Dear jayb,

At a touch over 100kg fighting weight I was never a fan of the T10 especially in summer. A quick descent rate combined with rock hard clay soil always rattled the back teeth considerably. I remember one day at the field a bloke was instructing a 80 year old doing his first jump. Even though there was very little of him he was kitted up with a T10 with a view to looking after an older body. Same deal as yours, chute opens and he dropped to about 300 ft and just stopped. It was a dead calm day and we could hear him clearly calling out wanting to know what to do. We told him to enjoy the view. It only got concerning after about 10 minutes when he started to drift toward the highway. All good in the end.

Purely speculation of course but given the topic perhaps this particular octogenarian may well have been handed a less than favourable prognosis from his doctor which was why he was there. Regardless it would certainly appeal to me. 'Stuff the chemo, those wingsuits look great, any in my size?'

Dear Foxy,

As I wrote in my post of Saturday, 10 January 2015 12:48:45 PM.

"During the Cold War in the 1950s under Eisenhower efforts were made to distance the US from the ‘godless’ communists.

The US motto became “In God we trust”, and the pledge became “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”"

Dear Foxy,

Thanks for the thoughtful post that I have nothing to add except perhaps to repeat my conviction that “religion” is a multifaceted phenomenon - c.f. my metaphor of the "elephant" and the “six blind men“: a psychologist, an anthropologist, a sociologist, an evolutionist, a philosopher (metaphysicist), an ethicist, a historian (sorry, that makes seven). So to fully understand why religion is going to stay with us in this or that form one has to take into account all these perspectives. When speaking of "approachjing death" we are in the psychologist's field of view.

One can find a substitute for religion so that one of these “blind men” would not notice the difference, but if all of them look, they will notice the fake.

Dear david f,

Exactly: ancient Greeks called the square root of two irrational because they could not fit it into their understanding of number (although they could have represented it as the length of the diagonal of a square). Later the square root of minus one was called imaginary because it did not fit into the understanding of number at that time. Today we have Dawkins using the word “delusion” to describe a concept that does not fit into his understanding of the world, although others use “irrational” or “imaginary” also here. The difference is that in mathematics irrational and imaginary are not pejorative terms.

Otherwise I am joining Foxy in thanking you for the insights into the changing American attitudes towards their “Founding Fathers” heritage. Only one thought: Does not the explicit reference to God have similar reasons as the explicit attachment of “between one man and one woman” when some people refer to marriage, although it, as well as God - maybe in a “spinozarian” sense - used to be self-understood, implicitly always there?

The gravestone of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says it all,

Graduated to "dance in the galaxies" on August 24, 2004

We are made of stardust and that is what we will return to be.

To me, the tragedy of religion is subjugation of the spirit and will, and very often a life not lived and enjoyed to the best possible at the time, in the irrational expectation that there is something better, you just have to die first.

Dear David,

<<I think none of us are completely rational. However, I think a belief in something for which there is no evidence is irrational.>>

Well, none of us is rational at all anyway: we all make axiomatic assumptions based on which we may or may not make the necessary rational conclusions, but the axioms themselves which we choose are not derived by logic.

Belief in the importance of evidence is one irrational axiom while belief in something for which there is no evidence can be a rational step based on other irrational axioms.

For example, the assumption that there is value in tending to one's body's needs, help it procreate, help it feel pleasure and comfort and try preventing it from feeling pain and dying, is highly irrational. After all, we all know that no matter what we do, this body will decay and die and eventually no memory of it will remain. Same for serving one's mind: what's the point in fame, riches or knowledge since it is clearly rational that all will be lost!

From Bach's Cantata #26 - http://emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/translations_cantata/t_bwv026.htm

"Ah, how fleeting, ah how insignificant
are the doings of mankind!
Everything, everything that we see
must fall and pass away.
Whoever fears God will stand forever."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfpKvbMT1Bg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soBVNqRthUE

Dear George,

I think the word, irrational, at the time the Greek used it to refer to the number that would express a certain length was used in a pejorative sense. It did not fit into their world in the same sense that the notion of a deity does not fit into Dawkins' world. However, the notion of number has expanded since the time of the Greeks so the irrational numbers now fit into the current notion of number. I doubt that the notion of God will disappear, but the concept is now regarded as valid by only a small minority of philosophers and scientists. Of course truth or falsity is not dependent on what majorities or minorities think, but I think irrational to the Greeks was regarded as pejorative in the same sense that Dawkins regards the notion of God as a delusion.

Some Greek philosophers had the notion that the world, if it were understood, would leave no room for the irrational. I believe Plato's ideas that there could be perfect forms are an expression of that concept. I think you and I agree that it is neither desirable or possible to eliminate the irrational.

Dear Yuyutsu,

I find Bach's music beautiful, but the words, whoever fears God will stand forever, are nonsense.