This article is largely a confession of ignorance. I am the most ill-read theologian on this site, and engaged in various theological discussions based upon the oral and cultural tradition passed down to me as well as the conclusions I reached on my own. I have not read the works of the early church fathers, the musings of the high middle ages, or even most of the bible itself. In fact, I’ve only read the entirety of Ruth and Revelations. Why those books? Because that’s where I ended up when opening randomly. So most of my knowledge is secondhand. The common stories picked up through cultural osmosis, and the arguments of the past picked up through others. Why then do I feel entitled to speak on such a topic? Well, I’m a Protestant. More seriously though, most people are not well read on their own religion. They will hear what their parents and neighbors say, sometimes what a priest or preacher tells them, and that’s it. The common faith will deviate from what the seminary academians protest to be the truth. So I put forth the perspective of the layman into this discussion.
Much of my logic or interpretation will come across as literal or simplistic, and I don’t see the problem with that. Overcomplicated esoterica is the domain of the cloister, and not the community. The big question is – can I even speak to the mind of the divine? When I posed this question to myself I came back with a simple answer. If God created Man in his own image, then one can look for the echoes of the divine in the human. These might be wild guesses, or just plain wrong, but no worse than the wild guesses of others. From this I first infer two things – God must be able to think (obviously) and has emotions. Given the instances of people making him angry and incurring the Wrath of God, we can safely conclude that these are a given.
In addition to getting angry, I also argue that God can get bored. This leads to my first big conclusion. It would make more sense for God to have automated the universe. What do I mean? Rather than sitting there manually making sure everything happens every minute of every day, it would be simpler to have set up rules, systems and processes to make sure these things happened without the need for divine intervention. What this means is that science and faith are not in opposition to one another. Discovering the rules by which the world works and using that knowledge to better our circumstance is simply uncovering the divine order. The fact that we’ve uncovered the mechanism by which X or Y happen which appear miraculous doesn’t invalidate faith, it merely deepens our understanding of the complexities of creation.
This ability to understand is one of the biggest gifts we’ve been given. That and free will. The question of free will versus predestination is a big one in theological circles from what I gather. I am firmly and unabashedly on the side of humans having free will. Why? Because evil exists. How does that follow? It comes down to this – when making the decision to create the world, God had the choice to make a world of puppets who would do as told and dance to the celestial tune and follow the order. But they would still be puppets. The alternative, to grant his creations free will, came with the same risk that freedom always does. Some people will misuse it. Freedom of all kind is messy, but the world of puppets is boring, and the puppets would never attain true greatness of their own. So, just as a parent must eventually let their children make their own mistakes, he gave us our mental devices and let us make use or misuse of them.
On the predestination side, I often hear arguments that God knows who is going to be saved and what our future holds. This just doesn’t hold much water for me as an argument against free will. God knows because he is smart enough to have figured it out beforehand. Him being able to predict what choice you will make does not make it less your choice. This may come as an uncomfortable thought to some, because it shifts a lot of responsibility for themselves and their own future onto their own shoulders. But, you were gifted with a great many tools to deal with the circumstances you are in – from your own mental and physical capabilities, to your family and friends, to the empathy of complete strangers in the most dire of times. I find the idea that I cannot influence my circumstances to be the far more distressing proposition. No, we were created with the ability to think and to act, and to deny that is to insult the giver of those gifts.
Up to this point I have addressed abstract fundamentals. This is because these fundamentals are where my conviction is the strongest. As we move into the elements of doctrine and dogma, I am less well-grounded. The entire concept of the Trinity eludes me. I get the Father and the Son, but the Holy Spirit never had a place in the folk traditions I was raised in, except as an entry in the Lord’s Prayer. So you may call me a bad Christian for not getting such a common fundamental element, but no one else in my household and community did either. I only bring this up because I am coming up to the concept of Salvation and Charity.
The idea of sin being bad is easy – sinful acts cause harm to yourself or others. Sinful thoughts do not necessarily lead to sinful acts, and you can deny these impulses through exercise of your free will. But other than not wanting to be hurt or hurt others, what incentives are there to deny these impulses? Well, it goes back to that question of a world of puppets again. While there was a model of behavior God wanted out of his creations, his choice to give free will meant he had opted not to force it. So he set up a series of rules and systems, this time in the form of incentive. If you follow the rules you will receive a reward. If you choose to be awful, you will receive your punishment. While this focuses on deeds and behavior, I pose this question – in what way would a man who struggles with his demons and impulses his entire life but contains them and acts generously and nobly any less worthy than the man who simply had little in the way of impulses to smother? How you behave towards yourself and towards your fellow man, especially in private, reveals your inner character, that is, how you choose to utilize your free will.
How you behave when no one is watching leads me to the topic of Charity. There are degrees of charity, and I generally regard the more selfless manner to be the superior, but accept that good can be had from the lesser charities. Now, degrees of charity all contain the element of cognizance. The benefactor must be aware that they are being charitable for it to matter. While the base principle might be tortured to say that accidental charity is the purest form, if the benefactor doesn’t know he is being charitable, it says nothing about his character. So that leaves the highest possible form of charity the anonymous charity. Helping another without them knowing you are the one doing it, or possibly even knowing that you have done it. You receive no earthly recognition, but do it because that is who you are or because it is the right thing to do. The next highest would be quiet charity where you provide aid, and the recipient knows it came from you, but you ask for nothing and don’t feel the need to crow about what you’ve done. Again, acting because it is right. Beyond that we move into the venal charities where you begin to express the sin of pride, proclaiming to the world what a good person you are for the aid you have given. This continues down a spectrum of making the situation about yourself instead of aiding the other until you reach a level of performative charity where you are signaling your virtues while not actually providing any aid. An example of an act of performative charity would be an activist “raising awareness” of a problem, but reveling in the attention generated. At best, someone else more charitable might act, but most of the time, people are well aware of the problem.
All that said, I will not denigrate sending of thoughts and prayers if these provide emotional balm to the recipient. Sometimes, it is all you have to give, and providing moral support can bolster those in troubling circumstances. You’re not making it about yourself, which is what matters in matters charitable.
This article has come out in a form unlike the mental drafts I had gone through, and there was one more matter I kept wanting to address that doesn’t organically fit – arguing with a dead man. One dead man in particular – Augustine of Hippo.
Now, going back to my confession of ignorance at the start, I have not read his doorstopper ‘City of God’ nor his earlier writings. But the man’s arguments influences how many people approached their faith, and introduced them to a lot of bad ideas. You see, by the time Augustine became the theologian he is famous for, he had been beaten down by life. His mother had forced him to give up his beloved Concubine of many years in order to free him up for a political marriage that failed to come to fruition, then his son died at the age of fifteen, his mother died on the way back to North Africa, and finally, he was seized by the people of Hippo and forced to become their Bishop. That’s right, he didn’t choose to become a Bishop, they locked him up until he agreed. Augustine was a gifted rhetorician, well trained in that art, but he was also a bitter, broken old man whose view on life had gone past “the glass is half empty” to “the water is poisoned.”
I do say this partly to explain why I disregard his conclusions, but also to explain why his views on the divine were of a particularly cynical form of predestinationism. From what I can understand, the crux of his argument’s foundation is “the moral cannot fathom the mind of the divine.” Which he then uses to explain why his construction of God is so cruel. This may be a strawman born of misunderstanding via the secondhand sources I know him by, but I admit I do not have the time or inclination to dig deeper into his rhetoric.
The two specific line items I even bothered to bring up Augustine over were Clerical Celibacy, and the Elect.
I cannot find an earlier account of the idea of the Elect, so I will blame Augustine for now. For those unfamiliar, it is the idea that God has already picked who is going to be saved, they cannot do anything to deprive themselves of this salvation, and no one else can do anything to get into that group. It fits strongly into the predestination box, but to me it is ass-backwards. God knows who is going to be saved because he knows who is going to be a good person, not because he has selected them beforehand. Your fate is still in your own hands.
Augustine did not come up with the idea of clerical celibacy, that was another Roman. But he and his arguments were what gave the idea momentum. The idea, from the moment I heard it just struck me as wrong. After all, the very first instruction given by God was “Be Fruitful and Multiply,” – an admonition against indolence and an exhortation towards procreation. Why should the clergy, theoretically the most faithful of his servants (stop laughing) abstain from marriage and parenthood? I think it boils down to people misinterpreting things to conclude that anything which brings pleasure must be bad. Because denying other impulses which would bring earthy pleasure is also good, so denying all pleasures must be superplusgood. This is a reduction ad absurdum. There are wholesome pleasures in the world and it is not sinful to enjoy them appropriately. Going to excess or losing yourself to these impulses is what is wrong. Moderation and appropriateness are the key.
I don’t have any other dead theologians to strawman, and I’ve covered the basics. So I’m going to wrap this up here.
Discovering the rules by which the world works and using that knowledge to better our circumstance is simply uncovering the divine order.
Even outside belief in divine creation, we describe nature not define it.
We come up with the words, and impose order upon it.
Just don’t be surprised when man-made laws and nature disagree.
I wouldn’t.
Have you seen the grass in the cracks of my driveway, too?
“How you behave when no one is watching leads me to the topic of Charity.”
I knew an exotic dancer named Charity. That was her real name.
“Were your patents hippies?”
“No, they’re Christians.”
Did she have a sister named Irony?
Exotic dancer actually from Cleveland.
Boy do I wish I could have said some of these things so succinctly to some of the hardcore calvinists I’ve known. I too have never attempted Augustine but it does seem that a lot of bad (IMO) theology has come from people who seem to be obsessed with him. As a fellow folk theologian I greatly enjoyed reading this.
Thank you.
On charity: Give joyfully not out of obligation. Do not seek recognition. Encourage but do not pressure others to give. Your total giving is relative to your situation. Give what you can when you are struggling. Give enough to feel the loss when you are doing well.
It ain’t charity if you’re gonna brag about it
Just a reminder that there will be a Glibs Meetup tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb 7, at Gourmeltz restaurant in Fredericksburg starting at 4:00 PM. Mr and Mrs Hobbit will be there and hope to meet NoVA and DC Glibs.
I’ll repost in AM Lynx comments.
Somebody has to hold down the fort here on the site and make sure the Firsts are happening. So you know where I’ll be.
Watching MikeS and learning?
*nods solemnly
I have nothing but pity and sympathy for MikeS and those who would follow him in false Firsting. It is truly a sad, sad thing to witness.
If you posted firsts 1/10th as often as you bragged about “Firsting”, it might mean something. As it is, you appear to need therapy.
I was here to cover for your lateness tonight. Don’t be late tomorrow.
And I had to cover for him this afternoon. Sad.
It’s predestined the elect will be there.
hope to meet NoVA and DC Glibs
RVA says “hi”.
Spotsyltucky is not NoVA!
I was reared Presbyterian, with what I assume was a fairly typical mainstream Protestant religious education. I was probably in my early teens when I went through confirmation class to become an official member of the church. Naturally, I was curious about what distinguished Presbyterians from the other Protestant denominations. (A few years later, a Methodist friend and I assured one of our teachers, who was Catholic, that the main difference between our two faiths was that Presbyterians had potluck suppers and Methodists had picnics.) I recall from confirmation class that the very elderly minister vaguely referenced the Calvinist heritage of the Presbyterian church and something about predestination. The idea that it had been determined at the dawn of time whether or not I would go to Heaven struck my young mind as inherently unfair.
Presbyterian privilege
Oh, I’ve long since had any such privileges revoked.
So, what denomination has potluck picnics?
Baptists. I’ve been to more than a few.
Gallery of Regrettable Food
https://lileks.com/institute/gallery/ads/62.html
The Gallery is an unalloyed treasure.
I don’t know, but some years later I learned that the Unitarian Universalists’ holiest sacrament was coffee hour.
Lutherans have hot dish.
They have their reasons.
Tater Tot being the Chosen Hotdish.
[[[We]]] have funeral potatoes.
Also lime Jello with carrot shavings.
Mmmmmm
🤢 🤮
mmm
Hey, I’m trying to eat.
That’s not food. That’s a prop for a science fiction B-movie.
It could be lutefisk instead.
Stop blaspheming my [[[Jello Belt]]].
This sounds bad, but I’m sure the carrot really makes little difference in the flavor profile.
Yeah, it’s pretty subtle, and actually works. It’s much more a visual/texture thing than flavor.
So like snorting coke off a hooker’s ass?
It’s figuratively just like that.
Pancake breakfasts
/RC
Fish fry. I see the sign when I pass the local church.
My town was so RC even the public-school lunches had fish Fridays.
We were VERY Lutheran (not a single RC church in the school district), but even we had fish Friday during lent. I just thought it was the norm everywhere growing up, but maybe not?
Ours wasn’t but we still had fish sticks on Friday. Might not have been every Friday but they were on rotation.
No fish frys at the local churches. Kind of in line with the lack of any real local cuisine. The so-called PNW fusion is just lazy mediocre crap.
Every funeral or big event where I grew up had broasted chicken and mostaccioli as the main dishes. The other main foods were baby red (or cheesy) potatoes and various Italian breads. This even included the Lutheran church I attended. The Italians were a huge food influence in the area, and that was a good thing. Always good meals.
My dad was raised Lutheran, so Linzer Torts, Goose, and most other German food.
I’ve been attending a Presbyterian church for 20 years and never heard any argument for predestination. But plenty for going to Heaven as long as you recant your evil deeds before you die and accept Christ as Lord and Savior.
I suspect many mainstream Protestant denominations have long since largely forgotten the theological distinctions that divided them from one another when they were founded.
Calvinist doctrine seems to have had a revival mostly in Baptist/Evangelical circles in the 21st century. Like most bad ideas it seems to come out of Christian Academia (seminaries).
Presbyterian is Catholic Lite. From what I remember of many of Sunday with my grandmother.
Huh. That wasn’t my experience, though it may vary from one congregation to another, especially based on the size of the congregation. (The big downtown Presbyterian church here has a lovely cathedral-type sanctuary.) I’d sooner apply “Catholic Lite” to the Episcopal church, just based on what little I know of the ritual of their typical services.
One of my favorite memories of the church of my childhood was the day someone forgot to stock up on grape juice and those doughy communion wafers we usually used, so we ended up having communion with Hawaiian punch and pumpkin bread.
The kids line and side eyeing when you could go to the big kids line like everyone else.
For communion? We passed it down the pews on trays. (The grape juice was in tiny glasses that were set into holes in the top of the tray.)
Funnily my grandma’s church moved to that method sometime in the late 80s. Must have been a memo or something
We still do grape juice in the little cups. Some churches I’ve attended have receptacles in the pews for you to put the cup when you are done.
Add in Mary, a few patron saints and some kneeling, the services are remarkably similar. Political structure within the Church were near identical with name changes. But like you pointed out, could be regional or even sects within the Presbyterian side that give a different feel.
I thought that was Episcopalian.
I am the most ill-read theologian on this site
Luckily I am not a theologian or religious. So please enjoy this Unholy metal cover.
In an unrelated note, I’ll be in my bunk. ///SheTHICC
Down wit the thickness.
Another Halocene fan!
“The entire concept of the Trinity eludes me. I get the Father and the Son, but the Holy Spirit never had a place in the folk traditions I was raised in, except as an entry in the Lord’s Prayer. So you may call me a bad Christian for not getting such a common fundamental element, but no one else in my household and community did either.”
I wouldn’t because I’m not Eddie. Dogma is bad. Speaking for myself, I gained a greater understanding of the Holy Spirit by studying Hinduism. Catholics are big on saints, and Hispanic Catholics, and santeros, more so. So I wasn’t put off by the idolatry of it all, that ruffles God’s chosen. That the godhead — the attribute-less, non-personified, deity behind it all — would have Indra and the god of Israel be the same, but for different demographics, makes intuitive sense. The Holy Spirit is “Brahmaha”, that godhead, creator of gods, invisible, undefinable — perhaps only perceivable in the battle between the devas and asuras, between Christ and Lucifer, between the spirit of of man and globalists putting chemicals in the water to make the frogs gay. That which embraces it is good, that which rejects it is evil.
Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only door-to-door missionaries in the area. It would be interesting to have a Hindu or Buddhist missionary stop by so I can chat about their faith.
Neither Hindus or Buddhists are “evangelical”.
I once worked with an evangelical agnostic.
What are talking about Count? “Dogma” was a pretty well done movie.
Ehh, Clerks and Chasing Amy were way better.
Disney cartoons go all-in on critical race theory telling children in a kids show that this is a racist white supremacist country that has never atoned for slavery. And endorsing reparations with characters claiming that demanding it is the only way black people can take back their freedom or something or another.
Call me when African countries atone fore their millennia of slavery (of themselves and others) that continues as we speak.
That is and was different because it wasn’t chattel slavery which was wholly unique in history and only done to black people.
Jesus. That is the most overt example I’ve seen.
I spill my fucking guts and the God. Damned. Internal. Server. Error. fucking eats it. Can it be fixed? Can someone try?
Really good think-piece, UCS. When the rage subsides, maybe I’ll try typing it all up again.
😥
I hate it when the server destroys a thoughtful comment.
It’s the work of the squirrel-devil.
No Firster has ever fallen victim to an internal server error. Every post is just so revealing as to why you are the furthest thing from a Firster that is humanly possible.
And here you were probably going to talk about your own vague Christianness. There is only one true lord and savior, and he is The Great Firster.
Your mom calls me The Great Fister.
It is OK, little seconder man. I have the sort of empathy that only a Firster can have, and I forgive you for what you do.
I thought she calls you Stud.
Don’t worry, MikeS. Jesus loves you, or at least finds you somewhat attractive.
I told Jesús I didn’t swing that way and he got angry with me*.
*true-ish story…probably wasn’t the dude’s name.
Was it at a bowling alley?
Dude. Eight year olds.
Did he have an accent?
At a bar in NoDak. He started the conversation by telling me I was “goooorgeousss”. When I politely told him “no thanks” he asked me how much it would take. We “haggled” a bit, and I told him not for any price. Then he got pissy and told me to fuck off or something. My friend and I finished our drinks and left. He never took his eyes off me as I walked out the bar.
Just because I turned him down doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate his enthusiasm. First (and last 😥) time this small town NoDak was ever hit on by a dude.
“Nobody fucks with the Jesus!”
“10 year olds, Dude. Ten year olds.”
“Jesus loves you but everyone else thinks you’re an asshole”
Good article.
I have lots to say.
I need to pull my thoughts together in a coherent fashion.
Type them up in Word or something first so you don’t have to start over.
Make a post of it.
I quoted you in last night’s thread.
That’s a splendid idea. I’d love to see all the wide-ranging posts on this topic we would get from the Glibs.
The analogy of God as the clockmaker or the watchmaker I believe emerged at least by the 19th century, particularly among those who called themselves Deists. (I’m pretty sure I picked up this tidbit when I was fairly immersed in Unitarian Universalism as a minister’s wife.)
I’m pretty sure none of what I’ve said is original. 😜
I understand – I’ve simply had just enough exposure to such ideas to
be dangeroushave picked up some of the terminology, in case you or anyone else wanted to dig further into it.I want my money back.
There will be a $50.0 processing fee for your refund of $0.0, please prepay the processing fee.
How many husbands did you have? Did you make a bet with Liz Taylor?
Just two – I’ve referred before to my first hubby, “The Rev. GT” – who later officiated when I married TT. (I am not making that up.)
Sounds amicable.
It was. As I’m fond of saying, to the Good Rev’s credit, at no point during the ceremony did he turn to TT and say, “Are you sure??“
Thanks, GT. One part of my vanished comment was I wasn’t sure what label applied to my current beliefs. A very quick look at Deism makes me think maybe that’s it.
Founding fathers struggled with that as well
Some, of course, posit that an omnipotent God would not have made the operation of everything so Rube Goldbergian- complicated.
God likes to mess with humans?
I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor.
“I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke…
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?”
Don’t start any blasphemous rumors
That all circles around knowing that the operation of everything is perfectly understood, as opposed to attempting to gain clarity and simply observing the world
That and free will. The question of free will versus predestination is a big one in theological circles from what I gather. I am firmly and unabashedly on the side of humans having free will. Why? Because evil exists. How does that follow? It comes down to this – when making the decision to create the world, God had the choice to make a world of puppets who would do as told and dance to the celestial tune and follow the order. But they would still be puppets
That put me in mind of this quote:
“God has made it a rule for Himself that He won’t alter people’s character by force. He can and will alter them – but only if the people will let Him. In that way He has really and truly limited His power. Sometimes we wonder why He has done so, or even wish that He hadn’t. But apparently He thinks it worth doing. He would rather have a world of free beings, with all its risks, than a world of people who did right like machines because they couldn’t do anything else. The more we succeed in imagining what a world of perfect automatic beings would be like, the more, I think, we shall see His wisdom.” – CS Lewis, The Trouble with X
Why would God create humans knowing they will disobey and fall short? You can ask the same about why parents have children.
God’s horny?
Greek gods certainly were.
Well, I’m a Protestant.
That’s really perfect.
I do recommend the Book of Job, if for no other reason then it probably kept Goethe from a charge of blasphemy or certainly impiety for stealing the opening of Faust from it. You could easily rewrite the story of Job’s friends for the modern internet/social media world.
OMG YOU PEOPLE I HAVE WORK TO DO I CAN’T BE WRITING THEOLOGICAL TREATISES STOP TEMPTING ME!!!!
Dangles apple seductively. [now THAT’s phrasing]
Only one?
The devil comes in pleasing forms.
Can you tell us about the Mormon underwear again?
Wait, what? You were paying attention?
If he was paying attention he wouldn’t be asking for the explanation again.
One of the things that interests me about Pyrrhonism is the aversion to dogma and acceptance of uncertainty/provisionality.
More seriously though, most people are not well read on their own religion. They will hear what their parents and neighbors say, sometimes what a priest or preacher tells them, and that’s it.
Preach it, Brother UCS. Cultural Catholic that drifted away as a kid because I knew better and being irreligious is popular in my hometown and state. Despite being raised in a supposedly religious family, I’ve realized how shallow and lacking my religious education was and how much richness was left out. Very sad. Thanks to my wife and all you fine Glibs, I’d describe myself as a Christian again, although not a Catholic. I feel sympathetic to catholicism and it’s familiarity, but there are many areas where I am not willing to submit nor do I feel the church itself is all that Catholic these days either.
Commie Pope isn’t a great recruiter huh?
Despite not being RC as a yout I was enrolled in the local Catholic School for a number of years because of the low standards in the public schools. (Back in the 60’s.) My parents told me to keep my ears open, discuss issues respectfully, and maybe I would learn something that would help me deal with others as an adult. (They assumed I would be staying in heavily RC southern AZ and not flitting around the world in the Army.)
Tucker had Immaculee Ilibagiza on his long form show the other day. She, on the other hand, does a wonderful job of sharing her faith. Truly amazing how she survived the Rwandan genocide. Not just the actual surviving, but mentally and spiritually despite losing her family and being in personal danger for three months.
Commie Pope ain’t all that popular: https://unherd.com/2023/02/inside-the-catholic-civil-war/
I dunno, Brother Gustave. Oregon is like a mirror version of Tennessee, and it wouldn’t surprise me to run into a coven of snake handler, or at least the Mennonite branch of them.
Yes, there is that side. I should also say that outside of the secularist hot spots, the state is pretty religious. Actually the state is very religious, it’s just not very churched. The religion is political.
That kind of brought to mind the latest obsession with racial injustice in this state, which is really a newer phenomenon. The anti Catholic bias, which was the focus of the KKK and of the Democratic establishment of the time, is more long running and now completely memory holed.
Ragnarok. Now that is some kind of religious endgame. The Eddas for the W. Yes they were transcribed later and by an at least partially hostile assembler, but what a happening.
Local distillery here named their rye Ragnarok. Sounds like a good excuse for nightcap.
My husband’s sister, whom he has cut off, has apparently instructed her 50something husband to send a friend request to my 19yo XX. Like that’s not creepy at all. We ALL know the sister’s trying to get to my husband but using a young girl is not the way to do it.
Drama. I HATE drama.
Why did he cut her off?
She’s a user, starts drama for the sake of drama, and called him and me a few nasty names on Facebook publicly.
My now nephew in law thought his now wife, my niece, was in love with me. It is weird how families are.
So your saying you’re taking bids for the 19 year old XX?
W00t! My alma mater heading to the Beanpot finals.
Oddly, first Harvard v. Northeastern final in the 70 years of the tourney.
Be careful. I hear some of their women players are dudes.
Way back in the day, when woman’s hockey wasn’t super common, I partied with a bunch of the NU women’s hockey players – they were a lot of fun.
I had an “almost” with a really cute girl from Canada and we chatted quite a bit – she grew up playing with her brothers and just loved hockey. She said it was something like 50/50 for gay/straight on the team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDdOnl0bHO4&ab_channel=JoanOsborneVEVO
I gave up on religion at about age 17. My preacher wanted me to go to divinity school. And I was ready. I taught Sunday school to the neighbor kids. But my thinking changed. Ain’t never looked back.
I especially hate the equivalence some people make regarding morality and religion. I have known plenty of religious people who were more than amoral [looks at the furnace repairman from our church who tried to bed my mother after fixing our furnace].
I gave up on religion as my faith grew stronger. Especially a protestant upbringing. If God is personal, why do I need a priest/pastor/father to channel my relationship. Now doesn’t mean spiritual guidance isn’t necessary, just that the connection doesn’t need the middle man.
I respect that.
To your point, man is flawed. Slapping a religion on someone doesn’t fix them. It may help, but some like the status and not the behind the scene mess it takes to uphold that status.
Gustave’s response to agency’s request for comments:
Fuck you. Stick to your goddam purpose, stop empire building and increasing costs. If you had any sort of personal honor, you’d withdraw your predetermined proposal/kabuki feedback and commit seppuku. Since you don’t, you should be swinging from a lamppost pour encourager les autres.
Tem uns dias que eu acordo
Pensando e querendo saber
De onde vem o nosso impulso
De sondar o espaço
A começar pelas sombras sobre as estrelas
E de pensar que eram os deuses astronautas
E que se pode voar sozinho até as estrelas-las-las-las
(There are days that I wake up
Thinking and wanting to know
Of where comes our impulse
Of exploring space
To begin with the shadows over the stars
And think that they were astronaut gods
And that one could fly alone to the stars)
Ou antes dos tempos conhecidos, conhecidos
Vieram os deuses de outras galáxias-xias-xias-xias
Ou de um planeta de possibilidades impossíveis
(Or before known times, known
Came the gods from other galaxies
Or from a planet of impossible possibilities)
E de pensar que não somos
Os primeiros seres terrestres
Pois nós herdamos uma hernaça cósmica
Errare, errare humanum est
(And to think that we are not
The first living beings
Well, we have inherited a cosmic inheritance
To err is human)
Jorge Ben – Errare Humanum Est
Nothing new under the sun. Though Jorge said it more eloquently
I’m an ignorant agnostic who’s understanding of the denial of God is more thorough.
As of late, I have found those arguments more and more lacking, even if just from a utilitarian perspective. Bearing witness to man’s inhumanity to man has had an effect on me.
I was largely turned off from religion as a teenager because of the constant appeals to fear and emotion that existed in the Baptist churches I attended.
Wakey wakey peeps.
🍩☕
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/orlando-man-accused-of-conspiring-with-woman-to-disable-baltimore-power-grid
Nazis.
Nazis.
Nazis.
*yawn*
Thank goodness. For a second there I thought hate was winning.
“Hate cannot win”?
Sure it can. Looking at history, I might even say that’s the way to bet.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/video-shows-brutal-beating-of-teen-outside-high-school-in-jurupa-valley/
He should try being trans. The FBI would show up.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article272062777.html
Cloud angels. On topic.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h_m-BjrxmgI
Acoustic Tuesday. 🎶🎶
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/familys-chiefs-kingdom-light-show-is-a-sparkling-display-of-team-spirit
Sports ball fans…
Someone hasn’t got around to taking down the Christmas lights.
Mornin’ Sean.
😉
Morning.
Good morning, Shirley, Sean, U, Roat, Ssccrruuffyy, and Stinky!
I have my annual checkup this morning at 7:30, so I can’t hang out with you all very long. 🙁 Luckily, the doctor’s office is right around the corner. It’s easily close enough to walk, but since I know they’ll slap the blood pressure cup on me as soon as I sit down, I’ll drive.
I’m also supposed to be be “fasting,” (i.e., no food for 12 hours beforehand,) so I’m sipping my morning coffee black. I don’t like black coffee. 😖
“cup” s/b “cuff.”
Too much blood in my caffeine stream.
Boy who shot teacher allegedly tried to choke another
A mystery only an Agatha Christie detective could solve.
What kind of six year old are we talking about here? Jesus.
I ran into a couple of kids who must have been bad seeds when I was coming up through grade school but I don’t recall them ever trying to choke out a teacher.
I wonder if his name is Corn Pop.
I think old Corn Pop was a hero who was just getting tired of Biden showing up at the local pool and letting kids play with the blonde hair on his legs. Maybe he didn’t move the predator on to the next neighborhood but at least he tried.
A six year old choked a teacher until she couldn’t breathe? Something is off, there. Even if he got the jump on her as she describes.
Ah, the joys of kids returning to school in winter.
I’ve got my first virus of 2023.
See, those Baptists were right. God has an infinite supply of punishments for unbelievers.
The Stupid Party is still stupid.
https://news.antiwar.com/2023/02/06/republicans-pressure-biden-to-send-more-advanced-weapons-to-ukraine/
Stupid stupid stupid.
What are they going to do when the Russians win this dam thing?
They’ll move on to the next one and by the next one I mean China.
Make more weapons!
It’s no longer left vs right or Republicans vs Democrats when it comes to this issue, it’s grifters and lunatics and profiteers vs people who want no part of this but the grifters and lunatics and profiteers have the upper hand.
It’s surreal to start a workday without a backlog of emails awaiting my attention.
“the moral [sic] cannot fathom the mind of the divine.”
This seems so patently obvious that I didn’t know anyone disagreed with it. Likewise, using logic games to prove or disprove His existence. Kind of by the definitions of “supernatural” and “omnipotent” logic isn’t something that a being described by either of those is bound by.
God does/doesn’t exist. My models say so.
Sigh. I have a lot to say on this topic (logic, supernatural, omnipotent). I hesitate for fear of causing offense. I’m pretty sure the small gay contingent vastly outnumbers the strong atheist contingent.
Mornin’, reprobates!
You too, UCS, that was an excellent read to start my day.
Morning. and thank you.
Good morning, ‘patzie!
The doctor’s office waiting room has nice relaxing “spa”-style music and a screen saver of tropical fishies on the TV. Much better for my blood pressure than the news.
Used to be they had to provide real fishies for that sort of service.
And for medical offices, the fishies had to be state-licensed.
Nice. Docs here tend to have News12NJ on heavy rotation, and lately I am spending way too much time in Drs. offices. Thank $deity for mobile phones.
Pipe tobacco for unbelievers. Enjoying a bowl of Miskatonic Mixture with my mornig Covfefe.
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/cornell-diehl/?tag=4542