Orson Scott Card: Believers who claim to have heard voices are ‘wackos’
“We already have a science fiction religion, so we never have any conflict between our religion and what we write.” — Orson Scott Card
“The secret to life here is finding out what your own religion really is and perhaps adapting it and learning what your religion should be in order to get along with other people.” — Orson Scott Card
And previously at MSP: BYU Management Society to award NOM director Orson Scott Card
And very recently …
Orson Scott Card @ The Wall Street Journal: How ‘Friend’ Became a Verb
P.S. Lo and behold, an old BYU classmate is the associate provost at the school where OSC teaches. Note to self: SVU’s list of guest speakers is a veritable Who’s Who of the Prop 8 campaign: Alan Ashton, Stan Swim, Bart Marcois, Marlin K. Jensen, Ralph W. Hardy, et al.
Is Pat Condell channeling Orson Scott Card or responding to him?
Card says “. . . a lot of these people who hear voices in their head . . . are actual wackos.” It seems to me that “a lot” is an important qualifier because it can mean that there are other people who hear voices in their head who are perfectly sane.
That leads me to conclude that Orson Card might be willing to make distinctions about people who hear voices in their head.
I like Orson Card’s suggestion that we adapt our religion so that we get along with other people.
It would be better though to call those ideas something other than religion.
I think what he’s trying to say is: “Look, as a practical matter, I need and want to maintain Mormon loyalty … but don’t question me about that choice or I’ll call you intolerant.” It’s a bizarre kind of iconoclastic special pleading.
Obviously, my own nefarious ends required that I not post the third OSC clip from the documentary, in which he provides a totally convincing explanation for why “still, small voices” are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Well, Card is calling everyone who confronts religion unreasonable and hypocritical because he can find their religion if he only pushes hard enough.
Careful, Orson. By the same reasoning, a lot of people who make up stories all the time are sociopaths and delusional liars. That does not mean by default that I’d give up reading fiction.
But it does warm my Fark-lovin’, MSP-lovin’ heart. Hollywood Reporter, People, Daily Mail … Main Street Plaza? Ha! Fark rocks.
OK did Card intend to be ironic in that second video? LOL!
Congratulations, Chino! Looks like we need to produce one of those cool logos.
Is it just me or did the Mormons set up Southern Virginia University as a feeder for US security and intelligence services?
http://svu.edu/career/postgraduate-employment
CIA, NSA, FBI
Gotta love SVU’s speakers:
http://svu.edu/speeches/executive-lectures/2010/steve
Steve “X”: How to Obtain a Top Secret Security Clearance
Does anyone have any experience with SVU?
Back in the day, I was considering to apply for a faculty position. Out of Mormon patriotism, you know.
It would have been a serious career set back. So I wanted to talk to the administration who had kindly posted an invitation to contact them. Alas, they were all too busy.
When they renamed the college university, it became clear that there is something fundamentally amiss. Given its strong identity and the idealism of the campus community, Southern Virginia could have been a great boutique college. As a university, Southern Virginia can’t really keep up.
It is unfortunate that the leadership doesn’t have the self-confidence to play to the institution’s strengths and to acknowledge its limitations. It is probably impossible to achieve excellence when you don’t know who you are.
Yeah. I don’t think Card has any room to be calling anyone a wacko.
I hate to say that. I’ve enjoyed a lot of his writing. But the positions he has been taking these last few years are, many of them, pretty much off the top of the wacko scale. Like the time he said that only those who are married and have children are “real” adults, as if no one who is unmarried and/or childless has ever had any responsibilities and spends all their time playing and being irresponsible.
Maybe he had the luxury of being irresponsible before he married and had kids. Some of us haven’t been so lucky.
Good point, Elaine. We tend to consider ourselves altruistic and virtuous for having children but evolutionary biologists think of having children as a self-interested activity because we are spreading our genes.
Jehanne d’Arc.