Hello imonks, and welcome to SPRING!!!!! Ready to ramble? Last week’s post just did not have enough silliness, so we are doubling up this week. You don’t mind, do you?
March Madness has begun! How’s your bracket? Yeah, mine too… Indianapolis is hosting the Final Four, and the biggest hotel in town just installed a 165 foot tall bracket. Officials said the 44,000-square-foot banner will be in place for three weeks and the hotel will update the bracket after each round of the tournament.
Pot for pets? Nevada is considering a bill that would allow pet owners to buy marijuana for sick animals. This sets my mind a Rambling…what would stoned dogs and cats think about? I mean, living in a human society must be confusing enough to our pets. How much more so when they’re high. So I have decided to insert pictures of stoned pets randomly into the post. I can do that, you know. I get to write the post. You can’t stop me. 
Peter Leithart has an interesting argument about gender roles in the liturgy and gender orientation in creation. “Liturgical order and sexual order stand together, and they may fall together. For now, some churches try to split the difference: The sexes are interchangeable in the pulpit and at the table, but radically distinct in bed. That unsteady position will erode, and churches won’t be able to hold the line on the same-sex marriage issue without revisiting and resolving the question of interchangeable sexes in pastoral ministry.” Thoughts?
From the Irony Department comes this headline: Fire Extinguisher Factory Burns Down in Chicago.
Jose Espinoza had a problem. The cops were looking for him, and he needed some way to disguise himself. Jose, apparently not understanding the U.S. justice system, decided to make himself into a black man. But how can one change races? Well, obviously…with spray paint. Thankfully, police were not fooled by this brilliant subterfuge:
A German court fined the father and two uncles of an 18-year-old Muslim citizen for depriving him of his personal freedom when he was a minor in an attempt to force him into marriage with a woman despite his homosexuality. The victim’s father and uncle allegedly threatened him to make him renounce his homosexuality, and then had him kidnapped in order to arrange his marriage to a Lebanese girl.
“Breast is best” is not the (official, anyway) slogan of the SI swimsuit issue, but rather a mantra of sorts that sums up much of today’s research on breastfeeding. Now a longitudinal study has been published, which interviewed 5,914 new mothers about their plans for breastfeeding and then followed up to see how the children did. What makes this study unique is that it followed the subjects all the way to age 30. “We observed that breastfeeding was positively associated with performance and intelligence at 30 years old, as well as with education, school achievement and higher monthly incomes.” More specifically, the subjects who had been breastfed for 12 months or longer had a higher IQ (about 3.7 points), more years of education and earned roughly 20% more than the average income level.
Wanna see 40 seconds of a kitten trolling a turtle? Of course you do:
Imonk reader Greg sent us along a picture of the church sign below, with this note: “My wife and saw this on a Sunday drive yesterday and turned around to take this picture. We thought it might be intended as humorous, but the other side had something that was serious. I don’t know what they mean to say but what it says doesn’t want to make me visit their church!”:
But maybe it’s not as bad as this sign a Knoxville church put up this week:
Well, this is strange. And sad. Did you know that Tanzania has a problem with witch doctors murdering albinos for body parts? For some reason, the albinism rate is almost 15 times higher in 
Tanzania than in the rest of the world, and many superstitions have developed about them. It seems almost 80 albinos have been murdered in the past decade or so, and one set of albino body parts sold for $75,000 (in a country where most people make only a few hundred a year). Thousands of albinos have gone into hiding.
And what to make of the tone of the article that ends this way: “Reconciling fundamental human rights can sometimes feel like a blurry balancing act. The right to life and the right to freedom of religion or belief are both enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But if practicing your beliefs involves the murder of another human being for whatever reason you’ve convinced yourself is legitimate, prepare to face the consequences. Your right to manifest a belief doesn’t trump another’s right to live. The right to life is absolute.” Really? This needs to be said? And how is this anything close to a “blurry balancing act” between religious freedom and the right not to be murdered?
Worse, if possible, is the comment by socialjusticeNOW under the article: “I don’t know how to feel about this issue. Are the albinos a minority that is being oppressed, or does their skin give them white privilege that they think should trump the indigenous beliefs of People of Color? There is a real paradox here that cannot be brushed aside with simplistic moral posturing.” 
Germany will allow, for the first time since World War 2, for the book Mein Kampf to be published. Opponents of the decision said “This book is too dangerous for the general public” and “outside of human logic.” One person who supports the decision argued, “But we should remember that a free society rejects the idea that it is up to the authorities to decide what opinions are acceptable. That’s our job, each of us individually…Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. There is an important symbolism built into encouraging robust free speech: We can handle it.” Thoughts, imonks?
Saint Gilbert? There is a movement to make G.K. Chesterton a Saint. It’s just in the prelim stage right now, but I would totally support that. If, you know, I was Catholic.
Ever heard of Zaytuna College? Neither did I till this week, when it became the first Muslim college in the U. S. to be accredited. It offers only one degree — a bachelor of arts in Islamic law and theology.
Party Poopers: Ikea apparently will no longer allow massive hide and seek games in its stores. Last summer the company allowed a few hundred people to play the game in one of its Belgian stores. The pics on social media, of course, made others desire to do the same thing. Ikea put up the NO sign when someone put up a Facebook event for one Dutch store and 32,000 people pledged attendance.
Science and faith detente? Last year a sociologist at Rice, Elaine Ecklund, reported that 76 percent of scientists in the general population identify with a religious tradition. This week, after finding and crunching more data, she reports that 70 percent of self-identified evangelicals “do not view religion and science as being in conflict.” Both these conclusions are drawn from a survey of 10,000 U.S. adults that claims to be the largest study of American views on these issues. Among Evangelicals, 48 percent view science and religion as complementary, 21 percent view the two world-views as entirely independent of one another, and about 30 percent see these world-views in opposition. Your thoughts, imonks?
Odd headline of the week: Test of love — Man’s girlfriend and ex-partner jump into river to see who he’ll rescue. A police spokesman said: “The girls began arguing and the man’s ex-girlfriend felt insulted by a comment made by the new girlfriend, and so she jumped into the river calling for her former lover to save her. The new girlfriend, fearing that he might indeed jump in to save his ex-lover, then jumped in as well and both of them began calling for him to rescue them from drowning.” Wu [the unfortunate young man] settled the matter by jumping in the water to save his current girlfriend, and then taking the soaking wet and slightly injured young woman to hospital. The police spokesman added: “He called his brother on the way home and told him to go to the river and rescue the ex-girlfriend.” 
Inkwell, a posh village in England, just a few miles from the mansion where Downton Abbey is filmed, finds itself in a bit of a sticky wicket: They are plagued by a poo bomber. Apparently the woman (residents claim to know who it is but haven’t caught her “in the act’) keeps leaving piles of her excrement in the alleys and driveways. One woman complained, “What she’s doing is definitely not the sort of behaviour you expect in the place like this.” I love the British understatement, but can’t help wondering where, exactly, this resident would expect this sort of behaviour to occur.
But a solution may be in the pipeline: the poo bus. England’s first bio-bus (but nobody will call it that) will hit the streets this month, operating four days a week on Service 2 (yes, really). If the route proves a success, the company will consider introducing more buses. Sewage will be turned into biomethane gas, which powers the vehicle. I believe it can also run on political campaign promises.
Last year, a federal judge overturned Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage. Last week, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed legislation that will require couples looking to get married to seek approval from a clergy member in order for them to be married in the state. The bill’s sponsor: “I think Oklahoma’s at the point where we have decided we are drawing a line today and sidestepping the government overreach. You know in the early days, the king actually went before the priest to ask for marriage. Somehow along the way, we’ve changed it to where we have to ask the government before we go to the priest to be married, and now we have problems.” 
Customs officials in Italy seized a ginormous egg fossil that a man attempted to ship to the United States. The fossil is believed to be the egg of an Aepyornis maximus, also known as an “elephant bird.” The giant kiwi-like creatures could reach 10 feet tall and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
Finally, Microsoft announced this week that it is killing off Internet Explorer, the tool commonly used to download Chrome or Firefox. Well, technically they’re not “killing” it; They’re just putting it in a dark room and refusing to feed it. Ever. So Windows 10 will have a new browser, with no official name yet. Microsoft is said to be debating between Dora the Internet Explorer, Internet Tourist, Firewolf, or ChromeME2. RIP, Internet Explorer. You will always live on in our viruses.
The Internet Monk Archives 
Another little Momento from classic Dr Demento:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Itz80d7ec
Now with PONIES!
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“Never get out of the boat never get out of the boat never get out of the boat…”
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Well Ted Cruz kicked off his Presidential campaign today at Liberty U (Jerry Falwell’s old stomping ground).
Didn’t say if he was holding a big Pulpit Bible during his announcement.
Guess Jerry Falwell’s replaced Bob Jones-the-whatever as the GOP Presidential pilgrimage site.
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This is called Bibliomancy, a form of Divination Magick.
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If you’re a wife-beater, it’s *PRE*scriptive.
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(Remember the Megachurch youth group that used this song? Christianized South Park style?)
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“PLAY SOME SKYNRD, MAN!”
— Heckler in Mike Judge short “Inbred Jed” (predecessor of Beavis & Butthead)
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Firefox XL5?
Somebody over there a Gerry Anderson fan?
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Both Wartburg Watch & Spiritual Sounding Board have been watchblogging about this guy for some time. And I think he shows up occasionally on Homeschoolers Anonymous as well.
From his antics (his “Kirk”s been trying to take over Moscow Idaho like the Rajneeshees tried Antelope Oregon), I’d sooner trust Joffrey Baratheon-Lannister with power than him.
Absolute Power plus Utter Righteousness by Divine Right is a VERY bad combination.
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Today, while my pastor preached about Abraham, he urged the congregation not to consider the sacrifice of Isaac as an applicable parenting example. He then said the same thing about Jacob, Leah, and Rachel concerning applicability to marriage. Biblicism has brought us to the precipice of madness. People have been told to open the bible and let their fingers do the walking to find the answer to the problem of the day. Then we wring our hands over the unintended consequences of this abuse of scripture. The Bible is not a self-help book or a spiritual cookbook, or a spell book for that matter.
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Pragmatism treats truth and applicability as the same thing, but they are not.
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Another name for the bus might be the “Dookie of Windsor”.
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So I was thinking the other day, Where is CalvinCuban?, and then, Lo and behold!, he shows up with comments, and it’s good to hear from him.
Now I wonder: Where is The Finn?
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Thank you HUG. Seriously, I thought I was the only one!! I knew I couldn’t be alone in thinking that Wilson sounds a little… cult-y. Not full on Manson, but more than the run of the mill charismatic leader.
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Yeah, that’s about it.
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The comment by socialjusticeNOW is not only leftist jargon, but academic leftist jargon; I’d wager that socialjusticeNOW is a university professor, or graduate student. Any takers?
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Well, Dr. P, that’s what freedom in Christ is about. And, I don’t care what you think. Nor you me. But that’s ok. The real issue is that is never the end of the matter. Because many, like here on this blog, will then criticize the one they disagree with! And very loudly, I might add.
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Dogs, you say?
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Not without urinalysis, he’s not….
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It is leftist in the sense that it could only be produced by a person who self-identifies as leftist–and far left at that–in the context of present-day American political discourse.
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Our browser of choice is Firefox XL5.
Has anyone else considered that Browser would be a great name for a dog?
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Maybe England’s elderly ‘poo-bomber’ IS on the Daniel diet.
My goodness, I do understand how the offended aesthetics of the posh Inkwell village victims was aroused in such a case, but I must say I am somewhat disappointed. You see, I have always greatly admired the Brits because, as a people, they are so accepting of their eccentric misfits. They LIKE their eccentric folks. Well, even the Brits have their limits, I suppose, as this Inkwell poo-bomber has most assuredly tested and proven.
At least the poo-bomber is making use of toilet paper. Keeping up standards is so important these days, especially in a village so near the mansion used as the Downton Abbey film set.
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I saw that post too. I am looking forward to your comments, should the occasion arise where you can post them.
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I hope to have a post related to this in the upcoming weeks.
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The comments were great! I will also have a few surprises in store for next Friday. (Might be a long post!)
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Re: the church sign-
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tenn-church-satan-sign-outrage-article-1.2156881
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Groan…
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A Pew Survey of American adults in 2013 asked people to choose between “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time” and “humans and other living things have evolved over time” (or don’t know). 33% agreed with no change. When they subdivided by religion, 64% of white evangelicals agreed that humans and other living things have not changed and 27% said they had changed (the remaining 9% presumably said don’t know or refused to answer).
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/
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Ok, you’ve been cleared.
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yeah it is
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“I also like Internet Explorer.” Yeah like Clark said I actually do too. I like any software that I don’t have to be a computer nerd to use. Only thing easier is Apple Safari. Too bad Apples are so expensive. I’m writing this on a PC. I miss Apple’s auto-correct. I’m a lousy typist.
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Sean, I don’t know. I would suspect that someone put the wrong time stamp on it. In which case I imagine it will be up in the next few days.
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Yes, it certainly would
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Yes, that was odd. I remember the post and your comment, then….gone….
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Just look at the seemingly-incompatible wave/particle duality of light (and matter more generally). I mean, waves and particles behave nothing alike, yet somehow we are forced to acknowledge the presence of both attributes. For me, scientific insights like this have had large theological implications as well, seeing as I now don’t have to worry about having a clear-cut answer for everything. For instance, is God sovereign, or do we have free will? Debates like this have been going on for centuries. According to our narrow, one-track minds, they seem to be completely at odds. Yet I’m sure they also too somehow coexist in a way that is not readily understandable to us.
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Late Friday night there seemed to be a mishap in the iMonastery, and a post was published that apparently was not intended to be. It was short and sweet, but on a subject that I’ve been waiting to discuss here with some depth, so I jumped to it, I wrote a couple of long and (perhaps) well-thought out arguments. I invited responses from some of the locals. But alas, the post was deleted, and none were offended by me.
I should count my blessings, but I do wonder if that post will see the light of day?
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If you search for “stoner dog meme” you can find one pic that says “Play Dead? No man, play Floyd”
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Oh, Rick . . . ouch. 🙂
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Yep, I have those moments too. Same moments I have whenever people continuously quote Oswald Chambers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, etc…
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That’s actually very insightful!
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If God indeed has a sense of humor and a sense of irony, she would turn out to be a lesbian.
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I’m a dinosaur, too. IE for me!
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The only way I can condone the selling of body parts is if it involves the removal of buttocks in excahnge for an average cash amount. You know, the ends justifying the means….
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It’s the same reason why I am not surprised that Bill Maher and Ann Coulter are friends in real life. Really, the only difference between a Maher and a Coulter (or a Leithart and a socialjusticeNOW!) is the god they worship. Otherwise, they’re just different sides of the same coin.
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If only they were on the Daniel Diet – the fiber would have cleared them out…
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Chris, I plead innocent.
When I decided to include the proposed pot for pets law, it just kinda got me wondering what would happen if I searched for stoned dogs. Of course, the internet being what it is, I actually found about twice as many good pics (already captioned) than I could include.
I’m more of a collector of oddities in this role than anything else.
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Klasie, I don’t think many of these people have enough brains to figure out that they sound just like the “other religion” theocracies they say they are against. It wouldn’t matter much anyway, because they are all so darn sure they are right, and that God will make sure they prevail in their rightness. Oh, wait, that makes them sound even more like the theocracies they hate. And the circle keeps spinning…
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Missing from the video is the most important part: the map not knowing where it was going.
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This (iMonk) is my therapeutic dose; although, sometimes it veers off into my “comfortably numb” dose…and other times it becomes a bad trip…man…
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It also depends on the definition of “science.”
Most of the people who are invested in not believing things that scientists say simply accuse scientists of being “unscientific.” Ignore them, for I – Everyman – know what the real science is.
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And since there was no musical offering in the Ramblings today, I will take the liberty of providing this one:
God only knows,
God makes his plans.
The information’s unavailable
to the mortal man….
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Are those Pearls the same ones who advocate beating babies? I still can’t believe any Christian organization would give them credibility . . . how many cases are there now of ‘Pearl-influenced parents’ whose children have been seriously injured or killed? Tough to see the Pearl philosophy is still ‘acceptable’ in the fundamentalist world. The whole ‘control’ thing is so exaggerated in fundamentalism that it conveys a kind of mental and emotional instability in that certain personality-types gravitate towards these beliefs and act them out in extreme and harmful ways. So destructive.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25268343
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Lest a Thought Police informant might overhear.
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His pre-millennial dispensational counterpart is no doubt “ApocalypseNOW”…
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I don’t what the controls were. I do know that in my experience of a broad spectrum of evangelicalism in America, most of the people I came to know believed the evidence for evolution was sound, etc. They just wouldn’t tell you until they got to know you and even then would often whisper it.
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…now we’re really slip-sliding away…
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I am at a point in my religious life where I am perfectly comfortable saying, “I don’t care if that’s what Paul thought. I disagree.”
So there ya’ go…
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🙂
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Please see the full answer by the woman whose post was reblogged at Slate, along with the discussion following: http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-for-people-growing-up-in-Germany-to-learn-about-the-Holocaust-in-school
The comments are mainly by Germans, many of whom grew up with *no* discussion of either the war or the Holocaust in school. As one of them says
“In high school ( a very elite affair then for 8% of each age group) we had to study history that lead us from the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans finally to the Germans, but ended miraculously just before Hitler came to power, because we were always running out of time. Of course most of our teachers had been raised under Hitler’s totalitarian regime and many as young people had been enthusiastic followers of their Fuehrer. Now, their world had broken down and silence was the only way to save face and to go on with their lives. In hindsight, them having been educated in a totalitarian inhumane system might be the reason why I did not like most of my teachers, the exception being the older ones who had been grown up before 1933.”
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It’s like the anti-sodomy laws in Louisiana. Like, how are they going to enforce that, exactly? Although it is a helpful deterrent to Driscoll or his cronies setting shop down there…
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I’m also not sure it’s “leftist” at all.
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Correct.
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But on the other hand, Christians have been interpreting the Bible into their metanarrative for 2000 years, so I don’t really have an issue with Leithart’s fanciful interpretation.
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Also, the real-life “nasty girl,” Anna Rosmus, can easily be looked up. She ended up emigrating to the US, largely due to continuing death threats against herself and threats to her daughter.
Anna Rosmus was born in 1960, so… you can look her up and do the math, as to how people kept trying to silence her as well as why they did so.
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Whoa. I know I’ve seen that as a kid, but now…wow. That song is something.
Kids shows…how much of that stuff is in there and we just don’t know it? Not that there’s some “evil liberal conspiracy” or whatever…but that’s some good wisdom there.
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How science vs faith discussions always come across to me:
Person A: “This apple is red.”
Person B: “No, it’s not, it’s a sphere!”
Person A: “On the contrary, the evidence clearly indicates it must be red.”
Person B: “Red?! How can it be red if it’s spherical?!”
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Forgto to add the date re. the film, etc.: 1977.
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Please note that the Slate blogger does *not* say that she ever was taught the history of WWII, the rise of the Nazi party, or more than a nominal mention of the Holocaust.
She has more exposure than many younger Germans. It is a sore point in countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, fwiw, and doubtless in others that were invaded and occupied by Germany during WWII.
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If it’s in the Bible, it’s TRUE(tm).
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They are not prescriptive, Leithart is wrong; they are not true. Feels good to say that.
Here I’ll stand.
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If it’s Biblical it’s TRUE ™. The whole courtship paradigm is based on a literal reading of Genesis and some of Paul. That’s where we get the Pearl’s Created to Be His Helpmeet. And the whole courtship thing from Derek Prince.
Cuz if it’s in the Bible, it’s TRUE ™.
Why, don’t you want God’s best? Why do you think you can choose better than God? Just trust Him for the best.
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Ok, i stand corrected, but truly, there was a long period of just not teaching about WWII and the Holocaust in W. Germany. It still is a frightening thing, and you can look into things like the actual biography of the woman who is portrayed in the film The Nasty Girl (as well as watching the film itself) in order to see what i am referring to. On my one and only visit to W. Germany, back in the late 70s, i felt like there was a very heavy silence on everything related to the war. At that time, there was a remix of Hitler film clips – claiming to be a documentay – that was extremely popular with HS and university students. It whitewashed Hitler; made him look benign. There was a corresponding surge in kids openly wearing Naxi regalia, and some went much further than that, into neo-facism. i read an article in The New Yorker that summer – very long and detailed – on this. It included interviews with anumber of history teachers, who felt thatthe film was a hit with kids previsely because they werenot petmitted to teach the history that would expose thefilm for what it was – propaganda.
I think it is important to know some of the background here, so i am trying to providewhat i do know about this. The change in curriculum is recent.
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I also like Internet Explorer… and daytime soap operas… and paper cuts… and long check-out lines… and ingrown toenails…
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“Last year a sociologist at Rice, Elaine Ecklund, reported that 76 percent of scientists in the general population identify with a religious tradition. This week, after finding and crunching more data, she reports that 70 percent of self-identified evangelicals “do not view religion and science as being in conflict.””
Identify with a religious tradition isn’t the same as being religious (think of secular Jews and even Dawkins has some soft feelings for parts of the Anglican tradition he was raised in). Her study also showed that only 36% of the scientists surveyed had some belief in God and only 9% had no doubt in God’s existence.
For her latest, did she check what evangelicals mean by “science”? For instance if some are convinced that evolutionary biology (or any other science they reject for religious reasons) isn’t good science, then they may well agree there is no conflict between science and religion but their ‘science’ bears no relation to the real thing.
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Any president/ prime minister / chancellor who can get a country to laugh together will do more good than one with a seriea of well meant economic / social / foreign policy agendas….
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I wonder what GK Chesterton would have to say about a campaign for his sainthood. It would probably be an entertaining read.
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This is my go-to explanation of Biblicism.
http://youtu.be/p3JYfbu8BiA
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If you ask me, this dialogue is a “slip-pery slope.”
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Well Daniel,
It’s official: at some time, in some place, with some people somewhere, you inhaled. No one who hadn’t could come up with those captions. I sure hope your mother isn’t reading this mister mister!
Sincerely,
Chris
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Genesis is not a book on marriage. It is not a science book. It is not a diet book. (Insert Godzilla face-palm here).
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It explains why preachers who a full of it are so successful.
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*channeling HUG*
“The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.”
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Care to pass it this way, Oscar?
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You expect different from someone with a handle like “SocialJusticeNOW”?
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I’d get a cat.
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“The man Penetrates! Colonizes! Conquers! Plants! The woman lies back and accepts!”
— Doug Wilson, cult leader
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A little momento from classic Dr Demento:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atjyjwSDYqY
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Six if you count Perry Noble.
(You ever seen pics of him in the pulpit?)
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I would say the authors of those texts meant them to be. I would also say that any religious body expecting to keep its female adherents would seriously underplay those teachings though. I mean, there are reasons I’m no longer a Christian and my expectation of equality (and my expectation that others are to be treated equally) is a big part of that.
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I don’t think even Leithart would disagree with you on this, Cermak. The ultimate question on this issue is, are the descriptions of gender roles in Genesis (such as they are) and in Paul’s letters *de*scriptive (describing and accommodating the norms of their day) or *pre*scriptive (describing a transcendent divinely-ordained pattern for gender roles). Leithart obviously believes the latter. Is he correct in doing so?
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Daniel Jepsen for President. I don’t know his politics, but that wouldn’t matter if his State of the Union addresses were remotely like his Ramblings….
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It seems to me that trying to argue sex roles from the mythology of Genesis and from the writings of Paul is difficult when one considers that the milieu in which those writings were made was radically different from the current age. We now live in a society where there is an expectation of equality between both sexes. Neither Paul nor the author(s) of the Genesis myth had that experience.
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One wonders if the Oklahoma legislature realizes that they are sounding more and more like the Middle Eastern “theocracies” they so love to despise, and would love to make war against.
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Oh, Calvin, we have missed you! Well played.
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Robert, I’m getting the memo, now. Silly me, I guess I thought we could all agree that murdering people so you can sell their body parts is evil.
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See, I did it again! When you wrote, “Freudian slip” I first imagined Sigmund Freud wearing a slip. Or perhaps it’s a metaphor for the feminine side in all us men, which few of us like to admit to.
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“Does the Oklahoma law actually do what it is the legislators are hoping it will do?”
Appeal to the base? Keep the legislators who vote for it safe from a primary challenge from the right? Yeah, it probably accomplishes that?
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This. I wonder if numo isn’t confusing this with the Japanese, who are much less forthright about that period.
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I would think that the first thing I would do, after trying to see to both their safety, would be to reevaluate my relationship choices. I mean, can you imagine the drama if you married either of these people? This is the kind of thing that should make you pause and ponder, well, how did I get here?
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Does the Oklahoma law actually do what it is the legislators are hoping it will do? I mean, I’m gonna assume there are some Independent Catholic, Unitarian, ELCA Lutheran, and Episcopalian clergy who will be happy to marry gay folk. Also if the Universal Life Church people are considered clergy, then really anyone can marry gay folk. Also the law seems to target the non-religious as well as the gays.
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Oh, sure. This stuff really is out there. But who cares? Silly people say silly things all the time on all sorts of subjects. You don’t see politicians feeling it necessary to pander to this sort of leftie silliness. It is irrelevant.
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There is something very similar between Leithart and the socialjusticeNow crowd: They are both drastically trying to be clever and profound… and failing dismally at it.
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I suppose those who practice polyamory would have litORGYcal parnters?
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Mike needs to digest. We’ll have it to look forward to next Friday.
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Come on, DJ: Don’t you realize that any strongly held ethical position is really just “simplistic moral posturing”? Except, of course, if you believe in socialjustice NOW….
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It also depends on what is implied by “compatible”.
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Are science and faith (actually, shouldn’t it be faiths?) compatible? It depends on the humility of their practitioners.
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Yeah, I thought “socialjusticeNOW must be trolling; no-one really thinks like that.” Then I read some follow-up comments, and nope, I think he/she is in earnest.
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A Freudian slip?
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/02/06/how_do_german_students_learn_about_the_holocaust.html
Not true.
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When I first read abut a German court fining a Muslim father and uncle of a homosexual 18-year-old for forcing him to marry a woman, I thought I read “…in order to arrange his marriage to a ‘lesbian’ girl.” Turns out it was a “Lebanese” girl. Seriously. Funny how those things happen.
There’s a psychological jargon for misreading things like this but I can’t remember what it’s called.
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The pet pictures were worth the read this morning! As for the rest, I think I’ll comment after I fire up my therapeutic dose.
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Eek, thanks for catching that, Charles. Shelter rescues all the way!
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Robert – the silence in German schools is deafening. They do not even mention the Nazis, let alone the Holocaust.
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‘ . . . would I be a horrible person if I said, “I’m going to the pet store to buy a dog. Hope you two can swim”?’
Marcus, better “I’m going to the shelter to rescue a dog.”
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I just want to know what Mike thinks about all the comments from his post yesterday!
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I’m sure that Mein Kampf can be found and read by anyone who wants to do so in Germany, despite censorship. Legal censorship does not prevent the spread of malignant ideas and philosophies; it may push them underground, but these things grow in darkness.
How do you discuss the evils of Nazism in an educational setting without having access to its ideas and cultural manifestations? Do German educational institutions teach the history of the Third Reich? Or is there a national amnesia about the subject, especially regarding national responsibility, as I understand is the case in Japan regarding its actions during WWII?
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Never mind. Saw it. And yes, it was stupid, and totally ignorant of the legitimate conversations regarding privilege.
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What comment? Was it deleted?
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Actually, on the Oklahoma marriage law, most states have had similar laws on marriage since the 1800s, they just aren’t enforceable.
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I actually like Internet Explorer… and airplane food… and Comcast customer service.
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That comment by socialjusticeNOW is a bona fide, 100% genuine example of leftie silliness. Note how disconnected it is with anything actually relevant to the national discourse.
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If my girlfriend and ex jumped into the river and demanded that I rescue one of them as a sign of my love, would I be a horrible person if I said, “I’m going to the pet store to buy a dog. Hope you two can swim”?
Also, Leithart, the church billboards, and the Oklahoma state legislature strike me as signs that some self-professed Christians are more concerned with holding onto power norms than preserving any kind of “sanctity” inherent in marriage. I fail to see how comparing civil rights movements to Satan or making pastors the gateway to marriage, even for non-Christians, preserves the sanctity of marriage. And denying yourself? Is marriage really that miserable of a sacrament that you have to commit to being unhappy, ’cause all of my happily married friends seem to be doing something wrong?
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I’m weird. I actually like Internet Explorer.
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The sexes are interchangeable in the pulpit and at the table, but radically distinct in bed
Pardon my asking, but what the blue blazes does Leithart mean by this? Does he mean the physiological differences between male/female “plumbing”? Or does he mean (as I rather suspect, knowing him) that each sex has a strict “role” to play in the sexual act? If that’s the case, he is making cultural and hermeneutical leaps of assumption that would give an Olympic longjumper fits of envy.
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…and in other news, the stock price for doggie munchie treats is skyrocketing. A company spokesman commented “dude, it’s like I didn’t know dogs could eat that many taco chip flavored chew bones in one sitting.”
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Mr. Wu, U Da Man!
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Actually, bio waste-fueled buses are unbiblical. Any good biblical literalist knows that the great men of the bible were constipated:
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“liturgical partner” — LOVE that
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*groan*
…
…
*snicker*
*chuckle*
But like, why the bus?
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But what if my cat already acts stoned?
Reading the Leithart article – got to this phrase “It’s a well-watered spot”, thought of the stoned dogs in this article and had a chuckle. Not sure if I buy the garden = temple argument. “Adam falls in that he forsakes his priesthood.” uhh….
(I am however rather glad I found my “liturgical partner” last year.)
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“England’s first bio-bus (but nobody will call it that) will hit the streets this month, operating four days a week on Service 2 (yes, really).”
Would that make the bus a little deuce coupe?
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Primero!
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