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Holy cow! Can you believe it’s December already? Seems like we just rang in 2007 together!
Today’s movie quote: “I’m like the dumb girl that doesn’t get it. I’ve never been the dumb girl before. It ain’t so great.”
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back to top63 Comments to “Whirled Views 12.1”
Glad now to be home in Killeen Texas. We arrived and had a welcome home ceremony at Cav HQ Bldg. The welcoming general and chaplain were ea quite brief. We were at last dismissed and I rushed into Cindy’s arms. I have never hugged her or the girls as tightly as I did on that day.
I battle nothing now but a bad cold/aches& pains and lingering jet lag effects. Thanks to all who kept me afloat with prayers. You made a difference.
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On the quote? One of the candidates but I daresay not her.
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Sawgunner: Welcome back. I pray you heal quickly and can enjoy every minute.
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Welcome home sawgunner!
I, and others were indeed praying for you.
Lynn, you’re too young to start this “Seems like only yesterday, business.” My wife and I often say how it seems to whizz by, but time accelerates with age.
As a kid, you had a saying, “Slower than Christmas”. Seems last Christmas was yesterday.
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1 & 2 WELCOME HOME!!!!!
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Sawgunner/Brad – Welcome home! Your comment about hugging your wife & kids brought tears (happy ones) to my eyes. I always get choked up when I see the reunions of returning military people with their families.
God bless your Christmas.
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Sawgunner/Brad:
Before I ruin today’s Whirled Views with a long series of posts, I will congratulate you on your safe return and opportunity to be reunited with your family.
I disagree with most of the religion and politics here. I doubt that the invasion of Iraq is a good idea or will bring benefit to our country.
I admire and appreciate the service of you and your fellow American and ally soldiers.
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A1
This is a fairly long story. In wmb classic, I developed the habit of breaking long posts into several sections, in order to defeat the blog posting limit. I now maintain that habit when it is no longer necessary. In this case, I have two related themes, so I identify them not only with a number, but with a letter as well.
If a long comment irritates you, scroll on by without reading, or read every word and then complain loudly.
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A2
I recently read a book called A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization about the Book of Revelation in the Bible. This book begins by talking about a Bumper Sticker that says: I know the ending. God wins.
This bumper sticker made me think about Satan, aka the Devil. Thinking about the Prince of Darkness made me think about most of the bosses I have had over the years.
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B1
I have worked at many jobs. Some of the jobs were in private industry. Some were in the public sector. None of them have been very happy jobs; surely this represents a defect in me.
In most of these jobs the bosses were entrepreneurs. In some cases, I reported directly to the boss. In other cases, I was separated from the boss by one or more levels of management.
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B2
On a web site that considers private enterprise mostly good and the public sector mostly bad, many readers will object to the idea of entrepreneurs existing in the public sector. However, there are people with entrepreneurial personalities in the public sector; Arnold Schwarzenegger is an example.
In my experience, people with entrepreneurial personalities are very intelligent, creative, competitive, and hard working. They often see opportunities and possibilities where other people see barriers and problems. They tend to be bold risk-takers and are willing to act quickly and decisively while others dither or analyze.
They are also very hard on people around them to the point of being toxic personalities. As they are bright in many areas, they tend to consider themselves bright in every area. They have a hard time respecting opinions of others and have a tendency not to take advice or listen to cautions or warnings. They also have a tendency to surround themselves with “yes” people.
Entrepreneurial personalities create spectacular successes and spectacular failures.
One pop-psychology book aimed at entrepreneurial personalities address them this way in advertising for the book:
You like thrill, excitement and risk
You are a highly creative problem solver
You are impulsive in nature
You are ambitious and industrious
You have tons of energy for things you are interested in
You love to be the hero in an emergency
http://www.davincimethod.com/entrepreneur-test/
B2
On a web site that considers private enterprise mostly good and the public sector mostly bad, many readers will object to the idea of entrepreneurs existing in the public sector. However, there are people with entrepreneurial personalities in the public sector; Arnold Schwarzenegger is an example.
In my experience, people with entrepreneurial personalities are very intelligent, creative, competitive, and hard working. They often see opportunities and possibilities where other people see barriers and problems. They tend to be bold risk-takers and are willing to act quickly and decisively while others dither or analyze.
They are also very hard on people around them to the point of being toxic personalities. As they are bright in many areas, they tend to consider themselves bright in every area. They have a hard time respecting opinions of others and have a tendency not to take advice or listen to cautions or warnings. They also have a tendency to surround themselves with “yes” people.
Entrepreneurial personalities create spectacular successes and spectacular failures.
One pop-psychology book aimed at entrepreneurial personalities address them this way in advertising for the book:
You like thrill, excitement and risk
You are a highly creative problem solver
You are impulsive in nature
You are ambitious and industrious
You have tons of energy for things you are interested in
You love to be the hero in an emergency
http://www.davincimethod.com/entrepreneur-test/
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B3
Two of the most famous entrepreneurs of our time are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I have been in the physical presence of both of these men, (speaking rather loosely). I have heard Jobs speak as keynote speaker at a couple of conferences, though I was far back in a large hall. He is a dynamic speaker who presents himself with considerable persuasiveness. His career represents a typical mixture of spectacular success and spectacular failure: head of Apple computer twice; founder of the unsuccessful (though innovative) Next Computer in between.
In days before he became as big an icon as he is now, I heard Bill Gates (accompanied by a coterie of Microsoft management types) speak to a Macintosh users group in a small auditorium in Portland, Oregon. I had a challenging question for him, but I could not get myself recognized through the crowd of other people seeking to ask questions. (Eventually, I went up to the front where the management team were sitting and spoke to the then Microsoft marketing manager for Macintosh software. We almost got into a shouting match, so I withdrew from the conversation before I lost control of myself.)
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B4
I don’t know if there is any consistent pattern about entrepreneurial personalities in terms of their morality. Some are probably pretty good people; some are certainly fairly bad people. There are entrepreneurial Christians; Rick Warren might be one example. Predictably, not everyone (even among Christians) regards him with admiration.
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B5
I once worked for an entrepreneur who was trying to invent desktop publishing. The idea was good; the time was right, about the same time as Paul Brainard founded Aldus Corporation, coined the term “desktop publishing,” and led the creation of PageMaker, the first desktop publishing program.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/moneyshow/cover/122200.html
http://www.svpseattle.org/about
Ironically, Brainard took the money he made from selling Aldus to Adobe to found a network of organizations that tried to apply entrepreneurship of good deeds.
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B6
Unfortunately, the company I worked for failed spectacularly. Paul Jr., the founder of the company, was a very bright guy, but definitely had some failings. I was a minor member of management for this small company. (I have since sworn off management entirely as I am very ill-suited for it.)
(Besides being poor at telling people what to do, and poor at doing what managers tell me to do, I am not a natty dresser.)
Paul drank a lot. He irritated some of us because we would have a meeting, make a decision, and then Paul would retire to a bar after business hours with his close cronies and then under the influence of the grape or barley or whatever, make a new decision.
I know this because I was invited to a couple of these “decision drinking” meetings. It was typical that “Jr” would get rather high and then decide to drive himself home, speaking about how he hoped that he would not be stopped by a police officer. All the other management types present chuckled over his little joke and let him get in his car and drive home. As the most junior member of the management team present, I was chicken to try and take Paul’s keys away from him. You may chastise me for my long ago failure in courage if you wish. (It gets better in Section B9.)
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B7
There was a Paul Sr. “Senior” as we called him, worked for “Junior” as the sales manager. The Freudian implications of this entire arrangement struck me as amazing and monumental.
Sr. was a proponent of the “rah rah” school of salesmanship, where enthusiasm and positive thinking is believed to triumph all obstacles and carry the day against all foes. Zig Ziglar is one of the most famous examples of this mode of thinking.
http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/ziglar_zig/
Senior was married, but his wife lived in another city and only visited him infrequently. In the meantime, “Senior” showed an intense interest in young women who worked for the company. A friend of mine who also worked for the company told me that Senior informed her that he could advance her career if she worked closely with him. She was not interested and experienced negative comments not only from Senior, but others in the company. However, a young saleswoman in the company responded more positively, distracting Senior’s attention from my friend.
Senior’s interest in developing the subordinate’s career was so intense that he took her on a trip to Mexico with him. As we had no customers in Mexico, I am not sure what this had to do with company business, but I’m sure they found something to keep themselves busy.
As a chip off the old block side note, a credible source in the company told me that when junior (also married and father of small children) and two of his closest associates went on a business trip to Las Vegas, they took time to stop in at a brothel during their trip.
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B8
All of members of the company were white. While the company was developing its amazing software (which never came to be), they sold pre-press work to generate some income. One of their larger customers in terms of sales was a black minister. To his face, they were solicitous and respectful. In his absence they made various merry and disrespectful remarks about him and people of his race.
At one time, they discovered that their receptionist (a young white woman) had a black boyfriend. As she was down the little hierarchy, they made many sarcastic and disrespectful remarks to her face about black people.
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Welcome home, Sawgunner!
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B9
A frequent theme in the brilliant comic strip Dilbert is the conflict between sales people and engineers. I am far from an engineer, but in this company I played the role of the engineer. The basic plot of this little playlet is that the sales person makes impossible promises to customers and then berates the engineer who says the products or service cannot be delivered. When the engineer tells the sales person the sale is impossible to deliver, the sales person then berates the engineer for “negative thinking.”
As the supervisor of their pre-press production team, I was on several occasions directed to meet impossible deadlines. On one occasion several of us worked almost around the clock for about a week to produce a job that had been promised in 24 hours. At the end of our marathon, I bought a six pack of beer to celebrate our getting the job done and gave each team member a bottle. Paul walked in an started berating me for sharing alcohol with staff members and putting us at risk for possibly causing an accident.
Perhaps he was correct (I don’t know that I would do the same thing today), but the hypocrisy coming from the head of a company who routinely drove his car after drinking too much left me speechless.
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B10
When I ran (not very well) my own small pre-press company, I received some business from Mormon missionaries. From that experience, other experiences on other jobs and projects, and most recently from reading the worldmagblog web site, I am struck very strongly about the strong salesmanship component of proselytizing religions such as Christianity, Mormonism, and Islam.
The genius of a product such as Christianity is that it makes promises that can never be tested, evaluated, or disproven. No one has ever come back to demand a refund of their lifetime of tithing to say, “I never encountered that Heaven you kept promising me.”
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A3
I could go on, not only about this company but also about some of my other jobs and experiences with entrepreneurial personalities. I won’t.
My conclusion is that Satan is a very talented, very bright entrepreneur gone very bad.
This conclusion raises a disturbing question in my mind. Is it possible that Satan is illiterate? After all, if Satan could read, he would read the Book of Revelation and notice, as the bumper sticker so concisely (unlike me) summarizes:
I know the ending. God wins.
Because if Satan can read, he might notice how it all turns out in the end and spare himself all the trouble of the final battle (or battles) and just turn himself in and throw himself on the mercy of the court.
However, it may be that Satan is illiterate. There are many very bright illiterate people who achieve great success.
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A4
However, even if Satan can’t read, surely he has aides and assistants who can read. Surely the Anti-Christ, who has to be one of his top aides de camp is able to read.
I can envision the following conversation:
Anti-Christ: “Uh, boss, this book says we’re going lose this battle. Are you sure this is a good idea? [Bad idea?]
Satan: “Oh, AC, you’re just thinking negatively again. [Positively?] That Guy is not so big. He’s just tall, that’s all. If we really put our minds to it, we can take him. [All three of Him?]
The rest is history. It’s been written. It just hasn’t happened yet.
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A5
My final conclusion is that Satan is a very bad, mean guy. In fact, I think it’s reasonable to say:
Satan is meaner than the junkyard dog.
And if you laughed at any of this, you know where you’re probably going.
You can be sure Peter didn’t laugh one bit. Follow his example.
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I am sorry for several repetitions in my over long posting. It’s called stupidity in case you are wondering.
You won’t find any repetitive stuff in the Bible, will you? Goes to show the difference between good stuff and junk.
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RN,
I confess I laughed. But the reason I never tried to get my money back on my tithing is that every earthly promise God has made to me He has kept, so I consider that earnest for the heavenly;)
The entreprenurial personality is quite true of Ahhnold. I have been in his presense enough to know he would drive me nuts to work with. It would not go well. But as my govenor he’s innovative that’s for sure.
I’m not sure I made all the connections you did with the book you read and bosses, but they were interesting posts.
Oh, and Satan can read. He just didn’t get the Old Testament analogies so he thought the cross was his triumph. By the time he realized it was his utter defeat the handwriting was on the wall. It made hime meaner.
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#21 — “I could go on and on….”
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random name,
ROFL!!! :->
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Sawgunner,
Welcome home, thanks for your service, and thanks for talking with us while you were over there, reminding us to pray and care.
Last son, first batch expects to go over in the next couple of months. Brother in law expects to return home in the next few months. Friend’s son goes for a second turn in a few months. People go. People return. It is not easy.
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RN, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. ^_^
Since I got sucked out of the lurking woodwork, does someone want to tell me how to get an avatar?
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Sawgunner, welcome home! And with your sense of humor about you know who intact, no less. Fantastic!
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Random – Satan has the Hubris to want to be his own power/boss/god so badly that he convinces himself he can triumph.
Don’t you know people llike this? Their plans are clearly flawed & doomed, but the march industriously down their own little highway to hell anyway.
Perhaps Satan does know the end. And perhaps the fallen angels don’t have the ability to repent from their sins and gain foregiveness from God the way humans do. Satan may simply be playing out the drama to drag down as many other souls as he can, out of spite.
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krm post 31,
so God doesn’t have the hubris to want to be his own power/boss/God so badly that he convinces himself he can triumph?
It usually does not help to provide arguments which are totally symmetric UNLESS you want the argument to end in a draw.
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Yeah, Satan knows his end, but he keeps going in order to take as many with him as he can. He is in every worship service distracting the followers of his enemy. Sometimes those distractions are thoughts, sometimes the ugly hat of the little old lady in the pew ahead. Jesus said that Satan would try to deceive even the elect (chosen of God). Satan knows the elect cannot be taken from God, but he tries anyway.
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Welcome home Sawgunner. Random: You always make me laugh.
I havebeen so tired at night I really couldn’t get on here and post.
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Galadriel,
Here are the avatar instructions from WoW’s “Web Diva”:
1) Users will need to upload their avatar to gravatar.com. The email address they submitted with their login will be matched against gravatar.com to load their avatar.
2) The image will need to be 80×80 pixels saved as a 72dpi, RGB web ready .jpg or .gif.
3) WordPress (our site software) automatically updates this data every hour or so, so it may take a little while for their avatar image to appear with their comment.
There’s a step that’s easy to miss, once you’ve got your gravatar uploaded at gravatar.com. You have to select it (I guess because it lets you have more than one, and you have to tell it which one to use).
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Welcome Home, Sawgunner.
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Pauline,
I followed the steps you list, first with my original choice of picture, then to add a second choice. Both appear on the gravatar site, but here all I get is the gravatar.com logo. One of my pictures is gif & the other is jpeg, but they don’t meet the “80×80 pixels saved as a 72dpi” criteria [they are larger]. Is it possible to change that or do I need to search for a different picture?
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Random, Interesting thoughts, however, they are based on a faulty premise of God. God by definition is a/the Supreme Being even in the eyes of those who don’t really believe all that the Bible teaches about God. If He is not supreme then He is no longer God. Although it has always been one of Satan’s objectives, to overthrow God and take his place, the attempt failed in the beginning and I see no reason for it to succeed now (or any time in the future).
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Random:
Ditto what KRM said.
Satan doesn’t think God will pour out his wrath on his children. He thinks he is using God’s mercy against him. This is why he uses his power to trip us up. He thinks that as long as God’s children will not obey him, he still has a shot.
He wanted to be the Christ. He wants to be worshipped, and he still thinks he can win.
He doesn’t understand that his evil nature is being utilized to bring about the ultimate will of God.
He is being used. He just doesn’t understand that.
His actions are to punish God’s children who do not care enough about his Word to learn it. And the shame of that is, if they would learn it, Satan would have no power to punish them.
It reminds me of parts of Isaiah
“5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
6 I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.
8 For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings?
This history, IMO, also serves as an exact type-example
of the time when Satan and his angels are cast to the earth.
Is.Ch.14 ties all of this symbolism together.
There, The Assyrian, The King of Babylon, and Lucifer are all titles given to the same entity.
Assyrian- to be right
Babylon- Gate of God
Lucifer-bright morning star.
Need I remind you who the real bright morning..(as in the beginning of a day)..star is?
Rev.22:16
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Kayvee,
There are various tools that will let you modify a picture, including pixel size and dpi. My favorite is IrfanView, because it’s easy to use and it’s free. You can download it from http://www.irfanview.net/
You can change the resolution (dpi) under Image Information (it took me a long time to find that the first time because Information sounds like a place to just see info and not change it – and in this case Information is mostly just that, but it does let you change dpi. (So IrfanView isn’t completely user-friendly in that regard, but I still like it.)
You can change the image size (pixels) under Imagae Resize/Resample. In the Set new size section, select Pixels as the unit, and put 80 in each box.
I don’t remember if it makes any difference whether you change dpi or pixels first. I don’t think so. But I would save your new picture under a different name, in case you want to go back to the original and make different choices.
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Mr_Meanes is right again.
Satan knows lots of scripture, but doesn’t undrststand any. I Cor. 2:7-8, 11, 14, surely other places I can’t think of now.
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Musing – there is one large difference between God and Satan; God is the Creator and Satan is one of His creations. And they both know it. That ends any thought of symmetry in the argument.
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Pauline,
Thanks for your help
, I downloaded Irfanview and decreased the pixels & saved it under another name. Then I went to gravatar.com, loaded the new version and selected it. Now it’s wait & see time.
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#38
My faulty conception of God is that God and Satan are myths. If they are myths, than a frivolous deconstruction such as mine may tell us something.
On the other hand, if they are truth…well, that’s why most of you are here…you are sure they are true.
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Random:
Although I did laugh, I’m assured I am forgiven for it.
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It’s OK, Janie, I can live with your assurance.
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And Sawgunner? When I saw the news on #1, I applauded. Welcome home.
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Friends:
Some new quotations from America’s key Founders. As I’ve noted, the religion of men like Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin was more likely to present itself under the label of “Christianity,” not “Deism” (they were not, as secular leftists claim, “strict Deists”). However, given their “Christianity” rejected nearly every tenet of orthodox Christianity, like Mormonism, arguably their system of belief was not Christian, but needs another label. Some labels I’ve used to describe their creed is “Founding era unitarian-universalism,” “unitarian Christian heresy,” or what I think the fairest, “theistic rationalism.”
Here is Ben Franklin arguing true “Christianity” rejects original sin:
And here John Adams likewise rejects — or seems agnostic — on original sin:
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Good grief! No one’s guessed the movie quote (yet)?!?
It sounds familiar, but I am not sure.
Legally Blond?
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I googled it, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to accept a fizzy coke or a puppy, I just wanted to know. It’s from “Something’s Gotta Give”
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There is a thread which is unavailable to anyone without an entry code on this site. At this moment its between “Practical atheism” and “Abortion rate falls” – this has been going on for about 7 or 8 hours. Here is the line up.
So WHATS UP with this the empty thread?
Lord, lunatic, liar . . . or product of propaganda?
A deadly verdict
Rants! & Raves!
Practical atheism
- – - – - – - – -
Abortion rate falls
Gallup: Republicans report better mental health than others
Top News Roundup
Wolves in sheep’s clothing, Dems in GOP debate
August Rush
Keith Kerr: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Meditation 12.1 (December Special: Open for discussion)
4,000 flushes
Hitchens: Romney’s Mormonism fair game
Whirled Views 12.1
Are Evangelicals too committed to the Bible?
Risky writing
Celebrating the “other” Wesley
Pope criticizes modern-day atheism
Hillary at Saddleback
Meeting God on Christmas
Legally defining life
Does conservatism give Christianity a bad name?
Thinness next to godliness?
Materialism and faith demand equal measures (of faith)
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#44 If they are myths, then why waste your time in speculation? If the Bible is a fairy tale, then put it in the fiction category and move on with your life. Obviously you haven’t done that since you hang out on this site with many people who believe that the Bible is true. So what’s the attraction? I certainly wouldn’t hang out at a site where most of the people believed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were actual historical figures. It might be good for a chuckle a time or two, but after that it would just seem stupid.
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#52 Ajisuun
Essentially, you are correct. I am a slow thinker, so it takes me a while to get to the conclusion where I am headed, which is the conclusion you propose. I presume you are aware that starting in January I am going to take six months away from wmb, and quite likely will not return.
There are a variety of reasons why I have participated in wmb for several years. For one thing, when I was a child I was a compulsive reader, and read almost anything I found around me. We had a Bible, and I read most of that, and my reaction was This is not very interesting and this does not make much sense.
I did not get much religious instruction, though I was sent to a very orthodox synagogue for a brief time for religious instruction, much as many Christian children go to Sunday school. I’ve known secular parents who sent their children to parochial schools because even though they weren’t religious they thought their children should have some knowledge of and exposure to religious values.
Anyway, my negative reaction persisted through my brief formal religious instruction as well.
Most of my life I have dismissed religious belief in a casual way. At the same time I’ve felt a certain wonder–how is it that I do not experience a feeling that most human beings consider a core pillar of their life?
When I came upon wmb by accident, I felt an urge to explore religious belief and life a little more. Also, conservative Christians play a large role in the political life of our country–one of their guys has become our President. (At least a few of them are experiencing buyer’s remorse in regard to him.)
As I’ve gotten into it a little more deeply, my dismissal of religious belief, though still shallow by your standards, I am sure, has become a little more sophisticated and informed.
One of the notable traits of conservative Christians is a deep fear and loathing of homosexuality and homosexuals. As a public school teacher I observed that children fall easily into bullying and tormenting other children–a tendency brilliantly portrayed in the book Lord of the Flies.
I was appalled by this tendency and by how often it was turned against children who were perceived as “queer.” When my daughter chose to pair up with another woman, I was challenged a bit about whether or not I could live out my tolerant theories in practice in my own life.
The strong reaction to homosexuality among conservative Christians both fascinates and appalls me, both as a parent of a probably bi-sexual child and as a citizen.
Most of my life I have worked among diverse populations of people–diverse in skin color, diverse in religious beliefs, diverse in ethnic backgrounds, diverse in political beliefs and so on. Often, I am more able to get along with people who don’t get along with each other. Sometimes I fail spectacularly.
I also have thought when I grow up (unlikely to ever happen now that I am 63), I would like to follow a career as a humorist and satirist.
In terms of the last two comments, it was an interesting challenge to see if I could participate in a forum of religious believers, maintain fidelity to my own values while seriously considering and studying theirs, and maintain good relations. Also, they are often very funny, and I wondered if I could make them laugh while satirizing their values while not offending theirs.
I’ve had some success and some failure. For example, I’ve had good communication on the whole with people such as Pauline, Kim, VS, drill, Karen O, Chas, Lynn, and others. There are some people where the communication has been stiffer and more difficult, but at least a little common ground has been found and a modicum of respect established. CherylD, MakeItMan, Peter L, might be examples. (If they want to respond with “What do you mean ‘we’ White Man” I will apologize.)
In some cases we are completely unable to find accord. Two examples include Joel Mark, though he is not rude or disrespectful to me–we just disagree on everything–and Peter [Solon] where we have not only disagreement but tangible dislike.
Even in the case of Peter, when he explains that Jonathan Edwards is an ancestor and model for him that is interesting and informative for me.
I have also had interesting discussions with and read interesting and informative comments by atheists, agnostics, and homosexuals and other dissenters here–including people with “unorthodox” religious beliefs, including R Dean, Luke, Scroop Moth, Flaming Icarus, Coyote Blue, Anlir, Musing, and so on. In some cases, my communication with them has been almost as difficult as with some of the most difficult evangelical Christians. Notable example would be Nick Peters, Night Train, and Ed/Qwerty.
However, when you get right down to it, your comment It might be good for a chuckle a time or two, but after that it would just seem stupid seems apt. You neglected to mention that I am also crazy. Though on the other hand, you (plural) may be crazy also.
There was an old novelty song called “They’re Coming to Take Me Away.”
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/n/napoleonthe14thlyrics/theyrecomingtotakemeawaylyrics.html
I’m watching with interest whether they’re coming to take me away first or to take the rest of you away first. In your (plural) case, they would need a very large bus to take you away to the funny farm. So they’re probably coming for my first because they could squeeze me into the car with the circus clowns.
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Ajisuun post 52,
but of course our myths are very powerful, and therefore understanding our myths is critical to understanding our society.
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Victoria #51, I can’t figure out what thread you’re talking about, does it have a name? If not, how do you know it’s there? At this time [about 11 hours later than your post] neither of the top 25 lists matches your list or has a blank line, so I can’t guess what you mean.
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Random, It makes me sad that you haven’t been able to find anyone who can help you see the over-all picture from Genesis to Revelation so that it makes sense to you. I do realize that it is God, himself, who has to open our heart to understanding. I find it interesting that you stereotype christians as hating and fearing homosexuals. I have not found this to be true in my own experience and I know a lot of christians and quite a few homosexuals. I do know at least one christian I would catagorize in this way. Interestingly enough, he also has a mental illness that makes him generally paranoid anyway. Also, I do know some people who hate and/or fear christians, but a few don’t make all or most.
At any rate, I pray that you will eventually find Truth. If you do not believe that Truth exists than I suppose it would be better to find something more interesting, fun or profitable to do with you time.
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#56 KI
Thank you for your reply. It may be that the reason the “over-all picture…” doesn’t make sense to me it because it doesn’t make sense.
I also find it amusing on a web site where many people are much given to stereotyping, they are acutely sensitive to being stereotyped themselves.
When I write concisely, my remarks are picked apart for supposed flaws. I think it was an anonymous poster (probably BB/Beatrix) who accused me of being unable to develop or present a coherent argument.
When I take the time to explain myself carefully, I am accused of being prolix and long-winded. People at wmb are very fond of “heads I win, tails you lose” arguments (their coins always seem to have 10 heads)–the double-bind I just cited is only one of them.
I have for a long time taken great paints to indicate that I do not perceive every Christian here as identical in how they speak of and to homosexuals. I have indicated numerous times I make a distinction between those Christians who say “homosexuality is a sin like any other sin” and those who launch off on various rants and diatribes that often lose touch with good sense and reality.
Examples of the former include Kim (who gets a lot of flack here because she doesn’t quite toe the “party line” in every respect, Cameron, Pauline, and even Lynn herself.
I have seen the argument about “mental illness” presented here by several people. To my mind it is stupid and offensive. The fact that some can’t see the parallel with how Communists persecuted dissenters (including Christians) as mentally ill is quite sad.
I do know at least one christian I would catagorize in this way. Interestingly enough, he also has a mental illness that makes him generally paranoid anyway. Also, I do know some people who hate and/or fear christians, but a few don’t make all or most.
Without evidence to the contrary, I tend to accept what people say about themselves here. I accept that you and many you know don’t stereotype people in the way I have criticized. I don’t believe I do either, but you can decide for yourself.
At any rate, I pray that you will eventually find Truth. If you do not believe that Truth exists than I suppose it would be better to find something more interesting, fun or profitable to do with you time.
I think Truth exists, but I think it is very difficult to find and recognize, and we are often led astray and lead ourselves astray, and at most only get tiny, uncertain glimpses.
As a secular person, I tend to think the sociobiologists have some pretty good clues on what motivates human beings. The theory of the “selfish gene” makes a lot of sense to me. Our genes tell us our “purpose in life” is to reproduce ourselves. As very sophisticated animals , we have the ability to express and develop our basic biological impulses in very complex and interesting ways.
Humans are very good at reproducing. Although we are fairly uneven at caring for our children, most of us find carrying on our family tree as one of our main motivations for what we do. Although my daughter can’t have children (for physical reasons), I have been surprised by how much joy and enthusiasm she gets out of being a “co-mom.”
By the same token, although our granddaughter is not genetically linked to us, my wife and I respond to her growing personality and development with exactly the same interest and excitement and feeling of reward as many of you (many genetically linked) do to your own grandchildren.
I look forward to helping her parents raise her as a polite and ethical atheist. I look forward with aplomb if she turns out to be a religious believer, as long as her ethics and tolerance run in the Roger Williams tradition.
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“One of the notable traits of conservative christians is a deep fear and loathing of homosexuality and homosexuals.” I just thought that was a pretty broad statement and certainly does give the implication of meaning all conservative christians. I guess that means only liberal christians do not have that “trait”.
Are you really so surprised that you love your grandaughter without the genetic tie? I’m not. Millions of adotive parents and step-parents and grandparents would say the same. I’m glad you love your grandaughter. We all need someone who loves us and dotes on us.
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#58
KI, you are getting close to being disingenuous. As I said, if I am concise, I get blasted for being broad, as you just did–”pretty broad statement”.
I have been reading this site for several years and have probably read thousands of messages on the subject of homosexuality. The overall impression it makes is not a good one to me. I acknowledge–repeatedly–exceptions.
Humans are very influenced and swayed by genetic ties. Throughout history there has a huge emphasis on genetic relationships–inheriting land–inheriting kingdoms–etc. With all that smoke, I argue there’s some fire.
Human beings are very complicated. Our sociobiological tendencies are much mediated by culture and experience. I think our tendency to support and attach ourselves to relatives often generalizes into support and attaching ourselves to non relatives (in terms of genes) but who play the role of genetic relatives in our lives. This tendency, I suspect, has evolved over history in a cultural sense.
At the same time, one of the great fascinations and obsessions in our culture are tracking our “family trees.” Adopted children are fascinated and obsessed with finding their “real” parents.
All these phenomena are a complex mixture of culture and sociobiology. People frequently want to cling to a “simple” answer that obviates all the other causal factors.
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Why thank you for the kind words Random. I do have to say I am going to be so sorry to see you go on Sabbatical. Can you occassionaly pop in to tell us you are alive and pestering someone somewhere?
You know, just the other day someone mentioned missing LonChainey. I miss him too. We do have such a great group of people and we can agree and disagree most of the time without full fledged dagger throwing.
I personally was really impressed the other day when Lynn admitted that she was arrested for DUI when she was 19. Something like that makes a person so much more human. Probably the only reason I wasn’t arrested for a DUI at 19 is that I have always suffered from and “If anyone is going to get caught it will be me” complex. It’s not that I wouldn’t have done something like that but that I was to chicken to do it. Which all in all is a good thing. I have never drunkenly put anyone’s life at risk. Just recently I was in a car on a long trip when I fell asleep and woke up several hours later to find that the driver had killed a bottle of vodka. Oh so responsible me demanded she pull over and let me drive. But that is another story for another day.
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Kim, after a distasteful exchange with Peter Leavitt in another thread, it was refreshing to find your kind and interesting and candid message over here.
Don’t tell my wife I said it, but you are a cool chick.
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Kim is kinda cool isn’t she. And you can tell my wife I said it. I’m looking for someone who won’t make me take fish oil and eat something green every day anyhow.
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Darn, Chas, has your bride been talking with mine?
I swallow the fish oil in capsules, so they go down pretty easily. We grow much of our own green stuff, so there’s a kind of parental pride as I eat it. That sounds terrible.
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