JMS on CompuServe (May 12, 1996) *POSSIBLE SPOILERS* 2/2
Brent Barrett
bbarrett at speedlink.com
Sun May 12 13:39:18 EDT 1996
[ Continued from previous section -- BB ]
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The following posts may contain SPOILERS for
upcoming Babylon 5 episodes.
Continue at your own risk.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL IS THE COPYRIGHT OF THE
RESPECTIVE MESSAGE AUTHORS AND CANNOT BE
REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE EXPRESSED
PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
Note that JMS has expressed his public permission
that all of his messages may be reproduced freely.
I give permission for my summaries to be reposted in
any form, however I reserve all rights to them and
the right to revoke this permission at any time.
[ Summary of subjects in this section: ]
Sb: #503967-Toronto Star B5 Article!
Sb: #504012-<Interludes>
Sb: #503970-<Interludes - Name>
Sb: #503993-<Interludes - Name>
Sb: #503929-WwE Part 1 Question
Sb: #504002-#Joe an atheist?
[ Summary: A poster informs JMS of a couple of favorable articles in
his paper's TV Magazine about B5. ]
#: 504062 S5/Babylon 5: General
11-May-96 22:28:07
Sb: #503967-Toronto Star B5 Article!
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Thanks for letting folks know; I just heard about it myself, and am
having a copy or two sent on to me for the files.
jms
#: 504012 S5/Babylon 5: General
11-May-96 20:29:38
Sb: #<Interludes>
Fm: RAY PELZER
Ok, Joe.... I gotta ask.
Not too long ago, you said that we would see Kosh in his TRUE form, not as he
wanted everyone to see him, because it was only fair to the viewers. Given that
you don't lie to us (just confuse the hell out of us on a regular basis!), the
events in "Interludes" leaves us with few options:
A) The energy wave we saw wash over B5 was Kosh's true form, and the
Vorlons are energy beings. This would fit with the idea that Energy cannot be
created or destroyed - just change form - in the "...have *always* been here"
lines.
B) You're not done with Kosh yet, and we'll be seeing him in a future
episode.
C) You meant that we'd be seeing the VORLONS' true form soon, not
necessarity Kosh in particular.
Are you giving out answers today? :)
Ray
#: 504063 S5/Babylon 5: General
11-May-96 22:28:08
Sb: #504012-<Interludes>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
I meant you'd see Vorlons as Vorlons, not necessarily Kosh; I think I
phrased it that way initially.
jms
[ Summary: A self-proclaimed "fully grown man" thanks JMS for making
him care for the characters on B5. Something he's never done about
characters in any work of fiction before. ]
#: 504064 S6/Babylon 5: Upcoming
11-May-96 22:28:11
Sb: #503970-<Interludes - Name>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Thanks, and glad to have you on board for the ride....
jms
#: 503993 S6/Babylon 5: Upcoming
11-May-96 19:41:57
Sb: #503874-#<Interludes - Name>
Fm: SYSOP DUPA T PARROT
Joe,
Why did Morden have to open the door to Kosh's quarters before his Shadowy
friends could attack Kosh? This seems to imply that the Shadows have certain
limitations - like the line-of-sight limitations of Teeps.
Are the Shadows a variety of Teep?
-Dupa T. Parrot [Tech Supp SysOp]
<OS/2 WarpConnect & GCP> O-
#: 504065 S6/Babylon 5: Upcoming
11-May-96 22:28:14
Sb: #503993-<Interludes - Name>
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
No, they're not a variety of teep.
jms
#: 503929 S6/Babylon 5: Upcoming
11-May-96 18:02:17
Sb: #WwE Part 1 Question
Fm: AUTOMEDIA, INC.
Hello!
I noticed something a bit strange when I was viewing the full-length preview of
War Without End (Part 1).
Since this *might* be a spoiler, I'll pad it a bit..
When Ivanova says "They're killing us!" we see a starfury being destroyed by a
beam weapon. Trouble is, it isn't a purpleish Shadow beam. It's a
yellow-greenish beam. Having just re-watched I&E for the umpteenth time, I
can't help but wonder if that's a Vorlon beam destroying the 'fury. I know you
can't/won't confirm or deny it if it is, but I can't help asking. Is it
supposed to be a Shadow beam or some other race's?
Thanks. :-)
-- Brent Barrett
#: 504066 S6/Babylon 5: Upcoming
11-May-96 22:28:14
Sb: #503929-WwE Part 1 Question
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Sigh...no, it's a piece of stock footage from "Sky." We don't make the
promos. On the other hand, they've been doing a much better job lately, so I'm
not about to complain.
jms
#: 504002 S5/Babylon 5: General
11-May-96 20:12:28
Sb: #503914-#Joe an atheist?
Fm: DANIEL M. UPTON
>>... an Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent, etc etc. being, outside our
ability to classify empirically.<<
Omniscience and omnipotence are both biblically accurate descriptions of God.
Omnibenevolence, however, is nowhere stated or implied. The biblical
definition of love has little to do with the emotions and everything to do with
the conscience choice to place someone else's interests above your own. If
this were truly God's nature then there would be no hell and no one, even
Satan, would ever be condemned or punished.
>>If you ask me straight, I will state that I cannot *prove* that god does not
exist (no way to do that when he/she/it can alter the laws of physics, at whim,
to hide from you), but that in *itself* does not make he/she/it any more
likely.<<
This is a discussion that *has* to take place on two different levels. One is
the purely empirical where saying "there is a God" and "There is no God" are
both statements of nonsense devoid of real meaning because they both claim to
describe some aspect of reality yet no test can be devised (again short of
dying) that can falsify either of them. This takes them both out of the realm
of science and places them in the arena of opinion, emotion and faith. The
other level of discussion I would call the social (for lack of a better term).
That is wether you choose to invest yourself in a religious system without
seeing some positive evidence that its claims are true (rather than a lack of
negative evidence that its claims are false). In other words, who's challenge
will you accept, Mark Twain's or Pascal's?
>>Course I will also say that I will *NEVER* admit this politically, because if
I do, I can offer no convincing counterargument to the liberal argument that
rights descend from the state...<<
Without a transcendent God imposing a transcendent morality upon man there is
no basis for rights save the state. Without a source of right and wrong that
exists outside of the human race there is no basis, except for fickle human
opinion, to say that Mother Teresa is better than Adolf Hitler.
Dan^^^^
danupton at blueridge.net
#: 504076 S5/Babylon 5: General
11-May-96 22:59:28
Sb: #504002-#Joe an atheist?
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
"This is a discussion that *has* to take place on two different levels. One is
the purely empirical where saying "there is a God" and "There is no God" are
both statements of nonsense devoid of real meaning because they both claim to
describe some aspect of reality yet no test can be devised (again short of
dying) that can falsify either of them."
Once again, your knowledge of logic is faulty. The attempt in logic, debate or
science is not to "falsify" or disprove anything; the goal is to PROVE
something. Repeat after me: you cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof
of any statement belongs with the person making the assertion, NOT the person
receiving it to disprove it. You are simply misstating how science and logic
work in order to make a debating point that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
"Without a transcendent God imposing a transcendent morality upon man there is
no basis for rights save the state. Without a source of right and wrong that
exists outside of the human race there is no basis, except for fickle human
opinion, to say that Mother Teresa is better than Adolf Hitler."
Another debating trick that also doesn't hold up to close inspection.
The notion of a monotheistic god -- *GOD* -- is fairly recent in human terms.
The Greeks managed to build an entire civilization that was known for its arts,
its philosophy, its advancement in all areas (military included) using a host
of household and minor deities who were in NO way ANY kind of guide to what was
right and wrong; half of them were capricious and just plain nuts, the the
other half were off mating with human women and then writing off their kids.
Yes, in time Greece fell. But so did Rome, the spearhead (figuratively and
literally) for Christian propagation worldwide in its early history, so I
wouldn't necessarily throw *that* into the mix.
Very, very, very few people decide not to murder because God wouldn't like it.
They don't murder (assuming they choose that) because they're afraid of being
apprehended and sentenced under the laws made by humans in order to facilitate
cooperation and progress and safety. (If anything, people have proped up the
notion of god as rationale for murder for centuries on all sides of the
theological coin.)
I'm not saying that religion is per se bad, it's like any other human artifact,
including technology, it's what humans make of it. But at the same time it's
self-indulgent in the extreme for folks who believe to write off the whole of
human history and say that if it weren't for their particular deity, we
wouldn't know right from wrong, or positive from negative, that we'd just be
staggering around blindly...when the notion of that sort of god is extremely
recent in human consciousness, and prior to then we did okay; not perfect, we
had wars and bloodshed and the like...and we still do. Most of it by believers
in one thing or another.
When was the last time you heard of an atheist car bombing an embassy because
he thought it would bring him closer to the void? When was the last time you
heard of an atheist murdering his entire family because he *didn't* hear the
voice of god talking in his head? When was the last time you heard of an
atheist declaring a crusade or a jihad or a pogrom? (And don't even try to
bring the old soviet union into this; that was a political madness that had
less to do with belief systems and more to do with the accumulation of personal
power at the expense of EVERYthing, that wouldn't allow for ANY divergence from
what they considered the norm.)
You can write off "fickle human opinion" all you want, but from where I sit we
haven't done too badly, all things considered.
If my tone seems to imply I took some small offense...the operative word is
"small," because I'm used to this. On the one hand, I pretty much don't have a
problem with anything anybody believes so long as nobody's hurt by it. On the
other, religionists tend to mutter darkly that if it weren't for some
god-inspired notion of right and wrong, if we don't have that, well, we're just
anchorless, as prone to murder a child as give somebody a gift. That it's all
caprice.
Well, I happen to be an atheist, and I *can* tell the difference between Mother
Theresa and Hitler. And your inference that one can't is simply wrong and
condescending. As an atheist, I view every life as *incredibly* valuable
because we only get one turn around the merry go round, and then it's over; no
backsies, no second chances, no heavenly choir to sing one into the pearly
gates no matter how terrible or abusive a life one's led as long as at the end
one chooses to Believe. Every life is rarer than the rarest diamond, and since
the only future we have is that which we make, the only signs we were here are
that which we create, life must be preserved, nourished and given the chance to
grow.
Because those Greeks -- you remember, the ones who didn't believe in your
particular god, with its rules for right and wrong -- actually had the audacity
to once define happiness. Not in terms of right and wrong, but in even larger
terms. I noted them at Macon. To wit: "The exercise of vital powers along
lines of excellence in a life affording them scope." It's about the only creed
I live by.
Not bad. Bet they could even figure out this whole Mother Theresa/Hitler
thing, too....
jms
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