> Marilyn Manson - Apple of Sodom
> Beethoven - Romance No. 2
> Orbital - The Box, pt. 1
> Nine Inch Nails - Please
> Nine Inch Nails - Reptile
I’m online (duh) talking to Taggart. I was writing my Religions term paper but I gave up. I got sidetracked on the Greeks. That’s easy to do. Damn you, Bertrand Russell and your relentlessly verbose nature. My dad was in a good mood today, and I guess I was in one too. He bought food. I haven’t been too hungry ever since I had that puking thing. I forced myself to eat a peach and a bowl of frosted mini-wheats. Damn it, I want Taggart. It sucks. I’m becoming what I hate. Jordan wants me, I’m the femme fatale to him. I want Taggart and he’s the femme fatale for me. We all want what we can’t have. Well, I can have Taggart sexually, but that’s all I’m going to get. I must quote Invisible Monsters: “The person you love and the person who loves you are never, ever the same person.” The world sucks. I learned an interesting factoid from skimming Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy. They called Diogenes a cynic because he lived like a dog, and cynic in Greek means “canine.” Great. Fucking great. I’m a dog. I should get a Cynic t-shirt made. I would marry the first guy that came up to me and said “So, you’re a dog?” Taggart and I are talking about what we’ve done with our hair. Gag me. Over and over. I’m in love with a beautiful liar. I hate him. I’m going to keep a list of words he misspells to attempt to keep whatever of my self-worth that hasn’t been washed away already.
mearly: merely
totaly: totally
awsome: awesome
hopfully: hopefully
cleque: cliche
indiferent: indifferent
emagin: imagine
fabulus: fabulous
He sucks. Badly. GRR. This really ruined my good mood. Grr. Grr. Grr. The world sucks. I’m completely in denial that it’s 1:06 in the morning. Royce called me earlier today–I think he wanted a ride but I was too obtuse to realize it until after I hung up. Ick. Had a Jordan flashback. He revolts me more and more. Taggart said that he “had to go” but he’s still online. He just didn’t want to talk to me. Fuck him. Long and hard. Just kidding. We really didn’t have very amazing sex. I was mostly in awe of his glory. To think all I endured for him, all those days with no phone calls or anything, just to have him throw me aside for some whore with a car, a pussy, and boobs. FUCK HIM. I suppose I’m letting him win by talking about him, but he’s already won. He knows that. And, since I’m talking about people I don’t like, screw you Socrates. You were a charlatan. And you too, Plato. Fuck the cave. Fuck your little utopia of philosopher rulers, you just wanted to be lazy and rule people. We all can’t have such luxuries, asshole. Thales, the world isn’t made of water. Diogenes, get a freaking house. Pythaogoras, eat a fucking bean you loon. I can only hope there’s a special place in hell for losers like Taggart. Taggart, you are a lecherous egomaniacal megalomaniac. Suck on that. What’s so inevitable about that, you conceited loser. Go ahead and work at the pizza place and live with your mom and fuck your “girlfriend” until it shrivels up and falls off. GRR. Okay, I’m done. I’m off to bed and then I’ll be up in the morning to start over again on my Religions paper. Here’s how I started it and where I ended up after my tangent:
A Benevolent Psychopathology: Postmodern Interpretation of Religion
May 10, 2004
Religions of the World
“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities.”
–Sigmund Freud
—end title page—
Most religious traditions present in our time have continued over periods of thousands of years. However, in modern times religion has been criticized and questioned in Western society to a level unheard of in previous millennia. Since we are the philosophical descendants of the Greeks, I will discuss the roots of science and religion in Western society, moving on to how their modern fruits were borne, and how they have interacted over the years. In my study of this subject, it seems that throughout history religion and science have been complimentary, and with the rise of civilization, religion evolved as well. The question will be answered in this millennium of whether religion is simply an illusion for the purpose of preserving civilization, as Freud asserts (ch. 9).
The beginnings of what we would call “science” began in the Milesian school of the commercial city of Miletus. The deductions of the Milesians (notably Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes) were mainly scientific, like Thales’ assertion that everything is made of water. Pythagoras, founded a school in southern Italy. “He may be described, briefly, as a combination of Einstein and Mrs. Eddy. He founded a religion, of which the main tenets were the transmigration of souls and the sinfulness of eating beans (Russell, p. 31).” According to Dikaiarchos, Pythagoras stated that “the soul is an immortal thing, and it is transformed into other kinds of living things (Russell, p.32).” Pythagoras’s desciples discovered many fundamental mathematical truths, such as the Pythagorean theorem. The word “theory,” which was originally a word used by the Orphic cults, gained use by the students of Pythagoras. Here we see the interplay of mysticism and the roots of logic. Later Greek philosophers such as Plato developed systems of thought that seem less like traditional religions, but would fall under the definition of faith. Plato’s quasi-religious doctrines, such as the eternal and supreme nature of ideas, and the allegory of the cave, have led most modern scientists to the perspective of positivism instead of Platonism (Wertheim, 18). Positivism asserts that we can not know the ultimate reality of the universe, just what our observations and measurements tell us.
Okay, off to bed to feel guilt about the flower Jordan gave me that’s dying in my car because I can’t bear to take it out and put it in the window. That was such an underhanded tactic to give me that damn flower. Now I either have to water it and let it live forever, a living reminder of our dead friendship, or I have to let it wither and die, or worse, kill it myself. God. The world sucks. Maybe I should go and live in a bathtub like Diogenes. I think that was a healthier proposition in ancient Greece than Northern California. Damn world. I wonder if Molly will be doing layout tomorrow. I haven’t been doing a whole hell of a lot. I haven’t done my coffee shop story. I need Molly to inspire me to an angle. It’s kind of nice because I know that the coffee shop losers will hang on every word of it, so I don’t really have to do it in journalistic most-to-least important style. I do need to think of a lead though. Hmm. Call me, anybody, if you want me to help with layout tomorrow (Sunday). And get Ann to do her damn story. And while you’re at it, enforce Taggart’s karma for me. Hm. I can’t imagine any form of torture that would make him feel what he did to me, he doesn’t have emotions. Damn. Well, I’ll brainstorm. MSN keeps disconnecting me. Grr.