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A Matter of Perspective - Thoughts on *Shells* - Part I -- OnM, 17:27:40 03/07/04 Sun

*******

You're not alive because of pain. You're not alive because of hate. You're alive because I saw you
change.

............ Buffy Summers ( from Never Leave Me )

*******

Illyria: If I abide... will you help me?

Wesley: (after a lengthy pause): Yes.

Illyria: Because I look like her?

Wesley: (after a much, much longer pause): Yes.

*******

He's with me.

............ Winifred Burkle ( speaking of Wesley, or God, or Illyria, or all three )

*******

What exactly does Joss Whedon think about when he speaks of the soul?

It isnít an idle question by any means, since if one accepts the man at his word when he claims to be an atheist, it
is profoundly odd that a purely theological concept shows up so often with the fictional universes that he creates.

Of course, it is easiest to theorize that purely practical matters are the driving force behind his decision in this
regard. I also consider myself to be of an atheistic bent, but I was raised in, and still live within (in a social sense)
a profoundly religious culture. It is impossible not to acknowledge that simple fact, and if you are in the profession
of writing entertainment for the masses, you need to communicate on terms that resonate with the majority of
people if you want to have even a small chance of communicating what you want to say.

That being said, Whedon has always treated the soul as a slippery item, to borrow the description allowed by one
of his Buffyverse characters. One the one hand, we are presented with the idea that a being bereft of a soul is
inexorably adrift in a moral sense, but then there are those pesky exceptions that pop up from time to time.
Watching Shells has convinced me that the time has come when Mutant Enemy will act to address the
issue a bit more definitively, and if I am correct, the act of doing so will once again forever change the nature of
the Buffyverse.

Many BtVS and Angel fans have wondered for years whether or not it is possible for demons to
have souls, and itís long been my opinion that Joss and crew have deliberately left the issue unresolved because
they donít have a consensus themselves. We all readily recall the soul/no-soul issue being raised to one of great
significance back when Spike became ëchippedí and subsequently fell in love with Buffy. Many viewers argued
(and often very convincingly) that the chip was, for all practical purposes, a variety of ëelectro-chemical soulí.
Many other viewers argued (just as convincingly) that Buffyís description of Spike as being no more than ìa serial
killer in jailî was closer to the actual state of things.

But things are never simple in the Buffyverse, and Buffy herself presents ample proof of this. It is BtVS season 7,
and Spike is chained to a wall in Buffyís basement for fear of being ëtriggeredí to kill by the First Evil. ìHave
you never wondered,î Spike poses to Buffy, in all due sincerity, ìwhy you could never kill me?î
Spike thinks that he knows the answer, or at least heís ready to make another guess, since he knows heís been
wrong before.

He makes a reasonable assumption-- ìYou need men to hurt you. So that you can use that anger, to do your
job.î He doesnít state it unkindly, or in a threatening way. He is, in fact, rather sad to think that such is the
case. But Buffy denies this, although she does so in a both fascinating and enlightening way:

ìNo. I donít hate like that. Not any more.î

Now, there you have the great, undiminished soul-fired dilemma contained in a crucible. Buffy has just admitted
that it is both easy and natural to fall into the elemental simplicity of hate, and confessed that she has not been
immune to the temptation to do so. But she has struggled to move beyond that, and embrace something less
simple but more spiritually satisfying. Buffy would likely credit her soul with persuading her to act this way, but is
it the soul at work, or it it simply that this is who Buffy is?

Spike accepts her at her word, although this doesnít make him feel any better about himself. He desperately
wants to love this woman, and have her love him in return, but newly ensouled or not, he knows that her concept
of love and his are on different planes of enlightenment. Or are they?

ìYou faced the monster inside you, and you fought back.î She pauses, looks him straight in the eye.
ìI believe in you, Spike.î

He is stunned. A moment later, the Bringers will crash into the Summersí home and take him away, to where the
First will try its damndest to redirect the fire of Spikeís new soul to serve the forces of evil. But the concerted
efforts will fail, and fail again, because of those simple words that Buffy spoke.

îShe will come for me,î mutters a broken and bleeding Spike to the First, who is (quite appropriately) in
the shell of his former lover, Drusilla. And despite the assurances of the First that it will not be so, she does.

Evil has no faith except in the power of brute force and the seduction of immortality. The powers that Buffy
serves-- or perhaps simply inhabits-- have faith in hope, and in the acceptance that the benefits of change will
always ultimately trump the banal constancy of immortality.

I think that Whedon has asked himself the same essential question that Iíve asked myself, and that his answer
explains why he finds fault with so many earthly religions, with their belief systems obsessing about obtaining an
eternal reward (or inflicting an eternal punishment). Is it really such a great idea to live forever? If everything is the
same, day after day, eon after eon, how will you find new surprises, or gather new joys? If you exist long enough
to understand everything (or to rule everything), then the universe is over, and then what is the point of
existence?

It fascinates me that most of Whedonís many demon species seem to be gifted with immortality. Does Whedon
feel that endless actuality in a single form is not a blessing, but a curse? It may sound ridiculous at first hearing, but
do demons turn to evil out of boredom? Is the lust for power and the violence that accompanies it a reaction to
having to justify the point of existence for yet another day? Is it more an attempt (perversely or no) to feel
something new?

It seems reasonable to me that, just as with humans, demon existential mileage may vary. It is obvious that many
Buffyverse demons are remorseless killers, and that there is no choice but to destroy them before they would
annihilate us. But we have also seen that there are demons who do not pose a threat to humans, and who may
even be friendly if given the opportunity. (Are they in the minority? Probably, even likely. But for the sake of this
argument, that is not an issue.) Do these demons have souls? Do they have something that is the equivalent? Or is
it simply that this is who these demons are, and that the presence or absence of a soul has no real
bearing? And if the latter is the case in the demon world, what does that mean for the world of humanity?

The potential answers to these questions have become progressively harder to grasp as each year in the
Buffyverse has passed by, but I am starting to believe that the previous season of Angel was a setup for
this current one, with first one side of the coin being called, and now the other.

Last year we saw the introduction of a character, Jasmine, who had god-like power, and used it to free humanity
of hatred and conflict. Unfortunately, it also freed us from free will, and the occasional person(s) who the
god-figure needed to snack upon. In the opinion of this creature, wasnít it all a fair trade? You worship me, I
make you happy. Whatís not to love?

This season we are introduced to a demonic character who may turn out to represent the anti-Jasmine. It doesnít
want to make us happy; in fact upon first appearance into our world it almost immediately wants to destroy us.
But then it gets a rude surprise-- its cadre of devoted followers and its loyal army are gone, turned to
forgetfulness and dust during the passage of inconceivable ages. And we, the viewers, are soon presented with a
greater surprise-- the creature feels grief, not simply anger, at its loss. It finds that it clings to the memory
of what once was, and suddenly fears for its future not because that future is different but because that
future is empty. It does not seek immediate revenge, but pauses to ask if there is purpose in further
existence. This is not the behavior of an unreasoning beast.

Jasmine came into the world of humans pretending to offer salvation but in reality co-opting human lives for the
apparent ëgreater purposeí of feeding her ego. At this point in time we do not know for certain what internal
needs or desires drove the Illyria of ancient, pre-human days, but it is possible that it was for some greater
purpose that mere self-aggrandizement. What we do have is the following, spoken by the character Drogyn as
Angel and Spike stand over the abyss of the Deeper Well:

The Old Ones were demons pure, and they warred as we would breathe - endlessly. The greater ones were
interred - for death was not always their end. Illyria was feared and beloved as few are. It was laid to
rest in the very depths of the well - until it disappeared a month ago.

And there is that odd phrase-- ...feared and beloved as few are. Beloved, how strange to apply such a
term to a demon, a warrior, a killer. Feared, yes-- fear is easy. But beloved? Meanwhile, back at Wolfram &
Hart, Wesley is telling the other members of the core AI team what the deal is with the newest big bad:

It's called Illyria. A great monarch, and warrior of the Demon Age. Murdered by rivals and
left adrift in the Deeper Well.

Again certain terms of the description are interesting. A great monarch. Murdered by rivals and left adrift.
A great monarch, a warrior, murdered. Not merely killed, or even slain, but murdered. I have to assume
that this choice of language was not accidental on MEís part. Is there a subtext being laid out that suggests that as
demons go, Illyria possessed some aspect of genuine nobility? I find this absolutely fascinating.

Which brings us back to the idea that Illyria may be the anti-Jasmine, and even possibly Jossís answer to the
ultimate value of the soul, or what he thinks the purposes of gods may be. There are several potentially engaging
story lines that could be spun off from this one founding concept, a number of which could turn into some very
daring television, at least from a phliosophical standpoint. What are these possibilities?

Before I go into them, I would like to provide a brief summary of some of the past occasions where the
Buffyverse has introduced characters that involve a hybrid creature composed of demon and human components,
and what were the general ëconclusionsí that could be drawn about their behavior.

1. Vampires. Obviously, this is the one that started the whole series. In the legend as related over the last
7+ years: In ancient times a demon bit a human, which in turn drank blood from the demon and a hybrid was
formed. The vampire ëinfectedí the human body with its physical essence, giving the human a form of immortality,
but also driving out the human soul, which disappears into the ëetherí. The human soul is not released from the
ether until the vampire is destroyed, which can only be achieved by certain means. The demon now occupying the
human body may retain certain memories and personality traits of the human it inhabits, but with the soul gone, the
demon has nearly full control, physically and ëspirituallyí, of the hybrid organism. For all practical purposes, the
human portion is ëdeadí, just a shell of what it was.

2. Slayers. In season 5 of BtVS, Dracula implies something that many fans surmised for quite some time
before-- that Buffyís Slayer powers had some manner of demonic origin. Buffy is frightened by this possibility,
most likely because deep down she may have gleaned this suspicion already. In season 7, the possibility is
confirmed when Buffy meets the shamans, or Shadowmen, who created the first Slayer by creating a hybrid of a
young woman and the ëessenceí, or ëspirití or ëheartí of an (unknown species of) demon. The key difference
between this technique and the one used by vampires to ëinfectí their host is that it is not the physical body or
corporeality of the demon that is used to create the hybrid, but its spiritual component. Does this imply
that demons can have souls? Perhaps, perhaps not, but whatever the specifics, the basic difference is what
matters. The resultant composite creature is mostly human, but gains great strength and a kind of limited
immortality (the resistance to physical harm, and extremely rapid healing when such serious harm does occur).
Since the hybrid is still 90%+ human, and still possesses the human soul component, the actions and desires
remain those of a human.

3. Mystically Demonized Humans. (For lack of a better term. Technically, Slayers would be a subset of
this group, if we want to be picky). Examples of which would be Anya, Oz, Doyle, Cordelia (first by Skip, then
by Jasmine), Mayor Wilkins, Gwen, Groo, Dawn, Conner, etc. These are the most difficult blends to characterize
in terms both of origination and in typical behavior. Some of these hybrid types are formed consensually, some
are not. The behavioral results are all over the map, from beneficial to benign to outrightly evil. There seems to be
no consistent methodology by which the merging between human and demon takes place, but in each case either
some kind of mystical component is involved-- a spell, a curse, etc-- or else some variety of fluid-exchange or
actual inter-breeding takes place between demon and human. Whether or not the human component retains a
soul or not also seems to vary depending on the circumstances: Cordelia, Doyle, Oz, Gwen, Groo and Conner
seemed to retain their souls, Mayor Wilkins willingly gave his up, with Anya it was hard to tell for sure-- she
seemed to lack it in demon form, but retain it when human. (Dawn may not exactly fit any category, and it is
possible that Gwen is a human mutant rather than a result of demonization).

4. Non-Mystically Demonized Humans. This would be The Initiativeís contribution. Maggie Walsh
created Adam by physically patching together both human and demon parts. She intended to do the same with
Riley Finn and apparently several others in her keep. The resulting creatures were supposed to serve as a
weapon against the demon world, but things didnít go quite as planned. Intended to retain the best qualities of
both human and demon, Adam ended up with the worst of both. Riley Finn was given greatly enhanced physical
strength and healing abilities by the administration of substances probably derived from demon bodies. Whether
or not a human retains a soul under these circumstances seems as indefinite as in the mystically engendered
fusions. Note: Wolfram and Hart may also be involved with this kind of procedure either directly, or by simply
exploiting the work of others.

That pretty much sums up the demon/human permutations to date. What I find exciting about the introduction of
Illyria is the possibility that we may get to witness a new variant-- the Humanized Demon.

Now, before I get accused of simply doing a play on words, this really would be a new Buffyverse creation.
What the humanized demon would be is essentially the inverse of the original vampire creation methodology. A
pure demon is ëinfectedí by a human soul, the ëessence or heart or spirití of a human. In doing so, it retains all of
its basic demon strengths-- including near immortality-- but gains the moral compass that the soul endows it with.
Also, as the vampires retain some of the memories and personality characteristics of the human brain that they
co-opt, so will the demon in this case. Another way to consider this is to think of a conventional vampire siring,
except without the loss of the soul in the process.

( Continued in Part II )

Replies:

[> A Matter of Perspective - Thoughts on *Shells* - Part II -- OnM, 18:03:03 03/07/04 Sun

( Continued from Part I )

So, OK, a neat idea and all, but where is the evidence that this is actually what has happened when the demon
Illyria kills Fred in order to re-enter the land of the living? The first two clues are the ones mentioned previously--
the odd choices of words used in describing Illyria, first by Drogyn and then by Wesley:

--- Illyria was feared and beloved as few are.

--- A great monarch, and warrior of the Demon Age. Murdered by rivals.

The next clue is from the previous episode, A Hole in the World. Fred is in the final stages of dying, and
her last words to Wesley are:

Fred: Why did we go there? Why did we think we could beat it? It's evil Wesley...it's bigger than
anything.
Wes: I don't believe that.
Fred: (a spasm of pain wracks her body, she backs against the bedís headboard) Ahhh! That was him.
(struggling) Donít leave me now...we're so close.
Wes: I will never leave you.
Fred: (the spasm passes) Hmmmmh. (exhales it quickly like a sound of relief) That was bad... it's better
now. You won't leave me?
Wes: I won't
Fred: My boys. (pauses) I walk with heroes, think about that.
Wes: You are one.
Fred: A Superhero. And this is my power. To not let them take me... not me.
Wes: That's right.
Fred: That's right. (takes Wesley's hand and places it over her heart) He's with me.

At this point we return to Angel and Spike, who are at the Deepest Well, and Spike makes his observations
about there being ëa hole in the worldí, and how ìwe should have known.î From there we cut to Fred and Wes.
He is holding her, she asks him to kiss her. She talks about needing to tell her parents that ìit was quick, and that
I wasnít scaredî. She repeats this last over and again. Her body slowly stiffens and she starts to fall backward.
Wes continues to hold on to her. Her final words are:

Fred: Please, Wesley... why canít I stay?

And she is gone. But is she? According to the ëbooksí, according to the evil doctor at Wolfram & Hart,
according to everything that we are told, she is. Her body is gone, except for the outer ëshellí that Illyria now
inhabits. Her brain has been ëliquifiedí, and her soul was ëconsumedí in the ëfires of resurrectioní that enabled
Illyria to return to life.

I donít think so. Iím not even sure that Illyria even understands this yet, but that which was Fred is now imprinted
upon Illyria, and Illyria may even have a soul-- Fredís soul. ìThere are fragments,î Illyria tells Wesley near the
end of Shells, and she brings a hand near her face, blue electrical fire spans the space between fingers and
cheek, softly crackling, and Fredís voice emerges. Memories? But there arenít supposed to be any.

There are other clues, even fairly early on in the episode. Watch Illyriaís body language as she moves about, and
you can see that part of it is Fredís. (Kudos to Amy Acker for subtly suggesting this body language and
not simply acting like Fred walking around in a leather outfit. This skill brings to mind similar excellent work by
SMG and ED in the famous ëbody-switchí eps This Yearís Girl and Who Are You?, where each
actor carefully emulated the style of the otherís character). Certain manners of speech do the same-- itís mostly
Illyria, but occasionally there is Fred. For example, during the fight scene prior to Illyriaís opening of the portal
into her own dimension, Angel gets the drop on her by utilizing the gem from her sarcophagus. After he explains,
she replies with a single word: ìSneaky.î The tone and inflection is clearly Fredís. (This particular word of course
refers to Knox telling her about one of the ways that humans managed to come to rule the earth over the millenia).

But of course the biggest clue is the entire last 5 minutes of the show, where Wesley is packing Fredís
possessions away, in all likelihood preparing to return them to her parents. The last possible thing we would
expect to happen then happens, as Illyria reappears in the doorway, and ends up asking Wesley for help. Is she
for real? A demon, a warrior-- sad, lonely, and lost? No, it just has to be a trick, and I think that is what the
surface impression is intended to be. Viewers who recall the previous season are thinking, uh-oh-- itís Jasmine
redux. A demon pretends to be ëniceí, and then the rugíll get yanked out from everyone. Thatís not very original!

But the other major info that I fell into was several insightful contributions by ATPo posters who have more
knowledge than I do about the plays of Shakespeare (which isnít much, I assure you). Since these have already
fallen into the archives by now, I want to repost part of them here, so that you may have a chance to grok if you
havenít already done so. The main one Iíll focus on here is by Pip:

***

Date Posted: 06:29:36 02/27/04 Fri

This is Illyria, lady.

Jay's comments made me think about the choice of 'Illyria' for the demon's name. Usual disclaimer - I haven't
seen A Hole in the World yet, being in the UK, so I'm working on other people's comments. Apologies if
any of this is wildly off.

The very first lines in the play Twelfth Night are [spoken by Orsino, the Duke]:

If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall

Viola, the sister part of the brother/sister twins, arrives at Illyria by a shipwreck. She promptly disguises herself as
a boy [and goes to seek] employment at the Duke's court:

Viola: For I can sing / And speak to him in many sorts of music.

So the very first connection with Illyria in the play is with music. Illyria is the complete opposite of Pylea. Pylea
knows nothing about music. Illyria is full of music. People sing all the way through Twelfth Night - and
they fight to keep the right to sing and party. This is the play that contains the line:

Sir Toby: Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?

The second connection that Illyria has is (...) Illyria is connected with death, followed by rebirth. At the
start of the play we have shipwrecks, loss, and a young woman (Olivia) in mourning at the death of her brother.
By the end of the play everyone is getting married. Illyria is about the journey from mourning to starting life
again. In fact, one of the subthemes of the play is 'get over it.' Olivia is seen by everyone as mourning too
much, and too long.

Feste: Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia: Good fool, for my brother's death.
Feste: I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
Olivia: I know his soul is in heaven, fool!
Feste: The more fool madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool,
gentlemen.

Get over it, indeed.

I've already commented on the theme of like yet unlike twins, in my reply to Jay. To repeat briefly, there is a
focus in Twelfth Night on a twin pair who can't be told apart from each other. At the beginning of the
play, one of the pair believes that the other is dead. Neither of the twins appears onstage at the same time as
the other until the very last act of the play-- when finally they are seen and can be seen as themselves, both
alive.

These twins can't be told apart - yet, since one is male and one is female, they are fundamentally different.

Will the demon Illyria prove to be evil? I note that in the transcript that Rufus provided, Illyria is described as both
feared and beloved. Illyria in Twelfth Night has its dark side, with the character Antonio being in danger
of execution; with the killjoy steward Malvolio, who would end all song, and who ends the play vowing revenge
on those who have made him look a fool. But most of the audience wouldn't end the play associating 'Illyria' with
evil.

Joss Whedon knows Shakespeare. He knows Shakespeare very well. And Illyria at the end of Twelfth
Night is shown to be a place where rebirth happens. Where you move from loss and mourning to
life, and love, and song. Where even if the song is sad-- you end the play singing:

When I was and a little tiny boy / With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy / For the rain it raineth every day

A great while ago the world begun / With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done / And we'll strive to please you every day.

............ Pip

***

Now, never having read Twelfth Night, I found all this rather amazing, and so I agree with Pip that Joss is
reworking Shakespeare once again and weaving it into the Buffyverse. (At the end of this essay, Iíll provide two
links I found where you can go to read or skim the play, plus some comments on and a summary of same by
some Shakespearian experts.) Pip also wrote this in another post, providing a revealing line which appears near
the very end of the play, after Viola and her twin brother Sebastian are revealed to be nearly identical in
appearance, but obviously different, one being female, the other male:

Orsino: One face, one voice, one habit and two persons; a natural perspective that is, and is not!

Just before finally, there is the space around the events with Illyria that suggests that she will eventually
become a part of the team, and work for the forces of good. One of the (rather sad) ironies about Fredís ëdeathí
is that it served as the galvanizing event that brought the AI gang back on track as regards taking control of their
destinies. Everyone loves Fred-- even evil Knox and Harmony the vampire. At the episodeís end, the music
plays as the camera pans and cuts between all the players, showing how each is alone, and yet will, as always,
come back together to take up the good fight. While the declaration by Spike that he wants to stay at W&H and
take up the battle with the others did not come as any surprise to me, I was struck by the fact that Harmony was
depicted in a very empathetic and even insightful manner. Is this a case where the writers slipped up, or is the
effect of Fredís sufferning and death so profound that even a soulless vampire behaves in an almost human
fashion? (Fool for Love and The Gift come to mind as prior evidence for the possibility.)
Considering especially the previous events with Buffy and Spike, and what may happen with Illyria if my
conjectures are correct, I think the writing was deliberate. The fact of the matter is, Harmony was quite correct
when she previously declared ìI suck at being evil.î The difference in her case is also that she is associating with
good people (and demons, for that matter) who help her along. Does the soul matter, or is it mind over matter?

Along a slightly tangent line, I find myself wondering if Knoxís actions might have inadvertently begun what could
be the downfall of Wolfram & Hart. I actually believe Knox when he claims to love Fred. The whole scene where
he declares that to be the case, and uses it to justify his decision to allow Illyria to use Fred as her means to
rebirth is both logical from a ësoullessí perspective (much like pre-soul Spike with Buffy) and a metaphorical
inversion of theologies based on the suffering and mortal sacrifice of an innocent supposedly for the greater good
of humanity.

Knox really appears to be working primarily for Knoxís benefit. He obviously worships Illyria, and assumes that
he will become a powerful associate of it/hers. (I loved the line where she declares that her previous Qwa Ha
Xahn was taller, which also seemed very Fred-like to me in the way the line was delivered. Considering
everything, Knox recovered pretty well with the ìsmaller in relation to your glorious selfî bit, one of the funnier
lines in the show.) Wolfram & Hart seem to be his means to an end, not players in the whole resurrect-Illyria
scheme. In fact, if Illyria becomes a warrior for good, W&H has serious problems on its multi-dimensional hands.
Another parallel/mirror theme I thought of while pondering all of this was that if the Turok-Han was an
uber-vampire, Illyria could very well be classed as an uber-Slayer. What happens if her ëfragmentedí memories
of Fred were to grow in accessibility? Fred is pretty much a genius. Combine that intellect with superhuman
strength, near invulnerability, and the unflinching desire to be a force for good-- well, you get the idea. And it isnít
an idea that Wolfram & Hart would approve of-- if they knew of Illyriaís impending resurrection, it is pretty
certain they wanted her working on their side. It is even possible that the whole bit of hiring Angel and Co. to
take over the L.A. branch was intended to provide a means to that single end, and then their boy Knox upset the
plans by falling in love with Fred!

Finally, there are so many wonderful scenes in this episode, that Iíll have to let most of them go without any
detailed comment or Iíll be here for ludicrous numbers of pages, and thereís been enough already. This is,
without question, one of the finest shows that Angel has presented in all of its past seasons, and there are
certainly many excellent others in the running. Special notice goes to the following scenes of Shells, in no
particular order:

~ ~ ~ Spike in the plane, with the tiny liquor bottles. ìItís all a matter of perspectiveî. The figurative and the literal
perfectly entertwined.

~ ~ ~ Knoxís all too human reaction to a naked Fred/Illyria in the lab. Bill Murray moment, anyone?

~ ~ ~ Spike and Angel in agreement about Fred not wanting thousands to die just to save her. I more than half
expected them to be arguing about it on the plane ride back, with Spike the caveman ëfollowing his bloodí and
arguing to save her/damn the cost, and Angel playing the cool, rational ëastronautí. But they both made the same
decision, for the same reasons, and there was no argument.

~ ~ ~ Angel correctly noting that in their world, rules can be broken if you just push hard enough. And in the end,
perhaps being both wrong and right.

~ ~ ~ The whole scene with Illyria and Wes, where Illyria asks for Wesleyís help in learning to ëwalk in this
worldí. Perfectly written, acted, filmed. ME pulls off the impossible again. Why in the world would Wesley help
the thing that killed his lover?

~ ~ ~ ìBecause I look like her?î (very long pause) ìYes.î

~ ~ ~ The secondary emotional resonance with Wesley and Lilah in the above scene.

~ ~ ~ Wesley using an axe to behead Illyria, another Lilah moment. But the axe shatters harmlessly.

~ ~ ~ Illyria grasping two swords-- by the blades-- and then applying enough force to them to throw
Angel and Spike halfway across the room. So far, weíve mostly heard referrals to the demon Illyria as an ëití, but
being in Fredís body isnít the only visual subtext suggesting that Illyria may be leaning towards a female
identification.

~ ~ ~ Speaking of weapons, note that all the male characters use swords, axes, guns etc. to fight with her, but
Illyriaís only weapon is herself.

~ ~ ~ ìSneakyî. Illyria showing sheís paying attention.

~ ~ ~ ìI loved Fred.î Knox almost gaining our sympathy with his obvious sincerity.

~ ~ ~ ìHey! You think this isnít gonna leave a mark??î Harmony being Harmony.

~ ~ ~ Harmony in a very human moment during the sequence where the camera pans along all the lonely
characters, and the parts of their past that they cling to. In her case, the white ceramic unicorn sitting at the back
of her desk at W&H..

~ ~ ~ ìYou loved the girl of your dreams, and she loved you back.î Harmony in the most human moment weíve
ever seen her in, telling Wesley to keep one thing in mind above all else.

~ ~ ~ ìLong day.î Spike channeling Oz.

~ ~ ~ ìWinifred Burkle.î Illyria behaving like a human.

~ ~ ~ ìWesleyî. And doing it again.

*******

Links:

http://absoluteshakespeare.com/guides/twelfth_night/summary/twelfth_night_summary.htm

http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/twelfth_night/index.html

Also, my thanks to Pip for the Bard insights, and to Rufus for providing the episode transcripts I exerpted.

*******

[> [> ***Spoilers*** for *Shells* in above, naturally. Also for some past BtVS & AtS eps. -- OnM, 18:16:35 03/07/04 Sun

[> [> Wonderful Post! ( and minor Spoiler) -- Laney, 21:18:58 03/07/04 Sun

Illyria as an Uber-Slayer? Wow. Someone needs to give you a cookie ;)
I like the part when she grabs the swords, but coming from martial arts background, I'd have liked to see a reved-up Aikido-like throw from there. Still, visually arresting.
Also, I noticed when Wes hacked at her with the axe, he did it from behind. Later, when he's about shoot her in the face, with Illyria looking back with those big blue eyes of hers, he couldn't pull the trigger (Not that I think it'd have made any difference).
This makes me think that when eventually Wes has the real opportunity to kill her, he would no longer have the will.

Minor Spoiler!!!

I read the ep19 spoiler with a few light-hearted scenes on Illyria. It seems she has settled in at WF&H, more or less.
It feels like as orginally planned before the cancellation, if there were to be Season 6, she would still be around.

[> [> [> To clarify, the spoiler in the above post is a future one, but very minor. Jay's is for "Shells". -- Rob, 12:29:07 03/08/04 Mon

[> [> Feared and Beloved (minor Spoiler) -- Jay, 11:58:10 03/08/04 Mon

Really interesting post! Here's a further complicated twist to it -- "feared and beloved" is actually taken directly from Machiavelli's The Prince, Chapter XVII, "Of cruelty and clemency and whether it is better to be loved than feared".

[> [> Fascinating analysis & speculation -- Darby, 06:58:53 03/09/04 Tue

I've realized that, if I don't respond (even though I don't have anything substantive to say), this will be archived way before it should be.

I hope you're right that ME is actively experimenting with their own mythology - I get the feeling from writers' comments that they feel innovative this season, and maybe this is part of it.

[> [> [> "The only way out is through..." -- OnM, 19:11:41 03/09/04 Tue

One of the other things that appeals to me about this current turn of events is that it fits in with what I have been expecting since the first 6 or 7 episodes aired, which is that ME will confound the viewers who are buying into the idea that the AI gang will have to leave W&H, and that the last quarter of the season will be devoted to how they manage to do that-- i.e., somehow get out of the 'contract'.

I suspect that what may actually happen is that Angel & Co. will end up staying at Wolfram & Hart, but the course of events will change in such a way that they somehow gain a measure of control that they do not have now. I don't believe for a moment that the Senior Partners had any other intention but to use the gang as some kind of means to an evil end. The conventional story arc would thus arrange to have AI cleverly extricate themselves from the 'trap'.

But the presence of Illyria tends to tip me off that this will not be the case, and that whatever happens with it/her will mirror what will happen with the gang.

I also believe that the events of Chosen will become relevent too, in that Buffy defeated the First Evil not by physical force, but by mental/spiritual force. Basically, she stares it down-- and then reality bends. Angel echoes this in the scene in the plane with Spike when he comments about the rules being breakable if you push hard enough. Angel is now where Buffy was before her last epiphany. She had to accept-- know-- that she could win. Angel is assuming that W&H is like the FE-- that it can never be destroyed, and therefore never really defeated.

This may be technically true, but then we are back to the 'energy can only take different forms' idea. It might be quite enough of a victory if W&H could (simply?) be made to change form.

[> [> [> [> Re: "The only way out is through..." -- Jane, 19:26:01 03/09/04 Tue

Oh, good thoughts! I suspect that you are right suggesting that Angel will somehow do to W&H what Buffy did to the FE - find a way to bend the rules of the current reality. As Gunn once said, even if things are fated, knock over the pieces and start over in your own way (or words to that effect). Energy changing form fits with Fred's world of physics; I like that idea. Illyria may have an effect on W&H that the Senior Partners haven't forseen.
Really enjoy reading your posts. Thanks for making my brain work in spite of itself :)

[> [> [> [> [> And 'Reality bends to Desire' (Spoilers AtS S5 and BtVS S7) -- Pip, 12:18:03 03/12/04 Fri

That was the lesson Spike was taught in Hellbound . If the A Team want it bad enough, maybe W & H's reality will be truly changed. I'm also remembering right now a line from BtVS S7, Bring On The Night

Buffy: I'm standing on the mouth of hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. (defiant) And it'll choke on me.

Maybe the Senior Partners are about to choke on the A Team.

[> [> Wishing for Fred -- skeeve, 13:39:59 03/22/04 Mon

This seems to allow the possibility that at the season finale we get to see both Fred and Illyria, presumably alive.

If all else fails, perhaps Angel could look up a vengeance demon.
Vengeance demons have rewritten history before.
For that matter, maybe they don't need a vengeance demon.
Perhaps if asked nicely, one of Wes's Source Books would show a recipe.

[> Re: A Matter of Perspective - Thoughts on *Shells* - Part I -- Tyreseus, 00:27:51 03/10/04 Wed

That pretty much sums up the demon/human permutations to date. What I find exciting about the introduction of Illyria is the possibility that we may get to witness a new variant-- the Humanized Demon.

Now, before I get accused of simply doing a play on words, this really would be a new Buffyverse creation. What the humanized demon would be is essentially the inverse of the original vampire creation methodology. A pure demon is ëinfectedí by a human soul, the ëessence or heart or spirití of a human. In doing so, it retains all of its basic demon strengths-- including near immortality-- but gains the moral compass that the soul endows it with. Also, as the vampires retain some of the memories and personality characteristics of the human brain that they co-opt, so will the demon in this case. Another way to consider this is to think of a conventional vampire siring, except without the loss of the soul in the process.

An interesting point, and I wonder if Glory/Ben might have been a similar such creature if it/their lives had not been cut short. If Giles had not elected to go all Ripper on Ben, what would have been the ultimate fate of the human/god (which I realize is different from demon - but they were both 'evil beings' and Illyria was worshipped as gods are) beginning to merge as the walls between two personalities came down? The backstory is a bit nebulous, but I've always assumed that Ben was "inserted" (at birth) into the immortal being Glorificus - so this would be putting human into demon/god, no?

Maybe that's not quite what you're aiming at, but it still seems a bit similar to me. That's the only example (besides Angel and Spike) I can come up with where an evil being was being "corrupted" by a human soul/personality. Of course, in that example, the human side (Ben) was being corrupted as well - which is a downfall of human souls, they can be persuaded to evil acts.

Also, I'm not sure where Illyria fits in the spectrum of evil for demons. Without knowing how driven towards or by evil she/it was in the original form, can we even tell how much of her new personality is guided by Fred's humanity?

[> [> Re: A Matter of Perspective - Thoughts on *Shells* - Part I -- Claudia, 08:19:30 03/10/04 Wed

"Without knowing how driven towards or by evil she/it was in the original form, can we even tell how much of her new personality is guided by Fred's humanity?"

When you refer to Fred's humanity, are you referring to goodness, instead of evil? Because if you take a good long look at humanity, it is neither and it is both.

[> Re: A Matter of Perspective - Thoughts on *Shells* - Part I -- Ender, 14:31:51 03/10/04 Wed

That pretty much sums up the demon/human permutations to date. What I find exciting about the introduction ofIllyria is the possibility that we may get to witness a new variant-- the Humanized Demon.

****
Now, before I get accused of simply doing a play on words, this really would be a new Buffyverse creation. What the humanized demon would be is essentially the inverse of the original vampire creation methodology. A pure demon is ëinfectedí by a human soul, the ëessence or heart or spirití of a human. In doing so, it retains all of its basic demon strengths-- including near immortality-- but gains the moral compass that the soul endows it with. Also, as the vampires retain some of the memories and personality characteristics of the human brain that they co-opt, so will the demon in this case. Another way to consider this is to think of a conventional vampire siring, except without the loss of the soul in the process
****

I donít want to get nitpicky, but Iím going to agree with Tyreseus on this one and say that Ben/Glory is a type of creature that you are describing. But really this rests on how you take ëinfectedí. It seems to me that you want to say that Illyria infected Fred, gestated, came into its form in the shell of Fred, and then Fredís soul infected Illyria. This seems to be a weird view to me. Instead, I would say that Illyria is a true infectious agent that came in and appropriated host functions to the point of killing the host but retaining the form of host (read Fred); similar to how viruses can envelop themselves in the cell membrane of cells they have infected.

If this is the sense that we take infected to mean then Ben/Glory can be viewed in very analogous way. Ben was created as a cage for Glory and Glory found a way to posses her cage for limited amounts of time. Notice that Ben must first be present for Glory to be ëpouredí into him. Once we consider that magics were present that were built to keep them separate, we can see why Benís (?) humanness never affected Glory until the walls that separated them began to break down. (I avoid use of the word soul because if we want to draw connections to Fred, then it is not clear that it is Fredís soul that influences Illyria since that was supposedly burnt out by Illyriaís gestation) Also with Glory we have an example of a God (read possibly demon) who really just wants to go home. Is this similar to Illyriaís grief at the loss of her past?

****
And we, the viewers, are soon presented with a greater surprise-- the creature feels grief, not simply anger, at its loss. It finds that it clings to the memoryof what once was, and suddenly fears for its future not because that future is different but because that future is empty.
****

Glory also appeared to be both beloved and feared; she did have worshippers who held her in the highest esteem and also enemies that feared her power. This seems to parallel the description of Illyria. Once the magics that separated Ben/Glory from one another weakened, Glory appeared to be genuinely affected by the humanness of Ben to the point of finally recognizing Dawn as a person and not just as a means to an end. I believe, like Tyreseus, that given enough time this amalgam would have been what Illyria may yet become.

If this makes sense, then Mayor Wilkins may also be another example of a Humanized Demon. We were never told explicitly what physically or spiritually happens upon the Ascension, like if the soul remains (or if Wilkins had lost his soul before that even) but he (it) still does have some sort connection to his previous humanness. After all, thatís what dream Faith tells Buffy- Human weakness, everybodyís got it. Even him. Even though he looks like a forty-foot snake, he has that connection. If Mayor Wilkins was a pure blood demon, then it must be the case that he lacked a soul. We could have a conversation about if any demons have a soul, but I think it would be difficult argument for advocating a pure blood in its native form has a soul.

This is a ruff, off-of-the-cuff theory: Maybe itís not the soul that is necessary for this influence on a demonic nature, perhaps it is the memories of a life lived with a well-balanced soul that can influence the demon. Consider vampires; Spike, Harmony, and Lawson- all vampires that were influenced not by their souls but by their memories of their previous human lives to be something other than a blood sucker. Could it be that some demon types may be better at storing humanness within themselves while allowing their demonic natures free roam? Is it that a pure blood demon is ill suited for having humanness thrust upon it? Maybe the soul isnít the whole point. Even if the soul burns out, our human lives and the memories that we create (for both others and ourselves) hold power to affect the world in real tangible ways. Illyria is not influenced by Fredís soul, and is instead a testament to the quality of life Fred lived and the memories she created for herself and to those who shared in her life.

[> [> The last part of your last paragraph speaks very directly... -- OnM, 19:58:08 03/10/04 Wed

... to one of the major points that I was trying to address, namely, just how much credit does Joss really give the soul vs. the basic nature of the human that is tied to it?

*** Maybe the soul isnít the whole point. Even if the soul burns out, our human lives and the memories that we create (for both others and ourselves) hold power to affect the world in real tangible ways. Illyria is not influenced by Fredís soul, and is instead a testament to the quality of life Fred lived and the memories she created for herself and to those who shared in her life. ***

As I said early on in the essay:

Buffy has just admitted that it is both easy and natural to fall into the elemental simplicity of hate, and confessed that she has not been immune to the temptation to do so. But she has struggled to move beyond that, and embrace something less simple but more spiritually satisfying. Buffy would likely credit her soul with persuading her to act this way, but is it the soul at work, or is it simply that this is who Buffy is?

I am guessing-- I certainly have no proof of any kind-- that Joss feels that soul thing has gone on unquestioned for the past 8 years, and now he wants to change the balance a bit. By which, I mean that he may introduce a character of a demonic nature that nevertheless is willing to reject its 'nature' of embracing evil, and do it without benefit of a soul. Having Fred's soul 'destroyed' is one way to achieve this goal with the character of Illyria. If Illyria 'reforms', and it wasn't because of Fred's imbuing it with her soul, then this represents quite a change to some of the traditional canon of the Buffyverse.

What I find to be typical Joss here is that he could just as easily declare that Fred soul wasn't consumed, but that it is now bound to Illyria, and so continue to employ the existing canon-- it's a total crap shoot at this point.

To address another of your comments:

*** It seems to me that you want to say that Illyria infected Fred, gestated, came into its form in the shell of Fred, and then Fredís soul infected Illyria. This seems to be a weird view to me. ***

Yup, weird it may be, but at the moment it is the theory I am supporting. See the paragraphs just above for my frank admission that I could be wrong! ;-)

I considered spending some time talking about the Ben/Glory situation, but elected not to simply for the sake of keeping a long essay from getting longer still. You are correct in that there are similarities to my description of a 'humanized demon', but I do not consider this case to be a good example of this hybrid form because for nearly all of the time the two beings co-existed, only one or the other was corporeally present, and each was not aware of the actions of the other. This changed towards the very end, and indeed it might have been interesting to see whether Ben could have had some effect on Glory over the longer term.

However, there are two caveats to consider. First, Ben was a weak individual compared to Fred. He easily 'sold out' both Dawn and humanity when push came to shove. It is very unlikely that Fred would have done the same. So, it is just as likely that if Glory had lived on, she could have corrupted Ben more easily than Ben could have 'enlightened' her.

Second, Glory was a god, not a demon. I realize the difference might be small in some ways-- Illyria does seem very godlike at this point, but as far as we know, she is still only a demon, and the list of variants I provides was about human/demon hybrid creatures.

As to Mayor Wilkins, in BtVS 7.01, he (as the FE) tells Spike that he sold his soul, or perhaps the phrasing was that he 'got rid of it'. So, it seems clearly implied that until the Ascension, he was still a human, just one without a soul. Perhaps another poster can speak to this, but my understanding is that the selling of his soul was how WIlkins got to be the Mayor of Sunnydale, and be eligible for his eventual transformation into a pure demon.

Thanks for your comments, you raised some good points!

[> [> [> Re: The last part of your last paragraph speaks very directly... -- Rufus, 04:03:04 03/11/04 Thu

I am guessing-- I certainly have no proof of any kind-- that Joss feels that soul thing has gone on unquestioned for the past 8 years, and now he wants to change the balance a bit. By which, I mean that he may introduce a character of a demonic nature that nevertheless is willing to reject its 'nature' of embracing evil, and do it without benefit of a soul. Having Fred's soul 'destroyed' is one way to achieve this goal with the character of Illyria. If Illyria 'reforms', and it wasn't because of Fred's imbuing it with her soul, then this represents quite a change to some of the traditional canon of the Buffyverse.

I think that what we may see is that the soul can make a difference but so can memories and experience. As good people with souls can go evil for varying reasons why couldn't an Old One learn some new tricks?

[> [> [> Re: The last part of your last paragraph speaks very directly... -- Ender, 17:41:32 03/11/04 Thu

Oh there was one other point I wanted to make that I forgot. If you go with a more traditional view of soul, then does it make sense to say that a human can lack soul?
*
As to Mayor Wilkins, in BtVS 7.01, he (as the FE) tells Spike that he sold his soul, or perhaps the phrasing was that he 'got rid of it'. So, it seems clearly implied that until the Ascension, he was still a human, just one without a soul.
*
To many ancient and medieval philosophers what it is to be human is to have a soul, if something lacks a soul than it isnít human (I know this isnít straight philosophy, but I do think there is a kind of intuition to it that works). The litmus test for human is if X has a soul; if yes then check human, and if no then check the other box. (Angel and Spike through this off, but I kind of think that this works. Just for entirely different reasons.) So to say that Mayor Wilkins is a human without a soul maybe a contradiction.

[> [> [> [> There was previous evidence of soul-less humans -- KdS, 23:32:01 03/11/04 Thu

See the AtS Season One episode I've Got You Under My Skin for an example - a small boy is apparently possessed by a demon, but it turns out that he's a soulless psychopath who even the demon is scared of.

[> [> [> [> [> Re: There was previous evidence of soul-less humans -- Rufus, 00:42:00 03/16/04 Tue

It was never proved that Ryan had "no" soul but just that he was a psychopath who had a soul that couldn't influence him, call it a faulty compass. I think that because Ryan was handed over to human authorities it's clear that Angel didn't count him among the demon set or soulless set. What is proved over and over again in both Buffy and Angel is that you can be evil and have a soul.

[> [> [> [> [> [> It was STRONGLY indicated -- Darby, 06:36:46 03/18/04 Thu

From Buffyworld's transcripts -

Wesley: ìWell, chalk up one exciting failure. You didnít get that boyís soul.î
Ethros: ìHmpf, what soul? Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? - Nothing! Thatís what I found in the boy (Cut to Ryan staring at Stephanie as she drinks her hot cocoa) no conscience, no fear, no humanity, just a black void. I couldnít control him. (Back to the Ethros) I couldnít get out. I never even manifested until you brought me forth. I just sat there and watched as he destroyed everything around him. Not from a belief in evil, not for any reason at all.î

Since most of what we really have from the Buffyverse is the testimony of the inhabitants, I'd say that this passes as expert testimony. Is ME guilty of presenting an exception to the rules purely because there's a good story, and then ignoring that they ever did so? Sure, and this may be one of those times, but the exception is pretty clearly presented for obsessives with long memories...

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: It was STRONGLY indicated -- Rufus, 19:03:19 03/20/04 Sat

I think that the Ethros demon could be talking about the boys actions as being like those without a soul like people do when a serious crime is committed and witnesses and bystanders liken the criminal to being soulless. I think Ryan was a psychopath/sociopath the proof being he was left to human justice. People do horrible things and even Buffy has wondered how humans are capable of the worst evil, all with a soul.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: It was STRONGLY indicated -- skeeve, 08:14:08 03/22/04 Mon

That Ryan was soulless might have been an inference by the demon.
So far we haven't seen much evidence that anyone can even detect a soul without a spell.
Granted a normally non-corporeal demon might be an exception,
but it might not.
Nothing that it mentioned not seeing are guaranteed to accompany a soul.

That said, leaving Ryan to human authority really isn't evidence that Angel's team thought Ryan had a soul.
It's evidence that they thought human authority could handle him.
It's evidence that they didn't know a better alternative.
I don't know a better alternative either.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Anya could tell -- DorianQ, 12:25:23 03/22/04 Mon

In Beneath You (I think), Anya could see Spike's soul just be looking at him, and she obviously was pretty sure about it because she hounded him about even after he tried to deny it and leave. I think the Ethros demon, having been possessed by the kid or possesing him or whatever, would probably have a pretty good idea whether or not he had a soul or not. I don't think he had a reason to lie to Angel, so I'm inclined to believe that the kid didn't have a soul. The kid wasn't a demon and didn't have any superhuman powers so there wasn't any reason not to trust him to the proper authorities as long as Angel realized they could not help him, just contain him. But I can't think of how he could have been helped since I never heard of any sort of soul transfusion or anything similar.

[> comments on a few points (vague spoilers for "shells"; & is anyone still unspoiled for "selfless"?) -- anom, 23:08:43 03/10/04 Wed

"What exactly does Joss Whedon think about when he speaks of the soul?

It isnít an idle question by any means, since if one accepts the man at his word when he claims to be an atheist, it is profoundly odd that a purely theological concept shows up so often with the fictional universes that he creates."

A friend of mine once told me about someone she knew who, when someone said s/he was an atheist, liked to offer to buy s/his soul. He never got any takers.

Does that mean the person wasn't really an atheist? That s/he had doubts, as many believers do? (Does "atheist" mean someone who doesn't believe in the existence of God/gods, or someone who does believe in the nonexistence of God/gods? Some atheists would define it as the latter, & I've heard some who are every bit as dogmatic about their belief system as some adherents of religions can be.)

But I question whether belief in a soul requires belief in God. There is something in us that "leaves" when we die; is it the same as what gives us the capacity to develop an understanding of right & wrong? (I say "an" understanding because not everyone has the same understanding.) Is it necessary to believe in God to think of that something as a soul? Or can some people hold the concept that humans evolved to the point where we have souls (along w/consciousness? equivalent to it?) without believing that God created us & our souls? Maybe they define "soul" in a nontheological way & it isn't necessarily a "purely theological concept."

I can't even begin to address the question of what the atheists who turned down the chance to sell their souls thought would happen to them if they sold them. Maybe someone less theistic than me can speak to this.

"Many BtVS and Angel fans have wondered for years whether or not it is possible for demons to have souls, and itís long been my opinion that Joss and crew have deliberately left the issue unresolved because they donít have a consensus themselves."

We may have a clue in Selfless, where D'Hoffryn tells Anya the price for taking back the results of her vengeance spell is "the life and soul of a vengeance demon." There have been other references to the "souls" of demons. These may or may not be analogous to human souls. If they are, Shells may not be the first time a soul has been destroyed in the Buffyverse.

"But then it gets a rude surprise-- its cadre of devoted followers and its loyal army are gone, turned to forgetfulness and dust during the passage of inconceivable ages. And we, the viewers, are soon presented with a greater surprise-- the creature feels grief, not simply anger, at its loss."

And a sense not just of loss but of lostness. It's hard to imagine what it's like to lose your entire world, everything & everyone you ever knew or counted on. How many examples are there? Noah, who even though he still had his family, takes the 1st chance he gets after the Ark lands to drink till he passes out? Arthur Dent? Can we say this of surviving members of cultures destroyed by conquerors? Of people taken away from their native cultures as slaves? All they knew is gone; they have to start from scratch. Illyria has to do the same; when it speaks of learning to walk in this world, it will really need to learn to walk. For all its power, Illyria is a newborn in this world.

So maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised when, at the end of the episode, the montage of mourning, lonely people ends with Illyria herself, reaching to touch the sarcophagus, the only remnant of her world that she has in this one. She looks off & we see a bit of fragmented memory: Fred leaving the world she knew to find her way to, and in, one that will be new to her.

It's an amazing thing ME has done. The Fang Gang doesn't have to foil the Big Bad's plans (if that's even what Illyria is)--circumstance has already done that. Our expectations were built up & immediately undercut. So now what? Illyria's learning process will be fascinating, but still--gotta have our dose of violence. Spike says near the end of Shells that something big is coming, things will get ugly, even though he already knows Illyria has no army of followers. So what's coming? Something else on the other side of that unblocked portal? (BTW, anyone else love the literal skeleton keys?) Did that army succumb just to time...or did the rivals that murdered Illyria finish the job by destroying it? If they're still around, they might come after Illyria again; it'd be a strange twist if the FG winds up defending it against them. I could throw out more possibilities, but I'd rather wait & see (not 5 weeks, though--dang!).

"A great monarch, a warrior, murdered. Not merely killed, or even slain, but murdered. I have to assume that this choice of language was not accidental on MEís part. Is there a subtext being laid out that suggests that as demons go, Illyria possessed some aspect of genuine nobility?"

Well, I just figured it meant the rivals couldn't kill Illyria in open battle, so they took the cowardly route & murdered it. (Hey, maybe that's how Illyria knows from sneakiness!) But I don't see how it implies any nobility.

[> [> oops--"vague" applies to the "selfless" spoilers, not "shells" -- anom, 23:12:33 03/10/04 Wed

[> [> Re: comments on a few points (spoilers for "shells"; & is anyone still unspoiled for "selfless"?) -- Arethusa, 05:07:30 03/11/04 Thu

Whedon said he doesn't believe in souls (I'll try to find the interview sometime today).

Hmm. A system is "a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole." (MirriamWebster) I guess since athiests reject all belief systems, they could be said to have a "unified whole" attitute towards religion. Basically, I think that non-believing is simply non-believing, whether you consider it systematically or not. That includes the soul, which is a supernatural concept. We learn the difference betweeen right and wrong throughout our lives, we are not supernaturally inclined towards either. (Genetically, I don't know. Some people say we are, but that's highly contested I believe.)

Consciouness is the greatest difference between us and animals, I think. We are aware of ourselves as separate entities (and therefore lonely), and we can make decisions that go against our instinctive nature. A dog can't decide that it's unethical to eat meat and therefore it will only eat vegetables. It can't go against instinct. And therefore I think what Whedon might be doing is removing the word "soul," with all of its theological implications, from the debates about free will and choice. Illyria's soul orients her towards evil, but if she rejects her orientation, she truly is exercising free will in its purest form. She and nothing else determins how she will act, based on the memories of a human who spent her life learning about right and wrong. A good woman, one of the best we've seen in AtS, has a lifetime of memories about how choosing right, choosing to have a loving heart, connected her to many other people, and made her feel less lonely. That is the human experience that Illyria has to drawn on, and I do think it might affect her. But that doesn't mean she is gaining a soul, since Fred's is gone.

[> [> [> Found it. -- Arethusa, 11:21:41 03/11/04 Thu

Here.

Here's the applicable part.

"With a soul comes a more adult understanding. That is again, a little vague, butÖ can I say that I believe in the soul? I donít know that I can. Itís a beautiful concept, as is resurrection and a lot of other things we have on the show that Iím not really sure I can explain and I certainly donít believe in. It does fall prey to convenience, but at the same time it has consistently marked the real difference between somebody with a complex moral structure and someone who may be affable and even likable, but ultimately eats kittens."

[> [> [> [> Oh my gosh!!--O/T and Ranty! -- Arethusa, 11:36:42 03/11/04 Thu

I looked up the definition of atheism in the Wikipedia and it included this:

"As recently as the 1987 presidential campaign in the (officially secular) United States, George H. W. Bush said "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." [9]"

Oh my gosh! It's possible that if this man had his way I could have my citizenship revoked. And nobody, nobody, can question my patriotism; I love my country and admire my father for fighting (and dying) for it, somthing Bush made very, very certain would not happen to him, although like my father he was a pilot during Vietnam.

Does Canada want another citizen? I'm not big on cats but I love chocolate.

[> [> [> [> [> Further research reveals that Harmony, however, is not an atheist -- Arethusa, 11:51:17 03/11/04 Thu

and in fact has a religion especially tailored for her.

Here.

[> [> [> [> [> [> Whedon & the Supernatural -- Claudia, 14:52:45 03/11/04 Thu

Although Whedon has created two shows focused around the supernatural, how does he really feel about the subject? Does he believe in the possibility of supernatural phenonenmons . . . or was he simply using the subject to express his own philosophy?

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Why we write. -- Arethusa, 15:15:31 03/11/04 Thu

I think he has no belief in the supernatural, and as you say uses the fantasy and horror (and s-f and soap opera and...) genres to express his philosophy. You can enjoy and write ghost stories without believing in them. You can also enjoy reading the Bible or watching Biblical stories without believing in them. Whedon probably writes fantasies because he enjoys them. In the end, we write because there's a story we are dying to tell, and idea we feel we must get across, a world that we created for our amusement.

The Christian imagery in BtVS is deliberate, because most people in America are familiar with it and because it draws a deep, heart-felt response from the audience. Whedon always goes for the gut, using words and images that will draw us in and help us feel connected to the characters. That is why even the worst characters have redeeming qualities and even the best character have flaws. That is how we know they are human, that they are just like us. And since Whedon's no fool, they're pretty too. :)

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Thanks Arethusa, For the Explanation! -- Claudia, 15:28:07 03/11/04 Thu

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> a message in the text -- Seven, 13:17:45 03/17/04 Wed

In the end, we write because there's a story we are dying to tell, and idea we feel we must get across, a world that we created for our amusement.

Maybe this is what the real God/Creator/Ultimate Power/Power That Be/Judger/Superior being is doing. (if you think that way, which I don't, necesserely). He/She/It just had to tell the story of these people that make really bad decisions who either choose to make up for it or don't. Makes ya think, no?

[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Further research reveals that Harmony, however, is not an atheist -- angel's nibblet, 00:09:03 03/13/04 Sat

LMAO!!!

Did anyone else cheer ingternally when they saw the shot of Harm sitting at her desk with the little unicorns on it? I love the little shout outs Joss does to us long-time viewers :-D like little in-jokes!

[> [> [> [> [> Arethusa, Canada welcomes you.. -- Jane, 18:51:05 03/11/04 Thu

I hereby nominate you for honorary citizenship. Your chocolate awaits.

[> [> [> [> [> [> And the cats will grow on you over time -- OnM, 19:16:10 03/11/04 Thu

OK, they mostly just shed on you. But it could be worse-- at least cats aren't liberals or other non-real Americans!

;-)

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Actually it's more like they will use you like a warm, living, cat post...;) -- Rufus, 19:42:21 03/11/04 Thu

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Actually it's more like they will use you like a warm, living, cat post...;) -- Ann, 20:11:29 03/11/04 Thu

Canadian foreplay: Getting in bed first and warming up the sheets.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Actually it's more like they will use you like a warm, living, cat post...;) -- Arethusa, 08:15:40 03/12/04 Fri

There is something appealing about their indifference and disdain.

Miss Kitty Fantastico: "I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them, and cut out their hearts one by one, until the kitty-eating demons and crossbow-weilding teenagers shows themselves for what they really are. And I'll kill them myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's cats. Any questions?

quote from Missy Kitty Fantastico the Demon Slayer.com. And buffyworld.com.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> LOL! (sprays tea over the screen)..Canadian foreplay.. -- Jane, 17:31:48 03/12/04 Fri

Actually, that's why we use flannel sheets in wintertime, and consider parkas underwear.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> OT to Jane: Email me -- Ann, 08:03:45 03/13/04 Sat

Offer to pay for the keyboard! lol

[> [> [> [> [> [> Thanks, Jane--More O/T -- Arethusa, 07:49:13 03/12/04 Fri

It's kind of creepy when your president says he doesn't want your kind in his country. I now understand a little how gays feel after being told their existance is a threat to their moral, upstanding neighbors. I don't think the government would revoke my citizenship if I don't pledge allegience to a god, but then I didn't think the government would try to rewrite our Constitution to reflect its current leaders' religious beliefs either.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Thanks, Jane--More O/T -- Pushy Queen of Slut Town, 20:03:14 03/26/04 Fri

Damn right! If I could get that self-righteous bumbling idiot in a room for 5 minutes...

Tyreseus: Queenie, calm down, this isn't a political forum. What does that have to do with Buffy or Angel?

Mind your business, human! I've heard you rant and rave against his deliberate attack on your pathetic relationhips, too.

Tyreseus: I'm no fan of Dubya, but this is getting way off topic

When are we moving to Canada?

Tyreseus: It's an option, but you'd just complain about the cold. You'd almost never be able to wear your miniskirts or mesh shirts.

Grrrrrr. I will not tolerate evil rivals to my power, nor will I tolerate such an attack on my wardrobe! The Dubya demon must be destroyed!!!

Tyreseus: Down, girl... boy... whatever... I'm taking us home now.

Now an iBlog blogger!

[> [> [> On the inherent nature of morality... -- Darby, 06:51:51 03/13/04 Sat

Fascinating context provided for in this link - the trolley conundrum - 2 logically equivalent situations that humans virtually always see as substantially different.

Too lazy to html, sorry -

http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_Morality.html

[> [> [> [> What a fascinating article, thanks. -- Arethusa, 07:40:57 03/13/04 Sat

I'd like to add more later, but I need more coffee first. :)
One thing though-I read that child abuse affects the brain chemically. I really wonder how that affects the development of morality. And I love that statement on how people are not inherently evil.

[> [> In my experience on souls and "atheism...." -- Briar Rose, 11:09:01 03/11/04 Thu

It is not necessary for the average atheist to dismiss the "soul" as most average atheists are simply not "religious", it's not that they don't have a belief system. In many cases, the atheists I have known have chosen that term because they do not believe in any of the religions that other people adhere to.

As you stated anom, many atheists are as dogmatic in their statement of NON-belief as fanatical zealots are in their BELIEF!

In the current cultural society in a big portion of the world (the Christian European/US/Asia and Middle East) an atheist is anyone who does not adhere to the majorities' religion, with the exception of the Jewish and Native Religions.

However, I am a Witch who normally has to introduce myself as an atheist to people when meeting them for the first time. I know of other Witches and Non-Christians who do the same. It's simply easier than trying to explain what I do believe in.

My Father was a self proclaimed atheist. He did not believe in a God or a series of Powers That Be. However, he did believe in a Universal energy. He claimed atheism because it was the only way he could explain that he didn't believe in any of the mainstream religions nor any of the minority religions. But this did not mean that he did not believe in the "soul", or that he didn't believe in metaphysical circumstances. In fact, he was very interested in the "Alien" phenomenon and in mythology, history of theology and cultural studies.

On the other hand, my Mother will not claim atheist status, yet she is probably the most atheistic person I've ever met. She is deathly afraid of any religious theory/conversation or even the idea of a God or Universal Power. (Frankly, I think her Mother's Witchcraft caused that. A reverse reaction to worrying about her own "soul" being born to a Witch.*L)

But regardless of her atheistic beliefs, she still believes in life after death and "souls" when it comes to things like belief that those that died (like my Dad) are always with us.

So I wouldn't begin to make a clear cut between atheist and not believing in the soul. I think that most people (of any belief!) have the idea of sentient versus non-sentient brain waves and hence a "soul" even if they do not believe that a greater power of the type most faiths believe in created it.

[> [> [> are some atheists...godmatic? @>) -- anom, 08:36:55 03/12/04 Fri

Maybe just the dyslexic ones.

"As you stated anom, many atheists are as dogmatic in their statement of NON-belief as fanatical zealots are in their BELIEF!"

What led me to realize this was listening to a radio show on WBAI (NYC Pacifica [left-wing member-supported] station) called "Equal Time for Atheists." Some of the statements I heard showed clearly that for the people talking, the nonexistence of God was, in effect, an article of faith on which they had built (yes, Arethusa) a belief system. It was kind of funny.

I hope it's clear that I don't think this is the case for all atheists. The diversity among atheists is at least as wide as that within any religion. (I have a private theory that atheists who started as members of different religions tend to be atheistic in different ways. For example, many Jewish atheists seem to be angry at God for not existing!)

[> [> [> [> I believe you! -- Arethusa, 09:23:31 03/12/04 Fri

It's definitely paradoxical, to have faith that faith is meaningless, to form a system of beliefs that rejects systems of belief.

[> [> [> [> [> It doesn't reject all systems of belief, it IS a system of belief -- Masq waxing philosophical on minimal brain cells, 10:50:05 03/12/04 Fri

"There is no God" is an empirically un-provable statement, as is "There is a God". Both are taken on faith, both are claimed to arise from "evidence", but neither are provable.

I am agnostic precisely because I have chosen to accept neither statement. But it strikes me that atheism can be as large a system of belief as any religion. It takes stands on the nature of the universe and the nature of human beings that go beyond any available scientific evidence, it draws metaphysical and sometimes ethical conclusions from the results of science that themselves do not necessarily follow from those results.

The simple fact is, science by definition can only concern itself with the material universe and cannot answer questions about whatever else might be out there, because its methods are those that can only observe material elements.

Trying to draw conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality from science is like looking for your lost bracelet under the street lamp at 2nd Avenue and California St. at night even though you lost it on the other side of town because, "at least I can see the pavement here."

[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: It doesn't reject all systems of belief, it IS a system of belief -- Gyrus, 14:08:41 03/12/04 Fri

Trying to draw conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality from science is like looking for your lost bracelet under the street lamp at 2nd Avenue and California St. at night even though you lost it on the other side of town because, "at least I can see the pavement here."

That said, drawing conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality by means OTHER than science is like deciding that your lost bracelet is actually still on your arm, just because you wish it so.

That seems to be our choice: use an inadequate tool, or say to heck with it and make stuff up.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> No, science is a limited model, not a limitless one (minor spoilers for AtS S5) -- Pip, 14:54:49 03/12/04 Fri

Science doesn't cover the whole of reality. Much historical enquiry cannot be confirmed by scientific means.

For example - this lost bracelet ended up being picked up by someone not very honest, who sold it to a pawnbroker, who sold it on to be melted down for the metal value.

From a scientific point of view the bracelet, as a bracelet, is gone. Twenty years from now, there will be no scientific proof that the bracelet existed. There's going to be no real way of distinguishing which molecules of metal once belonged to that bracelet.

But from the historical point of view ... there are people's memories (oral history). There are written records (your email to a friend bemoaning your loss. The insurance claim report you filed ). There may be photos showing you wearing the bracelet.

The scientist won't be able to tell you anything about that twenty years destroyed bracelet. The historian may be able to tell you who wore it, what it looked like, maybe even what happened to it. But history can't tell you everything. The historian would be completely confounded if a lot of people decided (for some totally inexplicable reason) to lie about events. There are also quite a few periods in history where our only knowledge is from the more 'scientific' archaeologist, using chemical analysis and geophysics and equipment that Fred would be proud of. The historian and the archaeologist will work as a team, each filling in gaps that the other can't handle. As did Wesley and Fred.

Drawing conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality by ONLY using science will lead us to that 'hole in the world'. Because the choice isn't between an inadequate tool and making stuff up. It's between believing that your inadequate tool is the one-and-only way of finding truth and accepting that other people's inadequate tools might actually work better than yours in certain areas.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Different definitions of science -- Gyrus, 15:46:28 03/12/04 Fri

Sorry -- by "science", I mean empirical inquiry in general, not physics, chemistry, etc. in particular. I would consider historical evidence of the existence of the bracelet (photos, people's observations of the bracelet) to be scientific evidence in the same way that fossil evidence of the existence of dinosaurs is scientific evidence.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> So, your attitude on historical evidence of miracles is? :-) -- Pip, 18:23:48 03/12/04 Fri

Being nasty there, I know. However, the problem with basing things purely on observation and experience is that it nearly always boils down to whose observations and experience carry the most weight. The 'trained observer' will generally be valued over Joe or Josephine Pleb. The observations of the Nobel Prize winner will be regarded more seriously than those of the research assistant. And in both cases, we might be giving weight to the wrong observations.

In practice, observations and experience are also quite frequently discounted because they don't fit into a pre-existing theory. Miracles, for example, don't happen, therefore the vast amounts of observational evidence for miracles are due to some other cause (mass hysteria, hallucinations, remarkable ability of the body to heal itself - pick one). Or miracles do happen, therefore the vast amounts of observational evidence for miracles are proof that miracles do happen ...

The other problem with the empirical model is that it values the repeatable event over the unique. If your evidence is based entirely on observation and experience, what happens to events that no one has observed? What happens to a unique event that happened thousands of years ago, so that the remaining evidence is slight indeed? What 'facts' do we really, honestly, know about the Big Bang? Or do we just have a lot of theories, all of which might be false? As you say, we're dealing with an inadequate tool when it comes to empirical enquiry.

I'm also not entirely sure that historical enquiry is empirical enquiry. Historical enquiry is based on observation, experience and one heck of a lot of interpretation. It's been quite seriously argued whether there can be such a thing as a 'fact' in history; further, historians have to consider whether historical evidence is evidence at all. Photos can be faked, people might lie, even a truthful account may be heavily biased by previous experiences. This does happen in the biology/chemistry/physics type sciences, of course, but historians have to consider the source of their material on a routine basis. Historical evidence is not the same thing as scientific evidence. Oak trees don't lie to you about the number of acorns they dropped this year [grin].

I'm told that much pure mathematics has no relationship whatsoever to observations or experience, but is based entirely on theory. Yet it often turns out (years later) to be highly relevant to the nature of reality. So is pure mathematics empirical enquiry? If it isn't, does it have anything to offer? Why does a system based on pure theory so often turn out to be 'true'?

And then there's philosophy. Is that an empirical system? And yet it goes beyond an observation of our reality and helps to create it.

This is a rather long winded reply, but I think my original point still holds. You've expanded the meaning of 'science' so that it includes 'all empirical enquiry' - but that still doesn't make it the only way to 'truth'. Instead, expanding it makes the inadequacy of the 'science' tool more apparent. We become like the people in Plato's cave, trying to determine 'truth' from shadows on the wall. Somewhere outside are the true forms, which we can only guess at by the shapes of the shadows.

But that idea comes from philosophical enquiry, not empirical enquiry. So, of course, it has nothing to offer us in our search for truth. >:-)

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> The science of history -- Sophist, 13:03:54 03/13/04 Sat

Lots of sciences deal with events in the past: archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, cosmology, etc. Depending on how you define "past", lots more might qualify. For example, studies of the sun always have to account for events which took place 8 minutes previously, since that's how long it takes signals to reach us from the sun. All of these remain sciences.

Empiricism is not limited to repeatable experiments. Science is a complex mix of theory, experiment, and logical reasoning. That same mix can be, and is, applied to history even if the particular event itself is not repeatable.

It's been quite seriously argued whether there can be such a thing as a 'fact' in history; further, historians have to consider whether historical evidence is evidence at all. Photos can be faked, people might lie, even a truthful account may be heavily biased by previous experiences. This does happen in the biology/chemistry/physics type sciences, of course, but historians have to consider the source of their material on a routine basis. Historical evidence is not the same thing as scientific evidence. Oak trees don't lie to you about the number of acorns they dropped this year

I must be missing your point here, because I don't see this as a counter argument. All of these factors apply whether we're studying the big bang, the effects of hormones in our bodies, or Jerusalem in the time of King David. Your distinction between "historical" evidence and "scientific" evidence is a false one -- evidence is just evidence.

Humanity has, so far, tried 3 methods of achieving knowledge: religion, philosophy, and science. Religion takes knowledge as given from the divinity. Philosophy applies logical reasoning to test the validity of knowledge. Science applies both reasoning and empirical testing.

It's hard to see why one should prefer philosophy when science has incorporated its technique and added to it an additional technique as a check. I understand why people prefer religion to science (or vice versa), but preferring philosophy to science seems hard to justify.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> History, philosophy, religion, and there is some reference to the Buffyverse, I promise -- Pip, 10:57:16 03/14/04 Sun

There seems to be another problem in definition of terms here. My original post on science as a limited model was refering to 'historical enquiry' in the sense of the academic discipline, not 'history' in the sense of 'things in the past that happen one after the other'. History (the discipline) does make use of many sciences. But it is not itself a science.

Your definition of 'science' is a complex mix of theory, experiment, and logical reasoning. That same mix can be, and is, applied to history even if the particular event itself is not repeatable.

Except it can't be. Theories, check. Logical reasoning - sometimes [grin]. Experiments - no. Someone who does experiments on how things were done in the past is generally called an archaeologist (reconstructive), not a historian. Because they are scientists. They do experiments (as well as the theories and the logical reasoning). But while the results of their experiments might be incredibly useful as a guide to how it may have been done, they are not historical proof.

You can do all the experiments you like on how the Romans constructed their catapults. And you can come up with a solution. But until an archaeologist digs up a well preserved Roman catapult, or a historian finds an accurate sketch - your experiment is not proof that it actually was done that way. There's rarely only one possible solution in history.

Similarly, historians can and do come up with theories about, say, causes behind the rise of a dictator. They're unable to grab a handy country and experiment. They also have a huge problem in defining the 'facts' they're using to construct their theory. What is a dictator? What characteristics do they have? If a particular figure has six out of the ten possible characteristics, do they qualify? A particular figure, X, is described as a dictator in documents - but all the surviving documents are from enemies, invaders and conquerors. Can we say 'X is a dictator' is a fact ?

If I say 'X is a squirrel' it can be disproved. 'Facts', in a scientific discipline are disprovable. If you fail to disprove them, the 'fact' holds. X is a squirrel - because I can't fit it into any other species classification; it has no non-squirrel characteristics. If, on the other hand, X is a dog, the hypothesis that it is not in fact a squirrel will be proved reasonably quickly. It has non-squirrel characteristics.

But history is full to bursting with 'facts' that we cannot disprove (unless we discover new evidence). I cannot disprove that our old friend X was a dictator. Worse, I can't reverse the hypothesis and disprove that X was NOT a dictator. The evidence I've got is not reliable. It could be used either way. And there is no experiment I can conduct that will give me more evidence.

A scientist will argue fiercely about what counts as a 'fact', and argue about theories derived from these 'facts', in the hope that one day, sometime in the future, there will come an answer (cue John Lennon). Historians will argue in the knowledge that there probably never will be an answer (unless somebody solves the problem of exceeding the speed of light, and invents a time machine). Historians just hope that the continuing arguments lead them in the direction of what probably, sort of, happened. Maybe.

History (the discipline) is closer to philosophy than to science. It has unanswerable questions, and it also concerns itself with the why as well as the how . Value judgements of societies or people are acceptable in history (though you have to be both aware that you're making such a judgement and make it clear to your reader that you are). 'Are squirrels a good species?' is a meaningless scientific question. 'Was Napoleon a good leader?' is a valid historical question.

It's hard to see why one should prefer philosophy when science has incorporated its technique and added to it an additional technique as a check. I understand why people prefer religion to science (or vice versa), but preferring philosophy to science seems hard to justify.

I'm not actually preferring it - my original argument is simply that science is inadequate as a complete world-view. Gyrus argued that basically the choice is between 'science' and 'making stuff up'. It's not.

And I think you've just argued my point right there - science has incorporated philosophical techniques. It needed other world views to even get started properly. And the human beings who are scientists are incomplete without other world views - unless you think that science should be an ethics free zone (rather like in Wolfram and Hart), which brings us back to a philosophical question rather than a scientific one.

Science is an inadequate world view. It will investigate 'the world as it is'. It's a bit like the Watchers Council (trying desperately to get at least vaguely on-topic in this post). The world view is 'this is the way the world works'. And the WC might investigate the demonic world, provide each Slayer with ever better weaponry and fighting tactics, more information on their foes, develop theories of Slayage, identify them from birth and generally make the Slayer's life easier, longer, more efficient and with more self-understanding. Which is a great thing to do, and extremely beneficial. Slayers will be better and happier for it.

But the Watcher's Council probably won't ask the philosophical (in the broad sense) questions. They'll identify the function of Slayers, and the effects that the lack of a Slayer has on a particular Hellmouth. They won't ask why there has to be only one Slayer, because there is only one Slayer. That is the way the world is. And they would be unlikely to ask if there could maybe be lots and lots of Slayers....

A scientist will spend lots of time investigating what gravity is. They'd be very unlikely to investigate what happens when it turns off. It doesn't turn off. It's a universal force. It might be combined with other forces rather than separate, but gravity is, was, and will be, until the universe ends.

Could it turn off? Can the 'laws' of the universe change? If we can't change them universally, can we change them locally?

Now you've reached this point, you might start investigating scientifically. But to get there, you have to use the philosophical technique of imagining the world as you'd like it to be, and then reasoning from there.

And then there's religion. Religion says that certain types of knowledge are revealed to us by a superhuman controlling power. If you take away the 'superhuman controlling power' bit, and go with 'certain types of knowledge are revealed to us', you can see that people use the 'religious' world view quite a lot.

It's when someone decides that there may be nothing in their previous experience, there may be no logical reason for it, but they 'know' it. Alternate Giles has such a moment in The Wish when he smashes Anya's amulet because the world that will result 'has to be' better than the one he's in. Sometimes you have to act on faith, whether it's faith in a supernatural power, a better world in the future, or both. But 'I just know it' has no place in science (or it shouldn't).

If the world was always the same we'd have no need of anything but science. This is the way the world is, let's observe it, let's develop theories about how it works, let's do some experiments to prove or disprove the theories. Except it wasn't always the same. Even science itself shows that. Before the Big Bang there was no such thing as time. There was a point where gravity was not a separate force. Rules change. Reality changes. And there are some areas that science knows perfectly well it can't reach. (What happened before the Big Bang? Was there even such a thing as 'before'?)

So if the rules change and reality changes - does reality bends to desire? Can things change - if you make them change? But apparently I'm only allowed to use one inadequate tool to probe the ultimate nature of reality - and if I try to use philosophical speculation, or religious revelation, I'm 'making stuff up.' [OK, that wasn't you who made that comment ;-)]

It really isn't that simple. Not only is there not a complete either/or choice between 'scientific truth' and 'making stuff up', but 'making stuff up' quite often leads people to the truth. It's called 'imagination' and 'speculation' and even 'theorising'.

Religion is not the only form of truth, science is not the only form of truth, philosophy is not the only form of truth - and imagination can lead us to the truth. They should all be working as a team, accepting that they each have different strengths. Not only are they not, too often you get people insisting that their version is the only version. Their world view is the only world view.

And it isn't.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: History, philosophy, religion, and there is some reference to the Buffyverse, I promise -- Sophist, 13:57:51 03/14/04 Sun

History (the discipline) does make use of many sciences. But it is not itself a science.

Science is a process, a method. Any use of that method is science, whether by an historian or a sociologist or a physicist.

Except it can't be. Theories, check. Logical reasoning - sometimes [grin]. Experiments - no. Someone who does experiments on how things were done in the past is generally called an archaeologist (reconstructive), not a historian. Because they are scientists. They do experiments (as well as the theories and the logical reasoning). But while the results of their experiments might be incredibly useful as a guide to how it may have been done, they are not historical proof.

You can do all the experiments you like on how the Romans constructed their catapults. And you can come up with a solution. But until an archaeologist digs up a well preserved Roman catapult, or a historian finds an accurate sketch - your experiment is not proof that it actually was done that way. There's rarely only one possible solution in history.

Archaeologists are no less historians than scientists. They merely use the techniques of science to inform our evalution of the past.

Your example of the catapult is wrong in 2 ways. First, science can often answer questions about the past, e.g., by identifying the source of flint used by a local population. The fact that it can't (yet) directly answer other questions is hardly an argument against it. Second, you have missed one of the most important aspects of science -- proving how something did not happen. Science serves the valuable function of constraining historical interpretation by ruling out some of the otherwise infinite possibilities.

But history is full to bursting with 'facts' that we cannot disprove (unless we discover new evidence). I cannot disprove that our old friend X was a dictator. Worse, I can't reverse the hypothesis and disprove that X was NOT a dictator.

There is no problem here. You have confused "facts" with "interpretations". The line between the two is not always clear, but it's reasonably so in your examples (squirrel and dictator). You have to use comparable examples in order to make your point.

Science is an inadequate world view. It will investigate 'the world as it is'.

I don't see what's inadequate about this. From your comments after this, I assume you mean that science fails to consider alternatives. This is simply not true. Many of science's most important conclusions have literally rocked the world by challenging the most fundamental assumptions. Examples include Copernicus/Kepler, Darwin, and Einstein. And if you really want weirdness, there's always quantum theory.

A scientist will spend lots of time investigating what gravity is. They'd be very unlikely to investigate what happens when it turns off

Actually, they do this all the time. For example, it's an essential part of Einstein's reasoning.

But 'I just know it' has no place in science (or it shouldn't).

It actually has a quite respected place. Science uses intuition (I'll call it that for lack of a better term) all the time. It just does not stop there, but insists on more before accepting the conclusion.

If the world was always the same we'd have no need of anything but science. This is the way the world is, let's observe it, let's develop theories about how it works, let's do some experiments to prove or disprove the theories. Except it wasn't always the same. Even science itself shows that. Before the Big Bang there was no such thing as time. There was a point where gravity was not a separate force

This strikes me as internally contradictory. You just showed not only that science recognizes that the world is not always the same and gave 2 examples which we know solely because of science. As I said above, science unequivocally does consider that things might not always be "the same".

Not only is there not a complete either/or choice between 'scientific truth' and 'making stuff up', but 'making stuff up' quite often leads people to the truth. It's called 'imagination' and 'speculation' and even 'theorising'.

If you think science does not use these techniques, you're simply wrong. Its greatest strength is that it has incorporated the techniques of philosophy and imagination, while adding techniques of its own. Philosophy is not so much separate from science as included within it as a subset.

too often you get people insisting that their version is the only version. Their world view is the only world view.

While individual scientists may indeed be guilty of this, the theory of science rejects this. I wish I could say the same of philosophy and, especially, religion.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> The moment the level of evidence for miracles begins to approach that for dinosaurs, we'll talk. -- Gyrus, 15:05:51 03/13/04 Sat

However, the problem with basing things purely on observation and experience is that it nearly always boils down to whose observations and experience carry the most weight. The 'trained observer' will generally be valued over Joe or Josephine Pleb. The observations of the Nobel Prize winner will be regarded more seriously than those of the research assistant. And in both cases, we might be giving weight to the wrong observations.

Of course. But as they say, the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. We read a lot of examples of brilliant ideas or discoveries that were blown off by the establishment, but we never read about the orders-of-magnitude-larger number of utterly wrong ideas and spurious discoveries that also get blown off by the establishment.

In practice, observations and experience are also quite frequently discounted because they don't fit into a pre-existing theory.

And that's bad science. Theory is meant to fit the facts, not the other way around.

Miracles, for example, don't happen, therefore the vast amounts of observational evidence for miracles are due to some other cause (mass hysteria, hallucinations, remarkable ability of the body to heal itself - pick one). Or miracles do happen, therefore the vast amounts of observational evidence for miracles are proof that miracles do happen ...

Therein lies the problem -- most of the time, we only have people's word for it that a miracle occurred. While such testimony is a kind of evidence, it is not particularly good evidence (as studies of eyewitness testimony have showed), especially when there is nothing else to back it up.

The other problem with the empirical model is that it values the repeatable event over the unique.

That's certainly true, but it doesn't discount the unique altogether. For example, virtually every medical journal in existence publishes both large-scale studies and reports of single cases that are unusual or unique. It is important to know both what is normal and what is possible.

If your evidence is based entirely on observation and experience, what happens to events that no one has observed?

Just because no one heard the tree falling in the forest doesn't mean that no one is going to walk by and find a fallen tree later. (Of course, there's also no guarantee that anyone WILL find it, either, so yes, the tree could fall without anyone ever knowing about it. But what by what other means could anyone be made aware that the tree ever fell?)

What happens to a unique event that happened thousands of years ago, so that the remaining evidence is slight indeed?

Then it simply becomes a question of whether or not you choose to believe it, because you have no way of knowing for sure whether it happened or not. But then, you have no way of knowing for sure if your sixth birthday party went exactly the way you remember it, either, and that was a lot more recent.

What 'facts' do we really, honestly, know about the Big Bang?

Well, I'm no astronomer, but I understand that we have pretty solid evidence that the universe is expanding outward from a central point, and that there is a cosmic background signal that, given its wavelength and intensity, may well have originated with the Big Bang. But we don't know for sure -- that's why we call it "The Big Bang theory".

Which, IMHO, is a lot less arrogant than proclaiming that one person or book or whatever is the absolute truth.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Judging reliable evidence -- Pip, 10:12:17 03/14/04 Sun

Therein lies the problem -- most of the time, we only have people's word for it that a miracle occurred. While such testimony is a kind of evidence, it is not particularly good evidence (as studies of eyewitness testimony have showed), especially when there is nothing else to back it up.

And you prove my point completely. The eye witness accounts don't fit the theory? Hey, that's OK. Eyewitness testimony isn't reliable. We only have their word for it, after all.

Now if it was an eyewitness account of 'how I didn't see any miracle at all', how reliable would you judge that? How much weight would you give to it? An honest answer, please.

I am, incidentally, not so arrogant that I think one particular book is the only absolute truth, or that people might not reach the truth by a completely different road to the one I'm taking. But the scientific world view often does contain its own particular arrogance - that it is the way, the truth and the light and there is no other knowledge gained except by science.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Judging reliable evidence -- Sophist, 11:03:08 03/14/04 Sun

The eye witness accounts don't fit the theory? Hey, that's OK. Eyewitness testimony isn't reliable. We only have their word for it, after all.

I think you're being unfair here. No one, including Gyrus, rejected eyewitness evidence because it didn't fit a preconception (I think you mean that word rather than "theory"). Gyrus simply pointed out the unreliability of eyewitness testimony as established by repeatable empirical studies.

Also, I'm not sure what miracles you have in mind, but most reports of them do not actually come from eyewitnesses, but from hearsay. That adds its own level of uncertainty to the accuracy.

Now if it was an eyewitness account of 'how I didn't see any miracle at all', how reliable would you judge that? How much weight would you give to it?

The proponent of a "miracle" has the burden of proof. But the answer remains the same anyway: eyewitness testimony is subject to distortions and inaccuracies that we have to take into account.

Scientists certainly can be arrogant; they're human, after all. But a rigorous insistence on applying the same standards to all claims does not strike me as arrogant. It strikes me as essential to achieving understanding. The real problem stems from claims that rely on evidence while denying the need to test that evidence. Can't have it both ways.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Judging reliable evidence -- Pip, 12:48:34 03/14/04 Sun

Do you have any idea how much of our knowledge of past events comes solely from eyewitness reports and hearsay? [grin]

I do know about the studies on the unreliability of eyewitnesses. They will get details wrong. They tend to get unusual events correct, significant events correct, events important to themselves correct. Very emotional events might be distorted as they are discussed afterwards. If you tell people that a non existent event happened to them, about a quarter will begin to 'remember' it.

However, if you do get a large group of people saying that something odd happened, something odd probably did happen. Why something odd happened is another matter. Was it a miracle? Or some natural phenomena that we don't yet understand?

Gyrus will happily consider historical evidence of a now non existent bracelet as 'evidence' - accepting, to quote: ... photos, people's observations of the bracelet) to be scientific evidence . Not only is all that evidence eminently fakeable (photos - really fakeable), there's a good motive for faking it (insurance fraud). But as soon as the 'event' gets outside what is now considered 'normal', suddenly the evidence is not particularly good evidence .

What's changed? We've got a non-existent bracelet, and a non-existent miracle. You'll take the evidence for one on faith [grin] and the evidence for the other with deep suspicion.

Whether you call it a theory (miracles do not happen) or a preconception, you are still assessing the evidence according to what you think the world is like. Rather than trying to work out what the world is like according to the evidence.

Actually, I didn't have any miracles in mind. I admit there are some where I'm personally happy with the historical evidence (unfortunately, folks, it's all eyewitness accounts, followed by more eyewitness accounts of the aftereffects, followed by more eyewitness accounts of the aftereffects of the aftereffects...). There are also rather a lot where I think 'yup, something odd happened, dunno what.' There are also definite fakes.

What really interested me was whether the assessment of the reliability of the evidence would change - not on the grounds of the evidence itself, but on the grounds of the event it describes.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Judging reliable evidence -- Sophist, 13:22:24 03/14/04 Sun

Do you have any idea how much of our knowledge of past events comes solely from eyewitness reports and hearsay?

I think I have a reasonable knowledge of history.

if you do get a large group of people saying that something odd happened, something odd probably did happen.

This is the logic I question. It depends on other factors. If a large number of people claim to see faster than light travel, I will remain skeptical because I have lots of other evidence that that is not possible. Eyewitness testimony rarely stands in isolation; it's just another data point that must be evaluated.

We've got a non-existent bracelet, and a non-existent miracle. You'll take the evidence for one on faith [grin] and the evidence for the other with deep suspicion.

This is false logic again. Bracelets do exist. Unicorns do not. I need not apply the same standard to claims to see a unicorn as to claims to see a bracelet. The evidence has to be considered in light of other facts we know. Again, evidence is just another data point.

you are still assessing the evidence according to what you think the world is like. Rather than trying to work out what the world is like according to the evidence.

As I said before, science is a mix of theory, reasoning and empirical testing. Everyone approaches the world "according to what they think the world is like". That's inherent in the human condition; we can't avoid this. What we can do is keep an open mind so that our conclusions remain subject to future reevaluation based on new evidence. That's the real difference between religion on the one hand and philosophy and science on the other -- religion treats the truth as given and unchangeable. Science and philosophy treat the truth as conditional.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Judging reliable evidence -- Gyrus, 18:49:14 03/14/04 Sun

Gyrus will happily consider historical evidence of a now non existent bracelet as 'evidence' - accepting, to quote: ... photos, people's observations of the bracelet) to be scientific evidence . Not only is all that evidence eminently fakeable (photos - really fakeable), there's a good motive for faking it (insurance fraud).

Happily? No. As I keep trying to point out, there are different levels of evidence. Eyewitness accounts -- especially accounts from people who have motive to lie -- are on a low level.

I do know about the studies on the unreliability of eyewitnesses. They will get details wrong. They tend to get unusual events correct, significant events correct, events important to themselves correct.

Even witnesses who have said, "I'll never forget the face of...[whoever committed the crime]" have identified the wrong person in a lineup.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Judging reliable evidence -- Gyrus, 12:17:02 03/14/04 Sun

Therein lies the problem -- most of the time, we only have people's word for it that a miracle occurred. While such testimony is a kind of evidence, it is not particularly good evidence (as studies of eyewitness testimony have showed), especially when there is nothing else to back it up.

And you prove my point completely. The eye witness accounts don't fit the theory? Hey, that's OK. Eyewitness testimony isn't reliable. We only have their word for it, after all.

Let me make sure I understand what appears to be more or less your hypothetical scenario:
1. Someone sees a miracle and tells the world at large.
2. The miracle the person saw violates some existing theory; ex. the person saw a statue of the Virgin Mary rise up into the air and float there, even though the theory of gravity says that is not possible.

Is this the sort of thing you mean? If so, then yes, one person's account vs. my own and countless other people's experience with gravity does indeed give me doubts about the witness' testimony. However, if there are four hundred other witnesses who saw the statue float, and if some of them took pictures or video, then I may decide that the theory of gravity needs revision (at least to the extent of saying that there are situations in which it doesn't appear to apply).

Now if it was an eyewitness account of 'how I didn't see any miracle at all', how reliable would you judge that? How much weight would you give to it? An honest answer, please.

That depends entirely on the circumstances. Generally, people won't tell you that they didn't see something unless they think you have reason to believe that they DID see one, i.e., their statement implies that there is other evidence to consider. Without knowing what that other evidence is (as well as what reasons the witness might have to be truthful or non-truthful about what he or she saw), I don't know whether to believe the non-viewer or not.

I am, incidentally, not so arrogant that I think one particular book is the only absolute truth, or that people might not reach the truth by a completely different road to the one I'm taking.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you did. That's merely the attitude that I have the biggest problem with, so I tend to get venty about it.

But the scientific world view often does contain its own particular arrogance - that it is the way, the truth and the light and there is no other knowledge gained except by science.

As long as you use a very broad definition of science (including observation, trial-and-error, and a certain amount of reasoning), then I suppose that's true. But I think the beauty of science is that humility is a fundamental part of it. Science at its best doesn't tell you, "This is the truth." It tells you, "This is the best theory we have based on the best evidence we have." Theory must always be open to change, or else it isn't theory anymore -- it's dogma.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Eyewitnesses and not agreeing on terms -- Pip, 13:22:41 03/16/04 Tue

Even witnesses who have said, "I'll never forget the face of...[whoever committed the crime]" have identified the wrong person in a lineup.

Except they do remember that there was a crime [grin]. The memory usually fails on the details, not the broad picture.

Look, with the best will in the world, we're obviously not going to agree on this subject - we can't even agree on terms. Every time I try to define 'science', you or Sophist 'humpty dumpty'* it to a definition that was not the one I learnt in the college level science courses I've taken. The type of conjecture I understood was a 'theory' (and called a 'theory' when I wrote my degree thesis on Elizabethan theatre and censorship) is to Sophist an 'interpretation'. There are problems in understanding what I mean by 'history the academic discipline', and so on. If two sides are not agreeing on the terms they're using, you can't have a meaningful discussion.

I suspect that latest definition of 'science' as a process or method could include my profession of acting; and I assure you most sincerely that an actor is not in any way, shape or form a 'scientist', nor is acting a 'science', nor do we use a method that might properly be described as 'scientific'. ;-)

Though we might play a scientist from time to time.[VBG]

*Humpty Dumpty: When I say a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more nor less". [Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll]

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Eyewitnesses and not agreeing on terms -- Gyrus, 13:53:30 03/16/04 Tue

The type of conjecture I understood was a 'theory' (and called a 'theory' when I wrote my degree thesis on Elizabethan theatre and censorship) is to Sophist an 'interpretation'.

Ah, this explains the rift -- the English-major (or what have you) definition of "theory" vs. the psychology-major definition. From what I can tell, both definitions have to do with perspective, but the latter always depends on supporting evidence, while the former may or may not. (Ex. English-major-types sometimes analyze literature from a Freudian theoretical perspective, even though most psychologists dumped it -- for lack of evidence -- decades ago.)

I suspect that latest definition of 'science' as a process or method could include my profession of acting; and I assure you most sincerely that an actor is not in any way, shape or form a 'scientist', nor is acting a 'science', nor do we use a method that might properly be described as 'scientific'. ;-)

Sort of like someone's (I think Muhammed Ali's) definition of boxing as "the Sweet Science."

As for me, I don't even consider medicine a science (although it frequently uses scientific methodology), let alone acting. Both are arts, along with boxing, architecture, and whipping up a mean tiramisu.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Actually it was a joint degree (double major) in History and Drama. -- Pip, 14:12:45 03/16/04 Tue

I would never do an English course if I could possibly avoid it. Really not my cup of tea at all. Drama you at least have to both point to the text to justify your point of view and then portray said point of view in front of a non-academic audience. [evil grin]

Oh and I did a psych course as well, which was the same one the BSc Psychology students were taking. Hey, I did do that essay on why Freudian psychoanalysis is not scientific!

[VBG]

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Actually it was a joint degree (double major) in History and Drama. -- Gyrus, 14:47:53 03/16/04 Tue

Drama you at least have to both point to the text to justify your point of view and then portray said point of view in front of a non-academic audience. [evil grin]

A tricky double-hurdle, I imagine. A bad reading of the text could earn both a "I disagree with your interpretation" and a "You suck! I want my money back!"

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Marry me. Or just come over and chat. Whatever. -- auroramama, 17:52:13 03/20/04 Sat

I think I love you. Oh, and bring Sophist.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Wow. I don't get THAT a lot. -- Gyrus, 19:14:08 03/20/04 Sat

I think I love you. Oh, and bring Sophist.

I think my wife will want to come, too. :)

Seriously, thank you for your praise of...um...whatever clever thing I apparently said.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> LOL. I take this as the highest of compliments. -- Sophist, 19:13:57 03/21/04 Sun

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: The moment the level of evidence for miracles begins to approach that for dinosaurs, we'll talk. -- skeeve, 12:42:31 03/23/04 Tue

"Well, I'm no astronomer, but I understand that we have pretty solid evidence that the universe is expanding outward from a central point, and that there is a cosmic background signal that, given its wavelength and intensity, may well have originated with the Big Bang. But we don't know for sure -- that's why we call it 'The Big Bang theory'."

Except possibly when it was a point, the universe never had a central point.
The universe is getting bigger.
The amount of space between galaxy clusters is increasing because the total amount of space is increasing.

BTW when the term is used formally, gravity is still a "theory".

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Miracles and dinosaurs, Part II (or "Virgins v. Velociraptors") -- Gyrus, 17:06:18 03/13/04 Sat

I'm told that much pure mathematics has no relationship whatsoever to observations or experience, but is based entirely on theory.

But it is all rooted in reality. The knowledge that 2 + 2 = 4 almost certainly came from someone who had 2 figs and then picked 2 more figs and counted how many he had afterwards.

Logic and reason are very useful tools, but only insofar as they start with facts. Even Descartes started with an observation: "I think."

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Well, I clapped during Peter Pan, does that count? -- fresne, 14:27:39 03/15/04 Mon

HmmmÖcompletely derailing the metaphor, Iíd think drawing conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality by means OTHER than science was more like deciding that I still love my significant other, who gave me that lost bracelet, just because I wish it so.

I may still love them, but am a little annoyed about, oh, they lost my bracelet. Or, you know, the spark has gone, how do you measure the intangible.

I think of the key argument at the end of Terry Pratchettís Hogfather, which discusses, among other things, is that light in the sky the sun or just a big flaming ball of gas or both.

Now personally, Iím not feeling like typing up my beliefs just now. Such should be elegant drifts of lines and curves and at the moment Iím wrapped up in other, somewhat related musings of Truth, Justice and the, err American, hmmmÖwell Iíd rather not exclude anyone, way.

So, yes, systems of belief. We use the inadequate tool. We ìmake stuff up.î Wander Morpheusí kingdom out gates of ivory and horn. We walk the labyrinths of our minds and create systems that organize the things we believe like children playing jacks. Like butterflies and dust and becoming. Like words and metaphors and poetry struggling to define the indefinable tangle. Like love. Like broken bracelets lying hidden in forgotten drawers.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Well, I clapped during Peter Pan, does that count? -- Gyrus, 07:07:56 03/16/04 Tue

So, yes, systems of belief. We use the inadequate tool. We ìmake stuff up.î Wander Morpheusí kingdom out gates of ivory and horn. We walk the labyrinths of our minds and create systems that organize the things we believe like children playing jacks. Like butterflies and dust and becoming. Like words and metaphors and poetry struggling to define the indefinable tangle. Like love. Like broken bracelets lying hidden in forgotten drawers.

Stop that -- I'm getting dizzy. Also, I'm not sure I'm comfortable knowing that there's a book out there entitled HOGFATHER. =:<

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Wheee! -- fresne, 09:41:25 03/17/04 Wed

Wait, sorry that what I meant was, huh, you know when I was a child I used to love spinning like a top and then sitting down in the rocking chair and rocking. That way I could spin (in the internal) and move back and forth (in the physical) at the same time. Although, I soon decided that hyperventilating as well was just a bit much.

However, there is no reason to fear the Hogfather. Rejoice, for he is jolly.=>

Anyway, he lives on Discworld, that round flat earth on the back of four elephants on the back of a giant turtle flying through space.

Itís always difficult to tell when to recommend Terry Pratchett, or if reading tastes are totally different. Letís just say that itís fantasy with footnotes. Really, really wacky, well read fantasy. The whole Hamlet/Macbeth thing in Wyrd Sisters still chuckles me.

Anyway, Hogfather is kind of like Nightmare before Christmas, only with more philosophy and less singing. And considerably more Death wandering around trying to be jolly. Ho, ho, ho.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Wheee! -- phoenix, 03:41:11 03/26/04 Fri

Nothing intelligent to add to this wonderful thread, apart from I second your opinion of Hogfather -- highly recomended. If you ever want to laugh even more try and get hold of the audio version with Nigel Planner reading it. The way he has Death saying 'Ho, ho, ho,' totally cracks me up. Though I warn you you may find yourself saying it at inopportune moments for days afterwards.

[> [> [> [> [> [> This is where I get confused -- Arethusa, 14:49:42 03/12/04 Fri

because the definitions of "atheist" that I read merely states it is a disbelief in or denial of existence of gods, or of gods and the supernatural. The disbelief could be in the known evidence of the existence of God or in the actual existance of God, or just the knowability of the existance of God, and no other beliefs-in science, humanity or anything else-are in this definition.

Now, humanism is a system of beliefs, but that isn't the same thing as atheism, right?

Humanism is an ethos, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values, stressing an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason and other human skills. It usually rejects supernaturalism, but some religious people consider themselves humanists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

My problem here is that I'm so absymally ignorant about religion and philosopy that I don't even know what conclusions are being drawn by other atheists. If people are going beyond scientific evidence and making metaphysical conclusions that don't have a basis in fact or what can be generally proven or accepted as fact, than are they really atheists? Or are they just people who have different beliefs than other believers?

Ethical decisions are based on internal or external moral codes (or a combination of the two), right? Therefore ethical decisions based on scientific evidence are really moral interpretations of science, since facts are not inherently moral.

Can an atheist simply not draw conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality? After all, the point of being an atheist is that you don't have to worry about ultimate meaning, since you don't believe there is any.

[Sometimes it seems the more I learn, the more ignorant I become. ;)]

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> You can never know everything. And even if you did, the access time would be enormous. -- OnM, 19:48:11 03/12/04 Fri

Not my quote BTW, but certainly one of my favorites!

:-)

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Arethusa - you're not confused, you're just in a confusing topic!:) -- Briar Rose, 13:34:39 03/15/04 Mon

Humanist is what should be the appropriate term used for the type of "atheist" I am talking about.

However, there is a problem with the term humanist for some people that claim athiest status: Namely that humanism is directly unconcerned with any "Universal Energy" and in strict definition, it basically says that all life came out of a void. This doesn't set with the more scientifically minded atheist, nor with the more strictly "There is no God as so many belief systems see 'Him' but there is something there" atheists.

In a lot of ways, Gyrus has the line down as to "classical atheists" - the ones who hinge everything they believe on science and what science can prove happens/exists. And as anom and Pip and you and others have stated: Science works on a series on checks AND balances!

The typical scientific atheist forgets that if something can not BE proven or Disproven, then it has to be left as unknowable. And there-in lies the faith that every religion/belief system is based on.

But as I said, many of the atheists I have known (including myself - since I do use the term because I fit the second catagory I mentioned above) are not the hardcore scientific belief of atheist.

But all around, atheism IS a belief system! There is no mistaking that, because within it lies a major belief in the fact that something akin to power is the "God" of their belief system. And since science is all of man and trying to understand natural things that are unknowable and since there are things that even a "Universal Power" believer can't deny that our beliefs can't be proven or disproven either - then it really isn't any more of a leap to say anyone claiming atheism is "godmatic" (How I LOVE that term!!!!) than to say that Christianity is dogmatic.:)

[> [> [> [> [> [> There are no leprechauns -- Sophist, 07:40:36 03/13/04 Sat

Giles said so and I believe him.

I think you've defined "knowledge" so narrowly that you're bordering on solipsism. As Arethusa points out, the statement "There is no God" makes perfect sense if the burden of proof is on those claiming s/he exists and they fail to meet it. As with leprechauns.

It also makes sense to deny the existence of God if certain characteristics are claimed for him/her and those characteristics can be tested and shown false. In that case it's possible to say that "a god with such a characteristic does not exist". If you keep the term "God" vague enough it becomes harder to rule out, but it also becomes empty of meaning.

The simple fact is, science by definition can only concern itself with the material universe and cannot answer questions about whatever else might be out there, because its methods are those that can only observe material elements.

Not quite right. Science can (in theory) concern itself not just with the material universe -- I assume this includes energy too -- but with anything having an effect on the material universe. For example, cosmologists can infer the existence of "dark matter" and "dark energy", though we don't now know what these are, because these affect the other matter we see and understand. Similarly, if God affects the material universe, science could (again in theory) measure that effect and, if nothing else, draw inferences about the cause.

[> [> Warm & Fuzzy Atheists and other Conundrums -- OnM, 20:34:56 03/11/04 Thu

*** A friend of mine once told me about someone she knew who, when someone said s/he was an atheist,
liked to offer to buy [his/her] soul. He never got any takers. ***

I have to admit that if confronted with something like the above, Iíd probably decline too. On the one hand,
maybe Iím hedging my bets, but on the other hand Iíd probably assume the person making the offer might not be
quite stable mentally, and therefore not the safest individual to hang around!

*** Does that mean the person wasn't really an atheist? That s/he had doubts, as many believers do? (Does
"atheist" mean someone who doesn't believe in the existence of God/gods, or someone who does believe in the
nonexistence of God/gods? Some atheists would define it as the latter, & I've heard some who are every bit as
dogmatic about their belief system as some adherents of religions can be.) ***

Briar Rose has already addressed the issue in one context, which I agree is one that fits quite a lot of folks who
would use the term atheist to describe themselves. For example, Briar sez (reposting part of the entirety):

ìMy father was a self-proclaimed atheist. He did not believe in a God or a series of Powers That Be.
However, he did believe in a Universal energy. He claimed atheism because it was the only way he could explain
that he didn't believe in any of the mainstream religions, nor any of the minority religions. But this did not mean
that he did not believe in the "soul", or that he didn't believe in metaphysical circumstances.î

Speaking for myself, I really lean more towards a very strong agnosticism as opposed to traditional ëpureí or
dogmatic atheism, but I have to admit I often publically use the ëharsherí term because it irritates the dogmatically
theistic. I suppose this is extremely petty of me, but on the other hand last Sunday morning I was channel surfing
and came across a program with an evangelical Christian fellow speaking rapturously (word-play intended) about
the ìend times that we are currently inî and how glorious it will be when God calls all of the faithful up to heaven
and leaves all of the rest of us sinners behind for scads of tribulations. Like many of these people, he was so
obviously delighted at the thought of being in such a special, privileged group that I forced myself to watch this
drivel for the entire half hour, just as a reminder of how ugly the ëoppositioní can get. I will state right here and
right now that if heaven exists and is full of his ilk, then I want to be left behind!

BTW, one other thing I like to do to be annoying to selected individuals is to refer to God as ëSheí. You know,
funny how women get to create life here on earth, and that every human embryo starts out as female, but in the
greater (theological) scheme of things, the universe appears to lack a uterus. Go figure, huh?

*** But I question whether belief in a soul requires belief in God. There is something in us that "leaves" when
we die; is it the same as what gives us the capacity to develop an understanding of right & wrong? (I say "an"
understanding because not everyone has the same understanding.) Is it necessary to believe in God to think of
that something as a soul? Or can some people hold the concept that humans evolved to the point where we have
souls (along w/consciousness? equivalent to it?) without believing that God created us & our souls? Maybe they
define "soul" in a nontheological way & it isn't necessarily a "purely theological concept." ***

I donít think that it does-- for myself, I consider it within the realm of possibility that we may have an energy
component that accompanies our physical body, which may not be made of an energy form that we are equipped
to detect, such as in the way we can currently detect and even utilize electromagnetic or gravitational energy.
Such an energy component could be used, for example, to carry a (partial?) imprint of our brain into another new
human. Such an imprinting process could be used to explain the supposed ability of some persons to recall ëpast
livesí under hypnosis, etc. While this line of reasoning cannot be proven at this point, it also doesnít violate any
known scientific principles that I am aware of.

Another factor is that what many atheists are might be described by the term ëhumanismí. Some atheists dislike
the idea of certain types of god or certain religious philosophies as opposed to the idea of god in general.
In particular, many find outrightly offensive the idea that human morality or ethical issues cannot be determined
empirically, but MUST be ëhanded outí by a supernatural omnipotence, a common insistence on the part of many
Christian evangelicals, for instance. (And they have plenty of company in other parts of the world and in other
faiths. so I donít want to sound like Iím singling them out. Taliban, anyone?) Itís also surprising (or not) how
often that God needs to have human enforcers of his will in these instances. Apparently the big guy is too busy to
take care of these details on his own.

Hereís a few clips from one of the larger U.S. organizations that offer some tidbits of their general philosophy:

( http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/definitions.htm )

~ ~ ~ Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and
responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

~ ~ ~ Humanism considers the universe to be the result of an enormously long and complex evolution under
immutable laws of nature. Humanists affirm this natural world as being wondrous and precious and as offering
limitless opportunities for exploration, fascination, creativity, companionship and joy.

~ ~ ~ Because science cannot now and probably never will be able to explain the ultimate origin or destiny of
the universe, Humanism can include more than atheists and agnostics. The lack of definite answers to these
ultimate questions leaves room for reasonable people to hypothesize about the origin of the natural universe and
even to hope for some form of life beyond this one. In my opinion, those persons can be Humanists if they believe
that humanity is on its own in this world, and that the lack of valid evidence for an afterlife means that this life
should be lived as though it is the only one we have. ( Joseph C. Sommer )

(bold emphasis mine -- OnM)

So, am I more a humanist than an atheist? I suppose so, since these descriptions do seem to fit the way my head
works. Mostly, I believe in sleeping late, making love and not war, and of course Buffy. Dr. Pepper is great, too,
especially over ice.

*** It's an amazing thing ME has done. The Fang Gang doesn't have to foil the Big Bad's plans (if that's even
what Illyria is)--circumstance has already done that. Our expectations were built up & immediately undercut. So
now what? ***

Yes, exactly. I love that too.

*** (BTW, anyone else love the literal skeleton keys?) ***

Yep, I even rewound the tape just to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. Details, people! Thatís where the
devil is! Yessir...

*** Did that army succumb just to time...or did the rivals that murdered Illyria finish the job by destroying it?
If they're still around, they might come after Illyria again; it'd be a strange twist if the FG winds up defending it
against them. ***

I thought of that too. Which would parallel the Beast / Jasmine arc, except in this case the Beast turns out to be a
decent sort after all, and ends up being defended instead of being killed.

OnM: ìA great monarch, a warrior, murdered. Not merely killed, or even slain, but murdered. I have to assume
that this choice of language was not accidental on MEís part. Is there a subtext being laid out that suggests that as
demons go, Illyria possessed some aspect of genuine nobility?î

*** Well, I just figured it meant the rivals couldn't kill Illyria in open battle, so they took the cowardly route &
murdered it. (...) But I don't see how it implies any nobility.

Your point about ëopen battleí is well taken. I freely admit that I am reading into the text something that may not
be there-- itís just a gut feeling I got, and of course feelings are just that, they arenít really always logically
supportable. I was thinking along the lines of political intrigue where the opposition to a popular ruler fails to
unseat the ruler by ëlegalí means, and so resorts to illegal ones, ëends justify the meansí et al.

All for now, getting late, like it does about this time every night. Unfortunately, no sleeping in tomorrow.

( ~ sigh ~ )

:-)

[> [> [> What leaves when we die?.. -- Jane, 17:51:05 03/12/04 Fri

I guess I would put myself in the humanist camp (as described by the clip from Joseph Sommer above). As a nurse I have witnessed many deaths over the last 30 years, and in every case am amazed and mystified by the fact that from one moment to another, something changes. There is an undefinable something that is there in life, even if the person is in a coma, or is brain dead. I can't explain it, but I can feel the change that happens. Something leaves, and behind it is a shell. Energy? Soul? don't know, but it fascinates me.

[> [> [> [> I agree that you sense something-- but are you sensing the other or yourself? -- OnM, 20:13:25 03/12/04 Fri

Everyone has had numerous moments in their lives where they have an 'aha!' experience. You know, where a thought or inspiration just pops into your mind, like someone suddenly just reached a hand in and parked it there.

But is that the reality, or is it actually your perception of how you received the thought that causes that feeling?

I was present at the moments when my father and mother passed away, and I know exactly the feeling you are describing. But I was also aware that they were about to die-- maybe not to the minute, but aware of it being imminent. As such, was I paying attention to subtle clues that I otherwise might have ignored? And when the transition from life to death took place, was I therefore immediately aware of it, and so I act as the creator of that 'feeling', not the recipient of something external?

This is kind of hard to describe, but I think you may get the gist. It's somewhat like the classic phrase, 'did he fall or was he pushed?'

As you say, it is a fascinating subject.

[> [> [> One quibble -- Darby, 14:23:00 03/13/04 Sat

Embryos are only "female" if you apply a very limited definition of the term - kind of like saying that God is bald because all embryos start that way. Since mammal gender is determined by chromosomes (not that widespread an approach), a mammal embryo really does have gender determined right from the first cell. It just takes a while to express the "add-ons" that produce functional males.

Just sayin'.

On the other issue, I have read some interesting theories about memory storage beyond the thrr-dimensional world that might produce a template that isn't strictly physical. It won't surprise me to find that there is an empirically-testable phenomenon, an "imprint" of sorts that could be called a soul and that leads to some instances of reincarnation, ghosts, and weird stuff like astral projection. And heavens, hells, gods? Who knows?

[> [> [> Re: Warm & Fuzzy Atheists and other Conundrums -- anom, 23:12:28 03/15/04 Mon

Awright--jackpot! Point-by-point responses to my post and a substantial subthread! I been waitin' a loonnnng time for this...I feel like I've finally arrived!

"Speaking for myself, I really lean more towards a very strong agnosticism as opposed to traditional 'pure' or dogmatic atheism, but I have to admit I often publically use the 'harsher' term because it irritates the dogmatically theistic."

As a nondogmatic (I hope) theist, I kinda like that. Not sure what to make of the idea that "pure" atheism is dogmatic. By definition, because anything "less" can be interpreted as agnosticism?

"BTW, one other thing I like to do to be annoying to selected individuals is to refer to God as 'She'. You know, funny how women get to create life here on earth, and that every human embryo starts out as female, but in the greater (theological) scheme of things, the universe appears to lack a uterus. Go figure, huh?"

Heeeee--I like that too! Of course, God as I believe in S/Him has no uterus, since S/He has no body. Note: s/he, s/him, s/his are my picks for gender-inclusive pronouns. In fact, I translate the creation-of-humans description in Genesis (1:27 & similarly in 5:1-2) this way: "And God created the human [species] in S/His image; in the image of God S/He created it [the species]: male & female S/He created them." Sorry about resorting to brackets; the most important thing to me, is the colon. Creating us in God's image is creating us male & female. Neither sex/gender alone is the image of God. In fact, the "He/him" in most translations is really an artifact of grammatical gender in the original Hebrew.

[Briar Rose:] "My father was a self-proclaimed atheist. He did not believe in a God or a series of Powers That Be. However, he did believe in a Universal energy. He claimed atheism because it was the only way he could explain that he didn't believe in any of the mainstream religions, nor any of the minority religions."

Sorry not to answer this in its own thread, but I've got a better chance of finishing 1 post than 2 (I started this one ~2 days ago). Someone called in to a public radio talk-show interview w/Karen Armstrong (last segment listed on that page), a former nun who writes on religion (her books include A History of God), & asked if Jews & early Christians were labelled "atheists" by the Romans because they didn't believe in what was the mainstream religion in that time & place; she said there were some writings that did say this.

Gotta get this in somewhere: Back when I was addicted to the alt.usage.english newsgroup, 1 thread had cross-postings from an atheist newsgroup. One of the atheists wrote (paraphrasing): "I'm an atheist. This means I have no gods...." Not "I don't believe in any gods" or "I believe there is no God," but "I have no gods." It seemed like an important distinction to the writer. (BTW, he went on to give examples of the gods he didn't have: "Norse gods, Intuit [sic] gods, Greek gods...." And of course I responded by quoting this part, emphasizing "Intuit gods," & saying, "Those must be the ones that Quicken the dead!")

"...I consider it within the realm of possibility that we may have an energy component that accompanies our physical body, which may not be made of an energy form that we are equipped to detect, such as in the way we can currently detect and even utilize electromagnetic or gravitational energy. Such an energy component could be used, for example, to carry a (partial?) imprint of our brain into another new human."

Got no problem w/the possible existence of this energy component. But I can't think of how or why it would get into the next new human (or other creature, in some versions of reincarnation).

"'...Humanism can include more than atheists and agnostics. The lack of definite answers to these ultimate questions leaves room for reasonable people to hypothesize about the origin of the natural universe and even to hope for some form of life beyond this one. In my opinion, those persons can be Humanists if they believe that humanity is on its own in this world, and that the lack of valid evidence for an afterlife means that this life should be lived as though it is the only one we have.' ( Joseph C. Sommer )"

Hmm...that description sounds exactly like agnosticism to me, so I don't see how it supports inclusion of "more than atheists and agnostics." But it does bring in yet another aspect of belief, which may or may not be connected to belief in God &/or souls: an afterlife. Personally, I believe in God & souls, although my concepts of them don't match those of what you call "dogmatic theists" very closely; on the other hand, I'm a complete agnostic when it comes to an afterlife. I have no idea what happens to the soul/consciousness/whatever else you might call it when someone dies (I'm in no hurry to find out, either!). I don't think there's any way to know before it happens; "near-death experiences" are just that.

"Mostly, I believe in sleeping late, making love and not war, and of course Buffy."

Hey, I believe in those too! Let's start our own religion!

"Dr. Pepper is great, too, especially over ice."

Uh-oh. We're gonna have a schism over that one. Unless we can broaden it to include, say, root beer, birch beer, ginger beer (all my favorite beers seem to be nonalcoholic, which probably makes me a heretic), & cream soda. Maybe Cherry Smash too.

"Details, people! That's where the devil is! Yessir..."

Oh, so you don't believe in God, but you believe in the devil? How do you reconcile those? @>)

"I thought of that too. Which would parallel the Beast / Jasmine arc, except in this case the Beast turns out to be a decent sort after all, and ends up being defended instead of being killed."

Dunno if Illyria will turn out to be a decent sort; I'm not even sure that's a relevant concept. I doubt it's one Illyria understands, although she may learn to. What I'd like to see is a slow meeting of mindsets that start out utterly alien to each other. With magic & rocket launchers, preferably.

[> [> [> [> Re: Warm & Fuzzy Atheists and other Conundrums -- Briar Rose, 16:02:36 03/17/04 Wed

On the subject of "Humanism" being directly related to agnosticism and atheism and not being capable of going along with gnostic beliefs, I am in total agreement with you anom.

As you quoted above (and as is my understanding from the reading I have done) anyone that was Christian was an "atheist" when Christianity was in it's formative stages as a religion. Funny that so many Christian people seem to forget that Christianity is a little over 2000 years in historical existance while so many other religions are at least twice (if not three or four times) as "old."

I have never begun to fathom how anyone could change a literal history that spoke of 1BC into 1AD, and that it would be good for the common Universal time line to strip an existing history away to replace it with a "new" history.

As for the fact that it's simple to make a scientifically areeable arguement that "soul" exists, it I think that as long as you accept the most commonly used Pagan (for lack of a better word) definition of "soul" as soul = energy, it all works in any belief system.

In magickal parlance; everything has energy. Energy does not "die." However, it can be mutated, directed and exchanged. This is the basis of magickal practice, and magickal practice is evident in almost all belief systems (minus some "strictly defined" atheistic ones), even if it is not ritualized or recognized as such. Prayer is energy work. So is a ritualized spell. It's all about influencing energy or re-directing it. And that "energy" is tied to the "soul energy" within the one doing the working.

I may read sort of flighty in this post as I have thwenty things on my mind that need to be done as I sit here and post on this. It's a very deep interest of mine to discuss "soul" and religions and beliefs, so when I can do so with such extraordinarily bright posters I relish it!.... but I do hope that what I wrote here makes some sense.

Gotta go clean the cat box!

[> [> [> [> [> oh, is that what i said? -- anom, 23:08:40 03/18/04 Thu

"On the subject of 'Humanism' being directly related to agnosticism and atheism and not being capable of going along with gnostic beliefs, I am in total agreement with you anom."

Or at least I wasn't that definitive about it ("...I don't see how it supports inclusion of 'more than atheists and agnostics.'"); I'm certainly up for hearing any explanation of why it might include more.

When you say "gnostic," I get the impression that you mean something more general than Christian gnostic beliefs, but I'm not familiar w/the small-g term.

"I have never begun to fathom how anyone could change a literal history that spoke of 1BC into 1AD, and that it would be good for the common Universal time line to strip an existing history away to replace it with a 'new' history."

But the "BC" is part of the same system, & has the same source as, the "AD"; what history spoke of "BC" before that? And conquerors have always replaced the history of conquered cultures ("history is written by the winners"). I've read (a long time ago; don't remember where now) that the ancient Greeks regularly added the gods & goddesses of newly conquered cultures to their own pantheon (& had a strange tendency to make most of the goddesses virgins--suddenly this reminds me of the Spanish conquest of much of what's now Latin America, where local gods & goddesses were identified w/saints & some goddesses became local versions of Mary, which is why there's a Virgen de Guadalupe & a Virgen de Candelaria, etc.).

"I may read sort of flighty in this post as I have thwenty things on my mind that need to be done as I sit here and post on this. It's a very deep interest of mine to discuss 'soul' and religions and beliefs, so when I can do so with such extraordinarily bright posters I relish it!"

I'm rushed myself--going to an SF convention tomorrow, or I might go into more detail, but this is gonna be sent as is. But this topic has been discussed before; it just might be hard to find in the archives, given how often the word "soul" come up in other contexts.

[> [> [> [> [> [> In as far as I agreed with you? Yes!*L -- Briar Rose, 23:41:56 03/26/04 Fri

"gnostic" is the non-Christian belief that there is a Higher Power, but that it does not necessarily fit the "Heavenly Father/God" of the Christian faith and all of it's permutations.

Gnostic is most commonly based on the belief that there is a Christian type "God." Where-as gnostic is based on the fact that there is a something there, but it ain't necessarily a He, She or It as would be defined in Gnostic belief.

Humanism reads, to me as it's presented here and in other desertations on this system, as the belief that there is no Higher Power at all, that everything in life (and out of life - "the afterlife and prelife and etc...) is created by one's self and that there is no Divine Intervention. No Karma. No spiritual connection between humans and a greater power.

SO I don't understand where the author of that piece (or the couple of others I have read following that source) can say that the Humanistic System could emcompass as wide a range of beliefs as the author(s) alledge.

It certainly would fit Agnostic and Aethiestic. But it certainly doesn't appear to fit Gnostic, gnostic and Jeudaic beliefs. It doesn't appear to support Hindi or Buddist beliefs either. It certainly doesn't match with Goddess religions, even when they are not completely based on TPTB and allow for personal empowerment and manifestation.

I'd love to hear an explaination myself.... But for now? I don't see how that can possibly be the case.

I realize that the Conquerors did re-write and incorporate history, especially as the belief systems of the Conquered were concerned. But to say that the BC and AD systems are the "same system" overlooks the relevant fact that the AD and BC system strove to completely negate the Eastern calendar and the history it contained.

The Christian world basically tried to wipe out the history that was in place before the time of their alledged "Christ", and it has taken many hundreds of years for the humans that populate this world to start to try and piece together the past, as it was before this calendar change.

It has only been within the past 300 odd years that there has begun to be enough interest and money to begin to uncover the layers of the past. Technology and science have advanced at this point in time and only then did science and the clergy start to dig into the past. However, even that has been a hard go for scientists, as the Catholic Church has always been adverse to technological and scientific research being done that could possibly prove or disprove the events outlined in The Bible.

It isn't any wonder that the technology has been funded more in the the past 100 years to apply to trying to prove or disprove the "history" of the World as outlined in The Bible. It started when the populace began to choose seeking the truth versus swallowing canon.

In a way, the past 100 years is when "The Illuminati" was finally born. It may have been an idea for a long while, but within the past 100 years, there has been more of an emphasis on belief as an enhancement to life, and less of a belief is the center to life and life can only be led under dogmatic rule.

Okay - now I'm rambling.*L

[> [> [> [> I've never had one, but a ginger beer sounds mighty tasty...mmm... -- A8, 17:55:08 03/22/04 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> mmm, it is! & good to see you, a8! -- anom, 21:29:23 03/22/04 Mon

Welcome back. Hope it won't be so long till the next time we see you.

The best places to find ginger beer are stores that cater to Caribbean customers & health food stores. My favorite is Reed's Extra Ginger Brew (I like strong tastes); better-known brands include Old Tyme & Stewart's.

[> [> Souls for cash -- Gyrus, 15:52:53 03/12/04 Fri

A friend of mine once told me about someone she knew who, when someone said s/he was an atheist, liked to offer to buy s/his soul. He never got any takers.

One of my favorite hypothetical questions to pose to friends is, "If a fat guy in a cheap devil costume with one of those little plastic tridents walked up to you in the mall and offered you $500 cash for your soul, would you take it?" Nobody ever says yes, regardless of their religious leanings.

[> [> [> Perhaps because it's unethical to sell something that doesn't exist .. -- MsGiles, 05:40:36 03/24/04 Wed

.. but then I remember that I work in the marketing department of a college, and what I help sell is almost entirely aspirational, and I sink immediately in a swamp of my own making (I was over my head when I stepped into this discussion anyway)

I know I'd have an uneasy feeling about it. All the tales say that's just something you just don't do, like exchanging a cow for six shiny beans or your birthright for soup, or replying to one of those highly personal letters that says you've won $x,0000 but gets your gender wrong

[> [> [> [> Nah. They all pretty much said, "Why take chances?" -- Gyrus, 11:01:57 03/24/04 Wed

I know I'd have an uneasy feeling about it. All the tales say that's just something you just don't do, like exchanging a cow for six shiny beans or your birthright for soup, or replying to one of those highly personal letters that says you've won $x,0000 but gets your gender wrong

One of those letters even promoted my wife to godhood. Her name is Kristina, but they addressed it to "Krishna."

[> [> [> [> [> something like that happened to my mom -- anom, 11:27:33 03/24/04 Wed

She got a series of letters from, I think, someone trying to sell her something, in the days before direct mail was all automated & computerized. Her name on the envelopes morphed from Evelyn to Evenlyn to Hevenlyn, & finally to Heavenly! (My dad probably agreed w/that last one.)

[> [> [> [> [> [> Cute! -- Gyrus, 09:15:02 03/25/04 Thu

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