His schedule passeth all understanding, but every so often GOD speaks.
No Rock Badgers, Pigs, Lawyers or Each Other Shalt Thou EatPosted by Vanderleun at January 8, 2004 2:46 PMAs THE LORD THY GOD there are lots of things about my latest experiment, The Smart Monkey, that really gets my gilded calf into meltdown mode. I try to let a lot of things slide because I've got a universe to run and I'M BUSY getting things in order for my Son to take over fairly soon. Still, whenever I take a magazine break to keep up on how things are going for that Free Will 4.6 program I've been running on Earth for a few thousand years I keep stumbling across items like The Case for Cannibalism by Theodore Dalrymple at City Journal:
According to the psychiatrist, Heinrich Wilmer, the German cannibal Armin Meiwes, who killed Bernd Brandes and then ate at least 44 pounds of his flesh, is suffering from "emotional problems." We might say the same, I suppose, of Brandes, who answered Meiwes's Internet advertisement for "a young, well-built man who wants to be eaten" though his problems are now past curing. Brandes also had a slightly offbeat sense of humor. On discovering that both he and Meiwes were smokers, he reportedly said, "Good, smoked meat lasts longer."
.....[snip]....
Lest anyone think that the argument from mutual consent for the permissibility of cannibalism is purely theoretical, it is precisely what Meiwes’s defense lawyer is arguing in court. The case is a reductio ad absurdum of the philosophy according to which individual desire is the only thing that counts in deciding what is permissible in society. Brandes wanted to be killed and eaten; Meiwes wanted to kill and eat. Thanks to one of the wonders of modern technology, the Internet, they both could avoid that most debilitating of all human conditions, frustrated desire. What is wrong with that? Please answer from first principles only.Sigh. I boil it down to 10 things. Ten little easy to understand things and you STILL DON'T GET IT!
It's enough to make me dump the way-new business plan my Son drew up and get Old Testament on your ass. First principles? Okay, here are a few striaight from THE LORD THY GOD:
GOD SAYS: not all desires should be gratified, instantly or otherwise. Please note that the more desires there are that can be gratified, the greater the opportunity for evil. NOW I DON'T LIKE EVIL. I'VE BEEN KNOWN TO PUMP UP THE SEA LEVEL SEVERAL MILES JUST TO MAKE THAT POINT.GOD SAYS: Cannibalism is not only wrong but depraved and vile even if you can find a willing meal.
GOD SAYS: Some things (and many more than we'd like to think) cannot be justified under the banner of "consenting adults." Remember, that's your idea not MINE.
GOD SAYS: Any lawyer who would argue in court that "mutual consent" is a defense for cannibalism, needs to be fed to STARVING WART HOGS alive on a live web cam. For the public good.
UPDATE: My Son just emailed me to say that I'm being too hard on the lawyers, and that I copped that punishment from Thomas Harris. (Humph, Who does He think gave Harris the idea in the first place?) Okay, I'll hack him up before I feed him to the swine. The webcast stays.
