Monkey Law

Pretty interesting discussion over at Pandagon about what it means to be an agnostic as opposed to an atheist. I’ve never given it much thought — it’s always seemed pretty cut and dried to me. We agnostics basically think that believing God exists and believing God doesn’t exist are both statements of faith with no basis. So we make neither. I honestly didn’t think there was more to say on the subject.

On the other hand, it seems like many people use the term casually to refer to a belief about the relative probability about god’s existence. As if atheists have a faith based belief that there is no god. But that’s really not a reasonable characterization. Certainly some are more strident than others, but it’s hard to imagine the existence of an atheist who’s certainty in the lack of god’s existence could be seen as so “flying in the face” of something that it would merit being called faith-based, or unreasonable. The label agnostic seems to be almost an accusation that were an atheist confronted with proof of god’s existence, he would deny it to maintain his atheism.

I don’t think that’s fair. I think that if a group of atheists were suddenly confronted with proof of God’s existence, some would immediately convert, some would remain skeptical. I do believe that Atheism is a religious belief, and atheists have just as much capacity to be unreasonable as anyone else. “There must be a rational explanation for this” is just as dogmatic a statement of faith as “Our father, who art in heaven…”

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 18th, 2005 at 9:20 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

As most people have heard by now, actor John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on The West Wing, died Friday of a heart attack. This bummed me out to no end, as I’m a huge fan of that show and of his character in particular. He’s had a less prominent role the past couple of seasons, and now I wonder if real-life health problems may have had something to do with that.

What I’ve been wondering about lately is how the West Wing people are going to write him out of the show. One Farker suggested “Somewhere, Ed O’Neill’s phone is ringing.” This would make sense… O’Neill played Baker, the popular Pennsylvania governor whom most assumed would occupy the VP spot on the Democratic ticket that was later given to Leo. O’Neill is also a television powerhouse with sufficient talent to carry the show through what many consider to be its last season. Some have suggested that now Alan Alda will win the election. Come on. They’ve invested too much emotional capital in Matt Santos to have him tank at the polls. There was an attempt early on to make it look like it was a real horse race — they brought in Patricia Richardson and Steven Root as Alda’s staff, people you can easily see rotating into the regular cast of a major TV show. They divided the episodes between Alda’s Arnie Vinick and Jimmy Smits’s Santos in a fairly evenhanded fashion. But this season, they’re not even pretending. It’s Santos, all the way. Santos and McGarry. But how to get rid of McGarry now that Spencer is gone?

How do you write an episode completely expunging a character from the cast without having that actor to work with? Does Josh Lyman pick up a phone in the teaser, then solemnly turn to everyone and say “Leo’s dead?” Do they get a Leo stand-in and shoot him from the back, keeling over and dying? Maybe Leo doesn’t die. Maybe they find him face-down on the floor after a bender and it’s back to rehab.

Maybe they just recast the role, Bewitched-style. Maybe they write in a regeneration scene like in Doctor Who. A couple seconds of computer-generated Leo clutching his chest, then he glows and emerges as Rob Lowe. Nah, that’d never fly on this side of the pond.

However they do it, I won’t be glued to my set. My schedule these days has meant that I’m unable to watch The West Wing when it’s on, so usually I have to BitTorrent it later. This season has struck me as kind of weak, even compared to the Sorkin-free last two years, and being robbed of Leo is just one more nail in its coffin.

If you haven’t seen the show, then for God’s sake why have you read this far? And also, watch the first four seasons… they’re available on DVD and re-run on Bravo. Do yourself a favor.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 18th, 2005 at 8:47 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.