[note: this is intended in the spirit of poking fun, and by no means intended as a representation of the actual views held by the gents invoked]

Sam says—Facts.

’dan says—Facts, my ass.

Sam says—It’s facts, my friend, and that is that.

’dan says—Listen, man, it goes deeper than facts.

Sam says—Deeper or not, facts shall guide our day to day acts.

’dan says—’cept that facts come wrapped, all set, in a pack: an always-already a priori structure, an underlying overarching metanarrative substructure: a cyberordinate cognitive OS that grounds, precedes, embeds, nay, bears, in fact, said facts.

Sam says—Well . . . you mean ontotheology? as in: to give the Derrid’ his due? For sure, you know better than that?

’day says—Yeah . . . but it’s not as simple as that. It goes much deeper than that. Let me explain what . . .

Sam says—But what does all that have to do with that douche up there in the celestial fluff? For Pete’s sake! Cut this dogged apologetics! Be real for a change. Take faith. Pray, do tell me: Why privilege the pest called Christian over the rest?

’dan says—Look, it is the foundational Western heritage: the actual bathtub under the proverbial baby’s butt—and granted, there’s some tepid bathwater in there. But hey…

Sams says—Why, ’dan, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. The goddamn dogma. If you want to keep that baby clean and not let it spoil and downright drown in the froth of holy blood-bath, you need pure facts that distill the dreck… You dig?

’dan says—But could we be here together talking about all this today were it not for the narrative arc of a Covenant? This is no trivial matter at all, Sam. Not the least bit trivial. A bloody miracle, indeed.

Dan says—Bloody, no doubt. Sad, actually, but it no longer has to be ’true.’ We know much better than that. We now have a better grasp of the facts. We do have the choice to drop blind faith. But you get it—what I’m getting at—don’t you, ’dan?

Here ’dan refs Ralph—The past hast baked your loaf, and in the strengths of its bread you would break up the oven. Give a little slack, sport. It’s time to relent [almost says ’repent’] and loosen a bit your adamant stance. No shame in that. Admit it: faith is at the root of a fact.

Sam says—You act like you don’t get it but I know that you do get it. Faith makes sense in an evo phase of dire straits, but be it seed or seat: faith is no longer a must. Hell, we can’t afford to cling to spent dregs if we intend to transcend this bedlamite mess. If not outright jettison, then at the very least demote we must the canonical crap, and recognize it for what it actually is: dross, old-school pulp.

But ’dan grapples on—Unless it’s fleshed out and reified in the vivid and gripping tapestry of myth, the truth is too abstract to matter and gain traction: as disembodied facts lack the tang and the swing that renders them palatable and relatable for us—living, breathing spatio-temporal, sensori-motoric beings. There’s just no optics for an ethics without an ethos borne by a mythos. Without it, we would most surely be cast right back into the abysmal womb of the void—adrift, a flickering blip.

Sam counters—And yet, most of that mythos is myopic and a malignant source of noise that warps rather than enlightens the soul—naught, but a canon, actually, of what’s abject, vile and totally numb-skull about us all. We’ve been incited to act hypocritical, sanctimonious, abusive and violent; we’ve been crippled by guilt and maimed by shame for too long: We have had enough of the paralyzing buzz in the collective hive of our muddled, befuddled mind. Reason—pure consciousness is the answer: as it is clarity that enables, not enticing (and inciting) mythical fables. Get it? Mythos merely codes for myopic noise.

’dan says—Faith is at the root of it . . .

Sam says—. . . on the wings of which we launched from the swamp and soared high above the jungle, sling-shot right into the age of reason: Why, thank God for that! Still, an authentic homo ethicus flourishes in the space of pure reason, not brute credos. Now is the time we got out the muck.

’dan says—it’s the bathtub, Sam. Forget the bloody bathwater for a sec.

Sam says—Good God, man! Faith will never propel us beyond the gravitational pull of crusades and dumb creeds. To jettison is the next necessary step. We can’t make do well without the sole sovereignty of facts. Otherwise, the space of pure reason collapses into an abysmal vacuum of no good reason: where everything goes . . . to seed, in fact.

’dan says—Well, Sam: have your facts in order, then, and eat them too.

Sam says—Damn, that’s . . . baaad, Jordan. That’s just bad to say that.

’day says—My bad, Sam.

Sam says—Well, let’s leave it at that, then. Let’s call it a stale, mate.

’dan says—Alright, buddy. Let’s call it a stale.

Sam says—So long, then. Have a safe trip home, Jordan!

’dan says—Godspeed, Samuel!