Personal Musings category archive

Not the disproof of things seen.

Karen Armstrong writes at the Guardian:

The extraordinary and eccentric emphasis on “belief” in Christianity today is an accident of history that has distorted our understanding of religious truth. We call religious people “believers”, as though acceptance of a set of doctrines was their principal activity, and before undertaking the religious life many feel obliged to satisfy themselves about the metaphysical claims of the church, which cannot be proven rationally since they lie beyond the reach of empirical sense data.

Most other traditions prize practice above creedal orthodoxy: Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians, Jews and Muslims would say religion is something you do, and that you cannot understand the truths of faith unless you are committed to a transformative way of life that takes you beyond the prism of selfishness. All good religious teaching – including such Christian doctrines as the Trinity or the Incarnation – is basically a summons to action. Yet instead of being taught to act creatively upon them, many modern Christians feel it is more important to “believe” them. Why?

Follow the link to read how she answers the question.

We see the disconnect between professed belief and action in the evil and sordid deeds of those who loudly and publicly congratulate themselves on how “Christian” they are; they thereby discredit, not only their own creed, but all creeds.

Comes now the best argument that atheists can muster on the side of disbelief: the actions of “believers.”

Addendum, Later that Same Day:

Speaking of those who pray loudly in the public square, as the hypocrites do . . . . (Via the Booman.)

They really do not make them like they used to, when they did not have CGI to cover up for lousy plots, bad writing, incompetent direction, and celebutard actors.

I am not a big fan of cooking shows.

I haven’t watched one since Justin Wilson passed on (and the true joy of his show was his humor).

After reading this, I don’t think I can ever watch one again (warning: mild language).

For the third time in a row, I used their “Subscriber Services” link to schedule a “vacation stop.”

For the third time in a row, I got a confirmation email citing dates, address, and account number.

For the second time, not in a row, I came home to find a weekend’s worth of newspapers.

Now, I do still enjoy reading a paper newspaper, even though this one is full of right-wing idiots on the op-ed page. A paper can be taken to places that a laptop cannot.

But my patience is wearing thin. The only thing that is keeping me out of the clutches of the New York Times is that the Times, having no sense of humor, has no comics.

Oh, well, it won’t be long till I’m reading the Pilot. The comics aren’t as good, but, well, you know . . . .

Why isn’t the opening in my bottle of chunky blue cheese dressing large enough to let the chunks through?

The “American Revolution Center” project is moving to Philadelphia from Valley Forge.

Despite the patriotic hype at their website, this was not some altruistic proposal to celebrate the winter at Valley Forge in the interest of history..

It was a bleepin’ convention center disguised as a museum that the developers wanted to build on a stray plotch of private land in the middle of the national historical park.

Like we need another convention center.

Good riddance.

Read more »

When they say “private solutions,” they mean “campaign contributors.”

Whatever happened to “Brown ‘n Serve” rolls?

As I read this article, I wondered why, whenever the potential cost to the government of reforming healthcare coverage is mentioned, the potential savings to business, consumers, and the overall economy are not.

From BuzzWhack.

Reinventing the Flat Tire:

To make the same mistake made before, despite extended debate and a formal vote.

Sounds like the wingnut worldview to me.

Reader’s Digest Denies Move “In Decidedly Conservative Direction”

Here’s a link to the Toimes story that prompted the denial.

Full disclosure: I have been an off-and-on reader of Reader’s Digest all my life (right now, I’m “off”–subscription lapsed). The main trends I’ve noticed is to shorter articles and more abridgier abriged books.

When has it been not conservative?

I sure don’t remember any drift towards the center, let alone the left.

How many trees would live if Verizon stopped browbeating me with letters to subscribe to their FiOS service in which I am intensely uninterested?

The local rag features an organization for therapy for the abusive:

Three days later, at his wife’s insistence, Michael called Menergy, a private counseling program for abusive men. Sixty percent of the men who come to Menergy are referred by the courts because they have been physically violent. Most of the rest are emotional abusers who come on their own, usually because they have lost or are at risk of losing significant relationships. Most stay for about 20 weeks; some participate for two years or more.

The remainder, well, you know.

Despite my low opinion of Twitter as a means for social networking (really, I do not care when XXX goes to lunch, and I suspect that almost no one cares when I do), I must concede that it seems to have its uses, despite itself.

I don’t have a clue what events in Iran mean and, at this point, I doubt anyone else does either. Too much dust is still in the air.

Including the Iranians.

If you do, come to Drinking Liberally to enlighten me at 6 p. m. tomorrow, Triumph Brewing Company, 2nd and Chestnut, Philadelphia, Pa.

Q. What’s the difference between “thoughts” and “ideation.”

A. The $130 an hour you pay someone to tell you that your thoughts are ideation.

Atrios sums it up.

My three or our regular readers know that one of the things that drives me absolutely batty is improper flag etiquette.

Perversely, those who most routinely show disrespect for the American flag are also often those who most vociferously protest of their devotion to it, while being the most willing to trample the rights for which it stands.

Walter Brasch over at the Democratic Daily:

During the 1960s, war protesters who wore clothes with the American flag design were beaten by “patriots” who believed the “hippies” were abusing a sacred image. However, for several years after 9/11, the fabric of America was “patriots” who wore high-priced T-shirts, pants, ties, and bandannas, all with images of American flags and slogans, all in violation of federal regulations.

Americans use flags and flag-decorated clothes, most of them made by non-union labor in China and other overseas countries, to “prove” they are more patriotic than the next person. They have demanded that politicians wear flag lapels. They have bought bigger and bigger flags, in the mistaken believe that flying a flag and being patriotic are the same thing. But, these “patriots” have also flown their flags improperly, often hanging the blue field in the wrong corner, sometimes tacking the flag to wooden walls. They have allowed their flags to have flown in rain and snow storms, to have become tattered and faded. And when some flags become too faded or too torn, their owners just throw them out, rather than give them the proper retirement that the Flag Code requires.

Is it just my imagination, or am I seeing more commercials on the telly vision depicting Not White characters and families as just, well, characters and families?

is a great thing. That must be why I’ve had two of them.

But which tradition? From a letter to the Philadelphia Shrinquier:

Which tradition would they most like to uphold? The biblical version? Solomon, we are told in 1 Kings 11, had 700 wives. The medieval version? Marriage for the nobility was more a matter of property and dynastic control than love. Queen Isabella of France, for example, was betrothed to Edward II as an infant and married off (with the church’s blessing) at the age of 12. According to John Boswell in his Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, marriage was not even a sacrament until the 12th century. Too ancient? Until the 1970s, women could not apply for credit or enter into many legal contracts without their husbands’ consent. That kind of marriage? Of course, until 1967, if you loved someone of a race different from your own, it was illegal in many states to marry.

I can remember when being homosexual was a crime. Persons got arrested for it, and because of that, homosexuals were driven underground. And so on.

More and more, science shows that homosexuality is not a choice; it is simply a state of being, not asked for, not chosen, just there.

As I have said before, my position on gay marriage is a resounding “I don’t care.” That’s why it’s a subject I have seldom addressed here. Nevertheless . . .

Neither of my two marriages crashed and burned because of what other persons did with each other in other houses.

Frankly, I think the political battle about gay marriage is over. It is a done deal.

What’s left is just the mopping up.

Why?

Because, as more and more persons realize that they daily deal with gay folks–folks they never would have thought were gay–they realize that gay folks are not monsters. They are persons. And, like straight folks, some of them are nice and some of them aren’t. But that has nothing to do with their being gay. It has to do with being persons.

As I said to a friend of mine the other day, if gay folks want to know the joys of divorce court, I say, “Let ’em.”