Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 25, 2011

I just hope he doesn’t get too pithy with the cuthtomers.

All quotes are full of pith and vinegar.

I know hot dogs have a lot of guck in them, but pith????

As George Harrison truly sang, “Isn’t it a pith?”

As a philosophical type, my eye teareth.

Extra sauce?Sorry, I Kant, I’m on a diet.

I think Bea Arthur had a word for philosopher in History of the World, but unfortunately I can’t mention it here. Given what she said, it’s hard to imagine anyone spending their time and money into such a degree.

Pretty sure that works for a degree in Sociology as well.

O demotivating, I have a degree in humanities, as well.

I always wondered what one would do with a dregree in philosophy – besides teach!

It was either that or law school.

He finally found his calling. Too bad he wasrted all that time and money…… Just like Warlock.

At least he has a job.

@towerwarlockIt’s obvious you don’t do much thinking.

Goethe’s hardly a philosopher.

But can he make a living selling hot dogs on the street from Descarte?

Continued from yesterday:.Night-Gaunt49 said, “Sorry you are wrong there. I worship nothing. Literally nothing, I have no inclination at all. Nor am I a narcissist either. Atheists don’t have that part of the brain that people need to worship something. (It is why you have people who do so with movie and music stars too. Same mechanism at work. But not with me.) So you are wrong on that.”.So, by the logic of your own words, no one but you calls the shots for you; you defer to nothing and to no one; you consider nothing and no one to be worthy of your setting aside your own wants and needs for their sake. This means — taking what you said to be completely and literally true — that you have never loved anything or anyone else. Please don’t bother protesting that you have: again, if what you say about yourself is true, you’re as incapable of love as someone blind from birth is incapable of appreciating a rainbow. No matter what you call whatever emotion you may have experienced, the sine qua non for love is just not there — like that part of the brain that you say you lack. And, without a shred of irony or condescension, I feel sorry for you.

Armed with my Lib Arts degree during a former recession (don’t worry, this sure ain’t the first) I was employed within a week as a didge digger. Through my rise (no pun) I employed what I had learned in the humanities, how to think and how to see both sides.I may not have learned in school that mixing A with B might end the Short Happy Life of Framcis McCumber, but I did learn there were women and women hating authors who would tell me it was a pretty thing to do. Understanding people, is that such a useless thing?

Wiley’s such a pither…

Since no one else has… “Make me one with everything”!

If he studied Buddhism, perhaps he can make me one with everything.

Stranger than fiction – Sign recently seen in Utah:

Pithy is a fun word to type and to say. Pithy, pithy, pithy!

Pride Goethe before a fall….The only thing my sister learned in teachers’ college is, she doesn’t want to be a teacher! I don’t know what it cost her to learn that, but I already know I don’t want to be a teacher, and it didn’t cost me a penny to learn it!!

Hey, he’s one of the small business owners that create all the jobs in America- and in this market, does that bun come with a free side of goat?

“May I take your hat and Goethe, sir?” (Apologies to Firesign Theatre)

You raise two interesting questions: whether love is comparable to, or equal to, worship; and whether one can love and/or worship someone, something, or an abstraction not physically present..“Worship” is not always a religious term. One of the definitions in the American Heritage Dictionary is “to regard with ardent or adoring esteem or devotion”; Roget’s Thesaurus considers it, among other terms, as “deep and ardent affection: adoration, devotion, love”..As for love itself, one of its aspects that I hope we can agree upon is a willingness to set oneself and one’s interests aside for the sake of someone or something else — not for some reward, which would make it a mere transaction, but solely for the person or thing in itself. This isn’t even self-denial, because the self simply ceases to be considered, even in terms of denial. Can it be that you’ve really never experienced such a mindset, or known it to be directed to you by someone else? If so, you can only take the word of those who have experienced it that it is real, and that it makes human existence more worthwhile than anything else could..Disdaining such a thing as slavery completely misses the point: it only has meaning as a completely sovereign act of free will. Everything worthy of being called “love” has somewhere in it that element of perfectly pure, and perfectly free, liberation from self; anything totally lacking it, I maintain, is unworthy of the word, and unworthy of serious attention.

So I would say, no, you can’t worship without loving, and you can’t love without worshiping: broadly and correctly understood, the two words are interchangeable. “Worship” in the more usual religious sense is simply the same concept shrink-wrapped into particular words and practices, with a particular object in mind — differences that make no difference..“Worshiping an invisible thing that is no more than an idea” also misses the point spectacularly. For one thing, to those who are religious in a specifically Bible-oriented way (which is what we were originally talking about) the worship is not of an idea or abstraction, but of a Person as real as you or I…and arguably more real than either of us. But religion aside, how can you read the political arguments we all enjoy in these comment forums, and seriously opine that intelligent, mature people are not devoted to abstract, invisible ideas and ideals, as fervently as in any religion?.Please be assured that I am not, in fact, confused, either in my own mind or in my understanding of what you’re asserting. I simply conclude, based on my own personal experiences and on reasoning, that you’re wrong…just as you’re convinced that I’m wrong. That being said, please be assured, again, that I completely respect the integrity of your convictions, I admire your intellect and eloquence, and I personally wish you nothing but the best — we are, after all, travelers on the same road.

:) LIKE! any jobs for POETS?

Excellent comment, Number Six! BTW Is your wife’s name Seven-of-Nine?

If you cannot pray for knowledge and strength to accomplish your goal, are you going to humble yourself to using taxpayer money?

What interesting comments! Excellent range of depth and thought.

Nice launch, Number Six!__Delightful!

Can’t believe no one has mentioned any thing about pithing on the fire hydrant…

Any god that feels the need to be worshiped, is pretty insecure, and is way too much like a human to be a deity…

What happened to making the moon into a space ship? I demand a continuation! And while we’re at it, what happened to the ekert?! Inquiring minds want to know! Who’s with me?!

Exactly. Except one needs start-up capital to set-up the cart, which a philosopher would never have.

What… philosopher’s never had parents?