james goll really needs to just stop

Those commands do not imply that we have to believe that our circumstances are fitting exactly with God’s will for us. We’re just supposed to be thankful. As we worship with words of gratitude, our sacrifice becomes a railroad track of faith and it can carry a payload of prayer:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7).

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving (Colossians 4:2 NASB).

In other words, thanksgiving is the key to releasing God’s supernatural power. Even Jesus used this key. Look how He performed the miracle of the multiplication of the bread and fish (see John 6:1-13). First, He picked up the skimpy number of loaves and fishes in both hands. Then, “having given thanks” (John 6:11 NASB) and having lifted them up before God, He was able to distribute to the hungry thousands as much bread and fish as they wanted.

Goll, James W.; Dupre, Chris (2012-06-19). The Lost Art of Pure Worship (Kindle Locations 502-512)

In other words? How do either of those passages equate to Goll's "in other words"? Neither of them even come close to saying that "thanksgiving is the key to releasing God's supernatural power". Then, pointing to the time in John 6 when Jesus gave thanks for the food that was distributed to the thousands is rather weak. Jesus did many miracles, and there is no obvious practice that He went acted similarly every time. Nor does it hint that somehow thanksgiving is the ultimate way to get God to do something.

Yes, being grateful to God is a good thing, that's not being disputed here. But it's not what Goll wants us to think it is. Nothing in Scripture even hints that thanksgiving releases God's supernatural power, that's just silly.

Having read a bit of Goll's writings before, it's not like this kind of thing is surprising. I'm pretty convinced that he's one of those who doesn't so much go to the Bible to find out what it says and then adjusts his own thinking accordings, but takes his own ideas and speculations to the Bible and shoehorns verses and verse fragments to force them to fit those ideas and speculations. Thus, in order to claim that "thanksgiving is the key to releasing God's supernatural power", he simply finds some verses that mention giving thanks, and smashes them into the shape he wants, even if those passages don't.

So, yeah, someone needs to tell Goll to retire. Please, for the love of all of us, please, someone, do that!! I'm sure he's well-off, he's a Word of Faith false teacher after all, surely he has enough holy-hanky and miracle-selling funds stored up to live well for the rest of his days, so long as he avoids Benny Hinn miracle-selling crusades. But I assure you, James Goll has writing quite enough books to make his NAR apostasy influence last for many, many years. At some point, it's just too much. If he goes much further, he'll become a parody of himself, kind of like Bill Johnson.

when satire starts to become reality

I suppose that, at it's best, satire is at least reality-based. On the other hand, one does hope that reality would stop somewhere short of the satire.

In "Rigor", the hero finds himself making a brief stop in a Mega. After the "service", he has this little chat with one of the people at the Mega.

"I thought the live make-out session was really powerful."

Chase was almost too afraid to ask. "How?"

"Because it so raw, so real, so...relevant. There was no doubt that the couples making out were really into the experience."

"Yeah. I'll...agree with that." Rather too much into it, Chase thought.

“And the pole dancers during worship. That was incredible.”

“Sure.” Chase had tried to focus on the bulletin while that was going on.
(Kindle Locations 584-587).

Sadly, my satire seems to be becoming something like reality.

Ohio Pastor Puts Stripper Pole Next to Pulpit to Talk Sex

With a bed and a stripper pole placed next to his pulpit, a pastor in Ohio is all set to begin a series of sermons on sex and relationships beginning Sunday.

Ready to start a new sermon series called "Battle of the Sexes," Pastor Mike Scruggs at the Light of Word Ministries in White Oak, Ohio, has put a stripper pole, video games and sports equipment on one side of the pulpit, representing what men desire. On the other side, he has set up a bed with candies, teddy bears, roses and a bottle of wine to depict what women want.

On all Sundays in April, Scruggs will share about best practices in bedroom, keeping intimacy alive and the need to build and maintain trust. "Right now we're having single people having too much sex and married people not having enough sex," he told Fox19.

down memory gutter

A few days ago, I wound up going back to a place online that I frequented a few years ago, and went back over a bit of an exchange I had with some of the regulars there at that time. It was interesting, and a bit amusing. It'd been a while since I'd been there, and judging by how most of their recent posts have comments turned off, I doubt I'll frequent it much again, except out of morbid curiosity, maybe.

Here's the main entry, the point around which we were discussing or debating or something worse.

WASHINGTON, DC — April 1, 2009 — In an announcement that stunned the nation, Barack Obama called a press conference today to state that he is stepping down as President of the United States. Effective immediately, Hugh Beaumont will assume the role. Mr Obama also said that Joe Biden is being replaced by Ozzie Nelson. Similar replacements are taking place throughout Congress, although it is reported that Nancy Pelosi has locked herself in her office.

Given their obvious recent distaste for trusting in God, Christians can now resume trusting in their government and the renewed inherent and absolute morality of their country.

In unrelated stories, Steven Spielberg was kicked out of his country club and Michael Jordan was lynched in North Carolina today.

I'll not give much in the way of what the exchanges were like in the comments area, as it pretty much quickly degenerated into a gang-up. They are still on the site, if you wish to read them. My tactic or strategy was, well, pretty interesting, even now. Mostly, I insisted on asking the same questions over and over, in an insistence on getting the others to answer those questions, while also refuting in as simple a way as possible their attempts to attribute wrong motives to me.

Take a look at the contents of the blog entry. I said that this entry showed the hate that was in them, both the one who wrote it and those who approved it. It showed the hatred they had towards those who dared to disagree with them, and attributes to those people the vilest of things. It was a hateful attack on those who dare to disagree with, among other things, the election of Obama, accusing them of having a distrust in God and trusting instead in government and the country (rather a silly claim, really, when you consider that it is people like Obama and those who support him who are pushing for the government to become the main provider of all things). And it claims that those types of people would kick Jewish people out of country clubs (would they send them to prison camps, too) and kill black people. The hate in this piece of "satire" is blindingly obvious.

Amazing how impossible it was to get them to see that.

It was C.S. Lewis who somewhere in his writings made a bit of a comment about humor, something along the lines that one could get approval for almost anything, could get approval for evil acts, if one could get others to laugh at it. Is this not almost self-evident? From the clever word-play of "Who's On First", we have degenerated to the place where profanity and comedy are almost synonymous, to the place were comedy is used to make less offensive the most immoral of sexual acts and lifestyles, where those who oppose those acts and lifestyles are held up for ridicule in those same comedies, where we are encouraged to laugh at things that should offend and shame us.

So, when the other commentors tried to defend the entry by calling it a satire, it didn't really matter to me. It's kind of like saying "Hey, I'm going to write something comparing those who disagree with me of wanting to ban Jewish people and kill black people, but hey, don't take me seriously, I'm only joking". Yeah, I wasn't going to let them off the hook that easily.

Honestly, I had been commenting there for some time, and things had already degenerated. I can't remember all the things leading to this degeneration, but one I do remember quite clearly is when they got on the case, I thought unfairly, of one of their favorite targets, and I came to her defense.

Strange, how right she has been proven, concerning the young celebrity in question. Sad, yes, but also right. But concerning myself, it was eye-opening to see how much vitriol and hate the commentors at this blog had towards this woman. It wasn't just simple disagreement, it was personal, and they were personally attacking her.

So, when I starting making the comment that "You become what you hate", I knew what I was seeing, and how true that statement was. It would have been one thing if they had voiced reasoned and considered disagreement, but these people were not just crossing lines but running full-tilt over them while laughing about it and denying that they were doing it. And the hatred they denied having became directed at commentors like myself who dared to disagree with them, question them, say that they were wrong.

I don't think it's too very wrong of me to feel some satisfaction at the state of that online place now. They've changed the name, and it looks like it's not near as busy as it was. The problem with an echo-chamber is that it becomes really dull after a while, hearing the same things over and over again. Why else have places like Emergent Village come almost to a stand-still? Why do they have to go to more and more extremes to try to maintain interest? For example, EV's attempt last year to portray God as being an unfaithful lover. Perhaps they should thank the occasional person like myself who stumbles over their sites, voices a bit of disagrement, and gives the hangers-on an enemy to rally against for a while.

Perhaps the best thing people like me can do is to keep away from places like the old and new Emergent Village, the theOoze, this 3Ps blog I've linked to above, or what have you, and let them die away from boredom, fade away from the silence resounding through the echo chamber, and let the people there feel the existential angst of knowing that they are no longer relevant, while they get sick of trying to top each other in writing the most ridiculous things.

It's a thought, and not a bad one, either.

following the inner voice

It's been quite a while since I've used a Dilbert strip to comment on something, or just post it just 'cause.

Anyway, take a gander of this oozey statement. Emphasis mine.

Are Some Sins Worse or Better Than Others? (by Christian Piatt)

Then we got to Jesus so-called Greatest Commandment. The rule upon which all other rules hang, according to him. The two-part rule for a righteous life is to love God with every part of your being, and to love your neighbor (not just your next door neighbor, but everyone else) like you love yourself.

What if I don’t love myself? Does that mean I have permission to treat others as badly as I treat myself? Can I lower the bar on self-care on purpose so I have greater latitude in how I love others?

Finally, we came together on the idea that what Jesus was getting at was that you would know in your heart what is right and what is wrong. If you follow that inner voice – that moral compass, so to speak – you’ll always point in the right direction.

And now, we have this recent Dilbert strip.



And to look at the oozey nonsense above in a more theological way, emphasis mine again.

Jeremiah 17

5Thus says the LORD:"Cursed is the man(K) who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,[a]
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6(L) He is like a shrub in the desert,
(M) and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in(N) an uninhabited salt land.

7(O) "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
(P) whose trust is the LORD.
8(Q) He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit."

9The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10(R) "I the LORD search the heart
(S) and test the mind,[b]
(T) to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds."

Jesus was NOT, repeat NOT, making some kind Disneyesque statement about how are hearts will know what is right or wrong, nor was He say that we had to follow some kind of inner voice or inner moral compass. God's commandments were known to the people Jesus was speaking to, and nothing He taught was against them.

oh, those thin-skinned pomos

So, for reasons best kept in the realm of mystery, a few days ago I'm cruising the web over at the Emergent Village blog. Though they do not seem to put new stuff up there very often, at least over the past few months, what they do put up tends to be ripe for the commenting on here.

But this time, it isn't really the contents of the new post that are currently of interest, though since it is a Pagitt contribution, I've no doubt it could be well worth the effort. No, this time, it's a bit of back-and-forth, of sorts, in the comments.

It kind of began with my comment to someone else's comment, where the other person some something about how theology starts with a "What if?" A rather strange statement, I though, and I responded with the comment that true theology starts with "God said".

For most people, I think that statement is pretty straight-forward, and with much controversy. For the EV crowd, though, well...there are those who took exception to it. As one person put it...

Whose interpretation? Mine or yours or some other or both or all or none? On what basis do we decide which interpretation is most fitting and when or where or how it is most fitting? When does reason enter? Or is true theology based purely on authoritative interpretation?

Now, having taken as seriously as I can the questions asked above, I've sought how best to interpret the questions this person is asking. Can I trust my interpretations of this person's questions (I'll say "he", though he could be a she, or (this being postmodernism and all) he could be becoming a she, or she a he, or a she trapped in a he's body, or vice versa, or whatever). Upon what basis am I to determine which interpretation of his questions and statements is most fitting? And when and where and how is an interpretation most fitting? Would the interpretation I had a day ago be fitting for today?

Oh, the dilemma! How am I to answer him if I am unable to interpret his questions?

So, I've been expressing this dilemma in some of my further comments on the post. Not without humor, of course, because postmodernism, so I have heard, is suppose to be light-hearted and humorous. Except when it's not.

Sadly, this person, who seems to think that we must ask oh-so-many-questions before we can interpret the Word of God, seems to be much less than patient when I am unable to interpret his statements. To use his own words.

You are being obnoxious. Please, either contribute to the conversation or take your ball and go home.

Of course, we must be careful with this statement, and not jump too hastily to an interpretation of it. While on the surface he may seem to be expressing irritation and to be insulting me, perhaps that is only my own subjective interpretation, and maybe he is really giving me the highest of postmodern compliments, and instead of wanting me to go home, he wants me to stay and continue the work of subverting his subversion. Subversion, after all, seems to be one of the highest of postmodern virtues, and surely he would not be so hypocritical as to say that his statements do not need to be subverted in the same way he is attempting the subvert the Word of God?

Surely not!

sojo's over-the-top rhetoric

The Ryan Plan: A Declaration of War on the Poor

Remember how, a few months ago, we were supposed to excoriate people like Sarah Palin because one of her campaign maps had bulls-eye like targets on certain states? That somehow such a thing was suppose to be responsible for certain acts of violence? So we were suppose to avoid certain words and phrases, usually somehow involving shooting or guns or anything violence?

Well, remember, that only applies to conservatives, like Palin. Liberals like Sojo can continues to use such rhetoric, like "war on the poor", to their hearts content.

Then, on April 5, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a 2012 budget that is much, much, much worse than H.R.1. Ryan’s budget would put all the burden for balancing the budget on poor people, while at the same time cutting the tax rate for people in the top income bracket from 35 percent to 25 percent.

If you read the article, you'll not see those claims supported in any way. The only thing the writer goes on about is taxes.

In 1945, at the end of World War II, the top marginal tax rate was 94 percent.
In 1954, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent.
In 1980, the year Reagan won his presidential election, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent.
By 1989, the year Ronald Reagan’s presidency ended, the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent.
When Clinton took office in 1992, he raised the top marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent, where it stayed throughout his presidency.
Clinton balanced the budget and left office with a surplus.
Bush Jr. chipped away at the top marginal rate until it rested at 35 percent in 2003, where it remains to this day.

If you get the impression she thinks that 90% tax rate is a good thing, I think you're right. It's all about sticking it to the rich, the achievers, the producers.

Did you know the top 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent combined?

Umm...as someone who is solidly in the bottom 50%, I can only say, I don't care. She gives this stat (again, without support) as if it's suppose to mean something in and of itself. It doesn't.

Did you know CEO pay has increased by 20 percent to a median pay of $9.6 million for top executives at 200 major companies since 2009, while worker pay has remained virtually unchanged (decreased by 0.1 percent) in the same period?

Again, so what? Such a claim, devoid of any context, is meaningless.

The Ryan plan is not fiscal responsibility; it is a declaration of war on the poor. The GOP is currently being led by blind ideology that has potential to literally kill people — real people made in the image of God.

So such irresponsible rhetoric is ok, because according to her, tax cuts may kill people?

Here's another take on the Ryan plan.

Paul Ryan's Adult Conversation

Ryan's budget would reduce domestic federal spending to below 2008 levels, restoring pre-stimulus, pre-bailout spending, again as promised. Federal spending is reduced to below 20% of GDP, the long-run, postwar, historical level, by 2015. With that level of federal spending prevailing on average for 60 years since World War II, to call it radical, irresponsible, and extreme is itself unprofessionally irresponsible and misleading.

To achieve that, Ryan's budget would defund and repeal Obamacare. It would eliminate hundreds of duplicative programs, and slash corporate welfare. That would include President Obama's "expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy," establishing instead "a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration," as Ryan explained in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Ryan also explained that his budget "gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year," in President Obama's Dodd-Frank so-called financial regulatory reform bill.

Ryan's budget reduces the federal deficit to below $1 trillion by next year, while President Obama proposes his fourth year of federal deficits over $1 trillion, at $1.2 trillion according to CBO. CBO projects that under Obama's proposed 2012 budget, the federal deficit is still $1.2 trillion by 2021. That's not radical, irresponsible and extreme? Ryan's deficit by that year is $385 billion, after achieving what is called primary balance by 2015, meaning that the budget is balanced apart from interest on the national debt.

Ryan's budget achieves full, permanent balance soon thereafter, with federal spending reduced to 15% of GDP by 2050, less than half the level of federal spending by that year under President Obama's budget. Indeed, by 2050, President Obama's budget would double federal spending as a percentage of GDP from the long-run, postwar, historical average, which is disgracefully radical, irresponsible and extreme.

Ryan's budget reduces the national debt by nearly $5 trillion relative to the President's budget in the first 10 years alone. As result, the national debt as percent of GDP is reduced every year, until the national debt is ultimately paid off entirely! President Obama's budget, by contrast, would double the national debt in his first term alone, and triple it by 2021. That's not radical, irresponsible, and extreme?

A lot of that sounds pretty good to me. Less federal spending, less debt, and getting rid of the already declared unconstitutional Obamacare.

Sadly, for Sojo, fiscal responsibility seems to mean a chance to pontificate about people dying the streets. But, hey, they have Moby on their side. A has-been pop star makes any other argument void, right?

fluffy but not important

emergents bravely running away

Admittedly, however we think our biggest test of modeling the community practice of reading Scripture and interpreting together requires that we step headlong into the controversial... Texts that engage challenging and controversial issues potentially pose the greatest threat to a community hermeneutic, for if anything, it is here that a definitive and authoritative voice seems necessary.

Yet, we wholeheartedly believe that Christian communities are in dire need of having controvesial conversations...

...So, with some honest trepidation, we decided to address the intersection of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community with the church.
Conder and Rhodes, Free For All, p 132,133

Oh, those brave brave Emergents, tackling such a controversial topic! Such a pity no one else doth ever comment on such a thing! Oh, what people of great great courage!

So, over the next few pages, they give an account of their discussions of Romans 1. I'll not go over much into it, because it's quite long. Let it be enough that the waffling starts early, and it continues through the whole thing, including the putting forth of the position that Paul in Romans 1:18-20 is simply being the typical grumpy old man going on about how bad the world of his time was, p 146-147.

All of it, though, for this conclusion.

As you have noticed, perhaps to palpable frustration, we did not produce either a definitive reading of Romans 1 or a community dictum on the issue of homosexuality.
p 149

And they gallantly chickened out.

the church is too safe?

Convinced that the world is a threat to our lives and existence, Christians have become overwhelmed by our own culture of fear. Who could forget the tragic events that took place at New Life Church in Colorado Springs on December 9, 2007, when a young gunman opened fire on church members after Sunday morning worship? We both (the authors) remember watchin the news coverage after the event and feeling compassion for the families that lost loves ones as well as the traumatized church community. It was a truly terrifying and horrible event.

But what also struck us as odd and problematic was the tremendous amount of praise showered upon the security officer who supposedly fired upon and killed the young gunman. (It was later discovered that this young man had actually killed himself, a possibility not even mentioned in the fanfare.) We must admit that it left us with a bitterly confused taste in our mouths, wondering what message it sent for Christians to employ security guards at our churches and for us to so publicly laud the killing of a threat to our people. We were left wondering whether we have not let on infatuation with security take control of us, having turned us into a people of fear. Protect our schools, protect our families, protect our churches , protect our investments and our national interests. But in this search for security where has our mission gone? With all this emphasis on protection what exactly are we giving? Is it any wonder that the world finds our message to be so selfish, so hateful, so ugly?
Condor and Rhodes, Free For All, p 215

Hello. My name is Phyll Douglas Anthony McBrian, and as a self-appointed spokesperson for the emergent church, or whatever we are calling ourselves nowadays (as if it mattered), I have decided that I simply must address this heinous thing in the church that my fellow emergents Condor and Rhodes have touched upon.

The church is too safe.

I remember, years ago, I was attending a particular church. I wanderd by the nursery area, and do you know what I found there? I found toys that were considered appropriate for children of that age, rubber duckies and blocks, not a single choking hazard at all. To my dismay, I learned that there would be "adult supervision", intended to keep the children safe. And to my horror, I learned that they were going to give them a snack. It's not that a few cookies were so bad, but that they were going to make the kids wash their hands before eating. With soap!!

And this church was filled with other horrible examples of their mad addiction to security. They had stairs, and those stairs had handrails, so people could more safely go up and down them. I even saw an elevator for those with wheelchairs or other handicaps that would make make it unsafe for them to use the stairs. And on the outside there was a wheelchair ramp! With rails!!

And I saw horrible impliments of safety, like fire alarms and fire extinguishers, and emergency exits. There was even a first-aid kit or two about.

And, finally, I bet that if I had accessed their computers, I would have found security software on it--anti-virus, anti-malware, all kinds of anti-hacker things.

I bet they even had insurance. The pastor and others probably had health assurance. Their cars probably had car insurance.

Could you believe it? What a bunch of selfish, hateful, and ugly people!! How dare they try to protect themselves, the old people visiting, the children in their nursery! What kind of message is that sending? How dare they fear that their children might choke on a toy not appropriate for their age! How dare they fear fire so badly that they have alarms and extinguishers! How dare they fear hackers to such an extend that they put protective software on their computers!

I never returned to the church of those safety-idolators.

an odd argument from sojo

Why I’m Not Tired of Reading About the Tea Party

Are you tired of reading about the Tea Party? The group represents 11 percent of our population, yet it has been on the front cover of every national newspaper for months now.

I found it odd that a Sojourners' writer should feel the need to try to disparage the Tea Party based on a statistic (I don't know from where) that it "represents 11 percent of our population". To maybe play a little game Wallis himself played last year in regards to the Congressman who dared to say that the President was lying, I think I can hear this phrase as being more like it "represents (only) 11 precent of our population".

But what I find odd is that, by and large, Sojo claims to be for those they consider the least, the lowest, the minorities, the outsiders, and all that. One would think that the fact that the Tea Pary (only) represents 11 percent of our population would mean that they would qualify as one of those least and lowly who most deserve to be heard.

But then, the Tea Party is the opposition. Silly me, their minority status must be a sign that they are wrong, not that Sojo is wrong.

down the rabbit hole

Perhaps I'll start looking into how the whole Postmodern movement was inspired by Powerpoint, even before Powerpoint was invented. Maybe I'll use Caputo-ese, talking about how the event of Powerpoint brought about Postmodernism, permeating all thought and actions leading that made for the birth of Postmodernism, and how the fact that we now have Powerpoint only means that not all of Caputo's nonevent events actually remain nonevents.

I'll probably need Wally to help me with that.



And remember, when Powerpoint crashes, Postmodernism dies.

dilbert is my hero

The last line of this comic had me in stitches, which also explains why it's now in the header. Rather apropo, some may say.

recognizing a work of genius

Though I doubt Peter Rollins would care much for this parable. For my part, I found it hilarious and pointed.

Brian McLaren’s New Kind of Whole Foods Store: A Parable

it's for your own good

For example, for me, today, the Noah story, in which God wipes out all living except one boatload of refugees, has become profoundly disturbing...In recent years, though, I began thinking about how some might use the story as a "constitutional precedent"--if God single-handedly practices "ethnic cleaning" once, and if God cannot do evil, then there is apparently a time and place when genocide is justified. And that means that maybe we (or our enemies) could be justified in playing the genocide card again at some point in the future--another sobering reason to take this quest for a new kind of Christianity seriously in spite of the risks and opposition.
Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian, pp. 108-109

Ah, those loving, caring people on the Left, who while accusing other people of seeing demons behind every rock and bush, do themselves seem to see them in every page of the Bible. How kind of them, to try to spin events in the Bible, so that we will not think that God is really one who would destroy the world with a flood, or that Christ would return in a mood for judgment.

Bearing that in mind, I offer that we continue McLaren's "divine cleansing" of the Bible. Here are some other examples of things that would be, shall we say, rethought, if not completely turned on their heads, lest we simpletons misunderstand.

Lest we think that women are the problem, we should remove the story of Eve being the first one who fell for the serpent's temptation.

Lest we think that God has something against elder sons, we should get rid of the stories of Cain and Abel, as well as Jacob and Esau.

Lest we think that God wants us to participate in global overpopulation, we should completely remove Jacob, because he had at least 13 kids.

Lest we think that God likes cupbearers and/or hates bakers, we should get rid of the account of Joseph interpreting the dreams of those two men while in prison.

Lest we think that God dislikes shoes, we should get rid of the story of Moses and the burning bush.

Lest we think that God uses natural disasters to send messages, we should get rid of the whole account of Moses and the disasters in Egypts--especially that last one, which ties in with God's hatred of elder sons.

Lest we think that God likes laws, we should get rid of all of the books of the Law of Moses.

Lest we think that God likes conquest, we should remove the book of Joshua.

Lest we think that God isn't ecumenical, we should remove the book of Judges.

Lest we think that God likes marriages based on law and not love, we should remove Ruth.

Lest we think that God hates tall people, we should get rid of the story of David and Goliath.

I hope those are enough to give you the picture.

philosophical poison, with an added dash of Dogbert

In the last entry, I gave an excerpt from the called "Zizek: a (very) critical introduction" by Marcus Pound, a part of a set of books called Interventions. I also hinted that it was only one of several things said in the book that were poisonous. I intend to go into that here and now.

First, a couple of excerpts from Chesterton, to kind of give a bit of perspective.

...The temptations of philosophers is simplicity rather than subtlety. They are always attracted by insane simplifications, as men poised above abysses are fascinated by death and nothingness and the empty air. It needed another kind of philosopher to stand poised upon the pinnacle of the Temple and keep his balance without casting himself down. One of these obvious, these too obvious explanations is that everything is a dream and a delusion and there is nothing outside the ego. Another is that all things recur; another, which is said to be Buddhist and is certainly Oriental, is the idea that what is the matter with us is our creation, in the sense that our coloured differentiation and personalitiy, and that nothing will be well till we are melted into one unity. By this theory, in short, the Creation was the Fall.
The Everlasting Man, p. 135

Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true.
Orthodoxy, at the beginning of ch. II

I want to point out these two insights by Chesterton because most of the things I'm going to point out from the "Zizek..." book will prove him true; they will be "insane simplications" made into "cynical maxims" made by "thoroughly worldly people" which will simply be "not true".

Here are the insights in the book, made by the various persons referenced by the author...

(male) love is murder--p. 145; Christ's death was not a sacrifice, save in the sense of sacrificing sacrifice--p. 47; Femininity is athiesm--p. 109; all men are castrated--p. 106; God's creation of the material world is "proof of the divine madness, of the fact that God himself is out of his mind"--p. 30; we can believe in order to not believe--p. 62; the Holy Spirit is 'the spirit of the community of believers'--p. 38; Christ's death shows that 'there is no longer any transcendent God with whom to communicate--p. 38; concerning Job, it ' was not him (Job), but God himself, who was actually on trial in Job's calamities, and He failed the test miserable--p. 58; "it is when we learn that suffereing is meaningless that we cease to be tyrannized by it."--p. 58; Christianity is the religion of atheist, "He (Zizek) reads Christ's cry of dereliction as the "over-coming of metaphysics," i.e., the death of the big Other.--p. 114; Old Testament Judaism was masculine, while Christianity is feminism--p. 114-118.

I'll stop there. It's enough, though I think I could go on a bit longer.

I do want to conclude with something I've just read. It's today's Dilbert comic strip. Why do I feel so like the human?

if i could give you one bit of advice...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

the emergent conversation

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

but it's so much fun!!

I'm tempted to put the punchline in this comic in the title of this blog. Or make it my life's motto.



I'm a little surprised at the character he chose to say it, but then again, even a broke clock is right every now and then.

wally is my hero

Ok, going off-topic here, so hang on, or jump off, as you will...

it turned my thoughts

I read this, and couldn't help thinking of Doug Pagitt.

Enjoy.