via my fav local movie critic / philosopher, [link|http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/20/PKGAB98ANO1.DTL| Mick LaSalle].

But I believe this wonderfully concise description addresses much more than just the nature of some of his mail - it goes to the psychological zeigeist, some reasons for our LOUD/screaming radio 'talk shows'; the basis for the popularity of such demagogues as Hannity and O'Reilly, to name just two:

Dear Mr. LaSalle: Have you ever considered publishing a book containing the most off-the-wall, rabidly angry and downright weird mail you undoubtedly receive?

Scott Pearson, Oakland

Dear Mr. Pearson: No, and you wouldn't want to read it, either. The sort of letters I sometimes print here represent the sane tip of a pretty disturbed iceberg, and it's that way for anyone in media. Much of the public, it seems, has replaced religious faith or spiritual practice with idolatry, either of a sick popular culture or sick politicians. The result is a lot of people who are both rabid and miserable, attached to things that give them no inner sustenance and yet deeply protective of those things. At least that's my theory. You might expect that such a mind-set might at least produce interesting mail, but the sameness and sadness of it all are only disheartening.

Your example, Leviticus - was in fact 'played out' on one of the early versions of the rather popular (in one polarity) TV What-If? presidential soap opera, The West Wing.

This was, IIRC in its first year. A Fright-wing lady / demagogue was with some others meeting the President. There was an Interesting exchange of the sort of example-selecting you decribe;

Ex: ~~
Pres: (confronting Ms. Authority Figure, a 'Doctor' in her title. Doctor of English Lit, it turns out.):

So then, must I kill my Chief of Staff personally, or may I delegate the task - he often works on The Sabbath. And about my daughter, should she choose [something, forgotten] - would I have to stone her myself?
My neighbor, who plants more than one crop in adjacent fields: how shoud he be killed?

The hypocrisy combined with Certainty, inconsistency complicated by the perpetually feuding splinter sects: guarantees that you can never know what One 'Christian' thinks/believes/Believes! = OrElseYouDieHorribly&Repeatedly, sucker -- but currently it matters little: nobody is listening except to their own comfort-oracle. Shout-radio is the proof of the pervasiveness of mental deterioration.

ie.
Non-Communication is our Largest industry in '05..
(And the major means of Neoconman persistence in power)
Can't you infer most of that just by watching Our President 'talk'?

A nit with 3). These matters have been pretty well dissected (even) here, across the eons. The 'scientific method' obv cannot apply to metaphysical ponderings, you might concede (?) Nope, no testing, experiment by peers, Michelson-Morley speed-of-Dark to 6 significant figures, etc.

And nobody will get anywhere.. attempting to find language to 'prove' that the idea even, of meta?physics is either necessary or, ahem realizable -- given the sordid state of most frantic Jelloware in the Age of transistorized speeding-up and time-filling to neural overload.

Given all the grounds for cynicism re most homo-sap mutterings, ratified daily by capitalism / the actual extant US religion - I'd assert that one can simply elide the corporate theologies and 'religions', investigate for oneself; exactly as all the memorable ancient Honchos did their foraging. What's to lose?



Then.. if you Find Something umm transcendental? Keep it to Yourself! or some idiot will start YAN New Religion and today, prolly with a \ufffd. (We never hear from/about the quiet ones, who just smile a lot. Love. It.)

Carrion