Tuesday, May 23, 2017
The Manchester Attack - the new normal?
At last report there were 22 dead and at least 100 injured including 12 children in that suicide attack at the Manchester Arena Ariana Grande concert. ISIS is now claiming responsibility which was almost a foregone conclusion. The lone suicide bomber a 23-year old man by the name of Salman Abedi. So nobody's really talking about it at work today just the normal grind. I brought it up a little and there was a small discussion but it's like these things are now accepted as part of the day's news just a normal and inevitable element of the news cycle. President Trump in Saudi Arabia said to Muslim leaders you need to drive the extremist elements out and likened the War on Terror to a battle between Good and Evil. Not much to disagree with there. I felt maybe the security in Britain could be better but others see it as no matter how good your security these tragedies can and will still happen. NYC Police were on a heightened state of alert last night as to be expected which begs the question why does it take an incident for police departments across the nation to be on a heightened state of alert? It seems only a matter of tragic time before this gets imported here and becomes a part of the nightly news. One thing I see though Obama's intellectual decision to refuse to call radical Islamic terror radical Islamic terror has done absolutely nothing to defeat extremist ideology.
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Surely calling them Radical Islamic Terrorists will hurt their feelings and crush their movement. BTW, fundamentalist Wahhabism was born in and remains
ReplyDeletethe major style of Islam in Saudi Arabia.
The Wahhabi movement is credited with spawning ISIS, El Queda, Boko Haram and other twisted fundamentalist groups.
So we find it odd that Trump just gave them
$180 billion in military aid.
Never heard of Ariana Grande, but they say she attracts mostly teenage girls. You would think security would be suspicious of a middle eastern dude
Deletewearing a bomb jacket jumping up and down with the
teenyboppers. Just saying.
She gets criticized for being a diva but at such a young age she has a great set of pipes.
DeleteI don't think semantics effects them one way or the other but why not be accurate?
ReplyDeleteOne of those political correctness things; of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims, there are about 109,000 involved in
ReplyDeleteterrorist activities 0.00062% of that religion. In the US
"Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active" which is a significantly higher 0.436%. In a similar context, we observe radical US terrorists are far more common (and IMO, more dangerous on our streets). I suppose if the Brits termed them radical US terrorists, some
of us would feel insulted? Remember the Irish Republican
Army? They blew up English innocents by the hundreds for years. Would you term them Radical Catholic Terrorists?
But, yeah, its just semantics. From the types ISIS recruits,
would it not be fair to term the Lost Boys-Grumpy Terrorists? Or would LBGT get me into semantics trouble?
Here's the thing in your argument. ISIS takes the Koran extremely seriously hence Sharia and all the rest. You can't debunk this one my friend. They ARE radical Islamic terrorists. "Allahu Akbar" is not from Dianetics. You see my drift. The anti-abortion clinic bombers of the past WERE extremist Christians. You owe me a dollar.
DeleteI never understood why liberals seem partial to Islam but have issues with Christianity. Both have similar positions on gays and abortion. Islam is not exactly up there with women's rights and feminism but we hear more about the Christian baker who won't cater a gay wedding. Islamic countries are a theocracy. What can get you in trouble in Saudi Arabia?
ReplyDeleteIMO, the liberal problem isn't with either religion per se, but rather the fundamentalist wings of them.
DeleteWe recall the mildest of Islam was found in the Iraq
of Saddam Hussain; women dressed modern, any hint of
terrorism (rather than his own on his own people) was
viciously suppressed. Some of the strictest Muslims
are in S. Arabia and Yemen. Jewishwise, liberals (among which are most US Jews) tend to dislike the
Jewish Orthodox, the ones that dragged little girls off buses and beat them up because they were riding
a bus on the Sabbath (apparently beating up litte girls was permitted on those days). You may not understand the liberal views on religion, but you are
right, libs tend to look at Christianity based on it's worst . And I guess my previous point demonstrated those that judge Islam at it's worst. Looking at the situation from the outside religious bickering and prejudices comprise most of the world population, each
claiming God directs them. Either they or God are having a problem here. If as Saty noted, a pharmacist
will not dispense BC because of their own religion is that not Sharia Law light?
Libs only seem to focus on the negative aspects of religion but religion can also be positive and inspire people, help them through the hard times. I have a Christian app called Our Daily Bread. Absolutely superb. No talk about pharmacists and gay weddings, just philosophical and scriptural advice about life in general. Libs harp on the bc though. IMO if you're not gonna dispense the bc you shouldn't be a pharmacist. I'm just offended because many libs only seem to see religion through a very dark lens.
DeleteAll true. We might even add the large number of liberal Christians. I guess biblically, the problem is Caesar still..you know the blending of
Deletereligion, politics, technology, philosophy. We could probe further, eg. the Shiite/Sunni animosity,
the Mormon/Baptist: who knows the reasons, but there
is ample internecine argument among the various flocks. Probably in any group-look at all the flavors of conservatives. We are human, it's what we do. I rather admire a local woman PhD in Chemistry turned Episcopal Bishop, who still suffers from first responder illness because she
was among the rescuers at the Twin Towers on 9-11.
Is that not a pretty clear lens? IMO much of this boils down to the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk...
IMO for some reason liberals vastly prefer to talk about Christian fundamentalism rather than Islamic fundamentalism which seems an odd dichotomy. Islamophobia is a term they use alot not Christophobia. Just my impression.
DeleteYou are probably familiar with the PEW test which
Deleteindicated atheist/agnostics with higher knowledge of religions, including Christianity, that the actual practitioners. Since the A/A crowd tends mostly liberal, we suspect the USA ones are therefore more familiar with USA fundamentalism:
I know hundreds of fundamental Christians, but only
met a muslim once; studied Christianity and it's history, but am confused even by the difference between Suni and Shiite. I have delved into the ISIS
history, though, and find that they hate western
ideology and culture, love violence and use their
scripture to justify their cause. So would I not be
an ISISphobe rather than an Islamophobe? Pat Robertson, Bill Donahue, Bill Hagee and TV Christian Barnums seem to do more harm than good and deserving of criticism: is that Christophobia?
We continue to play the semantics game and consider
the assignment of terms mostly to be made by those outside. Consider the history of the word liberal,
the word conservative, the word patriotic we use
as shifting tags. Being Catholic is not nearly the
problem it was once and liberals are not perceived as they once were .
But libs complain about Christian fundamentalism far far more than they complain about Muslim fundamentalism. When was the last time Pat Robertson beheaded someone or TD Jakes drove his church van into a crowd?
DeleteTim Tebow bowed and prayed at a football game. Seriosuly Z...how could you have already forgotten?
DeleteI thought he was with the Mets Minor League farm system and not doing too good there either. Hoops?
DeleteThe Mets signed him for $100,000. He is batting .244 for the Columbia Fireflies in the South Atlantic League, a Class A team. The salary at the level is $1500 a month + $25 a day for meals.
DeleteWonder if U of Florida paid quite a bit more?
Personally if he can't make it with the Mets maybe he can become a Hanes model. Is Matt Harvey back on track yet?
DeleteChristian fundamentalism and Catholic fundamentalism have some striking similarities to be sure (Hell Hell and more Hell) but when it comes to the caning of gay men in some foreign Islamic lands the Christian/Catholic fundies are not guilty. Has Bill Hagee thrown any gays off roofs lately? ISIS can throw 10 off a roof in one day but liberal columnists almost by an inborn and peculiar reflexive habit will devote a whole column's worth of commentary to some Christian baker who refuses to write "Fred and Stan" across the top of a wedding cake.
ReplyDeleteHagee would like to throw gays off roofs, but it is illegal
ReplyDeletehere. So he consoles himself that they will boil down in
Bill Weise country. Businesses usually try to satisfy their
customers. If they offend some group by refusing service, they are open to boycott. it seems that most businesses
are continually under boycott for one thing or another:
remember Proctor & Gamble . Evangelical boycotting is practically an
industry . Fiscal conservatives dislike
liberal companies and liberals boycott O'Reilly, Breitbart,
Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A. I tend to agree with both
conservatives and liberals that Wells Fargo stinks.
Worked with a chef once with extremely negative views on Christians. Focused on the fundies as you tend to talk about and it always struck me Religion is such a broad topic. Faith has helped some with a cancer diagnosis, drug addicts have turned their lives around, rifts were healed so why spend time talking about some weird legislator out West who wants to execute women who've had abortions and who isn't representative? Again you can live next door to Pat Robertson and rest assured he won't take your daughter as a sex slave.
ReplyDeleteI agree that faith can be very positive. IMO, the
DeleteFundamentalists tend to be aggressive in pursuing goals, particularly in politics. Since their politics
are mostly the opposite of mine, I ponder the source
of their societal views. They are great bible readers, but..
"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." Matthew 6:5-6
---so spake Jesus in his Sermon On The Mount. Now
turn on the Christian Channels and try to find a TV
Evangelists that does not openly pray in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers. Where's the Karma?
I do watch Daystar from time to time. Some of the pastors speak better than our Catholic priests I have to be honest.
DeleteKnew a lady that was a devoted to Benny Hinn .
DeleteSent $$, waited for miracles, etc. One miracle for
sure: Rev. Hinn, the HS drop out became a multi millionaire.
The term "religious fundamentalism" is usually a heavily negative-tinged word but can't it mean a return to the basics, the fundamentals? Had a pastor a few years back and in his homilies he'd talk about hell, sin, morality and the core doctrines of the Church. Is he a fundamentalist and what does a non-fundamentalist teach?
DeleteRecurring dream of late. I was with the last company for 15 years so my dream is I'm working in a new version of the old place but mixed in with some of my co-workers from my newer job. I think I have to resolve something.
ReplyDeleteDreaming about work; the American dream....
DeletePresident Trump calling ISIS terrorists a bunch of losers. Yeah that'll shame 'em into getting on the right path. A "loser" has no job and sits home on the couch, goes in the basement to his video game den, comes back watches a little Dr. Phil, plays with himself a little in the shower...Trump finally bringing out the heavy oratorical weaponry!
ReplyDeleteBack to semantics again; whatever you call them won't
Deletebother them. The important thing is that they be eradicated. No place in civilized society for terror
techniques that target innocents gathered together, be
it a plane, Tower, rock concert. Initially there was some argument whether the approach be police/legal or
military/Seal/Drone: probably each would be effective
under different conditions. We note that most of ISIS
bombings were against Muslims in Iraq, where they killed thousands. ISIS is Sunni, while the Iraq security brigades are Shia: both specialize in killing
uninvolved civilians sole because they are Sunni or Shiites. That enmity is about 1000 years old and though it can be suppressed, will always linger. Hopefully as a local squabble in their home countries.
Mathematically eradication is the simple and obvious solution. In real-life extremely complicated.
DeleteI notice in Trump's meeting with the Pope Francis looked very ominous. Trump reportedly gave him a volume of MLK speeches. Well he's not gonna give him a box of Little Debbie snack cakes.
ReplyDeleteTrump is behaving quite presidential on his trip.
DeleteMoreso say, than that guy running for congress from
Montana that body slammed a reporter yesterday. IMO,
part of being a politician is to gracefully handle
obnoxious reporters and hollering constituents. Would not be surprised if the WWF congressman wins, Montanans sort of enjoying hard physical stuff like
riding bulls and broncos, wrestling grizzlies and
steak eating contests.
Saw a big splash of a pic of Francis and Trump in my morning paper today. Again I can't get over the facial contrasts. Trump is positively beaming and Francis looks like he just got some inside scoop the Apocalypse is going to start soon. Some photojournalists are really good at their job. This is a classic.
DeleteThe formal Vatican photo has been providing fodder for the photo shop crowd.
DeletePop music - I remember a few months ago I was driving to work and on the radio came Katy Perry's "Chained to the Rhythm." After it was over the station said "you heard it here first on Fresh." Well no I was listening to it for three months before on other stations. Now Lana Del Rey is slowly rolling out her newest work. Her songs are usually mysterious and enigmatic a cut above the Perry bubble gum fare.
ReplyDeleteTo much politicking here. So tired of Red Pill/Blue Pill. What else ya got?
ReplyDeleteLana Del Rey is good. As for the pop vibe, not a Katy Perry fan. I like Lily Allen.
I see they discovered old color footage of Mussolini being
ReplyDeleterude at the Munich Agreement .
The Lana Del Rey music video for "Love" has a car orbiting a sun, a band playing on the moon and a group of young people in a lake on another planet. Retro and futuristic at the same time. Different.
ReplyDeleteEverything is mega these days. Mega-supermarkets - you have to walk 2 miles just to get to the bread. What if you're 75 with arthritis?
ReplyDeleteOrdered first editions of Volume I and II of Austin Flannery's Vatican II Conciliar and Post-Conciliar documents and started delving into Volume I the other night. Wowza...
ReplyDeleteBetween you and Saty this is an educated bunch.
ReplyDeleteWhat's up with Hannity?
ReplyDeleteJust the usual. His success, as well as his problems, arises from using only alt-right fake news
Deletesources. He is the poster boy of the Dunning Kruger Effect : the well known Nobel
Prize winning theory that those most ignorant have higher confidence in their knowledge than experts in
the field do. It is a phenom that goes back to PT Barnum and has grown troublesome enough that even the
ham handed Russians take advantage of it. Hence some of his advertisers have pulled out or threaten to.
IMO, he will continue to be a FN star, given his audience.
He has been promoting the conspiracy theory that 27-year old DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered by allies of Bill and Hillary Clinton for being the purported leaker to WikiLeaks. In his view there was no Russian collusion during the election. To a conspiracy theorist the fact that everyone even FOX is telling Hannity to drop the theory is itself "proof" of the conspiracy. Conspiracy theorizing is a rabbit hole. Trouble with conspiracy theories is they can be perfectly plausible from the pov of a logical storyline and yet still be false. Last I heard most of the major advertisers are sticking with him. It's ones like Wiggins Pretzel Company who are pulling out (ok I made that one up).
DeleteI don't pay that much attention; how's Tucker Carlson doing? Who would named a kid Tucker?
DeleteSeems harmless. Wondering since Hannity is into conspiracies if he can delve into ELF hearing.
DeleteAbsolutely- start at the source: either the Kennedy
Deleteclan or the Pink Ladies? (gonna give that five minutes to show up on Reddit)
I'm really behind the times. After work today I was in the parking garage and a co-worker remotely started her Honda from a distance. What would be the point of that so that you don't waste 20 seconds? Maybe we can go on a semi-autonomous drive.
ReplyDeleteWatch out, she may start yours one of these days.
DeleteIt's a nice perk when you want to warm up your car in winter or get the a/c going in the summer.
DeleteI'm a little Trumped out right now or actually I just have more immediate items on my list. I think I'm approaching saturation level with his incompetence.
ReplyDeleteStarted Volume 5 of my book, moving into the 11th century. I am stunned at how much of the faith I was raised in came out of a council.
Speaking of that, I'm religious and I'm a liberal, where do I fit in?
IMO, you fit in with Pope Francis. According to PEW,
Deletethe left/right range among religious types is:
Religion Conservative Moderate Liberal
Catholic 37 36 22
Jewisth 21 39 38
Mormon 61 27 9
Hindu 12 44 35
Agnostic 15 39 44
Atheist 14 27 50
..where the Hindu is even less conservative than the
non believer and very middle of the road. Other surveys show that conservative Christians rely on belief for decision making, while non believers rely on common sense.
Your last sentence seems a tad tilted. Dave Miller thinks Jesus was a liberal. Have to say Jesus didn't think like Hannity.
DeleteRe Hell many conservative Christians seem to think the sexual sins will land you there first whereas the liberal Christian if he does believe in Hell might go with not helping the poor. Now which parable bears which view out...beggar at rich man's gate...how does it go again?
DeleteIt seems so. Yet, TV pastors Creflo Dollar, Fr. Corapi, Jimmy Bakker, Ted Haggard, Eddie Long, Jimmy Swaggart, Marcus Lamb et. el. not only strayed, but remain damming our sins on the big screen. We note :
Delete"But conservative Christianity is institutionalized reaction formation. Socially, culturally, and theologically, it drums in the message that sex is bad, that you are bad for wanting it, and that people who say they want it are even worse than you. This is not true for liberal Christians (or Jews or Muslims); but it is true for almost all conservative Christians (or Jews or Muslims).
That’s why, when yet another pastor falls from grace—with boys, girls, women, men, it almost doesn’t matter—it’s not seen as a refutation of Christian doctrine, but a confirmation of it. See, none of us is above sin. That proves that all of us are sinners and are only hope is the grace of God."
...and you are right, Jesus spent little time on
the subject of sex; that accretion, as Saty had probably discovered in her reading, didn't become a
hot sin topic until years after the crucifiction.
(Linguistic scholars had even identified misogynistic changes to St. Paul's books-probably by monks in heat)
The cosmology of Fatima: "More souls go to Hell for sins of the flesh than for any other reason." Here imo you have an extraordinarily complex topic (Hell) oversimplified and I detect some cultural influences here.
DeleteWhat's up with Tiger Woods?
ReplyDeleteIMO, he thinks the Back Nine are bottles behind the local bar.
DeleteDerek Jeter never touched by scandal. One can imagine him going up to a friend taking the Coors bottle out of his hand and saying "you had enough buddy."
DeleteJeter, never? Let's get Hannity going on that.
DeleteSuicide terrorist phenomenon: Pondering the psychology of
ReplyDeletesuch ideologically driven operators, we note the Kamikaze
of late WWII. But that was combat related and did not target civilians per se. The Islamic terrorist attacks were quite rare until Al Queda and the Twin Tower attack. The
frequency of attack peakedin 2001-3 and 2008-10 , the first promulgated by Al Queda, the latter
by ISIS as Al Queda was hunted down and marginalized. The
areas involved were Iraq (58% of all attacks), Afghanistan
15%, Israel 7%, Pakistan 6% and so on down to the US 0.2%;
most of which targeted crowded places and non combatants.
It is generally agreed the suicide bomber is motivated by
heroic martyrdom...which is difficult for a secular coward
like me to come to grips with.
We were discussing suicide in general (not suicide bombers) at work one day. We all agreed most methods involve great pain and you would think that in itself would be a deterrent to most would be suicides. Suicide bombers - the terrorists of the past like this FALN guy being celebrated by DeBlasio in NYC they bombed places but this religious martyrdom thing is definitely of recent vintage. How deluded do you have to be?
DeletePain-suicide deterrent: I would think so. In my teens I thought about it; maybe throwing myself out
Deletethe upstairs window. That would hurt, so I considered the front porch: less pain, but not effective. I have heard of some impulsive suicides
like the director of research in the cosmetics business. He got drunk at a holiday party, some exec
chewed him out and he took his Shelby-Mustang 80 mph into a big oak tree. You hear of other deaths by
vehicle; young woman here turned off the spiral highway and rolled 1000 feet down. Seat belt of no use, of course. IMO, the typical suicide is one of
misery with life, better dead than alive. Which is
IMO, more understandable than strapping on a bomb
jacket and taking a flock with you. In what universe
does that even make sense?
I guess we all know that death death by NRA is by far the most
Deletepopular and effective method. Knew a couple old guys that were in pain and depressed by a cancer diagnosis that did that...sort of typical of the wild west.
People generally fall into two camps re suicides. The first group is largely condemnatory and dismissive of the person. The second group is overly understanding (depression/no free will). It's a complicated issue. It would seem to me the suicidal don't believe in an afterlife since if they did it wouldn't be seen as an end to their problems. The 72 virgins feeding you honey-cakes is that in a surah or haddith? One of about a hundred topics I've been meaning to bing (google ai I find creepy at the moment).
DeleteI have been twice in my life seriously suicidal. My first time the plan was to steal a LOT of morphine, shoot up and go play in the riptide. My second time the plan was a stack of ativan I had been saving up out of my prescription. Neither involved pain. I'm not sure what kept me from doing it, a sense of responsibility to other people I guess. Last fall a coworker of mine blew his brains out over his wife and him seperating. Men tend to go for the more lethal (guns) versus the potentially less lethal overdose. I'm surprised yall haven't mentioned suicide by cop, which is becoming more of a thing these days.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know as much about Islam as I'd like to. Unfortunately once we get out of Christianity (and the Hare Krishnas) my knowledge is mostly superficial. I did get into Tibetan Buddhism for a while. I got stuck because there were no temples or people for me to learn from. All I had was a book and while it was a very good book, there's no substitute for actual association.
Anyway I'm still here and still have a lot to learn.
Such a complicated subject two replies. The Catholic Cathechism back in the day relegated suicides straight to Hell although apparently that's been theologically tweaked of late. A philosophical issue as to why I don't think they wind up in Hell: you never consented to your own existence and so this act might be seen as returning the gift so to speak. I believe this hurts God and I believe if you die in an unhappy state your afterlife will be unhappy as how could it not but I don't believe it's Hell. There were some philosophers in the past like David Hume and Thomas Szasz who made the case that a person might rationally choose the end way out if life doesn't meet up to personal expectations and fulfillments. Not very inspiring but everyone's life is different. The happy seem to expect everyone else to be happy but this is a philosophical thing that could go on for the better part of a day.
Delete& yet it would seem to be mostly preventable. Many of us have known someone who took their own life and it's easy to judge but it's also possible there's just some terrible, horrible chemistry that goes on in a person's brain sometimes. It's such a morally bad act you get a variety of societal responses as I said. Passive and active ideation - what's interesting is you can have some people who positively self-destruct, practically ruin their own lives like Anthony Weiner and Tiger Woods and yet I don't think suicide ever enters their mental landscape. Again brain chemistry perhaps or maybe they have some secret Zen insight. Some people end their lives and yet to an outside observer their lives were not that horrible and so you have the mystery. Depending how you look at it you can even see smoking as a passive form of suicide.
DeleteRobin Williams would be a case in point; successful,
Deletewell liked and yet there had to be something that
drove him to his suicide.
Life is short. The end comes quick and yet some people can't go the full course. Charles Manson probably never had a suicidal thought. Life is a mystery.
DeleteMade a killer vegan ovgolemono soup yesterday. It's getting to be you can get a vegan version of almost everything.
ReplyDeleteThe Vegan Triple Whopper perhaps.
ReplyDeleteYou know I kind of forgot Kathy Griffin was even a comedian.
ReplyDeleteHer schtick has always been on the coarse, tasteless
Deleteand rude side. Perhaps forgivable, given the schtick of the blogosphere. Perhaps not.
It's funny how she started to feel remorse only after the reactions started rolling in.
DeleteYou say or do something stupid in public life, you have to apologize. Unless you are Trump...then just blame somebody else. We'd get a big kick out of Anthony Weiner proclaiming, "I'm innocent, the
Deletefake press is out to get me, I was framed, my political opponents photo shopped part of Pee Wee Herman's anatomy on my legitimate tweet,it was Huma that did it. etc & etc" "Live so that when you die,
even the undertaker will feel sorry: Mark Twain
So how long is she going to have to hug the cactus? Mel Gibson had to hug the cactus until he made "Hacksaw Ridge."
DeleteMy guess is she has he loyal followers and like Trump, no matter how outlandish her actions, they will stay in line. Our Swiss relatives wrote asking
Deleteif America is going down the drain..such are the perceptions in Europe. Mel G. is good actor, but sort of an unusual guy.
Apparently the Good Book can be pretty X-rated at times. Google Ezekiel 23-20 and see the first entry that comes up. New International Version - WOW.
DeleteNow now, that is part of a typical semitic parable:
Deletethe harlot sisters Ohola and Oholiba representing Samaria and Jerusalem respectively. The Lord scolding those businessmen and administrators who
were cozying up to Babylon at the expense of their
own homelands. ..Babylon and the Chaldese being the
oversexed donkeys and horses. Unless you are a literalist like Uncle Pat Robertson?
Alot of people are upset about this. Was the Ron Jeremy explicitness even necessary? Some are saying this is not so much the Word of God as someone with an agenda. Can you imagine this being a reading at Mass? Is this covered in Bible Study? Would you give this to a 7-year old? If you check out some Christian forums some are saying it seems out of place. Just sayin'.
DeleteAs an aside though I have to say nothing fazes you. I have to cultivate that. What is Kathy Griffin moaning about now?
DeleteCan it be true that Kathy Griffin and Bill O'reilly
Deleteare hanging out together?
She's now moaning the Trump family is out to destroy her. Blame others on your self-destruction.
DeleteSex and it's regulation predate the Bible, but it has always
ReplyDeletebeen a topic in religion; temple prostitues in the bronze age middle east, David slaying Bathsheba's husband so he could have her, Solomon with hundreds of wives. It goes
on and on . Even the mild mannered contemplative Hindus have
their Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana. They say it reads better if you a fluent in Sanscrit. :)
While on the topic, IMO to better understand the bible, whether religiously or secularly, the semitic fondness and use of allegory must be noted. We find in addition to both biblical testaments, numerous other religious and philosophical tracts of the period and area exist...eg. Assyrian, Babylonian, Chaldean, Ugaritic, etc. Even to this day we
ReplyDeletenote that the "squeaking wheel gets the grease' means considerably more than wheels and lubricant.
My Catholic translation of Ezekiel 23:20 is mildly questionable but not as shocking although some YouTubers see "flesh" and "asses" as a kind of entendre. I agree with those who say the size and ejaculatory volume of the men whom the harlots lusted over would seem kind of irrelevant. Are the translating bodies having a little fun?
DeleteOf course Sex and Violence run rampant through the Bible as in Shakespeare. It's definitely adult reading. Same with the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. I think the passage in question might qualify as one of them Wells Fargo verses. Ask your pastor about the genitals and semen part ("ummm gotta go").
DeleteAnyway the New International Version of Ezekiel 23:20 - "There she lusted after her lovers whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."
Delete50 Shades of Judah?
DeleteThe Planned Parenthood translation? dunno;)
DeleteIn reading the latest book on Auschwitz, mostly excerpts from SS jailers and camp survivors, and ran across a curious
ReplyDeleteinterweaving of Catholic priests. The run from the ridiculous to the sublime .
Given the same seminary education and vows, does human nature precede holy duty?
I think you are who you are regardless of whether or not you're a priest. You don't become a saint simply by taking vows. Interesting I read that there were accusations of an abbot fornicating with a boy...in the 12th century. Some things never change.
ReplyDeleteSome people are just naturally pervy.
DeleteLast week we had 3 TVs, a microwave, the garbage disposal and 2 automatic lawn sprinklers go berserk. Is there an
ReplyDeleteappliance exorcist available? I felt like part of Woody
Allen's old monologue: his appliances conspire against him,
toaster throwing toast, freezer and oven switching functions
and finally the elevator zooming him down to the basement,
opening the doors, throwing him out and yelling something
anti-Semitic.
Few years back I'm watching the tv and all of a sudden the tv would turn on and off repeatedly and go through all the channels each time. Another time in the evening the tv volume would go to maximum, you'd lower it and it would go up again. CERN, the CIA, a poltergeist? Never happened again after that.
DeleteI really want to hear Pat Robertson and Daystar talk about why Ezekiel says the Assyrians were hung like donkeys.
ReplyDeleteIn the Sacred/Profane Department-
DeleteJohn Hagee, anti-Catholic, pro-Jew TV personality who
excoriates his loyal, but apparently sinner flock, is
said to make well over $1 million a year. Checked a bit, and apparently he out earns porn starlets by about five to one. I don't know what Jesus would say,
but guess he might walk into Hagee's cathedral and overturn the money pots, then go next door and forgive
Debby of Dallas fame. Just a guess, mind you.
As I recall when I used to go to Barnes & Noble more than I do now he wrote alot of end-time prophecy books. TD Jakes - I like how he gets all worked up on stage and his bald head sweats.
DeleteAnother major terrorist attack in London. The London Bridge: masked men get out of a van and start stabbing people saying "this is for Allah" (still no radical Islamic connection?). Guy at work asked me what do the terrorists want? To my best understanding I replied to have everyone subscribe to their extremist version of their religion. He looked at me like there has to be something more as terror in the past had largely more political motives. Yes it's that stupid.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely beyond the tenets of common sense. Many of
Deletethe 'home grown' types seem to self enrage, just sitting with their smartphone connection. London is full of such types. It is getting so that any middle
east looking person makes ya wonder. Yet most are like the rest of us. After 'Deliverance', I steered
clear of hillbillys, ya know?
I'm no religious authority but doesn't Islam have some variant of the Thou Shalt Not Kill commandment?
DeleteKind of:
Delete" If anyone has killed one person it is as if he had killed the whole mankind." Quran 5:32
..again a somewhat allegorical 'thou shall not'.
Every religious/societal/political precept is clear:
murder one is murder one.
This guy doesn't seem to think so.
Deletehttp://www.truthrevolt.org/news/australian-imam-make-no-mistake-islamic-scripture-commands-beheadings-massacre-people
DeletePerhaps the correct term should be radical assholeism.
DeleteCherry picking scripture: Jehovah Witness/blood transfusions, rattlesnake handlers, adult baptism-
Deleteall based on single/partial/minor excerpts. In the
case of Islam, ISIS does the same, but with the result of creating mind numbed killers. They don't know the Quran, they don't have a goal, they just want to die while killing others...for their leaders it is simply pursuit of power. So any derogatory term applies.
Ezekiel got me reading more of the OT lately. There are things in the Christian Bible that are disturbing. Go whoring around and the Lord will send fire from the sky to destroy your city. Friend and I were discussing yesterday how people in Genesis lived 700-900 years. If taken literally how and why did the human lifespan become so shortened? The Bible raises more questions than answers.
DeleteLiteralists believe that early biblical people lived to those extraordinary ages. In discussing that with JW porch people, the argument is that they
Deleteate healthier. The natural lifespan is biologically determined by gradual shortening of the telomeres which exist on the ends of chromosomes, and since the typical lifespan of paleological specimens is
quite short, it seems reasonable to categorize the Methusla types as yet another allegory. Ezekiel was a contemporary of Jeremiah. He was part of the
'Babylonian Captivity', living and preaching among
those exiles, while Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem.
It is sometimes instructive to note contemporary
history: for example at that time Thales (first Greek mathematician/astronomer), Aesop, Buddha
and Zororaster (Zarathustra) were all doing their
thing as well as the two Hebrew prophets.
You remind me of the smart guy on Barney Miller. I'm not a literalist but why say somebody lived to be 750 when it was really 75? Maybe I'm allegorically challenged. Dunno:)
DeleteMy friend has another take. Back in the early day God saw the bulk of humanity turning into a bunch of corrupt a-holes so he shortened the lifespan. I like how we cover all topics here. The porch people, I like that.
DeleteThe JW are rock solid in their beliefs (until they
Deleteleave for some other religion. In Nazi Germany, they
had to wear a purple triangle and were sent to concentrations camps. They didn't break under the extreme conditions and their dedication
fascinated Himmler. He tried to get his SS men to
be as steadfast (for Hilter, rather than God, of course). Although like most Germans of that era, they tended anti-Semitic, they helped rather than
harassed fellow Jewish prisoners. By 1942, they were being selected at places like Treblinka, Birkenau, Sobipor et al. as domestic servants for
the SS officers running the places as they could be
trusted to not escape or make trouble. In hindsight,
they were, and maybe still are, nice non-violent ISIS types....
What do you think of "Hogan's Heroes"? To me it humanized the Nazis good enough for a sitcom show. The Bob Crane murder never solved.
DeleteIMO, Mel Gibson should do 'Passion of the Holocaust'.
DeleteOh I caught Benny Hinn last night on Daystar. You're right what a huckster. He was holding up a pack of pledges in his hand and said he never felt the power of the Holy Spirit so strong as in that room that night. Black men in suits were pretending to faint. Marcus and Joni Lamb were there cheerleading him on. Watched about ten minutes worth before switching to "Walker Texas Ranger" on Grit.
ReplyDeleteWe also teach that the human life has shortened considerably over the ages and will continue to do so. You can argue that the life expectancy is higher than it used to be say 100 or 500 years ago, but it's still shorter than it was 5000 years ago and longer than it will be in 5000 years. Everything is being degraded. The good old days really were better (again, I don't mean a hundred years ago.)
ReplyDeleteBB you are right, reading all this Catholic history is making me glad I left the Church. I still have some sentiment but the more I know, you know how it goes. It's still a fascinating read and I'm glad I'm doing it, but it's definitely changing how I see things. We are just now getting into the Franciscans vs the Dominicans. I had Dominican nuns for grade school and Franciscan nuns for highschool so some of that difference of opinion or focus if you will is evident in my upbringing. I haven't even got to the Jesuits yet, wait until we get to that chapter!
Since this London Bridge incident I have put myself on a strict fast from the news. I'm just not reading it. I'm trying to focus my energies elsewhere. So far it's working but it's just been a couple of days. I just can't. Nothing is good. Trump makes us look bad on a daily basis. There's a new scandal every day. I just can't.
In other news we watched that movie Hidden Figures about three black women who worked at NASA in the 60's and were pivotal in getting the astronauts into space. It was good. I don't like Costner but he was all right. Even better it was a true story, so there you go. Not one you'd watch a million times, but still a good movie.
Re: Benny Hinn
ReplyDeleteI always get the biggest kick out of these preachers who speak in tongues right in between the asking for donations part of the service. They are all of them such con artists. Every one of them is worth a fortune on the backs of poor people who send in their last dollar. The home office of CBN is up there in Duchess County, a giant white monstrosity of a building with all kinds of gold gilding and fountains. Meanwhile people are still sending in their pitiful little offerings hoping to get a prayer answered. When I was in highschool I worked at Guideposts Magazine (which is headquartered in Carmel, or was if it isn't still) and people would send in literally change, nickels and quarters, as donations. It was heartbreaking.
Corporate Evangelical TV. Too big to fail.
DeleteLiberals don't send change. No wonder they hate them.
The lifespans of the early Bible just seemed more logical. It's part of the reasons why I feel we have multiple lives. You come in randomly out of non-existence for one life of 75 or 80 years then continue your nonexistence or so science would have us believe. It's just a kind of philosophical issue for me. I think BB accepts these things but I just question.
ReplyDeleteMethuselah lived to 960 years old, they say. If he had two children, and those had 2 children, etc over
Delete40 generations, there would have been 10,000,000,000
kids and grandkids at his 800th birthday party.
Wowsers, that is 3,000,000,000 more than the earth
current population. IMO, the long lived myth was
coped from the more ancient Summerian King List, along with the flood story. But I'll adumberate no further.
I've thought this through and yes there are issues with those lifespans. If the average span were say 700 years would we have to work 600 of them to retire? Would some pensions bust the corporate piggy bank? etc. etc. On the other hand 70 or 80 years seems way too much on the short when you consider tortoises live longer. You come into existence for say 76 years then go out of existence just seems weird to me. Like Saty said in her insight everything's getting degraded. Manson is still alive though.
DeleteAlthough unless we had a time machine how do we know what those spans were? I think Saty and I are coming at this from a somewhat mystical pov and you're the scientific realist. 76 or 84 just seems normal to us. Perhaps the d-wave can get to the bottom of it.
DeleteA somewhat pragmatic, if unsatisfying way of looking
Deleteat coming into existence for 70/80 years, is that the entire spectra of life, from algae to earthworms to maple trees to Bengal tigers is subject to that biological law. It only bothers
thinking humans. And yes, why that should be is
a mystery worth pondering; we really don't know and it seems like a waste to be born, live and die.
We naturally seek answers. I guess Sagan would say
the individual life is but a very slim factor in the
life of the species: each generation supposedly a
slight improvement over the eon long species life.
Not very satisfying for most of us, huh?
Christianity adds the twist of the whole death thing is not normal or natural. Recall for you literalists everything was going swimmingly in the Garden until Adam and Eve sinned. An offshoot of quantum scientists are trying to solve the puzzle and didn't Google say they were gonna cure death?
DeleteSomeone on reddit posted something interesting. When you consider the billions of sperm out there and that your parents could've met somebody else the statistical odds are you shouldn't even be here right now. Now how is that? The puzzle never ends. I think about these things while most bloggers are posting about Comey. The Esoteric Blog?
DeleteSperm, or germ cells as some would say: yeah, billions and only a few accomplish their mission.
DeleteThen there are those other few locked up in liquid
nitrogen, freezing and looking over at Ted Williams
all blue and stiff. The JWs told me the other day that the cemetery across the street will be free of
corpses one of these days- subsumed in the great
redemption of the end times. Dunno, the grave diggers keep right on. Today's theological question-
how does a cremated deceased get returned to their
body at the end times? Really, does St. Peter interview a pile of ashes? Like the unfortunates who were victims of Hitler? Or, is the body irrelevant, and the soul gets to live eternally in Heaven/Hell or get assigned a new body? The soul,
we are given to understand, is pure spirit. So it
has no brain or locomotion. How's that work? Are
priests up on all that? We ponder on....
Religion but always leaves out the relevant details. Cremation as I recall used to be against the Catholic faith for just that reason. Working in a crematorium must be a weird job. Are they unionized?
DeleteYou mention above somewhere that time travel would be useful in investigating the superannuated people
Deleteliving (on an on) in pre flood times. It would, and
then some. So, will you be volunteering as the first quantumnaut for the TARDIS time machine ? It would surely add flavor and variety to the BS sessions at work. :)
Yes on my next vacation. Pondering the strangeness of the google search engine. I once googled the name of someone whom I know for a fact had passed away but all the entries had the person still living with age and occupation. It was the same person as the relatives all checked out. Google is getting too sophisticated. I might google z-man only to find out I'm really dead;)
DeleteIMO, it is OK, probably best, to think of one's life as a gift. Do with it what you will. Some accept it and slog on,
ReplyDeletesome are intensely driven, others have goals, some fret
about it and some are miserable. Probably why they invented
the bucket list?
I think in general it's good advice to see life as a gift. Only problem is if you're born into slavery, about to be beheaded by ISIS or a mother with starving kids in the Sudan the gift idea kind of goes out the window. What do the pastors then say. I kind of see the whole life experience as experimental like browsing in the mall. You can't really make sense out of it but get what you can out of it.
DeleteYou mention the time travel. Here's my thing about CERN. They openly admit to being interested in other dimensions as why would gravity be so weak. Even if these things are possible I think the wiser course of action is not to tamper. I don't want to watch Gilligan one night and a train comes through my living room ya know?
ReplyDeleteToday I went to an exhibition of the art of renaissance Venice at the NC Museum of Art. It fit right in with my Church history so it was extra interesting to me to be looking at books and woodcuts made in the 1400s along with paintings of the saints and various altarpieces. Right now in my book the Catholics are busy extirpating heresy in bloody battles; not against the Muslims but against the Cathari and the Albigenses. And the Pope is there absolving everyone of the murders. It gets me in mind of thinking how fortunate we are that the founders separated church and state and how hellbent the conservative Christian right is to eradicate that separation. It also makes me think that a lot of the 'radical Islamic' violence is not so much about Islam as it is about politics and political power. Me personally I tend to think that we sort of deserve whatever we get in retaliation for the Crusades. Radical Islam has nothing on the carnage that the Church encouraged and supported back in the day. Jews also were wholly prosecuted and even forced to wear a distinctive dress and live seperately. So the Church anticipated even Hitler. Of course prosecuting the Jews was seen as just punishment for crucifying Jesus. Still it was all sanctioned by the Church.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of other dimensions. We just can't access them. The senses we do have, sight, smell, touch, etc are all so imperfect and weak, I can't even see without glasses. The average dog has a sense of smell thousands of times more acute than a human and ants are proportionately stronger. So how can we expect to see other dimensions when we can't even navigate the one we're in without aids and supports?
Persecution of Jews predates Christianity; because they were very clannish, discouraged marriage outside
Deletetheir religion and considered everyone else hopeless
pagans, they were disliked by neighbors (like Caananites and Philistines). As for Jesus, there are
strong reasons to believe he was born, lived and died
as a Jew. IMO, if he walked into a modern Christian
Church, he would say, where did you get that stuff?
We would say St. Paul and he would say, who the heck
is he? Then he would tip over all the pews. IMO.
Paul is required reading at all my Masses. In some quarters he's kind of eclipsed Jesus.
DeleteThe scary thing is I've been reading how the RNC sees Trump as the new Messiah and how he's going to save Christianity in this country. No really. I've been reading from CERN's own websites the experiments they're gleefully doing. Firing up the LHC and practically running it nonstop and playing wth their $15 million d-wave. Bible-belters are getting on YT and saying why is the word "couch" in the KJV when it wasn't even invented as a word until 1895. I'm just saying give it a rest guys until we start curing some major diseases again. Comey testifying and there's good stuff coming out. Expect the more partisan Right to take up arms for Trump who is the new Messiah after all.
ReplyDeleteCouch is in the OT and NT fairly frequently . The
Deletebiblical Greek for couch is kline*, prounounced kleen-
aay. Bible belters probably think the bible people sat on cracker barrels snorting moonshine.
*Blogger doesn't handle Greek alphabet.
I will say the Bible often has strange words and phrases. Men with breasts of milk in Job, nursing men (?), there's a frying pan somewheres (gotta consult my YouTubers). Apparently they were told to publish and not preach the Word somewhere else (printing presses back back in the day?), wineskins of course turned into glass bottles and the list of modernisms goes on and on and that's only King James.
DeleteIMO there is a modernist twang/vibe in the Good Book now or don't thou agree? I prefer my Shakespeare to be Shakespeare. Getting back to the Assyrians for a minute......
DeleteDefinitely a modern twang. I'm waiting for "Behold,
Deletethen dids't Peter bring forth his app; and the cock crowed three times" or "It came to pass that Jesus
approached Jerusalem over a bed of palm fronds and
the crowed cheered as his Harley Hog roared by"
Funny you should mention that. In some versions after Peter denied Christ 3X it's now "the cock crew" instead of "crowed" which is grammatically unproper. Cock crew and the Ezekiel Assyrians and you begin to wonder. Makes the Bible interesting no?
DeleteInteresting indeed: a number of sources note that chickens and roosters were illegal in Jerusalem: that the Greek for Cock also could represent a Man;
Deletemore specifically the man that blew the morning horn
in the Temple, known as the cocks' crowing. You could spend years sort the stuff out. I've always
sort of wondered about the Gospel of Mark: unanimously regarded as the first writing and used by the other synoptic gospelers, he does not mention
either the virgin birth or the resurrection. To fog
the lens further, there was a John Mark and a Mark,
one a son Of Mary, the other an assistant to St. Peter. However, the first gospels were writings on scrolls that contained no author and 2nd century thoelogians arbitrarily assigned a name to them,
lie Matthew, Mark, Luke, etc. Tis a truly misty
exegesis for a complex and successful religion
(and interesting to study, if one is so inclined)
We credit the infamous Pilate for being the most curious of the bunch...'what IS truth?'
What's interesting is Luke or Lucanus never personally knew Jesus but did know his mother Mary from whom he got his information for his Gospel. If I have a favorite Gospel it might be his.
DeleteKind of interesting: as best we know, Luke was a physician, the sole Gentile to write in the Bible and a great deal nicer about women. Unsure if he new Mary, as he hung around with Paul, who surely
Deletedidn't.
Got my information from Taylor Caldwell's excellent "Dear and Glorious Physician" about the life of St. Luke.
DeleteI'm still fasting from the news so I don't know much about anything. I did hear that Comey was testifying but nothing about what he's actually said. It doesn't surprise me about the RNC but that is one hell of a cognitive dissonance that a serial sexual predator with five kids by three wives is the new Messiah. Let's not forget the current wife who posed nude.... there is just no consistency in these people. The same people who manufactured scandals about Obama (there were no scandals under Obama.) are the same people who are gleefully sweeping things under the rug when it comes to Trump. I don't know because like I said I haven't been reading the news but is that still small voice of impeachment getting louder?
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, they will take up arms for him.
'They' have over imbibed Brietbart and other fringe
DeleteRW sites. If there was a law that statements had to be
referenced or proven they would go back to their caverns, swig cheap beer, clean their guns and worship the white God.
Have to say you're right about Obama. Love or hate his policies he's the Derek Jeter of politics. No scandals.
ReplyDelete..apparently all the more reason to hate him. Most of
DeleteTrump's zillion executive orders have been explicit
overturning of Obama's work..healthcare, national monuments, minority rights, reduced military spending,
banking regs, etc. I always thought Trump a poor example of humanity, long before his political foray.
It cannot end well.
CERN director Fabiola Gianotti will be an unusual guest at July's Bilderberg meeting in VA. This is giving the conspiracy theorists alot or restless nights and expect the Infowars crowd to be protesting in full force. CERN keeps hinting at interdimensional portals and word is they want to be another collider three times as large and seven times more powerful than the current LHC. I think they want to reverse the election. Run it through a d-wave or something.
ReplyDelete"Quantum" is thrown around a lot as a label for things we don't understand, and we often lump a number of phenomena into the vague category of "quantum weirdness". Is that something that you'd like to see dissipate?
ReplyDeleteI would. It's used too much as a catchall. Proposing weird and counterintuitive ideas to explain observations, developing the consequences of these ideas and testing them further, and then, if they conform with reality, accepting them is not unique to quantum mechanics. It's what we call physics.
Also, because it has a reputation for weirdness, quantum mechanics is used too much as a justification for things that have nothing to do with quantum mechanics. There is an expression, "quantum woo," where people take a personal philosophy, such as the power of positive thinking or let a smile be your umbrella, and somehow affix quantum mechanics to it to try to make it sound scientific."
-James Kakalios, Physics Professor, U of Minn
"Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you you haven't understood it yet." Neils Bohr, founder of quantum physics
DeleteI think we all know what Kakalios is referring to here. In fairness though it was the theoretical physicists who introduced the world to the multiverse. Yesterday I bought a bottle of Appleton Jamaican Rum but I could have bought Mt. Gay or Fundador Brandy or...Michio Kaku and Brian Greene would have whole new universes branching off to reflect my potential choices. Kakalios needs to talk to his fellow physicists. As long as the Redditors pay their taxes and leave people alone I have no problem. Good points though.
DeleteFrom the Fair & Balanced POV, we note a contra
DeleteQuantum Woo by a fringe (IMO) wiccan minister who terms herself Sable Arcadia. Her qualifications consist of
no knowledge of physicist, but 30 years experience as a hedgewitch. She contends that the well known
'mystical presence' exists and that quantum mechanics seems at times to suggest that. You may
want to comment at her site. I would note in her
favor that she uses modern electronic appliances,
which of course contain the solid state microchips
based on quantum chemistry. Perhaps the topic should be the target of yet another congressional
hearing? :)
I know you're not a fan of the New Age. Christians are mighty suspicious as well. I've browsed quite a few of those sites recently. Cynthia Sue Larson seems to have melded quantum mechanics and the New Age. From my pov although maybe more tolerant (are they bothering me?) New Age concepts are largely scientifically untestable. The reason people are drawn to it is because psychiatry is boring compared to the Age of Aquarius. Shrinks basically teach people how to cope, to manage hardships but reality is largely the same. The old refrain That's Life. The New Agers say the universe is moving in your favor. Larson will say you can literally quantum shift to a more favorable reality whereas the shrink is more likely to write you a prescription for Prozac. Again those physicists who push the multiverse idea are not that much different imo. Highly speculative and lacking the hard data. Multiverse vs. Wicca both snake oil imo.
DeleteOh I just read that link. My opinion of her piece is that despite being a Wiccan priestess she downplayed that and wrote a rather articulate post on the subject imo. The quantum hardcore rationalists said something about if you can't back up your claims with the math just drop it. Honestly do you understand the quantum math? How is it even possible to challenge an egghead? Would you and I care to debate Stephen Hawking? How would that go? I think you're partial to the theoretical physicists whereas I find them too speculative. Seems to me there's some kind of debate or friction going on right now between the academic quantum people and these lay groups. One thing I would agree with her on (not her pagan beliefs) is that the hardcore rationalists, call it the old-school scientists are really atheists at heart least as I can tell so you have that conflict too. I think you see everything through the lens of a rigorous scientist which is fine but people are looking for the Meaning behind it all:)
DeleteIn an interesting (to me) note, in a painting I saw that was done in 1496 Jesus already has blonde hair and blue eyes. I guess it's never changed since.
ReplyDeleteI don't know a lot about New Age stuff, I have hippie friends (a lot of HKs have a strong hippie streak, goes back to our roots) who are into crystals and reiki and things of that nature. I'm openminded but I've never really been a hippie and being trained in Western medicine I tend to brush off most alternative medicine with the exception of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. I understand the Wiccans are big into nature but that's about all I know.
Quantum stuff is over my head. But the multiverse is real; it says right in the Srimad Bhagavatam that there are millions of universes. So science may be eventually catching up with what we already know. Remember that YT I gave you on astronomy. All the information is already there.
Psychiatry, we are decreasing my medicine and hoping for the best.
It seems everyone has an ax to grind based on their
Deleteown sense of perception and logic: anti-vaccine, anti
floride, anti public school. Indicative of how strong
these feelings go- have a relative, modern day hippy
married to a modern day hippy with modern day kids.
They are dead set against floride, a toxin, a pinko
conspiracy etc. Their 4 year old had a mouthful of
cavities; baby teeth so damaged that the dentist did
repairs at the hospital under full anesthesia. $2800
hard earned hippy dollars. They continue to avoid
floride, even in toothpaste. Z-man is right; people
think what they think and are immune to that which
runs counter. IMO, that is why Trump maintains a strong hold on his base and the country is divided on
just about any issue presented. Que sera sera. Chris's 'all A is A' holds in logic, but not always
in societal thinking.
I disagree on one small point. I think there's an academic attitude that only theoretical physicists should be allowed to discuss things like multiverse. I also think any new direction in thought gets automatically lumped in with New Age. Shrinks can't tell you the Meaning Of It All. You're left to explore that on your own.
DeleteThe biocentrists are also a part of the quantum community of thinkers and feel that when you die you get shifted over to a parallel. Dr. Robert Lanza is a big proponent of this. Ok so one morning BB was doing a makeshift plumbing job and hit his head on a pipe and got shifted. Is this science or New Age? Seems a fine line. Enter Cynthia Sue Larson.
DeleteAll is fair when conjecturing. We all do it. IMO,
Deletethe problem is when conjecture becomes accepted fact. It is not in science and it shouldn't be in
any other area of reasoning. The 'evil eye' of voodoo works not because the eye does anything other
than collect light and its images, but because voodoo believers accept as fact that a mere glance
can transmit evil at them; they quake, get sick,
deteriorate and blame it not on their credulity, but
the accepted 'fact' that voodoo works. BTW, I DID hit my head last week: stood up under one of my model railroad bridges, almost knocked myself out.
The possibility of a concussion occurred, but never
considered a universe shift. The scab has come off,
the cat still pesters and the Mrs. seems the same.
I will have to check and see if the North Star went
south, though.
& all those former HS classmates of yours who are now deceased (cue Twilight Zone music).
DeleteI can't disagree with your post 'cept to say seems to me physics right now may be mostly conjecture at the moment. Why should some be allowed to conjecture and not others ya know?
DeleteThat probably holds true for the theoretical physics community. My experiences in college physics was limited to bridge truss strength,
Deletethe calculus of rates of stuff, aerodynamic lift
and the ballistics pendulum. The last one our
little group of 4, including another nerd and two
strikingly attractive coeds managed to launch the
standard 18 oz. steel ball across the lab and hit
the professor in the small of the back. In physics you keep that kind of stuff to yourself, ya know?
Some people just love a conspiracy theory. I know people who are convinced the government is poisoning us with chemtrails left by airplanes. No amount of science about water vapor is going to change their minds. The problem becomes a bigger one when like BB said the conspiracy theory becomes accepted fact. Suddenly no amount of logic or science or reason is enough to argue with these people. Cognitive dissonance sets in and there's no way out. Unfortunately a lot of conspiracy theories have a grain of truth to them. I don't believe Big Pharma is out to make me sick with the medicines I have to take but the truth is that they're jacking up prices to ungodly levels to take advantage of our need. So at what point do you distinguish fact from fiction and at what point does the dissonance take over?
ReplyDeleteI bought a weather field guide book a few years back and one of the first things I learned was how those chemtrails are made. Made sense to me and never knew there was a conspiracy theory at the time. I'm wondering though is it always wrong to subscribe to a conspiracy theory? Conspiracies have existed through all of human history so the thing is which ones have that element of truth to them? I've been looking at YT vids the last couple of days about alleged Bible changes. I have to be honest Ezekiel 23:20 has a weird explicitness to me that's not needed and even distubing but I honestly don't see how a quantum computer can change Bible verses or brand logos. The churches should be more aware of these issues and insist on better translating boards. I do see people's points that alot of things are off-center right now but the easiest target is to blame CERN and I'm no fan of CERN. I mean WHY exactly do we need a 17-mile particle collider and now they want to build one 3X that size. There's alot of legit issues with CERN imo (what are the health effects on humans?) but I don't see how they can shift the whole human race into another dimension. Some kind of JFK conspiracy theory I'm down with but that's one of the few.
DeleteHave to add there are a couple of tinnitus conspiracy theories that the gov't is behind this constant noise. It's not at all hard to surf the web and find forums devoted to electronic weaponry and targeting. While I don't subscribe and never will I can't judge those who make farther out there claims about the Hum or whatever you prefer to call it. It wouldn't seem logical that a noise could be so constant through all the years for so many people (wouldn't a bad nerve just burn itself out eventually?) thus the more outlandish theories. When science does an inadequate job of explaining people fill in the gaps.
DeleteOne of the better
Deletearticles on current tinnitus begins to define the
rather complex sound to brain physiology in terms
of neural transport and switching: to the point that
magnetic encephalography readouts for those with
tinnitus show anomalies in that process. We would think with a better understanding of it, efficient
cures should be forthcoming. Explaining science to
people is difficult: people like short soundbites
and get bored with complex rationale in a weird
language...and argue about whether a colon is a large intestine. :)
The colon is a sore point with me. I and a few others grew up with the syntactical sense that "colorectal" meant the lower part of the large intestine. It was weirdly disturbing at the time to find out the other way. Mandela-ed. I'm putting you in charge of tinnitus treatments.
DeleteReminds me of the first time I heard the optical
Deleterectitis joke: Basic Training, the drill instructor
wanders down the line of grunts a attention, singles out some poor trooper "You got optical rectitis, trooper...you got your head up your ass
and a shitty outlook". I thought the guy was having a bad day til the top sgt. got to me. Put his nose
right on my nose and hollers "You eyeballing me, soldier?" All I could see were these Nazi eyeballs
2" from me. I started to laugh. Had to do 25 pushups while being cheered on by Delta Company.
Re some of the reported human anatomy reconfigurations some religious folk on YT say it's the lying signs and wonders of the Antichrist. I think it's in preparation for global warming.
ReplyDeleteMethinks the religious folk on YT have been reading too much Ezekiel 23.
DeleteI mean you can't really blame them. I never saw a verse this explicit in the Bible before. It's like Hef translated it.
DeleteTalking about the Flat Earth Movement (ok maybe mini-movement) at work recently. I said every conspiracy has to have a purpose or point, motive if you will. So in the case of the earth not really being round but flat what would be the motive in still saying it's an orb? I'm at a loss.
ReplyDeleteThe Flat Earth believers should try taking a long trip. Say from one edge to the other edge. And try not to fall off. We both know they could travel for
Deletethe rest of their lives, pass through Paris and
Pasadena several times and on their deathbed claim
they had proven the world was indeed flat. Belief,
right or wrong, is very powerful.
But I can't come up with any conspiratorial reason why if indeed the Earth were flat the scientists would keep us in the dark about this. Travel-wise someone should have fallen off by now.
DeleteLooking at some of my old Bruce Tegner karate/anatomy books and seeing today's anatomy updates (kidneys liver and stomach up near the ribs) what would happen if you asked your doctor are you a space alien?
ReplyDeleteThese innumerable conspiracy theories are confusing. Did the
ReplyDeletekidneys move 150 miles east towards Africa? Did ancient aliens introduce the four slice toaster to Amenhotep? Do
liberals really wear tinfoil hats? Was Marilyn Monroe really
transgender? Should we really be conCERNned? We debunkers
can't keep up! :)
Well the debunkers would probably have to go with ancient jujitsu master and physiology expert Bruce Tegner was wrong as all those years and the illegal kidney punch in boxing was a myth. No reason to be conCERNed though just reporting the news.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days they're gonna have a major medical breakthrough in tinnitus research. Blockbuster in JAMA - "Christian Brothers Main Cause For Tinnitus." I will have to go quietly into that good night.
ReplyDeletePoint well taken. My slight ear ringing from the combination of old age and high blood pressure DOES tend to increase with each shot of CB brandy. But with each shot, I care less..tinnitus = buzz.
DeleteIf I understand your past remarks about tinnitus we have a wealth of information out there, good theories but for some reason this hasn't translated into any cure or effective treatment. Google the apps and you come up with masking strategies like the waterfall with the tropical birds. The pharmacist has nothing to offer yet.
DeleteI'm NOT a CERN conspiracy theorist btw but if I were a pr firm and they hired me I'd go first thing get rid of the logo with all the upside-down 6's and secondly Shiva don't help:)
ReplyDeleteSo, in one universe it is Conseil Europeen Rechurche Nucleare..and in some other it is Conspiracy Enabling
ReplyDeleteRecurrent Nightmares? BTW, a couple of hard right Evangelical TV personalities have identified the Manchester
Massacre as God's punishment for being slutty little girls.
Sort of a stretch, God using ISIS to hand out his concerns
with teeny bopper music?
CERN's website says "Accelerating Science" - I'd add accelerating conspiracy theories. The first thing those Tubers should ask is it even possible for a d-wave to change Scripture? I could be wrong but I'm gonna go with a no. Seems those Bible translating orgs might have some personal issues. I say make note of the anomalies but quit the junior theorizing.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Bakker, Theodore Shoebat, Jennifer Mayers in
Deletethe God hates little girls camp. Alex Jones and the NRA in the God hates little girl libs camp. Ariana Grande seems to draw them out from the muck. Thankfully, CERN hasn't offered an opinion and Trump
hasn't tweeted. How come everybody pronounced Qatar
as cutter? We don't pronounce guitar as gitter...
Don't recognize the names but Bakker of course. By this logic Britney Spears caused 9-11. It's good to keep track of this stuff. Are they aware ISIS hates them too?
DeleteSo I popped on my tablet just now at the library and the first notification that came up was Adam West of the original Batman just died. We all remember him but then I had a vague sense didn't we go through this once before? Another side effect of the CB brandy? What are the names of those two anti-Manchester ministers so I don't stumble across them on YT which I've been spending too much time on lately.
ReplyDeleteWe imagine St. Peter going through the entrance forms
Deletein the Golden Gate office...lessee here, justly hates
little girls, justly hates birth control pills, justly
hates Muslims, Jews, Blacks and non-heteros. OK, you're in. Justly hates liberals, scientists and academics..hmm, get over to Purgatory. Justly voted
for Trump...here is your pass to the lowest pit below.
I guess I go to Limbo. I didn't vote for anybody.
DeleteThere are a couple of conspiracy theories I hold near and dear. I'm not mentioning which ones because you'll think I'm crazy. But there is definitely a germ of truth in all the longest lasting ones.
ReplyDeleteAdam West, the original Batman. I loved that show. My favorite villan was Frank Gorshin as the Riddler.
Tinnitus. Have you ever heard of binaural beat technology? It doesn't have anything to do with tinnitus per se but it is through the ears so there's the connection. I've tried it. It's real. You can manipulate the brainwaves through sounds (it only works with headphones) and it can cause some really freaky effects, like anasthesia, states similar to drug experiences and so on. Even more interesting is that they can program the sounds to create whatever desired effect; it isn't just some random thing. Apparently it doesn't have much cred or much use outside the techies who want to get high legally. Still an interesting thing in the light of conspiracy theories about tinnitus. Are they trying to program you??
Imo every decent conspiracy theory has to have at least some level of logic or plausibility or truth otherwise it wouldn't progress further. I'm interested in the ones you believe. Do they involve aliens? The beats thing sounds like something you'd have to try on a vacation. There are many forums out there that talk about the gov't doing it. Here's a great way to quell those theories - find a cure.
DeleteI think the kidneys are drifting towards Cuba BB.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if it is considered a conspiracy theory, but there
ReplyDeleteare people terrified of germs. Little girl up the street had to have a new toothbrush every time she brushed her teeth, a new towel, new clothes: germs were everywhere, and out to get her. A debunker would say, sure- there are germs everywhere, and yes some of them might be out to get you-
but that is a minor problem, kid..your chances of getting run over by the school bus are far greater than coming down
with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, anthrax or meningococcal septicaemia. Then on second thought, that might worsen her problem...
The mother of all conspiracy theories is maybe we're all dead and don't know it. We're not in our original timeline, an alternate Earth we're in now. That's one of the hot ones right now and I've heard worse. Even if it were true Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity wouldn't care. They have to rid the world of liberals and defend the Commander.
ReplyDeleteGiven the major changes in technology and society, it
Deletemakes sense. My childhood seems like centuries ago
(wait, it almost was), listening to Little Orphan Annie on the wooden radio, playing wargames dressed like MacArthur (even with a corncob pipe) and walking through blizzards to first grade. Then in no particular order, TV, thermonuclear weaponry, jet planes, computers, traffic cams, MIRV warheads, talking watches. Was our brain not made to slowly
comprehend how to make a flint arrowhead, stalk a
mammoth and escape cave bears? Overload, I'm telling
ya.
Watching too many conspiracy vids on YT you do get that creepy feeling. Not my intent to become the Art Bell of bloggers. My kidney echo a few years back - the ultrasound tech probed near my ribs for several minutes. Puzzled at the time. As long as they're friendly;)
DeleteThe basic prob w/the YT vids: yes there are anomalies. You can google a deceased's name and they come up as still alive e.g. Google is info overload, mistakes are bound to happen. It's the wholesale leaping to conclusions w/o a scientific background. Satan is rewriting the Bible, the d-wave is changing the hand of Rodin's Thinker. The list of anomalies is endless and some may not even consider them anomalies. Jacob Israel is at least more polished. Some YouTubers are picking their nose, getting overly emotional and rambling on too long. Least as I see it.
Delete