small interactions

I’m rearranging my bookmarks as a springboard to reorganising slightly my blog. Baby steps.

Here’s my comment on a piece in Online Opinion:
Just a few lines - I haven't read all the comments here, it would take too long. Richardson is criticised/condemned for apparently asserting that reality is a mere construction of language. As far as i can see, he's not making that assertion, he's summarising the critical theorists' position.
I myself don't hold to that position, but I’m not sure that it's illogical, and it certainly isn't meaningless. I believe it was Wittgenstein who wrote, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, that 'the limit of my language means the limit of my world' and 'of that which one cannot speak one must remain silent'. Now, Wittgenstein knew a thing or two about logic. Anyway this issue has a very long philosophical pedigree and is unlikely to be resolved in this forum. I have to say in any case that holding to such a view about language and reality does not facilitate bigotry or intolerance, as some here have claimed, quite absurdly.
Basically, when stripped of its academic gloss (and there really isn't much of it) the article is essentially a plea for careful analysis of authors' constructions and awareness of alternative constructions. A plea for critical thinking. Not very original, but, as I think Kierkegaard wrote, the truth may be boring but that doesn't mean that it doesn't bear repeating, over and over.

To which someone has already responded:
Luigi
amazing self discipline there.. sticking to the topic

Interesting, because the person who left that comment also left this comment on the tsunami article (he’s a very busy boy, I’m finding his comments all over the place):

LUIGI ..
u crusading Atheist you :) U have missed a crucial issue. your words, u feel you will be defeated ===> "because the human ego, which is at the heart of religious belief, will always win out against truth and the rules of evidence."

Some points there.
a) The Christian message is nothing about ego. "The first will be last and the last first. If any man want's to be first among you, u must become the servant of all"
"If any man will follow me, he must deny himself"
Much as I try, I just can't find 'ego' there.
TRUTH and the RULES of EVIDENCE
Luigi, the blind man was confronted by the 'intellectual heavies' of his day. He didn't come back with sophisticated arguments, he just said "duh. I was blind, now I see" well.. the homer simpson version might sound like that, but u get the point.
I could include personal experience here, but you would most likely write it off as a further invention. If I told you my close friend who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, has had the initial surgery to remove what they could, and is undergoing chemo and radiation, was suddenly healed by Christ.. how would you react ? Seriously, think about it ..because if God did this, and you could see that it was medically verifiable by x-rays and disinterested parties you would have little choice but to offer your life up to God in selfless and generous service till you died. The more typical reaction would be ..."err.. it went into sudden inexplicable remission" :) (in a period of minutes ? .. hmmm)
We must be careful about what we expect God to do for us, we might just GET it :)
Soooo... perhaps an 'attitude reality check' is in order for you ? I'm not being unkind, I'm simply interacting with you in a vigorous way.