“No, old George was just spiteful and overreaching on religious matters, and seemed never to recognize that his unspecial experience of psycho-abusive school nuns had nothing to do with anything of cosmic import.”

He always talked good of the school he went to, and said that the nuns were always very nice. So where do you get this crap from?

“Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are.”
-George Carlin

(1) For continued politeness in the face of religious disagreement — all too rare, let alone in a website comment thread!

(2) For illuminating your holistic view on Carlin (which is much much closer to mine than your original, brief, prima facie harsh “pickle” comment). “I wouldn’t be at all surprised were he downing a cold one with Saint Pete as we speak.” takes all the sting out of the rest of your comments, and makes it much easier to consider what else you have to say.

(3) For easing my entry into public discussion of my personal beliefs; I’ve been at points in my life an ardent Presbyterian; a non-denominational Christian; a spiritually inclined agnostic; a philosophically ambivalent humanist; and only very recently an acknowledged atheist. This forum (both this and the other post on religious polling) have literally been my first forays into such discussions, even though I’ve been online since the web’s origins. Especially since I’m posting non-anonymously, having it be non-acrimonious is sincerely appreciated.

Finally, an apology to Mr. Taplin and the other readers here; I’m sure noone else cares about any of this and I don’t wish to hijack this thread any further

– except to say, in response to your spot-on
“… truly really great thing… free speech.”:

Amen.

Whether he’s burning in Hell, or whether I shall do, is unknown to me and really of little consequence. I was just twitching his nose for being such and increasingly insufferable smartass about it all. The great, I mean the truly really great, thing about George Carlin is that he was a giant billboard for free speech. It was like, Mr. Adams said that George got borned with the right to speak freely and George ever after took that to the BANK! Craziest, jazziest free-speech freak since Thomas Paine, whom no other country would have.

No, my thing about Mr. Carlin and the religious diatribes is that he never bothered to ease up a little on the possibility that some in his audience might possibly have drawn a distinction he never seemed to see: that between religion, and faith. I believe that he hurt a lot of people in that breach, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised were he downing a cold one with Saint Pete as we speak.

You’re entitled to your opinion of course, and I don’t expect to reach agreement w/ you here; you believe in hell and believe Carlin’s there, I get it. But to comment on someone’s death with essentially “they’re burning in hell now” is, to me, distasteful no matter what your beliefs. [shrug]

To everyone else [and in Carlin's memory], sorry to be so unfunny! I’ll try to make up for it next time I post.

” It used to be that poor kids had Head Start and now the economically disadvantaged have No Child Left Behind..It seems that we’re loosing some f**** ground here doesn’t it!”. Rest in peace George…right again.

I highly doubt he ever expected everyone to laugh at or agree with everything he said. Unlike a lot of pathetic comedians he probably made people think as much as he made them laugh.

Considering that I was a kid in the 70’s, he wouldn’t have banged my fiance, but thanks for the thought.

Yes.