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back to top75 Comments to “Whirled Views 10.9”
“What are you doing on the computer, Grandpa?”
“I am reading WorldMagBlog, Random Granddaughter.”
“What is that?” Grandpa?
“It is a place where Christians talk to each other.”
“Why do they talk to each other, Grandpa?”
“They remind each other of what they believe.”
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Benjamin Franklin who also suffered from gout as I recall.
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Random – that’s an interesting assesment. And a good one.
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Thank you, Klasko, but it is only fair to warn you that I am sometimes up to mischief.
In the meantime, #10 of my series on Ben Kearnan’s book on the history of genocide, Blood and Soil.
My classical education is woefully lacking. I never learned Latin. I never read Julius Caesar or Virgil.
In Blood and Soil, Kearnan describes aspects of classical Rome that surprise me, and claims to discover roots of modern ideas I had never imagined.
For example, until recent times, it was a common belief among athletes that they should not engage in sexual relations on the eve of a big sports competition.
The Roman general and senator Cato, one of the earliest ideologues of genocidal thinking, discouraged his soldiers from engaging in sex very frequently. He thought too much sexual activity sapped martial enthusiasm.
Juliu Caesar not only proclaimed, Veni, Vidi, Vici [“I came, I saw, I conquered”], but also completely exterminated some Germanic tribes that irritated him while he was about it, according to Kearnan.
I never got around to reading Virgil’s Aeneid. Kearnan parses it as as not only a great poem full of literary irony, but also as a justification of Rome’s genocidal extermination of Carthage.
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My email this morning contained the following joke:
Presidential candidate, Barack
> Obama was visiting a primary
> > school and he visited one of the classes. They were in the
> > middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.
> > The teacher asked the presidential candidate if he would
> > like to lead the discussion on the word ‘tragedy.’
> > So our illustrious democratic presidential candidate asked
> > the class for an example of a tragedy.
> > One little boy stood up and offered: ‘If my best
> > friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a
> > tractor runs over him and kills him that would be a
> > tragedy.’
> > ‘No,’ said Obama, ‘that would be an
> > accident.’
> > A little girl raised her hand: ‘If a school bus
> > carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone
> > inside, that would be a ‘tragedy.’
> > ‘I’m afraid not,’ explained Obama.
> > ‘That’s what we would call great loss.’
> > The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Obama
> > searched the room. ‘Isn’t there someone here who can
> > give me an example of a tragedy?’
> > Finally at the back of the room, Little Johnny raised his
> > hand. In a quiet voice he said:
> > ‘If the plane carrying you and Mrs. Obama was struck by
> > a ‘friendly fire’ missile, and blown to smithereens
> > that would be a tragedy.’
> > ‘Fantastic!’ exclaimed Obama. ‘That’s
> > right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?’
> > ‘Well,’ says the boy, ‘It has to be a tragedy,
> > because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss…and it
> > probably wouldn’t be an accident either.’
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Random – “Thank you, Klasko, but it is only fair to warn you that I am sometimes up to mischief.”
Yes, but I’ve seen your mischief. It’s relatively harmless, so I’m comfortable with it.
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Yesterday, I asked anyone who was undecided about their vote for President to email me. I said I would preserve their anonymity. Two people emailed me. Both are conservative Christians. I used this phrase as a description and not an insult. One has stated their views briefly in public postings. The other wrote to me as follows:
I do not care for McCain and his policies. The Bush administration has been irresponsible in its lack of spending restraints, its growth of government, the whittling away of civil rights in the name of “Homeland Security,” and in the invasion of Iraq. If McCain is elected, I expect four more years of Bush-like spending and policies, and I am not willing to lend my support to such an administration. I also think that Palin is woefully inexperienced and not at all prepared to be Vice President of the U.S., let alone President.
While I think some of Obama’s proposed policies might work if he is elected, I think he’s also a pretty typical Democrat in his support for big government and for abortion on demand. Our society’s failure to protect the truly helpless, i.e., unborn babies in the womb, is too big an issue for me to be able to vote for Obama.
Months before McCain became the Republican nominee, I said that I would vote third party before I would vote for McCain. So I’m feeling kind of stuck. I call myself “sort of undecided” because I haven’t decided yet for whom I will vote – or IF I will vote for a presidential candidate (the third party candidates are all pretty “out there”). I only know that I’m not planning to vote for either major party candidate.
I edited slightly for length and left out less relevant comments, but did not change meaning or intent, I think.
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R O F L @ # 5
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NJLawyer, as to your question from yesterday, I was at a three-hour rehearsal for marching band, and then I went to Youth Group. While incredibly fun, it didn’t leave me any time to watch the debate.
Please pray for our marching band. The FHS Marching Invitational is this Saturday, and we still have a lot of work to do.
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Obama and ACORN, a couple of nuts from the same tree?
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/09/what-does-obama-know-about-acorn-fraud/
“Investors Business Daily asks what Barack Obama knows about the epidemic of voter fraud in ACORN, and it’s not an unfair question. Not only has Obama publicly endorsed ACORN, he has paid them at least $800,000 for their services, an amount that he didn’t immediately disclose until pressed. ACORN has responded in kind, with their voter-registration efforts that have resulted in criminal investigations in more than a dozen states.
Barack Obama helped run an ACORN unit, represented them as an attorney, and is now a client of ACORN. He needs to answer for their fraudulent tactics. His money helped fuel the organization, after all, and there is little doubt that they are working on his behalf. Their fraud intends to get him elected President. Will he denounce it, and demand prosecution? Or will he keep pretending that he doesn’t know them?”
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2008/10/isnt-it-magical.html
“Barack Obama is now apparently denying his ties with Acorn. Here’s what he’s posted on the subject at his “Fight the Smears” website. These claims are contradicted by several sources, a number of which I linked to in my piece, “Inside Obama’s Acorn.”
“Perhaps the strongest evidence against Obama’s attempt to deny his ties to Acorn comes in an article by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago Acorn leader, and a member of Acorn’s National Association Board, in the journal Social Policy. That article appears on pages 49-52 of the combined Winter 2003-Spring 2004 issue, Vol. 34, No. 2, Vol. 34, No. 3. I provide a link to a pay-for-access page to that article in my “Inside Obama’s Acorn” piece. As I’ve just been informed by a reader, however, the journal Social Policy appears to have pulled the link to that article, rendering it inaccessible, even by purchase. You can find the apparently pulled link here.
A link to a second article also appears to have been pulled here.”
If there’s nothing to hide, why cleanse the info from being publicly accessible?
Obama and voter fraud, perfect together.
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Kind of like Bill Ayers only a “Guy in the Neighborhood”? or being under the spiritual leadership of Jeremiah Wright for 25 years and saying that he never heard Rev Wright preach a racist sermon? Acorn falls in the same category as the above AJ. Obama is dishonest and not trustworthy. The DNC wants me to trust such a man with the Nuclear Football? I do not think so.
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I’ll pray for the band, OT. I was only teasing.
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I have a comment for “Whirled Views” offering an answer from the internet itself. I just had a letter posted on one of the most widely circulated web sites in the Arabic world called “The Black Iris of Jordan” (black-iris.com/) under the blog heading “Could the Internet Debunk the Bible?” It is posted under my web site (Memoirs of an American Teacher: From Iran to Sudan) which may have given it a better chance to be included since the site in Arabic and English usually is not favorablle to a defense of Christanity. I keep up with my former areas of service on the internet. Today there is no better way to reach Muslims than through all forms of the media. Face to face contact is often impossible and I have given subscriptions of magazines including WORLD, to people in other countries in the past,(Sudan and Finland) for example.
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NJLawyer, spreadin’ the hate.
Thanks for your funny funny joke about assassinating a presidential candidate and regarding death with indifference, NJLawyer. That’s a real hoot!
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Reposted from Tuesday’s WV, where I posted it late in the day and said I’d repost it later…
Remember our long-term atheist poster ed, who loved to come on here and try to push Christians’ buttons (by calling God “the sky daddy” and stuff like that, sometimes blasphemous)? For those of you new to the site, or who have forgotten him: Many of us witnessed to him through the years, and prayed for him and told him we were praying for him. He’d argue about evolution and the Bible and anything to do with God, and gently (or angrily) Christians would answer all his questions. And he was “addicted” to this site and would try to leave but would soon be back where people loved him in spite of everything. Finally he got nasty on purpose and basically begged Lynn to ban him because he knew he couldn’t leave on his own, and I think that’s what happened.
Anyway, when ed was leaving us, I promised him that from time to time I’d remind this site to pray for him. I’ve been lax in that, but I do think we need to keep praying for him. Ed didn’t seem to be his real name, but it was his “handle” and God knows who he is. He did occasionally post under a different handle, and probably did so briefly on this site a few weeks back, but there doesn’t seem to be any sign of him in any current poster. But he may well “lurk” here. Anyway, please pray for ed today.
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People who barbecue babies have nothing to say, ghoulboy.
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I’m going to pray for NJLawyer. She needs it more than Ed does.
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#14
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StuBob: I’m sure you find the idea of the violent deaths of Obama and his wife to be amusing also.
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#16: Wha?
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I see that nothing significant will happen on this thread the rest of the day.
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Steveg: Well, YOU tell us. Since you support the butchering of children in large numbers, presumably you are an expert in such things.
So which gives you the greatest rush, Steveg, barbecueing babies – or sticking a sharp steel instrument up into their brains and then sawing them up and throwing the still quivering pieces into a waste bin?
Your Messiah, Barack Obama, is especially fond of the latter form of entertainment – or, even funnier to you I suppose, is that if that ‘procedure’ is botched, why then jam the crying squirming child into a plastic bag, pour in bleach, and seal it.
Hah. I bet you get a big kick out of thinking about THAT, don’t you?
It is quite amusing, really, to see the bag flop around for a short while on the table, until eventually the little futile jerking motions get less and less, and then it just lies still, the rush is over.
A real hoot.
This is what happens, Steveg. This is what you and yours like.
This is what you support. This is what you DO, by extension.
This is what you are.
So.
You tell us.
What is YOUR preferred ‘method’?
I am curious, in a nauesated sort of way.
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I dont hate or even dislike Barack the person. But his affiliations and policy recommendations are equally frightening. Nevertheless I am going to pray for him and the success of his presidency should he be elected.
I just wish someone would wake up McCain.
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#21 Yes Chas, dittos on your remark.
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Drill must have taken his “Personal Attack” pills instead of his “Funny Shtick” pills today. So much for blog rules.
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NJL-
That’s a rerun spam from years ago. Here’s the original:
George W. was visiting a Florida elementary school while a fifth grade class was in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked Mr.Bush if he would like to lead the class in the discussion of the word “tragedy.”
Mr.Bush asks the class for “an example of a tragedy.”
One little boy stands up and offers, “If my best friend, who lives next door, was playing in the street and a car came along and ran over him, that would be a tragedy.”
“No,” says George W. “that would be an accident.”
A little girl raises her hand. “If a school bus carrying 50 children drove off a cliff, killing everyone involved, that would be a tragedy.”
“I’m afraid not,” explained George W. “that’s what we would call a Great Loss.”
The room goes silent. No other children volunteered.
Mr.Bush searches the room, “Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?”
Finally, in the back of the room a small boy raises his hand, in a quiet voice he says, “If you and your lawyers, Mr.Bush were to be eaten by a pack of hungry 20 foot alligators, that would certainly be a tragedy.”
“Fantastic,” exclaims George W., “that’s right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?”
“Well,” says the boy, “it must be a tragedy, because it wouldn’t be an accident, and it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss.”
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The following appeared in a bulletin on MySpace. I have no further information about the author. It’s a good reminder of the struggles some people have to go through.
=====
MY NAME IS FIBROMYALGIA…WALK IN THESE SHOES..REPOSTED
My Name is Fibromyalgia
by Terri Been
Hi …. My name is Fibromyalgia, and I’m an Invisible Chronic Illness. I am now velcroed to you for life. Others around you can’t see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me. I can attack you anywhere and anyhow I please. I can cause severe pain or, if I’m in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over.
Remember when you and Energy ran around together and had fun? I took Energy from you, and gave you Exhaustion. Try to have fun now! I also took Good Sleep from you and, in its place, gave you Brain Fog.
I can make you tremble internally or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal
Oh, yeah … I can make you feel anxious or depressed, too. If you have something planned, or are looking forward to a great day, I can take that away, too.
You didn’t ask for me. I chose you for various reasons: That virus you had that you never recovered from, or that car accident, or maybe it was the years of abuse and trauma.
Well, anyway, I’m here to stay!
I hear you’re going to see a doctor who can get rid of me. I’m rolling on the floor, laughing. Just try. You will have to go to many, many doctors until you find one who can help you effectively.
You will be put on pain pills, sleeping pills, energy pills, told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given a TENs unit, get massaged, told if you just sleep and exercise properly I will go away, told to think positively, poked, prodded, and MOST OF ALL, not taken as seriously as you feel when you cry to the doctor how debilitating life is every day.
Your family, friends and coworkers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and that I’m a debilitating disease.
Some of them will say things like “Oh, you are just having a bad day” or “Well, remember, you can’t do the things you used to do 20 YEARS ago”, not hearing that you said 20 DAYS ago.
Some will just start talking behind your back, while you slowly feel that you are losing your dignity trying to make them understand, especially when you are in the middle of a conversation with a “Normal” person, and can’t remember what you were going to say next!
In closing, (I was hoping that I kept this part a secret, but I guess you already found out) … the ONLY place you will get any support and understanding in dealing with me is with Other People With Fibromyalgia.
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My oldest child will be 13 tomorrow.
Her feet are the size mine were when I got married.
My 7 y/o asked yesterday what would be going on in 6 years (I have no idea why). The oldest grinned and said she might be married then.
Oy.
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ABC News is reporting the paranoid liberals were right. The government HAS been spying on innocent Americans.
Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans
U.S. Officers’ “Phone Sex” Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers
By BRIAN ROSS, VIC WALTER, and ANNA SCHECTER
Oct. 9, 2008—
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations “extremely disturbing” and said the committee has begun its own examination.
“We have requested all relevant information from the Bush Administration,” Rockefeller said Thursday. “The Committee will take whatever action is necessary.”
Read more at the link above….
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They’re allegations, Lumpy, not proof of anything.
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Congrats, Mom. Two of my kids became teenagers this year, and the third becomes one next year. Should be an experience!
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Drill at 22 — I thank you for the support. You’ve caught my feelings on the subject well. I don’t have your turn of phrase, especially when I am in shock, and I AM still in shock over the barbecue remark and its supporters. So, thank you, for post 22. A great response to the truly callous.
Outkast, my sister’s lament when her kids were teenagers was to tell me “When they were little, they came to me for all the answers — they thought I knew it all. Now I don’t know anything. God bless the parents of teenagers.
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28. Getting to be the same size as your mother is great. You both suddenly have twice as many clothes. Of course I was lucky my mom had good taste. That is not always the case.
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They sure sound credible to me, Weaky.
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NJLawyer: Were you meaning to lump me into the barbecue remark? Because if you were, I demand you retract your slander. I didn’t make the remark, nor did I comment approvingly on it. I had nothing to do with it.
Meanwhile, your contempt for Obama based on his pro-choice position does not excuse your unChristian chortling over the prospect of his death.
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RPN/Godlumps: Since you, too, like butchering children via abortion (enabled and celebrated by your Messiah, Obama), why don’t you tell the audience here at WMB what YOUR favorite method of dispatching the nasty little squirming lumps of tissue is:
1) barbecueing?
2) impaling and sawing (Obama’s fave-rave)?
3) or the always attention-getting bag full of bleach?
Note, Godlumps, this is merely a sparse clinical description of what goes on in an abortion clinic – where people of like mind to you (i.e. Obama supporters) pursue their bloody business.
Or do you prefer some other even more entertaining method that you might care to describe?
And as an afterthought, what do you feel is unethical (by the terms of WMB rules or candid dialog) about an unadorned clinical description of an ‘activity’ you so enthusiastically support – via your servile and fawning worship of Obama, the man who is the murder industry’s favorite politican?
Do you mean to tell us that you are bothered by what your Messiah represents?
If so, good.
You should be.
If not, stop trying to shut down clinical descriptions of what you support.
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Lighten up, SteveG. I’ve heard that joke told on both Clinton and Bush.
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What in the world are you talking about Drill? You’ve made several strange leaps today, my friend. Have you stopped beating your wife?
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Astroturfing again under your new name?
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Re #5 and #37,
I’m not sure if I’ve heard it before told on Clinton or Bush or anyone else, but I consider it in poor taste regardless of who it’s told on. (Though I might have made an exception for someone like Saddam Hussein.)
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Kalsko, my dear! No more than AJ or NJL
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What happened to that child was murder, plain and simple. Anyone who was not outraged, anyone who failed to show that child compassion is a sick ghoul. I learned more about the pro-choice people from that thread than I have ever cared to know. They have the heart of a Mengele.
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I hope no one has missed the point of the tragedy joke. It isn’t about killing a president. It is about the president thinking he is so high and mighty that the deaths of the others are of no consequence.
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NJLawyer,
I didn’t get that as the point of the joke because there is disagreement as to whether the word tragedy should be applied to any and all deaths (similar to the disagreement over how the word hero is used much more widely these days, to cover actions that are certainly noble but would not have been considered rising to the level of heroism in an earlier age). If every death is a tragedy, then the word tragedy becomes little more than a synonym for death.
I have no idea how Obama feels about that word, or about the deaths of others (I realize he doesn’t think the deaths of unborn children are of great consequence, but that’s a separate issue), but there are people who do care greatly about the deaths of others but don’t think that the word tragedy should be applied to all of them.
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NJL posted a joke and the ever-sensitive SteveG took exception. RPN posted the same joke, exchanged Bush for Obama, and SteveG doesn’t say a thing. hmmmmmm…..
Personally, I think it’s funny.
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It is interesting you mention Mengele, NJLawyer. Project T4 was a program that Mengele was heavily involved in before he entered into the service of Austria’s favorite ghoul. Project T4 was heavily involved in abortion and forced sterilization of women along with medical experiments on people with disabilities and the aged. Project T4 in Nazi Germany laid the foundation for the Holocaust.
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Pauline #44- I think the idea of the joke is not to make all deaths seem like tragedies, only accidental deaths.
I think we can narrow down who RPN/Lumpy used to be by his comment in #34 in response to Outkast: They sure sound credible to me, Weaky.
I believe he is referring to the name Outkast used to use: Weekenderman. Lumpy has not been around long enough to know that one, unless he took the time to read the archives from a year or so ago. Who used to call Outkast Weaky a lot? I cannot remember.
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I love guilt by association even the Wall STreet Journal likes it;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122350949805717257.html?mod=rss_Today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSiiuYuHxUA
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RPN – I am not your dear. Please don’t be so condescending.
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Obama’s “Change” on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=yYEiwR2KklM
Watch this short video and tell me what you think;
Is Obama similar to Fidel Castro or not?
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TJ has an interesting video on his “Garney Bridge” blog. It’s about a woman who survived an abortion. I notice KLasko liked it too. Mumsee, I thought about you when she was farmed out to a family that didn’t love her.
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Friends:
Back to the issue of America’s supposed “Christian Heritage.” This has to do with the way the Bible is supposed to interact with civil government. Out of all of the colonial charters, Roger Williams’ was the first to give us religious liberty and government that was, in principle, secular. Secular meaning religiously neutral; as government is with race, so it is with religion. Though America is demographically predominantely white, we DON’T go around calling America a “White Nation” or taking pride in racial heritage (at least we ought not).
Hence my problem with the David Barton types. Take for instance, his affidavit submitted in the Ten Commandments cases. Barton waxes nostalgic about the colonial era when the Ten Commandments were incorporated into the civil laws. Barton notes that only Roger Williams’s Rhode Island distinguished between the (his words) “so-called” first and second tablets, “every other early American colony incorporated the entire Decalogue into its own civil code of laws.”
And he gives examples of laws based on the first four commands of the “so-called” first tablet.
A subsequent 1641 Massachusetts legal code also incorporated the thrust of this command of the Decalogue into its statutes. Significantly, the very first law in that State code was based on the very first command of the Decalogue, declaring:
1. If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other god but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. Deut. 13.6, 10, Deut. 17.2, 6, Ex. 22.20.
….
Have no idols.
24. Typical of the civil laws prohibiting idolatry was a 1680 New Hampshire idolatry law that declared:
Idolatry. It is enacted by ye Assembly and ye authority thereof, yet if any person having had the knowledge of the true God openly and manifestly have or worship any other god but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. Ex. 22.20, Deut. 13.6 and 10.
Putting people to death for worshipping false gods and having idols. Ah, the good old days.
Roger Williams, whom Barton seems to disparage for distinguishing between the first and second tablets of the Decalogue and incorporating only the more secular oriented commands like “do not kill” and “do not steal,” was the first Christian leader in America to establish religious liberty, separation of church and state (he actually coined a similar term), government that was secular in its essential functions, and Williams stated, “No civil state or country can be truly called Christian, although the Christians be in it.”
In other words, he rejected Barton’s notion of a “Christian Nation.” Well, Williams actually rejected Puritan Massachusetts John Winthrop’s (and John Calvin’s) notion of a “Christian Commonwealth” where people were put to death for among other things, heresy and worshipping false gods. For that, lucky he wasn’t executed, Williams was banished to found Rhode Island, where he made his vision of religious liberty and secular government a new experiment (and our Founders, in establishing our national government followed Williams’s vision, not Winthrop’s).
But, according to Barton, I guess Williams was wrong to distinguish between the “so-called” first and second tablets and not execute people for worshipping false gods and having idols. Such is, I suppose, what is demanded in a “Christian Nation.” After all, that’s the way it was in Puritan Massachusetts’s “Christian Commonwealth.”
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Friends:
My favorite example of David Barton’s distortionism is his affidavit submitted in the Ten Commandments cases. Barton waxes nostalgic about the colonial era when the Ten Commandments were incorporated into the civil laws. Barton notes that only Roger Williams’s Rhode Island distinguished between the (his words) “so-called” first and second tablets, “every other early American colony incorporated the entire Decalogue into its own civil code of laws.”
And he gives examples of laws based on the first four commands of the “so-called” first tablet.
A subsequent 1641 Massachusetts legal code also incorporated the thrust of this command of the Decalogue into its statutes. Significantly, the very first law in that State code was based on the very first command of the Decalogue, declaring:
1. If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other god but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. Deut. 13.6, 10, Deut. 17.2, 6, Ex. 22.20.
….
Have no idols.
24. Typical of the civil laws prohibiting idolatry was a 1680 New Hampshire idolatry law that declared:
Idolatry. It is enacted by ye Assembly and ye authority thereof, yet if any person having had the knowledge of the true God openly and manifestly have or worship any other god but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. Ex. 22.20, Deut. 13.6 and 10.
Putting people to death for worshipping false gods and having idols. Ah, the good old days.
Roger Williams, whom Barton seems to disparage for distinguishing between the first and second tablets of the Decalogue and incorporating only the more secular oriented commands like “do not kill” and “do not steal,” was the first Christian leader in America to establish religious liberty, separation of church and state (he actually coined a similar term), government that was secular in its essential functions, and Williams stated, “No civil state or country can be truly called Christian, although the Christians be in it.”
In other words, he rejected Barton’s notion of a “Christian Nation.” Well, Williams actually rejected Puritan Massachusetts John Winthrop’s (and John Calvin’s) notion of a “Christian Commonwealth” where people were put to death for among other things, heresy and worshipping false gods. For that, lucky he wasn’t executed, Williams was banished to found Rhode Island, where he made his vision of religious liberty and secular government a new experiment (and our Founders, in establishing our national government followed Williams’s vision, not Winthrop’s).
But, according to Barton, I guess Williams was wrong to distinguish between the “so-called” first and second tablets and not execute people for worshipping false gods and having idols. Such is, I suppose, what is demanded in a “Christian Nation.” After all, that’s the way it was in Puritan Massachusetts’s “Christian Commonwealth.”
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#53 Member of the choir, listening to the sermon.
It’s interesting that at least two people of wmb have told me that by the end of his life, Roger Williams was unwilling to join any church, as if this was a grievous fault. Truth be told, I think it’s fairly safe to say RW was a sincere Christian to his last day. Bless him.
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Pauline, not every death is a tragedy, but every situation in the joke was tragic. Again, this is about a person thinking he is so high and mighty that the other tragic deaths don’t rise to what he sees as his own superior importance. Only his death, in his opinion, warrants the word tragis as a description.
Joe B, I had not remembered all of Mengele’s experiments, so I am glad you brought T4 to light. Our own Resident Ghouls don’t see the likeness. I am also mindful of the Portrait of Dorian Gray.
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One wonders why it never occurred to the Resident Ghouls that the poor child, who was probably doomed because of its early “birth,” didn’t warrant even one ounce of human compassion. No hug, no blanket, nothing to ease the child’s death. Just bleach burns and suffocation and now the added indignity of joking about barbecue sauce and laughing about whether babies taste like chicken. It has been 24 hours and I am still disgusted by the Resident Ghouls.
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kool aid drinkers in Ohio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E
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My apologies this video has been referred by RPN on an other thread. Sorry for the double post.
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Thanks, Chas, for pointing us to the blog. Excellent video, and reassuring.
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RN,
If you haven’t already got it, Martha Nussbaum’s new book on religious liberty and equality has some outstanding in detail research on Williams. He was a bit of a religious nut even by orthodox standards. But his nuttery led to some outstandingly good ideas.
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Thanks, Jon. I have a pile of reading material and I am trying to get ready for retirement while the “Greater Depression” slides toward us, but I wil try to mix her book in once I finishe Denial of Death.
By the way, will you join me in celebrating the next Tame Tuesday”?
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My latest book review;
The Black Mass by John Gray
Brilliant so brilliant I read it twice. He describes the Enlightenment and its offspring’s visions of progress as merely the secularization of the Christian eschatology, positioning the New Jerusalem on earth. Like all utopian movements its adherents are so faith driven they become compelled to impose it by force. Thus, he compares the Reign of Terror and the Purges to the Crusades and the Inquisition. Of interest is the tracing of secular utopianism from the left to the right in the form of neo-conservatism. A good perspective on Thatcher as a neo-liberal reformer not a neo-con. For Gray, the neo con vision of a universal application of American liberal democracy is similar to the universalism of Christianity and Communism. He advocates for realism and the loss of utopia providing a tonic to those of us dismayed by the endless crusading and wars to end all wars, drugs and terror. And great to see Spinoza appreciated for the genius and forerunner that he was.
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I wish we could post pictures and video on here. I just saw a great set of pictures on dailykos:
Senator Obama: Lisa Simpson
Senator Biden: Principal Skinner
Senator McCain: Grandpa Simpson
Sarah Palin: Ralph Wiggum
Heh.
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Marilee – Thanks for sharing that.
There are various ailments or diseases that don’t “show” on the outside of a person too much. We should all be willing to give the benefit of the doubt to those who claim to be suffering, even when we can’t see why they’re suffering.
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Karen, re symptoms not showing: my family has bad knees. I’ve learned how to do things and really don’t have problems with them, but at least two of my brothers had had knee surgery at quite a few years younger than I am now. When I rode the Chicago buses, and especially the el train, I was glad to get a seat because the swaying of the train was absolute torture on my knees, and I needed those knees for walking down some fairly tricky steps once I got to my stop. I went far enough from the door not to get in the handicapped section, and I’d give up my seat to a little old lady. But overall, I wasn’t yet thirty but I was keeping my seat if I could do so without hurting someone else.
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What Karen O said to Marilee, and Cheryl as well.
My wife has had a crooked spine all her life and many back probems and neck problems as a result. Aside from the fact that she has put up with me for over 30 years (and I am more difficult evan than you think who read me here), she has always shown a great deal of courage and determination.
We will fight every other day, but I look forward to retiring with her.
Marilee, I admire your courage and cheer in the face of a difficult illness. Your posts are infrequent, and my beliefs are different, but I have a great deal of admiration for you.
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HRW a few weeks ago you listed some books on genocide. I didn’t keep the names. If you post them again, or email them to me at eman_modnar@yahoo.com, I would be most appreciative.
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“Tame Tuesday”
If that means not posting here on Tuesday, sure. The problem is Cheryl D probably wouldn’t approve; she enthusiastically looks forward to reading my posts every day that she probably would OBJECT if I skipped a day.
Cheryl and I also have an announcement to make: She’s agreed to edit my forthcoming book on Unitarianism and the Founding era.
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NJL…….one thing you need to understand about SteveG: He is an intelligent fellow, but he is a man of hatred towards God and of the unborn. Anybody disputing that just needs to read his posts here. That’s all you need to know about liberal athies.
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If slandering the commenter is now allowed at World, this is going to be a very slippery slope.
Mickey McLean, is this where you want World to go? You’re in charge.
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From dictionary.com
1. defamation; calumny: rumors full of slander.
2. a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report: a slander against his good name.
3. Law. defamation by oral utterance rather than by writing, pictures, etc.
Bottom line: to qualify as slander, the statement must be untrue.
Now, we are called to edify others by our speech. But we’re also warned away from those that are factious after a second warning.
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Theophilus: Wrong.
I have no hatred of God. This is apparently something that comforts you (and Outkast, who has said the same) to think, but the truth is only that I don’t share your beliefs about God. (I have my own … I am not an atheist … but they are not the same as yours.)
I have no hatred of the unborn.
I do not mind being the subject of varying opinions, but I really do not like being lied about.
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Theophilus,
I’m not sure what “liberal athies” are, but if you mean atheists, SteveG is not, from what I have seen of his posts over the months (years?).
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#69
Jon Rowe, I am confused. (This will come as a surprise to no one.)
Are you asking for a dispensation so you and Cheryl can work together on editing your book on Tuesdays? I don’t do dispensatons, nor do I do dispensationalism.
The End Times will arrive as soon as the DOW drops below zero.
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