Negative Comments; A Hair Of The Pen That Bit You

"It is an observed fact that men employ their reason to defend conclusions arrived at by reason, but conclusions arrived at by the passions are defended by the passions." Benedict de Spinoza Theologico-Political Treatise, chapter 7. If we accept this observation of Spinoza, we are forced to recall that sometimes the conclusions of reason are also defended by passion. Hence, there is a passion in reason and a passion for reason. Are the conclusions of faith defended by faith? Or by passion? You go figure it out. Getting back to the main foci of attention, me, myself, and I, I received my first unflattering comment. I wondered about it. It was written about My View On Religion 2. I knew I was going to get into trouble when I really said what I actually believe. However, I can't wait forever. I am working on fuller presentations of my faith, but I had to go on record somewhere, sometime. So, I believe Religion is the greatest thing for humanity since sliced bread. Religion-if we can look beyond the degraded state to which WE have brought it-is the inherent behavior of mankind to seek a higher state. You would think the atheist side would have howled. You would think the secularist would rol their eyesl and yell for my head. No. A disciple of Jesus said I was boring, long winded, liberal (whatever he means by that - usually when someone calls me a liberal,I say I shall wait until he finds out what 'liberal' means in his Falwell Faith FedEx ! When someone calls me a Tory, I say something about a post from Pitt the Younger.), gray, fuzzy, illogical, dumbfounded, calamitous, catastrophic, oxymoronic, bearded, having a tendency to scratch too much, and having the dental hygiene of a British soccer fan. After having bought myself some much needed time by the listing above, it dawns on me that I did indeed accomplish what I wanted: Commenting is not easy in the first place. In the second place, when you write a comment to an eccentric, Lord knows what to expect! (My daughter has said that did she not know me, she would not write a comment! ) When I wrote the truth, it had enough traction to make someone pick up a pen... and denounce me. (I do not disguise the fact that support would have been preferable, but oh, well. Resisting Vanity is not my strong suit anyway.) It means that the words had effect. They resonated so loudly, the disciple had to comment and stop that bloody racket. I believe that is good. It is good for both of us. We both stop and think. (NB: I am informed that I was not strictly correct. This was my first negative comment that had been submitted in text. There have been a myriad of exasperated negatories that have never made it as far as the keyboard.)