us, likely sooner than we think. It helps us "other" the dead. I could go on about this forever: I've written 25-page grad-level term papers on this very tendency in literature, specifically as committed by two pen-wielding luminaries of the last half-century, Truman Capote and Haruki Murakami. So I'm not blaming the media specifically for doing something I consider it human nature to do.
What I am blaming them for is the reason I think they're calling it a tragedy in the first place: because Josh Hancock was a baseball player.
As I previously said, Hancock was not a remarkable person in any other way obvious to objective observation. That's not a criticism: by definition, not many people are remarkable. He may have been a wonderful human being, kind and humble and good to his family (although, again, it's worth nothing that the fact of his death makes that possibility no more likely). But the only reason we've heard of him, or of his death, is because he played major league baseball.
Gammons and Wojo both fail to acknowledge that elephant in the corner, preferring instead to make tepid Daryl Kile comparisons, despite the obvious and unavoidable (and legion) differences between the two situations; really, the only similarities are that they both pitched and they both played for the Cardinals. They call it a tragedy without ever considering that it might not be a tragedy for a baseball player to die in the manner of thousands of average Americans every year.
Jayson Stark, on the other hand, takes a more interesting tack. He acknowledges that Hancock was not that significant in baseball terms, and yet he's the only one of the three who really focuses on the dead man, in particular his work during the Cards' Series season last year. And he only invokes the word "tragedy" once, as an adjective, in the second paragraph.
I suppose it's obvious I think Stark handles the story best. He shows a perspective and aversion to breathlessness rare in times like this, and, I would argue, even rarer among sportswriters at large. Every time an athlete dies, a litany of scribes effuse over his grit and heart and specialness, especially when it's during a slow stretch of news such as this one, as April ends and baseball writers are forced to move on from hackneyed features about hope and popping gloves. (In a week, of course, they will have forgotten Hancock completely -- on to newer news.) Stark, on the other hand, tones down the "tragic" aspect: as he says, "But in baseball, life happens, and death happens."
The only trouble is that baseball has nothing to do with it. Or, perhaps, that baseball should have nothing to do with it. Just because a person is on an active professional roster (and make no mistake, if Hancock had been demoted two weeks before his death, we wouldn't be having this discussion) doesn't mean his death is necessarily tragic. It's just one more example of ESPN writers pouncing on an event and inflating its significance beyond any reasonable frame. And why? Because inflating its significance inflates their significance. It disgusts me more when the event they're exploiting is a person's death. As Ryan quite trenchantly said in an earlier comment, why should we care about Josh Hancock? I'd like to hear anyone answer that without bringing up baseball or the fact that ESPN wrote a lot about him.
At the very least, let's not pretend they did it for his sake. I sincerely doubt all of their attention to the issue has helped anybody involved, especially not his family, and definitely not his teammates. So perhaps these smug glory-whoring pricks should can their smarmy bleating and go cover some baseball.
Well, now things are a bit more complicated. It turns out Hancock had a bit of a history of driving around late at night and getting into accidents, and also that he had a few drinks that night (some with ESPN's own Dave Campbell), and may have been drunk. It's worth noting that nobody knows for sure whether he was drunk; the only evidence I've seen is a statement by a couple that saw him hours before the crash, and toxicology reports have yet to be released. And then, in a typical bit of megalomania, Tony LaRussa threatened to go ballistic on the media for having the gall to report that a dead man might have been to blame for his own death.
I began my previous post with a link to a Phils/Braves gamer that didn't focus on the game itself nearly so much as Tim Hudson's performance in the wake of his grandmother's and Hancock's deaths. Hancock was his teammate at Auburn, and apparently was still a friend, although I have to wonder whether they were truly still good friends, or whether a reporter asked him if he was close to the dead guy and Hudson didn't want to say "not really." It makes a much better story if they were close. But that's idle speculation: the point is that the story clearly made Hudson out to be courageous for doing his job so soon after a pair of losses.
I don't think that's so courageous at all. I'm not saying it's easy to pitch eight good innings -- not under any circumstances, much less while thinking, at least occasionally, about a dead grandmother and a dead former college teammate -- but I don't think it took courage. (Note: the story didn't use the word courageous. I'm just trying to make a distinction here.)
And here's why: Tim Hudson is a 31-year-old man. It's never easy to lose a family member, but let's face it: by 31, most people have lost at least a grandparent. It's an unfortunate probability at that point. She had apparently been sick for some time. Again, I'm not saying her death is any less traumatic, but it's not so remarkable for a 31-year-old man to go to work and do his job shortly after his ailing grandmother has died. It happens every day in offices across America. And it happens because losing one's grandmother to a long illness at the age of 31 is not a tragedy. It's just life.
Which brings us to Josh Hancock and the matter of his untimely death. Presumably -- if you read the article, it's fairly obvious -- that was the main focus of the article's tragedy/courage angle. His grandmother might have merited a mention, but Hancock got the first line, as well as more page space. The implication is that Josh Hancock's death was tragic, and there's more of an argument for that: he had just turned 29, had finally established himself with a team after a career lived on the margins (he was a Phillie three years ago and I can't remember ever hearing of him, so that should tell you something about his early career).
But I don't think Josh Hancock's death was a tragedy. And I didn't think it was before the news broke about his respective driving and drinking habits.
Before I proceed with this, a disclaimer. I often bristle at human behavior in the wake of death. And I am rarely able to make myself understood when that happens. So before I elucidate this tragedy vs. death argument, let me first assure you that I would attribute a whole lot of adjectives to Josh Hancock's death: sad, premature, devastating for those who knew him well, lamentable, etc. Although I know almost nothing of him, it's also safe to say that he was a remarkable person, simply because the he was good enough at what he did to reach the most elite level of competition. He wasn't a great major leaguer, nor even a good one, but let's not forget how hard it is to make the majors. And, really, the death of anybody is a terrible event in many ways, especially for those who have to live on without them.
However, his death was not a tragedy, as Gammons and Wojo and Stark all proclaimed it.
Dictionary definitions typically make a convenient refuge for equivocating assholes whose argument cannot support itself on logic. However, since I'm arguing once again against the media's sensationalist abuse of language, it's worth investigating the linguistic definition of tragedy. (All ensuing material taken from the Oxford English Dictionary Online.) The word comes from ancient Greek, and every modern English usage stems from the type of play:
1. A play or other literary work of a serious or sorrowful character, with a fatal or disastrous conclusion: opp. to COMEDY1 1. {dag}a. In mediæval use: A tale or narrative poem of this character.
Including the definition which applies to Stark & co.'s usage, which is figurative:
3. fig. An unhappy or fatal event or series of events in real life; a dreadful calamity or disaster. (Cf. COMEDY1 4.)
The scribes in question could fall back on the dictionary and say that Hancock's death was, definitively, a tragedy: a fatal event or series of events in real life.
However, that's not the sum of the definition -- which indicates that the event must be of a scale that constitutes a "dreadful calamity or disaster," neither of which Hancock's car wreck was. And it certainly doesn't fit the contemporary connotation -- that oft-forgotten other half of a word's meaning -- which, I think, necessitates a larger scale of significance. A tragedy is a fatal event that kills a lot of people -- a bus crash, a ship sinking -- or one that's significant to a large number of people -- Princess Di's death -- or one whose significance is inflated by exacerbating circumstances: the death of a child, deaths which the person could not possibly have anticipated or prevented, deaths in ways we consider odd: baseballs to the temple, murder, congenital defects.
Josh Hancock's death fits none of those conditions. And that certainly is not his fault -- he's beyond caring how people categorize his death -- which is something I never said and don't want to imply. This is not about Josh Hancock. This is about how we treat death. And what I'm trying to say is exactly this:
Death is not tragic, in and of itself.
Tragedy is defined by circumstances. We just like to think that death is tragic, and like to say it too, because it helps us think of death as remote and odd instead of as something that's coming to all of us, likely sooner than we think. It helps us "other" the dead. I could go on about this forever: I've written 25-page grad-level term papers on this very tendency in literature, specifically as committed by two pen-wielding luminaries of the last half-century, Truman Capote and Haruki Murakami. So I'm not blaming the media specifically for doing something I consider it human nature to do.
What I am blaming them for is the reason I think they're calling it a tragedy in the first place: because Josh Hancock was a baseball player.
As I previously said, Hancock was not a remarkable person in any other way obvious to objective observation. That's not a criticism: by definition, not many people are remarkable. He may have been a wonderful human being, kind and humble and good to his family (although, again, it's worth nothing that the fact of his death makes that possibility no more likely). But the only reason we've heard of him, or of his death, is because he played major league baseball.
Gammons and Wojo both fail to acknowledge that elephant in the corner, preferring instead to make tepid Daryl Kile comparisons, despite the obvious and unavoidable (and legion) differences between the two situations; really, the only similarities are that they both pitched and they both played for the Cardinals. They call it a tragedy without ever considering that it might not be a tragedy for a baseball player to die in the manner of thousands of average Americans every year.
Jayson Stark, on the other hand, takes a more interesting tack. He acknowledges that Hancock was not that significant in baseball terms, and yet he's the only one of the three who really focuses on the dead man, in particular his work during the Cards' Series season last year. And he only invokes the word "tragedy" once, as an adjective, in the second paragraph.
I suppose it's obvious I think Stark handles the story best. He shows a perspective and aversion to breathlessness rare in times like this, and, I would argue, even rarer among sportswriters at large. Every time an athlete dies, a litany of scribes effuse over his grit and heart and specialness, especially when it's during a slow stretch of news such as this one, as April ends and baseball writers are forced to move on from hackneyed features about hope and popping gloves. (In a week, of course, they will have forgotten Hancock completely -- on to newer news.) Stark, on the other hand, tones down the "tragic" aspect: as he says, "But in baseball, life happens, and death happens."
The only trouble is that baseball has nothing to do with it. Or, perhaps, that baseball should have nothing to do with it. Just because a person is on an active professional roster (and make no mistake, if Hancock had been demoted two weeks before his death, we wouldn't be having this discussion) doesn't mean his death is necessarily tragic. It's just one more example of ESPN writers pouncing on an event and inflating its significance beyond any reasonable frame. And why? Because inflating its significance inflates their significance. It disgusts me more when the event they're exploiting is a person's death. As Ryan quite trenchantly said in an earlier comment, why should we care about Josh Hancock? I'd like to hear anyone answer that without bringing up baseball or the fact that ESPN wrote a lot about him.
At the very least, let's not pretend they did it for his sake. I sincerely doubt all of their attention to the issue has helped anybody involved, especially not his family, and definitely not his teammates. So perhaps these smug glory-whoring pricks should can their smarmy bleating and go cover some baseball.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Cher Chez La Diesel
My life, at times, can actually be interesting. Last Friday, for instance, I was at the birthday celebration for a 24-year-old British kid who understands black music almost as well as Justin and I do. The reason this is funny is because you haven't lived until a drunken British kid proclaims, in clipped English, that Dr. Octagon is "fucking awesome."
(Tragic side note: He does not like soccer. Suffice to say, if he didn't love the hip hop, we'd have nothing to talk about except for the sheer lunacy that is eating the Döner Kebab before 2 a.m.)
Anyway, we're talking about Ghostface, whom we both adore, and I mention that he and MF Doom (another shared favorite) have been planning on doing an album together for wicked long. British kid loses his shit, and asks when the album is coming out. I say "I don't know," in non-clipped English, but I have this thing where I tend to assume accents the more I talk to people, which usually leads to those people thinking I'm mocking them. So, it's entirely possible that I was actually beginning to speak in a clipped accent, which would make it sound more like, "Aye dount knou." Were this the case, I'm positive it was really annoying to everyone else around me. But who gives a fuck? If you're not excited about the Ghostface/Doom album, you might as well hang a Confederate flag in your front window.
So, today, while I was trying to find out some more info about the Ghostface/Doom album, I stumbled on this really, really excellent article in the New Yorker that served as an album review for a recent Ghostface release. It's great because it's one of the few times that someone has been complementary of a rapper in a literary magazine without either sounding condescending or hopelessly out-of-touch (if not both at the same time).
Believe it or not, that was the point of the story.
(If you're not a racist, check out this mp3 of one of the cuts from the upcoming Ghostface/Doom album!)
Anyway (on to sports), Justin's point about the NBA owing it's popularity to MJ/Magic/Bird more than the streetball ethic/aesthetic is actually not an either/or. The reason MJ, Magic and even Larry "I'm not Caucasian, I'm White as Paper" Bird became the legends they are is because they were able to bring the kind of approach and panache seen on the streets into what was, at the time, kind of a boring game populated by pale, moustachioed point guards*. MJ (and Nique, who's tragically left out of the "guys who brought the NBA to its heights of popularity" arguments) ushered in the era of posterizing guys like Craig Ehlo. Magic made it poor form to actually look at a guy when passing the ball. Bird was the biggest shit-talker ever, and probably epitomized the street attitude more than any of his cohort, even though he was a white dude from Indiana. It was during this time that we (by that, I mean the American viewing audience) became acquainted with the cross-over, the alley-oop, the term "brick," and (most importantly) the stare-down after you fuck someone up on a dunk. And whether people want to accept it or not, it's the audacious nature of basketball that was, and is, the draw. We may demonize excessive pride in other spectator sports, but it's precisely the kind of ravenous need for one's talent to be appreciated (an attribute the Warriors display to an almost embarrassing degree) that ultimately makes the sport compelling.
As for the Phillies, why is it already verboten for Myers to work more than one frame? He's not only a former starter, but he's a guy who started this season. You telling me he can't hold up for a two-inning, 35-pitch outing? It drives me crazy that managers -- Chucky Stickshift isn't the only douche guilty of this crime -- won't even use fucking setup guys for more than one inning now. It is this kind of idiocy that compels the Orioles to carry 13 pitchers on their 25-man roster, which is sort of like spending half of your bomb shelter cupboard space on EZ Cheez.
* The Good Doctor, Moses Malone, Connie Hawkins (considered by many to be the greatest streetball player ever) and a small cast brought aspects of streetball to the NBA before the Magic/MJ/Bird/Nique years, but the difference is that, 1) Those guys were not the most dominant forces in the NBA at one time (though a few were, for a year or two, individually considered one of the game's best players); 2) They came a little early, before television coverage and technology would truly allow us to burn slow-mo images into our head (not to mention branding); and 3) None of them are truly among the best players ever, at least as far as the NBA is concerned (too much of Doc's prime was spent in the ABA, while Malone and Hawkins are classic examples of players who were awesome, but ultimately not as awesome as they probably could have been.
(Tragic side note: He does not like soccer. Suffice to say, if he didn't love the hip hop, we'd have nothing to talk about except for the sheer lunacy that is eating the Döner Kebab before 2 a.m.)
Anyway, we're talking about Ghostface, whom we both adore, and I mention that he and MF Doom (another shared favorite) have been planning on doing an album together for wicked long. British kid loses his shit, and asks when the album is coming out. I say "I don't know," in non-clipped English, but I have this thing where I tend to assume accents the more I talk to people, which usually leads to those people thinking I'm mocking them. So, it's entirely possible that I was actually beginning to speak in a clipped accent, which would make it sound more like, "Aye dount knou." Were this the case, I'm positive it was really annoying to everyone else around me. But who gives a fuck? If you're not excited about the Ghostface/Doom album, you might as well hang a Confederate flag in your front window.
So, today, while I was trying to find out some more info about the Ghostface/Doom album, I stumbled on this really, really excellent article in the New Yorker that served as an album review for a recent Ghostface release. It's great because it's one of the few times that someone has been complementary of a rapper in a literary magazine without either sounding condescending or hopelessly out-of-touch (if not both at the same time).
Believe it or not, that was the point of the story.
(If you're not a racist, check out this mp3 of one of the cuts from the upcoming Ghostface/Doom album!)
Anyway (on to sports), Justin's point about the NBA owing it's popularity to MJ/Magic/Bird more than the streetball ethic/aesthetic is actually not an either/or. The reason MJ, Magic and even Larry "I'm not Caucasian, I'm White as Paper" Bird became the legends they are is because they were able to bring the kind of approach and panache seen on the streets into what was, at the time, kind of a boring game populated by pale, moustachioed point guards*. MJ (and Nique, who's tragically left out of the "guys who brought the NBA to its heights of popularity" arguments) ushered in the era of posterizing guys like Craig Ehlo. Magic made it poor form to actually look at a guy when passing the ball. Bird was the biggest shit-talker ever, and probably epitomized the street attitude more than any of his cohort, even though he was a white dude from Indiana. It was during this time that we (by that, I mean the American viewing audience) became acquainted with the cross-over, the alley-oop, the term "brick," and (most importantly) the stare-down after you fuck someone up on a dunk. And whether people want to accept it or not, it's the audacious nature of basketball that was, and is, the draw. We may demonize excessive pride in other spectator sports, but it's precisely the kind of ravenous need for one's talent to be appreciated (an attribute the Warriors display to an almost embarrassing degree) that ultimately makes the sport compelling.
As for the Phillies, why is it already verboten for Myers to work more than one frame? He's not only a former starter, but he's a guy who started this season. You telling me he can't hold up for a two-inning, 35-pitch outing? It drives me crazy that managers -- Chucky Stickshift isn't the only douche guilty of this crime -- won't even use fucking setup guys for more than one inning now. It is this kind of idiocy that compels the Orioles to carry 13 pitchers on their 25-man roster, which is sort of like spending half of your bomb shelter cupboard space on EZ Cheez.
* The Good Doctor, Moses Malone, Connie Hawkins (considered by many to be the greatest streetball player ever) and a small cast brought aspects of streetball to the NBA before the Magic/MJ/Bird/Nique years, but the difference is that, 1) Those guys were not the most dominant forces in the NBA at one time (though a few were, for a year or two, individually considered one of the game's best players); 2) They came a little early, before television coverage and technology would truly allow us to burn slow-mo images into our head (not to mention branding); and 3) None of them are truly among the best players ever, at least as far as the NBA is concerned (too much of Doc's prime was spent in the ABA, while Malone and Hawkins are classic examples of players who were awesome, but ultimately not as awesome as they probably could have been.
What a load of shit ...
I don't have time to dissect it, but I really shouldn't have to: this is the single worst piece of so-called journalism I've seen perpetrated in months. Talk about inventing a story; that's fucking ridiculous. It's like a how-to for being a sensationalist hack: the main players won't say anything, so she seeks out an interview from a person involved only peripherally in anything important, one whose tongue has been known to slip in the past, then takes everything he says out of context, implies an intent behind what he doesn't say (while also hypothesizing and conveniently conflating the two categories), then uses a complete non-response to prop up her ignorant fucking sensationalist soapbox. What a horrible job of reporting.
She should apply at ESPN.
(EDIT: In contrast, here is a great interview, if not necessarily a great piece of journalism. That is exactly the kind of thing I rarely or never see in sports-magazine reporting.)
She should apply at ESPN.
(EDIT: In contrast, here is a great interview, if not necessarily a great piece of journalism. That is exactly the kind of thing I rarely or never see in sports-magazine reporting.)
Monday, April 30, 2007
A terrible trio of topics: the Eagles' draft, the NBA, the Phillies 'pen.
The NFL draft: First off, I apologize to our more sensitive readers for the obscene content of my former post, although I renege none of its hatred or vitriol and persist in hating the Kolb pick and everybody in the Eagles' FO. I've watched whatever highlight films of his I can find (this one seems to be the best, if not the best choice of resolution or backing music), and he strikes me as a weak-armed run-first system guy who never worked under center (and the Eagles almost never run a shotgun, preferring instead, as I've often lamented, to run one-back play-action horseshit even on third-and-long). Suffice to say I don't think Kevin Kolb will ever be the Eagles' starting quarterback, and if he is, he'll be Bobby Hoying redux.
But fine -- franchise quarterbacks dont' come often, especially in the second round. The bigger issue is that they didn't pick a single real safety: Gaddis out of Clemson and the Barksdale guy (can we start a petition to make him change his first name to Avon?) from Albany are both hybrid CB/S guys not ideally suited for either position. I bet cash money that will come back to haunt them in a very material sense, probably this season -- but I like a few of their later picks a hell of a lot and think they addressed glaring needs. Namely:
Abiamiri out of ND is exactly what they needed on the D-line, a big earthmover end who can stop the run, the kind of guy they usually forsake in favor of undersized "high-motor" busts like McDougle, Patterson, Bunkley -- hell, all the way back to Mike Mamula.
Bradley from Nebraska -- a 6'4", 254-lb LB -- is another welcome departure from their tendency to draft fast undersized linebackers who invariably wind up sucking (Reid has yet to draft a starting-quality linebacker -- see McCoy, Reese, Caver, Gardner, Gocong, etc. -- with the possible exception of Gaither last year, and it's too early to say with him). This guy's not a freak athlete, but he's almost Trotter's size and can't possibly be any worse in coverage than Dhani Jones.
Tony Hunt could finally be the big back Eagles fans have been waiting for since Reid took over. I love Westbrook -- I think he's still underrated, despite his recent hype, because he's not as fragile as people think, runs well between the tackles, comes up big in big spots, is a very good blocker, an excellent receiver, and all-around, probably the best running back in the NFC and the single most dangerous player I've seen since Marshall Faulk. But we could use a change-of-pace guy to play the Brandon Jacobs/T.J. Duckett role in goalline situations and third-and-short. Maybe now Andy will even decide to fucking run the ball sometimes in those situations. Probably not, but I can dream.
However, Doyle makes an excellent point that draft-day speculation -- and indeed the media blitz that is the NFL draft -- is invariably wrong and, further, pointless. NFL scouts fail in evaluating talent most of the time and we probably can't do any better.
The NBA: Unfortunately, I just finished working four days in a row and don't have cable, so I haven't been able to watch any of the first-round games save for snippets caught between serving Smithwicks. So I'll leave most of it to Connor, except to take minor issue with a couple of his statements from the previous post:
I agree that its players' streetball ethic has helped the NBA's popularity. However, I also think it's partly to blame for its decline in popularity since the MJ/Magic/Bird days, largely for the reason you touch upon -- white America can no longer identify with many of the players, or no longer wants to try, which in turn has led to the NBA's quest to Tigerfy its players, as you mentioned.
The only other thing I have to offer is that the LeBron/A-Rod comparison is dead-on. That's the first time I've seen it made, and I hadn't considered it, but the parallels are all there.
The Phillies: Another strong outing from a starting pitcher today. Seven innings, one earned run from Leiber. Myers pitched another scoreless eighth. And the back end of the 'pen blew it again. This time El Pulpo Flashed a fastball to Andruw and he hit it halfway to Punxsutawney.
Clock's ticking, Chaz. Make Myers the closer soon or you're out of a job and the Phils will be out of the Wild Card race.
Stay tuned tomorrow for a post discussing Josh Hancock's death and the sports media's response. I expect it will piss a lot of people off for no good reason.
But fine -- franchise quarterbacks dont' come often, especially in the second round. The bigger issue is that they didn't pick a single real safety: Gaddis out of Clemson and the Barksdale guy (can we start a petition to make him change his first name to Avon?) from Albany are both hybrid CB/S guys not ideally suited for either position. I bet cash money that will come back to haunt them in a very material sense, probably this season -- but I like a few of their later picks a hell of a lot and think they addressed glaring needs. Namely:
Abiamiri out of ND is exactly what they needed on the D-line, a big earthmover end who can stop the run, the kind of guy they usually forsake in favor of undersized "high-motor" busts like McDougle, Patterson, Bunkley -- hell, all the way back to Mike Mamula.
Bradley from Nebraska -- a 6'4", 254-lb LB -- is another welcome departure from their tendency to draft fast undersized linebackers who invariably wind up sucking (Reid has yet to draft a starting-quality linebacker -- see McCoy, Reese, Caver, Gardner, Gocong, etc. -- with the possible exception of Gaither last year, and it's too early to say with him). This guy's not a freak athlete, but he's almost Trotter's size and can't possibly be any worse in coverage than Dhani Jones.
Tony Hunt could finally be the big back Eagles fans have been waiting for since Reid took over. I love Westbrook -- I think he's still underrated, despite his recent hype, because he's not as fragile as people think, runs well between the tackles, comes up big in big spots, is a very good blocker, an excellent receiver, and all-around, probably the best running back in the NFC and the single most dangerous player I've seen since Marshall Faulk. But we could use a change-of-pace guy to play the Brandon Jacobs/T.J. Duckett role in goalline situations and third-and-short. Maybe now Andy will even decide to fucking run the ball sometimes in those situations. Probably not, but I can dream.
However, Doyle makes an excellent point that draft-day speculation -- and indeed the media blitz that is the NFL draft -- is invariably wrong and, further, pointless. NFL scouts fail in evaluating talent most of the time and we probably can't do any better.
The NBA: Unfortunately, I just finished working four days in a row and don't have cable, so I haven't been able to watch any of the first-round games save for snippets caught between serving Smithwicks. So I'll leave most of it to Connor, except to take minor issue with a couple of his statements from the previous post:
I agree that its players' streetball ethic has helped the NBA's popularity. However, I also think it's partly to blame for its decline in popularity since the MJ/Magic/Bird days, largely for the reason you touch upon -- white America can no longer identify with many of the players, or no longer wants to try, which in turn has led to the NBA's quest to Tigerfy its players, as you mentioned.
The only other thing I have to offer is that the LeBron/A-Rod comparison is dead-on. That's the first time I've seen it made, and I hadn't considered it, but the parallels are all there.
The Phillies: Another strong outing from a starting pitcher today. Seven innings, one earned run from Leiber. Myers pitched another scoreless eighth. And the back end of the 'pen blew it again. This time El Pulpo Flashed a fastball to Andruw and he hit it halfway to Punxsutawney.
Clock's ticking, Chaz. Make Myers the closer soon or you're out of a job and the Phils will be out of the Wild Card race.
Stay tuned tomorrow for a post discussing Josh Hancock's death and the sports media's response. I expect it will piss a lot of people off for no good reason.
On to things we can speak about with some measure of authority
While I understand Justin's absolute horror at the Kolb pick -- it was, simply, stunning (or: simply stunning; or: stunning, simply ... too many choices) -- I also think it's always a little crazy when fans start flying off the handle about draft picks before camp has even broken. Does this have the potential to be bad? Sure. But outsiders like us really know so little about draft prospects outside of what the talking heads tell us that it's virtually impossible to make informed criticism. Who knows? This Kolb kid could be perfectly suited for Reid's offense, and maybe they know something about Donovan that the rest of us don't. I'm not saying any of this is particularly likely, I'm just saying there isn't much beyond conjecture to go with here. So I'm going to take a pass on NFL Draft commentary.
What I do want to talk about is my new favorite sports franchise, The Golden State Warriors. Yes, my Warriors. I have inevitably become a fan of the Suns since I moved back to Phoenix, because there's no real reason not to; my love for the Pacers had more to do with Reggie Miller than it did the city or franchise as a whole, and living in the same city as a franchise this good and spectator-friendly is a little too much to resist. But the rub is that the Suns might be a little too good to captivate me, because I don't particularly gain any joy out of rooting for the bully. The Warriors, on the other hand, are like the Suns in every way except for two important exceptions:
1) They should not be beating anyone, particularly the Mavs; this is a team that barely made it into the Western Conference Playoffs, beating out luminaries like the T-Wolves and Clips for that honor;
2) This is by far the sloppiest, most street-cred-obsessed, blatantly anti-David Stern team ever assembled.
Honestly, tell me if there's one person on the Warriors you wouldn't take in a street fight? Have you seen Matt Barnes? My reflex has always been to back the "threatening" guys, if only because I get tired of the NBA's constant quest to pretend it's not a game that owes it's popularity en consummo to the street ball ethic and aesthetic. The quest began with the constant harping on AI's tats, and quickly extended to anyone who's not immediately appealing to corporate America's ideal of the grateful negro athlete. Sure, Carmelo might be an idiot, but at least he's somewhat genuine; in the span of two years and roughly 1,345 commercials, LeBron's gone from a marvel to just another sycophantic endorsement machine. Like it would be a crime if everyone didn't love him.
(Side note: Anyone else see A-Rod parallels popping up like crazy with LeBron? He's unquestionably one of the most unique and complete athletes, respective to his sport, we've ever seen. Each came into the pros as both extremely young and prodigiously talented, and hit the ground running. Both were serious contenders for the MVP Award by their second seasons. LeBron is likely to do Cleveland like A-Rod did Seattle. And both will end up, probably, being underappreciated when it's all said and done because they both come off as canned and disingenuous during public appearances, commercials, etc.)
The point is that my love of the Warriors has less to do with what they are than what they aren't. Yeah, I love Steve Nash, and Marion, and Raja, but those are the kinds of guys who wear sweater vests to post-game interviews. Amare might be the only Sun who could blend in with the Warriors, but even he's managed to tone it down a notch. Chuck learned the same lesson most of the Suns have learned: Phoenix isn't the kind of city that relishes the opportunity to witness the counter-culture. Remember the Stephon Marbury years for this franchise? Not many people in Phoenix do, either, because they stopped going to the fucking games, even though it remained a moderately competative and fairly fun-to-watch team in the bridge years between Jason "I done told Joumanna twice already" Kidd and Steve Nash, who's the most hardcore Canadian since Terry Fox, minus the prosthesis. But it's safe to say that Nash's bicep kiss in Game 2 was probably the most showing-out we've seen from anyone on this team all year.
Conversely, all the Warriors do is conclude frenetic fast breaks with wild shots, try to break defenders' ankles, and primp for the fans and cameras when they succeed. They're all attitude, and it's fucking great. It's even better that they're doing it all to the league's most annoying player, Dirk, whose general lack of human qualities has been put in clearer relief in this series. This guy was supposedly the leading MVP candidate? Please. He's as unwilling to grind as any superstar I've ever seen. The Warriors, on the other hand, are all heart. Contrary to what most commentators will tell you, you'll get about 10 times the hustle out of a kid from the streets (McGuire 2:17). The only exception to that rule is when they become so popular at a young age that the hangers-on tell them it's not worth it to try. But that's not the case with anyone on the Warriors; all these guys have been told, often multiple times, that they can't hack it. Davis, J. Rich, Pietrus, Barnes, Harrington, Jackson, et all., would tear their mothers' throats out if it meant they would get the respect they all think they deserve. Sure, that's not noble, but it makes for some seriously fun ball.
And, yes, I know this is like the 43rd team I've "liked." But it's the NBA; who gives a shit? I'll watch (and root for) anyone who does the complete opposite of what the Pistons and Spurs do.
To wrap things up, here's what today's TSTIHAD would have been:
Joe (Granger, IN): If it was your call, what would you do about the Cubs over crowded outfield?
Steve Phillips: The Cubs outfield is a real situation in that they have a number of workable parts, none of which really work in the positions in which they are playing. If Pie can play at the major league level, then he has to play center. Then I would have Soriano in left and Jones and right. If Pie cannot hit in the majors right now, then they have to play Jones in center, Soriano in left, and Floyd and Merton in right. That configuration plays three outfielders out of position, but I still think it is better than putting Soriano in center. The bigger problem the Cubs have is that they would like to go back to a twelfth pitcher which would mean Pie or Merton goes to the minor leagues. Merton has proved he can hit and deserves to be there, but Pie is they're only true center-fielder. It is a real mess. My friend Steve Stone, with whom I worked games with at ESPN, compares the Cubs' outfield with playing a round of golf with three 7 Irons and two 3 woods. You have pieces that may work in certain situations but they do not work in every situation; it is tough to win that way.
Jerry (TX): Do you think the Giants should unload one or maybe two of their young pitching prospects to land some offense?
Steve Phillips: No, I think that pitching and defense wins and they need to hold on to as much pitching as possible, because some of those young arms will need to go to the bullpen at some time this year. The Giants will score enough runs to win, the question is do they have the pitching to win. I think they will stay competitive all year, especially with the front end of their rotation. There is a lot of power potential in the line-up and they have some good "baseball players." I think you may see some impact this year with some of the good young pitchers they have.
Two straight Q&As, two completely and utterly horseshit answers. Beyond the fact that Phillips spells Matt Murton's name wrong three fucking times, he actually thinks that having three players playing out-of-position is better than having one. Then, to follow it up, he starts and answer with an incorrect truism ("pitching and defense wins"), and then states unequivocally that he does not actually follow baseball at all: The Giants are 27th in runs scored in the major leagues right now. Outside of Bonds, Durham and maybe Roberts, there isn't a hitter on the team who starts for any other NL West team. The "power potential" Phillips alludes to has amounted to 18 home runs (22nd in MLB) and a .390 team slugging percentage (20th). You can say a lot of things about the Giants: They are old, they are creepily former-Padre-heavy, they play in a gorgeous ballpark, they have exquisite gear. You cannot say they have power potential, because this is so clearly untrue that Michael Bloomberg has just tried to ban Steve Phillips chats for the public's protection.
However, Phillips did accurately note that the Giants have plenty of "baseball players," which is a relief for a team that usually fields a squad of "transgender marine biologists."
What I do want to talk about is my new favorite sports franchise, The Golden State Warriors. Yes, my Warriors. I have inevitably become a fan of the Suns since I moved back to Phoenix, because there's no real reason not to; my love for the Pacers had more to do with Reggie Miller than it did the city or franchise as a whole, and living in the same city as a franchise this good and spectator-friendly is a little too much to resist. But the rub is that the Suns might be a little too good to captivate me, because I don't particularly gain any joy out of rooting for the bully. The Warriors, on the other hand, are like the Suns in every way except for two important exceptions:
1) They should not be beating anyone, particularly the Mavs; this is a team that barely made it into the Western Conference Playoffs, beating out luminaries like the T-Wolves and Clips for that honor;
2) This is by far the sloppiest, most street-cred-obsessed, blatantly anti-David Stern team ever assembled.
Honestly, tell me if there's one person on the Warriors you wouldn't take in a street fight? Have you seen Matt Barnes? My reflex has always been to back the "threatening" guys, if only because I get tired of the NBA's constant quest to pretend it's not a game that owes it's popularity en consummo to the street ball ethic and aesthetic. The quest began with the constant harping on AI's tats, and quickly extended to anyone who's not immediately appealing to corporate America's ideal of the grateful negro athlete. Sure, Carmelo might be an idiot, but at least he's somewhat genuine; in the span of two years and roughly 1,345 commercials, LeBron's gone from a marvel to just another sycophantic endorsement machine. Like it would be a crime if everyone didn't love him.
(Side note: Anyone else see A-Rod parallels popping up like crazy with LeBron? He's unquestionably one of the most unique and complete athletes, respective to his sport, we've ever seen. Each came into the pros as both extremely young and prodigiously talented, and hit the ground running. Both were serious contenders for the MVP Award by their second seasons. LeBron is likely to do Cleveland like A-Rod did Seattle. And both will end up, probably, being underappreciated when it's all said and done because they both come off as canned and disingenuous during public appearances, commercials, etc.)
The point is that my love of the Warriors has less to do with what they are than what they aren't. Yeah, I love Steve Nash, and Marion, and Raja, but those are the kinds of guys who wear sweater vests to post-game interviews. Amare might be the only Sun who could blend in with the Warriors, but even he's managed to tone it down a notch. Chuck learned the same lesson most of the Suns have learned: Phoenix isn't the kind of city that relishes the opportunity to witness the counter-culture. Remember the Stephon Marbury years for this franchise? Not many people in Phoenix do, either, because they stopped going to the fucking games, even though it remained a moderately competative and fairly fun-to-watch team in the bridge years between Jason "I done told Joumanna twice already" Kidd and Steve Nash, who's the most hardcore Canadian since Terry Fox, minus the prosthesis. But it's safe to say that Nash's bicep kiss in Game 2 was probably the most showing-out we've seen from anyone on this team all year.
Conversely, all the Warriors do is conclude frenetic fast breaks with wild shots, try to break defenders' ankles, and primp for the fans and cameras when they succeed. They're all attitude, and it's fucking great. It's even better that they're doing it all to the league's most annoying player, Dirk, whose general lack of human qualities has been put in clearer relief in this series. This guy was supposedly the leading MVP candidate? Please. He's as unwilling to grind as any superstar I've ever seen. The Warriors, on the other hand, are all heart. Contrary to what most commentators will tell you, you'll get about 10 times the hustle out of a kid from the streets (McGuire 2:17). The only exception to that rule is when they become so popular at a young age that the hangers-on tell them it's not worth it to try. But that's not the case with anyone on the Warriors; all these guys have been told, often multiple times, that they can't hack it. Davis, J. Rich, Pietrus, Barnes, Harrington, Jackson, et all., would tear their mothers' throats out if it meant they would get the respect they all think they deserve. Sure, that's not noble, but it makes for some seriously fun ball.
And, yes, I know this is like the 43rd team I've "liked." But it's the NBA; who gives a shit? I'll watch (and root for) anyone who does the complete opposite of what the Pistons and Spurs do.
To wrap things up, here's what today's TSTIHAD would have been:
Joe (Granger, IN): If it was your call, what would you do about the Cubs over crowded outfield?
Steve Phillips: The Cubs outfield is a real situation in that they have a number of workable parts, none of which really work in the positions in which they are playing. If Pie can play at the major league level, then he has to play center. Then I would have Soriano in left and Jones and right. If Pie cannot hit in the majors right now, then they have to play Jones in center, Soriano in left, and Floyd and Merton in right. That configuration plays three outfielders out of position, but I still think it is better than putting Soriano in center. The bigger problem the Cubs have is that they would like to go back to a twelfth pitcher which would mean Pie or Merton goes to the minor leagues. Merton has proved he can hit and deserves to be there, but Pie is they're only true center-fielder. It is a real mess. My friend Steve Stone, with whom I worked games with at ESPN, compares the Cubs' outfield with playing a round of golf with three 7 Irons and two 3 woods. You have pieces that may work in certain situations but they do not work in every situation; it is tough to win that way. Jerry (TX): Do you think the Giants should unload one or maybe two of their young pitching prospects to land some offense?
Steve Phillips: No, I think that pitching and defense wins and they need to hold on to as much pitching as possible, because some of those young arms will need to go to the bullpen at some time this year. The Giants will score enough runs to win, the question is do they have the pitching to win. I think they will stay competitive all year, especially with the front end of their rotation. There is a lot of power potential in the line-up and they have some good "baseball players." I think you may see some impact this year with some of the good young pitchers they have. Two straight Q&As, two completely and utterly horseshit answers. Beyond the fact that Phillips spells Matt Murton's name wrong three fucking times, he actually thinks that having three players playing out-of-position is better than having one. Then, to follow it up, he starts and answer with an incorrect truism ("pitching and defense wins"), and then states unequivocally that he does not actually follow baseball at all: The Giants are 27th in runs scored in the major leagues right now. Outside of Bonds, Durham and maybe Roberts, there isn't a hitter on the team who starts for any other NL West team. The "power potential" Phillips alludes to has amounted to 18 home runs (22nd in MLB) and a .390 team slugging percentage (20th). You can say a lot of things about the Giants: They are old, they are creepily former-Padre-heavy, they play in a gorgeous ballpark, they have exquisite gear. You cannot say they have power potential, because this is so clearly untrue that Michael Bloomberg has just tried to ban Steve Phillips chats for the public's protection.
However, Phillips did accurately note that the Giants have plenty of "baseball players," which is a relief for a team that usually fields a squad of "transgender marine biologists."
Saturday, April 28, 2007
THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE SEEN ALL LIFE; OR, WHO THE F*** IS KEVIN KOLB?
Sweet holy me on a matzo, what the hell is going on in Philadelphia? Kevin Kolb? We traded down out of the first round and used our first draft pick on Kevin fucking Kolb? WHO THE FUCK IS KEVIN KOLB? WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE DRAFT A QUARTERBACK? REMEMBER THAT MULTI-PRO-BOWLER WE HAVE AT QUARTERBACK? DONNY SOMETHING? WE DON'T NEED A FUCKING QUARTERBACK, ANDY REID, YOU MORBIDLY OBESE ASSHOLE! NO WONDER YOUR KIDS ARE SHOOTING H -- THEIR DAD'S A FUCKING IDIOT! I'D MAINLINE BLACK TAR TOO IF I WAS THE FRUIT OF YOUR GOUTED LOINS!
Oh Christ, I can't fucking take this shit. KEVIN FUCKING KOLB? He's some no-name jagoff out of Houston. He's like the sixth-best QB prospect in a terrible QB draft! He was a projected second-day pick! Sure, he had decent stats, but guess who else had decent stats playing at fucking Houston: a couple guys names of Andre Ware and David Klingler. How great did they turn out, Andy?
WE NEEDED A FUCKING SAFETY! YOU KNOW, LIKE THAT REALLY GOOD ONE SAN DIEGO GOT ONE PICK LATER? YOU KNOW, TO REPLACE THE 34-YEAR-OLD GUY, THE OTHER GUY WE LET GO IN THE OFFSEASON, AND THAT CHUMPY BITCH SEAN CONSIDINE, WHO GOT PLOWED OVER MORE TIMES LAST SEASON THAN HIS HOME STATE'S CORNFIELDS? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU FUCKING FUCKBALLS?
Oh my God I can't fucking thing straight. I'm going to go urinate on my Eagles beanie and rack my shin against the coffee table until it bleeds. We'd better draft fucking Chuck Bednarik, Rocky Balboa, and Barbaro's long-lost brother with our next three picks, or there's going to be fucking Hell to pay in Philly.
Kevin fucking Kolb ... unfuckingbelievable. I can't take it anymore. I just can't take it. DO YOU HEAR ME, ANDY REID? ARE YOU LISTENING, JOE BANNER AND MARTY MOTHERFUCKING MORNINWHEG? I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT ANYMORE! I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT! NOT ONE MORE SEASON OF THIS FUCKING GODDAMNED ORGANIZATIONAL MISMANAGEMENT HEAD-IN-ASSEDNESS! WE NEEDED A FUCKING SAFETY AND A LINEBACKER AND A RUNNING BACK AND YOU GOT ME A FUCKING RUN AND SHOOT QB FROM CONFERENCE USA! I HAVE TO WORK TONIGHT!
Check the 700 level for video of Eagles fans booing Kolb's sorry ass and then either yelling incoherently or walking out. Yeah sure Donny got the same treatment -- somehow I feel like this one's a little different.
Oh Christ, I can't fucking take this shit. KEVIN FUCKING KOLB? He's some no-name jagoff out of Houston. He's like the sixth-best QB prospect in a terrible QB draft! He was a projected second-day pick! Sure, he had decent stats, but guess who else had decent stats playing at fucking Houston: a couple guys names of Andre Ware and David Klingler. How great did they turn out, Andy?
WE NEEDED A FUCKING SAFETY! YOU KNOW, LIKE THAT REALLY GOOD ONE SAN DIEGO GOT ONE PICK LATER? YOU KNOW, TO REPLACE THE 34-YEAR-OLD GUY, THE OTHER GUY WE LET GO IN THE OFFSEASON, AND THAT CHUMPY BITCH SEAN CONSIDINE, WHO GOT PLOWED OVER MORE TIMES LAST SEASON THAN HIS HOME STATE'S CORNFIELDS? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU FUCKING FUCKBALLS?
Oh my God I can't fucking thing straight. I'm going to go urinate on my Eagles beanie and rack my shin against the coffee table until it bleeds. We'd better draft fucking Chuck Bednarik, Rocky Balboa, and Barbaro's long-lost brother with our next three picks, or there's going to be fucking Hell to pay in Philly.
Kevin fucking Kolb ... unfuckingbelievable. I can't take it anymore. I just can't take it. DO YOU HEAR ME, ANDY REID? ARE YOU LISTENING, JOE BANNER AND MARTY MOTHERFUCKING MORNINWHEG? I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT ANYMORE! I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT! NOT ONE MORE SEASON OF THIS FUCKING GODDAMNED ORGANIZATIONAL MISMANAGEMENT HEAD-IN-ASSEDNESS! WE NEEDED A FUCKING SAFETY AND A LINEBACKER AND A RUNNING BACK AND YOU GOT ME A FUCKING RUN AND SHOOT QB FROM CONFERENCE USA! I HAVE TO WORK TONIGHT!
Check the 700 level for video of Eagles fans booing Kolb's sorry ass and then either yelling incoherently or walking out. Yeah sure Donny got the same treatment -- somehow I feel like this one's a little different.
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