(From Facebook.)
I was reading a blog article that brought forcefully to my mind some of the most damnable words ever recorded in any human literature. (I'll refer you to it later, since doing so now will only prevent me from commenting further with what I have to say.)
They're found in several verses scattered through Jewish Scripture, especially in Proverbs. I'll quote a few of these barbaric verses that still afflict the human race with a hard-boiled, bullying frame of mind that wreaks havoc on a great segment of each generation of hapless victims.
"He that spareth his rod hateth his son (13:24) ... Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying (19:18) ... foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him (22:15) ... If thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die (23;13)." (Quite a great number have died, so that is not true.)
I'm well aware that there could be an occasional circumstance where a slap or swat might be appropriate, but those would be rare occasions for a lovingly reared child. The fact is that violence breeds violence and any child (or creature) subjected to repeated violence is going to respond defensively and develop a personality of hostility for its own protection.
I could count on less than the fingers of one hand the times I remember when either of my parents struck me -- with anything, inluding their hand. Just knowing they were disappointed in me was enough to fill me with the deepest of fear and shame. Their loving approval meant the world to me as a child. I feared doing anything that would lessen it.
I see the same thing in our little dogs. They've never been struck in their entire lives, but just show disapproval or scold them, and their heads and tails droop. They are shattered and so relieved when you make it plain that they are stll loved and cherished. That's the important thing. They must know that you love them no matter what. It leads them to respond in kind.
Children are exactly the same. They have to be patiently taught. It isn't always easy. But, resorting to violent brute force only perpetuates the hardboiled attitude that has permeated human society for millenia. It brutalizes. It warps. It feeds on itself. It helps create psycopaths.
Let's have done with the violent approach. It's counter productive.
Here's the article that got me started:
http://armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com/2014/01/samuel-martins-former-cog-babysitter.htm
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Banned by HWA! Books, News and Observations About Armstrongism and the Churches of God
armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com
A blog about Armstrongism, Herbert W Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, Worldwide Church of God, Ron Weinland, Roderick C Meredith
Thursday, January 30, 2014
DON'T PRE-JUDGE
(From Facebook.)
There were two sales in the Village of Oak Creek and West Sedona this morning, but Phyllis wasn't up to getting up early to go and I didn't want to go alone. So, we're having a practically saleless January. Bummer!
I just sat down with the free paper that's delivered overnight on Wednesdays and found a good article about not pre-judging dogs on the basis of breed biases which pointed out how much the author's husband came to love a poodle-bichon rescue dog when he originally wanted nothing to do with poodles. A special bond developed between them.
I'm reminded of my reaction when I realized my stepson was offering a free dog as a mother's day gift to my wife. I was in the background, mouthing "No." Trouble is now an especially loved part of my life. I had misgivings about the other two when they were added to the mix. Now, I couldn't bear to let any of them go.
I'm thankful dogs came into my aged life. They've been good for me. I feel I've grown in love and understanding because of them. I wanted children in my life and am thankful for each of the four I was blessed with and appreciate the step children and grandchildren I've had.
Dogs are almost like another chance at parenting. They can try your patience at times, but love always carries the day when all is said and done. I know that special loving feeling that floods through me when I see their happy faces is good for me.
There were two sales in the Village of Oak Creek and West Sedona this morning, but Phyllis wasn't up to getting up early to go and I didn't want to go alone. So, we're having a practically saleless January. Bummer!
I just sat down with the free paper that's delivered overnight on Wednesdays and found a good article about not pre-judging dogs on the basis of breed biases which pointed out how much the author's husband came to love a poodle-bichon rescue dog when he originally wanted nothing to do with poodles. A special bond developed between them.
I'm reminded of my reaction when I realized my stepson was offering a free dog as a mother's day gift to my wife. I was in the background, mouthing "No." Trouble is now an especially loved part of my life. I had misgivings about the other two when they were added to the mix. Now, I couldn't bear to let any of them go.
I'm thankful dogs came into my aged life. They've been good for me. I feel I've grown in love and understanding because of them. I wanted children in my life and am thankful for each of the four I was blessed with and appreciate the step children and grandchildren I've had.
Dogs are almost like another chance at parenting. They can try your patience at times, but love always carries the day when all is said and done. I know that special loving feeling that floods through me when I see their happy faces is good for me.
Monday, January 27, 2014
DIETARY PARANOIA
Some of the things I run into online really get me shaking my head. I just this evening came across a Huffington Post offering that tried to scare me (and everyone else) into not using lemon wedges in my drinks because of all the microbes I might ingest. (Like the entire world and the air around us aren't loaded with such things!)
Come on, now. I do have an immune system that has been pretty damn efficient in protecting me from all manner of microbial dangers for nearly 80 years! You would shudder to see what I fell in and was drug through on that ranch I grew up on. under a microscope, it would be hard to tell where I begin and the microbes in all areas of my body leave off.
Studies have shown that babies who are exposed to more dirt and bacterial cultures are far healthier with much stronger immune systems, less asthma, etc. than those who are fanatically isolated from any possible contamination. Playing in the dirt, making mud pies, eating with garden soiled hands and any number of other things humans are prone to experience don't necessarily pose a threat. And don't companies make millions selling us yogurt and pills to get that "good" bacteria into our guts? I got the same thing drinking raw milk, eating butter churned from naturally soured cream and walking across the farmyard!
As an aside, when I was a ministerial assistant in New York, one of the more humorous members mentioned how careful they were to sanitize everything their first child consumed and came in contact with. He said things loosened up considerably with the second one and that the third one "ate with the dog." I wonder which one was the healthiest.
The article did mollify things toward the end, proving that they only chose the subject and title to get people upset and worried. Most of us will have an "ho hum" reaction, but the mentally unbalanced among us will run with it and create a multitude of problems for themselves and those close to them.
I like to write and influence the opinions of others, but let's use a little restraint lest we stir the pot of paranoia.
Come on, now. I do have an immune system that has been pretty damn efficient in protecting me from all manner of microbial dangers for nearly 80 years! You would shudder to see what I fell in and was drug through on that ranch I grew up on. under a microscope, it would be hard to tell where I begin and the microbes in all areas of my body leave off.
Studies have shown that babies who are exposed to more dirt and bacterial cultures are far healthier with much stronger immune systems, less asthma, etc. than those who are fanatically isolated from any possible contamination. Playing in the dirt, making mud pies, eating with garden soiled hands and any number of other things humans are prone to experience don't necessarily pose a threat. And don't companies make millions selling us yogurt and pills to get that "good" bacteria into our guts? I got the same thing drinking raw milk, eating butter churned from naturally soured cream and walking across the farmyard!
As an aside, when I was a ministerial assistant in New York, one of the more humorous members mentioned how careful they were to sanitize everything their first child consumed and came in contact with. He said things loosened up considerably with the second one and that the third one "ate with the dog." I wonder which one was the healthiest.
The article did mollify things toward the end, proving that they only chose the subject and title to get people upset and worried. Most of us will have an "ho hum" reaction, but the mentally unbalanced among us will run with it and create a multitude of problems for themselves and those close to them.
I like to write and influence the opinions of others, but let's use a little restraint lest we stir the pot of paranoia.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
WHAT IF YOU'RE WRONG?
My, how chauvinistic we can be about our precious beliefs. It's been that way since time immemorial.
Egyptians believed in and stuck and hung for Horus and a host of companion gods, Greeks for Zeus and his family, Romans for Jupiter, Northern europeans for Thor, Odin, Freia, etc. In Canaan it was El Elyon and his sons, chief of which were Yahweh and Baal, along with the females Ashtoreth and, if I remember correctly, daughter Anath.
All those gods except Yahweh have ended up on the trash heap of history. He's still around and usually called Jehovah today.
If I dare to state that I don't believe in Jehovah and his rape begotten son, Jesus, people in this part of the world usually react with horror and blurt out something like, "What if you're wrong?" It doesn't occur to them that millions of sincere people are just as convinced that Allah is the real god. If you don't, how do you know you're not wrong? Are you wrong to reject Zeus or Thor or the host of Hindu gods millions of others sincerely believe in?
Everybody is an atheist when it comes to all other gods but their own. I just add their god to the list while they don't.
Egyptians believed in and stuck and hung for Horus and a host of companion gods, Greeks for Zeus and his family, Romans for Jupiter, Northern europeans for Thor, Odin, Freia, etc. In Canaan it was El Elyon and his sons, chief of which were Yahweh and Baal, along with the females Ashtoreth and, if I remember correctly, daughter Anath.
All those gods except Yahweh have ended up on the trash heap of history. He's still around and usually called Jehovah today.
If I dare to state that I don't believe in Jehovah and his rape begotten son, Jesus, people in this part of the world usually react with horror and blurt out something like, "What if you're wrong?" It doesn't occur to them that millions of sincere people are just as convinced that Allah is the real god. If you don't, how do you know you're not wrong? Are you wrong to reject Zeus or Thor or the host of Hindu gods millions of others sincerely believe in?
Everybody is an atheist when it comes to all other gods but their own. I just add their god to the list while they don't.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
WHERE DID CARING GO?
(From Faceboodk.)
I've been on a sharing roll this morning. So many good things appear on Facebook that it's often hard to choose which ones to share and how many to just like and move on.
I was touched by the dog hugging its benefactor in a state of relieved bliss. How often I've felt the same way when someone showed they really cared. All children know how much that means when you're so vulnerable and scared.
It's quiet here in the house. Phylllis is still sleeping. Soon, I'll take her coffee and inquire as to how she is feeling as that infection slowly leaves her body. I like being her protector and comforter. It's another purpose for my life.
We all, regardless of our genus or sex, need each other. Our society has lost much of that inate compassion during the last three decades or so. It's been supplanted by a hard boiled "fuck you" attitude that, sad to say, had much of its genesis in religion. It still puzzles me how something so supposedly benign and caring can be the source of so much hate and unconcern. I lived it for twenty years tied up in that cult and I see it on the news every day.
All I can do is keep on doing whatever I can in my little corner of the world and hang onto that stubborn optimism in the core of my being.
I've been on a sharing roll this morning. So many good things appear on Facebook that it's often hard to choose which ones to share and how many to just like and move on.
I was touched by the dog hugging its benefactor in a state of relieved bliss. How often I've felt the same way when someone showed they really cared. All children know how much that means when you're so vulnerable and scared.
It's quiet here in the house. Phylllis is still sleeping. Soon, I'll take her coffee and inquire as to how she is feeling as that infection slowly leaves her body. I like being her protector and comforter. It's another purpose for my life.
We all, regardless of our genus or sex, need each other. Our society has lost much of that inate compassion during the last three decades or so. It's been supplanted by a hard boiled "fuck you" attitude that, sad to say, had much of its genesis in religion. It still puzzles me how something so supposedly benign and caring can be the source of so much hate and unconcern. I lived it for twenty years tied up in that cult and I see it on the news every day.
All I can do is keep on doing whatever I can in my little corner of the world and hang onto that stubborn optimism in the core of my being.
Friday, January 24, 2014
RELIGIONS ARE ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY
I happened on this statement by Bill Maher:
"It's impossible to worship superstition on Sunday or Saturday and just be a normal person every other day of the week."
It's so true of me while I was caught up in Armstrongism that it made me wince. I worshipped superstition with a fervor born of ignorance and the desperation to be among god's chosen elect that it defies all logic or reason. It's really one of the main things that's wrong with this nation and why we no longer are leading the world in any meaningful non-military and hegemonic way, especially where science, technology and social progress is concerned.
You can't bow down to a sociopathic cosmic dictator who has the right to dictate everything you think and do (or else) weekly, let it dictate the rest of the week everything you think and champion and function well in a secular democratic society. Something has to give.
What gives is individual rights to self-determination in thought and deed and societal equality. Religion is dictatorial and elite centered in every aspect of its reality. Herbert Armstrong made that very clear when he loudly maintained that democracy wasn't god's form of government.
The Pope would say the same thing and I know of no religious organization that doesn't countenance and seek for the absolute dictatorial dominance of their interpretation of "god's word." If you are going to champion what the Bible teaches, no other conclusion can be acceptable. Some are just more open and extreme about it than are others.
"It's impossible to worship superstition on Sunday or Saturday and just be a normal person every other day of the week."
It's so true of me while I was caught up in Armstrongism that it made me wince. I worshipped superstition with a fervor born of ignorance and the desperation to be among god's chosen elect that it defies all logic or reason. It's really one of the main things that's wrong with this nation and why we no longer are leading the world in any meaningful non-military and hegemonic way, especially where science, technology and social progress is concerned.
You can't bow down to a sociopathic cosmic dictator who has the right to dictate everything you think and do (or else) weekly, let it dictate the rest of the week everything you think and champion and function well in a secular democratic society. Something has to give.
What gives is individual rights to self-determination in thought and deed and societal equality. Religion is dictatorial and elite centered in every aspect of its reality. Herbert Armstrong made that very clear when he loudly maintained that democracy wasn't god's form of government.
The Pope would say the same thing and I know of no religious organization that doesn't countenance and seek for the absolute dictatorial dominance of their interpretation of "god's word." If you are going to champion what the Bible teaches, no other conclusion can be acceptable. Some are just more open and extreme about it than are others.
GOVERNMENTS TEND TO DEVOLVE
I don't spend much time on the Bible, but like many books, it contains some true principles and obsrvations. However, Benjamin Franklin came up more and better ones in his Poor Richard's Almanac, as far as I'm concerned.
The situation with governments going ape and oppressing the people they should be serving has existed throughout human history. How accurate it is is something I won't vouch for, but the account of Israel turning monarchial in I Samuel 8 often comes forcefully to my mind. I know no god actually said a damn thing, but the account of what Samuel is supposed to have said is very inciteful as to how human governments always devolve:
"This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants ... he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants (i.e. slaves)." (KJV)
No matter what form government takes, whether ecclesiastical or mundane, they all end up the same way with power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a powerful few. The masses end up impoverished and oppressed to lesser and greater degrees.
We'd made good progress after World War II while power was more evenly distributed through sane congresses and the power of checks like labor unions. That has all been craftily demolished by one subterfuge after another, begining with with dumb ass elitist Reagan and his cabal of rich power mongers.
Today, America has become a steadily ramped up hell hole of elitist and ecclesiastical oppression. Our wealth is squandered on unnecessary wars and welfare for rich corporations so the power of a few can be made manifest over the masses of serfs and slaves.
I fear this coup is beyond reversal. Welcome to the modern version of I Samuel 8.
The situation with governments going ape and oppressing the people they should be serving has existed throughout human history. How accurate it is is something I won't vouch for, but the account of Israel turning monarchial in I Samuel 8 often comes forcefully to my mind. I know no god actually said a damn thing, but the account of what Samuel is supposed to have said is very inciteful as to how human governments always devolve:
"This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants ... he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants (i.e. slaves)." (KJV)
No matter what form government takes, whether ecclesiastical or mundane, they all end up the same way with power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a powerful few. The masses end up impoverished and oppressed to lesser and greater degrees.
We'd made good progress after World War II while power was more evenly distributed through sane congresses and the power of checks like labor unions. That has all been craftily demolished by one subterfuge after another, begining with with dumb ass elitist Reagan and his cabal of rich power mongers.
Today, America has become a steadily ramped up hell hole of elitist and ecclesiastical oppression. Our wealth is squandered on unnecessary wars and welfare for rich corporations so the power of a few can be made manifest over the masses of serfs and slaves.
I fear this coup is beyond reversal. Welcome to the modern version of I Samuel 8.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
DEBATE DOESN'T WORK
This article points out very succinctly why I avoid getting into debates with any theist. I state what I have to state, and if they can't see it, they just can't see it, and I'm not going to frustrate myself trying to break through that wall of unreasonableness:
http://www.racehochdorf.com/essays/2014/1/11/the-tyranny-of-fundamentalist-language
The Tyranny Of Fundamentalist Language
www.racehochdorf.com
I have seen the question posed on Progressive Christian blogs and on numerous other websites, “Why is it impossible to debate a fundamentalist?”
http://www.racehochdorf.com/essays/2014/1/11/the-tyranny-of-fundamentalist-language
The Tyranny Of Fundamentalist Language
www.racehochdorf.com
I have seen the question posed on Progressive Christian blogs and on numerous other websites, “Why is it impossible to debate a fundamentalist?”
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
OBSCENE WEALTH
There's an article on Huffpost Business this morning which points out that 85 of the world's richest people own approximately the same amount of world wealth as the bottom half of the entire world population does.
I have absolutely no desire to keep people from getting rich from honest labor and effort. I'd dearly love to have a few hundrd thousand or a few million sitting in a bank account to tap any time I needed it. But, wealth like that described here comes only at the expense of impoverishing the bulk of one's fellow human beings.
I could say more, but anyone who's been following my Facebook page and my blog knows exactly what I mean and where I'm coming from. Useful things need doing and I'm going to go do a few of them.
I have absolutely no desire to keep people from getting rich from honest labor and effort. I'd dearly love to have a few hundrd thousand or a few million sitting in a bank account to tap any time I needed it. But, wealth like that described here comes only at the expense of impoverishing the bulk of one's fellow human beings.
I could say more, but anyone who's been following my Facebook page and my blog knows exactly what I mean and where I'm coming from. Useful things need doing and I'm going to go do a few of them.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
WHY CAN'T WE RETIRE FIRST?
Remember those bumper stickers that say people would have had grand children first if they'd known how much fun they were? Well, I feel about the same way about retirement.
Forgetting all the downsides of age and it's debilities, my life now is a lark compared to twenty or thirty years ago. Got up at 9:30 am and all I've done is make coffee for both of us and sit here at the computer. I can sound off online and not worry about a boss or, in my case, customer seeing it and getting mad enough to fire me. Anybody who gets mad can have the old one finger salute (you guess which finger)!
There are all kinds of things needing doing around here, and maybe I'll get to one or two. Then again, maybe not. Just depends on what "spirit" moves me.
I know those rethugs really hate what I'm writing. How dare I be one of those awful "takers." If I'm not like them, gambling with other people's money on stock options, etc. and making tons of money off wiping out companies and absconding with the pirated wealth, including workers pension funds and the underpaid labor of millions of serfs so I can vacation anywhere I like at any time, eat caviar and drink champagne to my bloated hearts content, etc., I should just crawl off somewhere and have the decency to die. How dare I think that since I worked my ass off all those years, I deserve a little leisure paid for by the money our taxes set aside for that very purpose, and which those same assholes appropriated to pay for things like their ill-conceived wars of power and aggression.
Now, I gotta go make myself a little breakfast for my "entitled" old ass to survive a few more days, weeks or years. If I were one of those wonderful "job creators" an underpaid household servant would have already done that for me.
That's my sarcasm for the morning!
Forgetting all the downsides of age and it's debilities, my life now is a lark compared to twenty or thirty years ago. Got up at 9:30 am and all I've done is make coffee for both of us and sit here at the computer. I can sound off online and not worry about a boss or, in my case, customer seeing it and getting mad enough to fire me. Anybody who gets mad can have the old one finger salute (you guess which finger)!
There are all kinds of things needing doing around here, and maybe I'll get to one or two. Then again, maybe not. Just depends on what "spirit" moves me.
I know those rethugs really hate what I'm writing. How dare I be one of those awful "takers." If I'm not like them, gambling with other people's money on stock options, etc. and making tons of money off wiping out companies and absconding with the pirated wealth, including workers pension funds and the underpaid labor of millions of serfs so I can vacation anywhere I like at any time, eat caviar and drink champagne to my bloated hearts content, etc., I should just crawl off somewhere and have the decency to die. How dare I think that since I worked my ass off all those years, I deserve a little leisure paid for by the money our taxes set aside for that very purpose, and which those same assholes appropriated to pay for things like their ill-conceived wars of power and aggression.
Now, I gotta go make myself a little breakfast for my "entitled" old ass to survive a few more days, weeks or years. If I were one of those wonderful "job creators" an underpaid household servant would have already done that for me.
That's my sarcasm for the morning!
Saturday, January 18, 2014
TO LURKERS AND TROLLS
People of faith, believers -- whatever appelation you want to bestow on them -- are such a big pain in the ass!
I know, to my shame, I used to be one of the worst of them. In my defense, I was shanghaied by culture, accident of birth and the blatherings of one of the most egregious criminal con artists of the twentieth century. I was a stupid dupe!
In my defense, I did cast it off. I rose above it and did the hard work of proving it was all a tremendous, smelly crock of s++t. As an aside, I just listened to Lawrence Welk on PBS and had to mute the TV to not listen to his effeminant-sounding eminence (can't remember his name right now) sing "The Old Rugged Cross." Such a stupid song glorifying fictional human sacrifice! I can't stand it even though it was my deceived mother's favorite hymn.
Ghastly message!
Ghastly doctrine!
I mean, don't we condemn people like the Aztecs because they sacrificed human beings while we worship a god we believe did that very thing? To save us? The Aztecs had the same kind of motivation -- killing someone to obtain favor from their gods!
A couple of troll lurkers recently invaded the Unbeliever website (http://ironwolf.dangerousgames.com/exwcg/) to heckle and harass those of us who have progressed beyond the juvenile bumblings and mumblings of belief. I guess they fancy themselves some kind of theological experts. Mark Manning and I tried to cut through the inane nonsense and present the true picture.
What a fiasco that turned out to be. I pointed out the obvious idiocies of the Bible, like the seven day creation, the ridiculousness of a worldwide flood, that the Israelites were never enslaved in Egypt and there was no exodus. Plus a few other things. Put it on Facebook also.
What Mark and I got in return was the usual juvenile playground "nyanyah, nyanyah, nyanyah, nyanyah" approach. They demand we publish whole books of historical and archaelogical proofs of our statements while they take the usual bucktoothed ignorant backwoods approach that the bible says it and that's good enough for me.
We know by demonstrable scientific fact that the universe is nearly fourteen billion years old, that the earth has been around for somewhere in the neighborhood of four billion of those years, that modern man developed slowly for the last few hundred thousand years and Adam and Eve are fictional constructs with no basis in reality.
Archaeologists have scoured the Sinai looking for the evidence of all those millions of "Israelites" camping there for about forty years and they've found absolutely nothing! Plus, we have the historical proof that when they supposedly invaded Canaan, Canaan was a well defended part of the Egyptian Empire sporting several powerful Egyptian garrisons. Funny how no battles with those Egyptian troops are to be found anywhere in the concocted book of Joshua.
And that Noah's Ark crap! Even a modern naval task force would have had to make port long before a year went by just to get provisions, and I certainly don't see any account of supply ships being sent out from any part of that supposedly submerged planet! I have to conclude that I was partially retarded to ever believe that nonsense!
Don't anyone tell me I have to produce encyclopdias-worth of proof in a blog comment to back up my objections to your juvenile protestations. The proof is out there in literally dozens of internet sources and books. I've taken time to look into those things and they haven't.
The burden of proof for extraordinary claims lies with the claimer. I'm not going to waste anymore time on naysayers who want to invade one of my favorite websites with their imbecilic nonsense.
I know, to my shame, I used to be one of the worst of them. In my defense, I was shanghaied by culture, accident of birth and the blatherings of one of the most egregious criminal con artists of the twentieth century. I was a stupid dupe!
In my defense, I did cast it off. I rose above it and did the hard work of proving it was all a tremendous, smelly crock of s++t. As an aside, I just listened to Lawrence Welk on PBS and had to mute the TV to not listen to his effeminant-sounding eminence (can't remember his name right now) sing "The Old Rugged Cross." Such a stupid song glorifying fictional human sacrifice! I can't stand it even though it was my deceived mother's favorite hymn.
Ghastly message!
Ghastly doctrine!
I mean, don't we condemn people like the Aztecs because they sacrificed human beings while we worship a god we believe did that very thing? To save us? The Aztecs had the same kind of motivation -- killing someone to obtain favor from their gods!
A couple of troll lurkers recently invaded the Unbeliever website (http://ironwolf.dangerousgames.com/exwcg/) to heckle and harass those of us who have progressed beyond the juvenile bumblings and mumblings of belief. I guess they fancy themselves some kind of theological experts. Mark Manning and I tried to cut through the inane nonsense and present the true picture.
What a fiasco that turned out to be. I pointed out the obvious idiocies of the Bible, like the seven day creation, the ridiculousness of a worldwide flood, that the Israelites were never enslaved in Egypt and there was no exodus. Plus a few other things. Put it on Facebook also.
What Mark and I got in return was the usual juvenile playground "nyanyah, nyanyah, nyanyah, nyanyah" approach. They demand we publish whole books of historical and archaelogical proofs of our statements while they take the usual bucktoothed ignorant backwoods approach that the bible says it and that's good enough for me.
We know by demonstrable scientific fact that the universe is nearly fourteen billion years old, that the earth has been around for somewhere in the neighborhood of four billion of those years, that modern man developed slowly for the last few hundred thousand years and Adam and Eve are fictional constructs with no basis in reality.
Archaeologists have scoured the Sinai looking for the evidence of all those millions of "Israelites" camping there for about forty years and they've found absolutely nothing! Plus, we have the historical proof that when they supposedly invaded Canaan, Canaan was a well defended part of the Egyptian Empire sporting several powerful Egyptian garrisons. Funny how no battles with those Egyptian troops are to be found anywhere in the concocted book of Joshua.
And that Noah's Ark crap! Even a modern naval task force would have had to make port long before a year went by just to get provisions, and I certainly don't see any account of supply ships being sent out from any part of that supposedly submerged planet! I have to conclude that I was partially retarded to ever believe that nonsense!
Don't anyone tell me I have to produce encyclopdias-worth of proof in a blog comment to back up my objections to your juvenile protestations. The proof is out there in literally dozens of internet sources and books. I've taken time to look into those things and they haven't.
The burden of proof for extraordinary claims lies with the claimer. I'm not going to waste anymore time on naysayers who want to invade one of my favorite websites with their imbecilic nonsense.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
IT'S MADDENING
I'm sure there are some people out there who wish old Al would just shut the hell up.
Sorry, aint gonna happen.
The longer I live, the more I observe, the more of an ass kicking mood I have to deal with. Can't help it. I just care too much.
i can't stand knowing something is a lie without doing something to combat it. I hate injustice, and don't give me any self-righteous diatribes about how awful it is to say you hate something. There is a time to hate, just as there is a time to love, and I'm not going to just look the other way and live in la la land.
This world, most especially this nation which should be leading and setting an example to the rest of the world is frankly all fucked up!
For three decades now, we've been retrogressing into a shadow of what we once were. Disaster lies ahead if something doesn't change! Hell, it's already here!
Now we have a Supreme Court so loaded with right wing extremists that all semblance of sanity is disappearing from even that august body.
The House of Representatives has been a lost cause for some time now.
Nothing that needs doing has a chance of being done under present conditions.
It's very maddeningly discouraging.
Sorry, aint gonna happen.
The longer I live, the more I observe, the more of an ass kicking mood I have to deal with. Can't help it. I just care too much.
i can't stand knowing something is a lie without doing something to combat it. I hate injustice, and don't give me any self-righteous diatribes about how awful it is to say you hate something. There is a time to hate, just as there is a time to love, and I'm not going to just look the other way and live in la la land.
This world, most especially this nation which should be leading and setting an example to the rest of the world is frankly all fucked up!
For three decades now, we've been retrogressing into a shadow of what we once were. Disaster lies ahead if something doesn't change! Hell, it's already here!
Now we have a Supreme Court so loaded with right wing extremists that all semblance of sanity is disappearing from even that august body.
The House of Representatives has been a lost cause for some time now.
Nothing that needs doing has a chance of being done under present conditions.
It's very maddeningly discouraging.
SICK OF THE SLANT!
Fill people's heads with cliches and appeal to their prejudices and hatreds and you have them by the balls and can squeeze as often and as hard as it pleases your malevolence. It sure helps to expand out of all reason the real threat of any opposing group. That worked with the soviet union and it's working now with the muslim threat. Shades of Orwell's 1984!
Nobody worried about an exponentialy growing national debt while the rethugs were in power and feeding themselves and their cohorts billions in manufactured money. Just let the opposition win a few elections and, WOW! All of a sudden, we're on the edge of apocalypse. The twin towers horror is pushed into the background and a little blip like Benghazi gets blown all out of proprotion as one of the nation's greatest disasters.
What gets me is, people eat it up and regurgitate the putrid crap.
I guess that's enough said this morning. I have useful things to do and this isn't all that good for my blood pressure, except that getting it said helps a bit.
Nobody worried about an exponentialy growing national debt while the rethugs were in power and feeding themselves and their cohorts billions in manufactured money. Just let the opposition win a few elections and, WOW! All of a sudden, we're on the edge of apocalypse. The twin towers horror is pushed into the background and a little blip like Benghazi gets blown all out of proprotion as one of the nation's greatest disasters.
What gets me is, people eat it up and regurgitate the putrid crap.
I guess that's enough said this morning. I have useful things to do and this isn't all that good for my blood pressure, except that getting it said helps a bit.
Monday, January 13, 2014
MY GIFT
I do have one gift I'm very thankful for. It came to me through the magic of genetics from ancestors who had the same gift and was developed through education and job experience over many years.
I'm referring to the ability to take thoughts one could be very wordy about and condense them down into succinct, hard-hitting statements. It came to the fore when our freethought group was seeking a concise name. I came up with Sedona Verde Valley Secular Freethinkers, and it was adopted. When we needed a concise statement of what we were to give to another organization, they turned to me and I gave them a short and sweet summary that fit into the word limit perfectly.
I appreciate that gift. I often sit in the background, absorbing what is being said and discussed and give a short summary of my own that encompasses the gist of it all. I don't think I'm being vain to recognize what I can do and do do. It makes me a blogger, which is really an unpaid syndicated author. To say it's fulfilling to me would be a gross understatment. It's one of my greatest joys and fulfillments.
I hope that gift lives on in my descendants and that they will utilize it to the full before their lives come to that inevitable end.
Keep writing, Nancy. You do it so well. Cultivate it and practice. Get in the habit of doing it, in a journal or whatever appeals to you. Facebook your heart out.
Jaime, Eugene, the talent must be there somewhere in the background. The longer you live, the more you will have to say, and if you try, you'll be able to say it.
I know Michael has the urge even though he has chosen to cut himself off from all of us. Hopefully, that situation will end and he will have something to say in what remains of his life.
I hope my grandchildren will do the same. None of us will necessarily change the world all that much, but it is so fulfilling that I can only hope you will carry on in your own ways as much as you possibly can.
I'm referring to the ability to take thoughts one could be very wordy about and condense them down into succinct, hard-hitting statements. It came to the fore when our freethought group was seeking a concise name. I came up with Sedona Verde Valley Secular Freethinkers, and it was adopted. When we needed a concise statement of what we were to give to another organization, they turned to me and I gave them a short and sweet summary that fit into the word limit perfectly.
I appreciate that gift. I often sit in the background, absorbing what is being said and discussed and give a short summary of my own that encompasses the gist of it all. I don't think I'm being vain to recognize what I can do and do do. It makes me a blogger, which is really an unpaid syndicated author. To say it's fulfilling to me would be a gross understatment. It's one of my greatest joys and fulfillments.
I hope that gift lives on in my descendants and that they will utilize it to the full before their lives come to that inevitable end.
Keep writing, Nancy. You do it so well. Cultivate it and practice. Get in the habit of doing it, in a journal or whatever appeals to you. Facebook your heart out.
Jaime, Eugene, the talent must be there somewhere in the background. The longer you live, the more you will have to say, and if you try, you'll be able to say it.
I know Michael has the urge even though he has chosen to cut himself off from all of us. Hopefully, that situation will end and he will have something to say in what remains of his life.
I hope my grandchildren will do the same. None of us will necessarily change the world all that much, but it is so fulfilling that I can only hope you will carry on in your own ways as much as you possibly can.
MY STAND
(From Facebook.)
I just posted a comment on the Non Believer site and I have to post it here:
"Maybe I’m being foolish to kick this “hornet’s nest,” but I just have to counter the idea that we who are now atheists suddenly had some “hissy fit” and just threw away faith overnight. Nothing could be farther from the truth in my case.
It’s been a long slow process of study and reflection that, in my case, led me through things like divine science, new age, reincarnation and other eastern philosophies, agnosticism and finally full blown atheism. I had to realize and accept a great number of things in that almost forty-year journey.
First of all, I had to come to realize that the Bible itself is a fictional concoction of myth, fable and outright superstitious and baseless lies.
There was never a seven-day creation or worldwide flood. No israelites were enslaved in Egypt and the exodus never happened. Most of the Bible history found in Kings and Chronicles was manufactured out of whole cloth after the Babylonian captivity by some very chauvinistic and inventive scribes and priests with an agenda. In short, the entire Old Testament is very junior grade historical fiction.
The New Testament is no better. It was contrived at the behest of Roman emperors who were sick and tired of all the conflicting claims of innumerable savior cults and by force of military power made them come up with an almalgamated concoction they could impose on the empire through edict. It slams all the miraculous nonsense from Horus to Mithra and dozens of others into one concise and often contradictory tale and the hodgepodge of a bunch of guys to whom the name “Paul” was appended. And, Revelation, that bad dream abortion by some zealot really got things all screwed up and is the source of endless theological nonsense.
I believe today in whatever the “singularity” that gave rise to the universe or multiverses was. If it can’t be established through carefully regulated study and investigation, I’m going to take it with a very large grain of salt. No bronze age camel jockey with mental problems is going to be my source of truth."
I just posted a comment on the Non Believer site and I have to post it here:
"Maybe I’m being foolish to kick this “hornet’s nest,” but I just have to counter the idea that we who are now atheists suddenly had some “hissy fit” and just threw away faith overnight. Nothing could be farther from the truth in my case.
It’s been a long slow process of study and reflection that, in my case, led me through things like divine science, new age, reincarnation and other eastern philosophies, agnosticism and finally full blown atheism. I had to realize and accept a great number of things in that almost forty-year journey.
First of all, I had to come to realize that the Bible itself is a fictional concoction of myth, fable and outright superstitious and baseless lies.
There was never a seven-day creation or worldwide flood. No israelites were enslaved in Egypt and the exodus never happened. Most of the Bible history found in Kings and Chronicles was manufactured out of whole cloth after the Babylonian captivity by some very chauvinistic and inventive scribes and priests with an agenda. In short, the entire Old Testament is very junior grade historical fiction.
The New Testament is no better. It was contrived at the behest of Roman emperors who were sick and tired of all the conflicting claims of innumerable savior cults and by force of military power made them come up with an almalgamated concoction they could impose on the empire through edict. It slams all the miraculous nonsense from Horus to Mithra and dozens of others into one concise and often contradictory tale and the hodgepodge of a bunch of guys to whom the name “Paul” was appended. And, Revelation, that bad dream abortion by some zealot really got things all screwed up and is the source of endless theological nonsense.
I believe today in whatever the “singularity” that gave rise to the universe or multiverses was. If it can’t be established through carefully regulated study and investigation, I’m going to take it with a very large grain of salt. No bronze age camel jockey with mental problems is going to be my source of truth."
MORE ON FEAR
Just gotta say more about fear. It's such an insidious thing and the media plays us like violins with sensationalism meant to engender fear so we'll keep on listening and being paranoid.
I'm referring to this fear about vacinations as my prime example. Yeah, once in a blue moon someone will have an alergic reaction, or more likely, they'll come down with some ornery virus right after they get a flu shot and conclude it was the shot that made them sick. It would never occur to them to have their conclusion medically evaluated. They have to be right because they're oh so wise -- not one of those "egicated fools" they feel they are so superior to because they aint dumb enough to believe that evulushon shit, etc.
It's the same mindset that kept me enslaved to armstrongism for over twenty long years. He constantly called us dumb sheep but assured us we were the elect of god because we were smart enough to believe the crap he poured in our heads constantly. Go figure how dumb we were to keep letting him get away with it for so long -- absolutely convinced we'd "proved it" because we were such good bible readers and proof texters who would have been laughed out of any competent theological seminary.
We not only get our flu shots every year, but about four years ago, we both spent $40 to get shingles shots. My mother suffered through that malady and neither of us want anything to do with it. Nothing to it. My arm itched for a few days from the workings of the sublimated virus, but that was what built up the new immunity. Oh, and we've had pneumonia immunization too. I know I'm going to check out sometime in the future, but hopefully not from pneumonia.
So, be paranoid if you must, but do everyone a favor and quit spreading this unscientific bullshit that gets people tied up in fearful knots to their own danger and peril. Before you blast me with your nonsense, I want to see the detailed conclusions of your carefully controlled, peer reviewed scientific studies.
Anecdotes don't cut it!
I'm referring to this fear about vacinations as my prime example. Yeah, once in a blue moon someone will have an alergic reaction, or more likely, they'll come down with some ornery virus right after they get a flu shot and conclude it was the shot that made them sick. It would never occur to them to have their conclusion medically evaluated. They have to be right because they're oh so wise -- not one of those "egicated fools" they feel they are so superior to because they aint dumb enough to believe that evulushon shit, etc.
It's the same mindset that kept me enslaved to armstrongism for over twenty long years. He constantly called us dumb sheep but assured us we were the elect of god because we were smart enough to believe the crap he poured in our heads constantly. Go figure how dumb we were to keep letting him get away with it for so long -- absolutely convinced we'd "proved it" because we were such good bible readers and proof texters who would have been laughed out of any competent theological seminary.
We not only get our flu shots every year, but about four years ago, we both spent $40 to get shingles shots. My mother suffered through that malady and neither of us want anything to do with it. Nothing to it. My arm itched for a few days from the workings of the sublimated virus, but that was what built up the new immunity. Oh, and we've had pneumonia immunization too. I know I'm going to check out sometime in the future, but hopefully not from pneumonia.
So, be paranoid if you must, but do everyone a favor and quit spreading this unscientific bullshit that gets people tied up in fearful knots to their own danger and peril. Before you blast me with your nonsense, I want to see the detailed conclusions of your carefully controlled, peer reviewed scientific studies.
Anecdotes don't cut it!
Saturday, January 11, 2014
WHOOOOPEEE!
I got a very heartening surprise this afternoon. My blood pressure medications were ready at CVS, so I stopped on my way back from Sedona to pick them up, debit card in hand. This was my first time picking up medications under our new insurance and I was astounded when the clerk informed me that there was no co-pay. THEY WERE FREE TO ME! That's because they are generic and this insurance covers them totally under their medicare plus.
Under the vaunted United Health care coverage we had last year, they would have cost me $3 each. Plus, they would now be charging both of us $28 each month for the privilege of being ripped off by them and we'd be paying $10 every time we visit the doctor instead of $5. I suspect the CEO of United wants another lavish vacation home or something akin. I think I'll draft a letter to AARP and tell them where they can shove their vaunted plan.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a staunch AARP member and take advantage of those discounts whenever I can, but they really need to look into this matter. We're blessed with having an insurance representative in Camp Verde who looks out for our interests. I called and left a message to thank him for getting us into this new plan.
Just had to share my joy.
Under the vaunted United Health care coverage we had last year, they would have cost me $3 each. Plus, they would now be charging both of us $28 each month for the privilege of being ripped off by them and we'd be paying $10 every time we visit the doctor instead of $5. I suspect the CEO of United wants another lavish vacation home or something akin. I think I'll draft a letter to AARP and tell them where they can shove their vaunted plan.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a staunch AARP member and take advantage of those discounts whenever I can, but they really need to look into this matter. We're blessed with having an insurance representative in Camp Verde who looks out for our interests. I called and left a message to thank him for getting us into this new plan.
Just had to share my joy.
Friday, January 10, 2014
I'LL KEEP ON COMIN'!
There are quite a few things on this earth that I thoroughly despise.
Religion (all religion) is one I've come to detest. The republican party, all it is and all it stands for, is another. I consider anyone who looks at the facts and defends the republican party an abject idiot. Anyone who clings to creationism and the mythology of the Bible or the Quran, etc. is also an idiot. I know, I fell for such lies and bullshit for awhile too (and, I was an idiot).
I woke up, however. I looked the facts squarely in the face and made a 180 degree about face. It wasn't easy. Admitting you've been a stupid ass is never pleasant, but it's the only way to quit being a stupid ass!
I try to learn something new and understand better every day I live. I have a coffee cup I use every day with a quote from Eleanore Roosevelt: "Do something every day that scares you." It takes guts to face life with that attitude and motivation. I don't have the opportunity to put it into action every day, but it's an ideal attitude I champion and try to live by.
There are endless things I despise because they outrage my sense of justice, truth and fairness. I try to emphasize those positive things as much as possible. Denouncing the negative just happens to be an unpleasant necessity to doing that.
The last thing I consider when I sit down to write stuff like this is whether someone will like it or not. I frankly don't care. This is where I'm coming from, and you can jolly well be certain I'm gonna keep on comin'!
Religion (all religion) is one I've come to detest. The republican party, all it is and all it stands for, is another. I consider anyone who looks at the facts and defends the republican party an abject idiot. Anyone who clings to creationism and the mythology of the Bible or the Quran, etc. is also an idiot. I know, I fell for such lies and bullshit for awhile too (and, I was an idiot).
I woke up, however. I looked the facts squarely in the face and made a 180 degree about face. It wasn't easy. Admitting you've been a stupid ass is never pleasant, but it's the only way to quit being a stupid ass!
I try to learn something new and understand better every day I live. I have a coffee cup I use every day with a quote from Eleanore Roosevelt: "Do something every day that scares you." It takes guts to face life with that attitude and motivation. I don't have the opportunity to put it into action every day, but it's an ideal attitude I champion and try to live by.
There are endless things I despise because they outrage my sense of justice, truth and fairness. I try to emphasize those positive things as much as possible. Denouncing the negative just happens to be an unpleasant necessity to doing that.
The last thing I consider when I sit down to write stuff like this is whether someone will like it or not. I frankly don't care. This is where I'm coming from, and you can jolly well be certain I'm gonna keep on comin'!
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
LOVE CAN BE AUTOMATIC
It's quiet here. Phyllis is watching TV with the dogs by her side in bed. I'm on the computer where I spend so much of my time.
Earlier, we took the poms out for some shopping. That makes them so happy, and more and more people recognize them and us now and know they can let all their joy hang out to the pom's joy.
In their entire lives, those two dogs have never growled or snapped at a single human being. Of course, they've never been struck or mistreated by us or anyone else. They expect to be adored and to adore back.
What a lesson in creature relations! If all a creature knows is loving kindness, that's what they will instinctively return. For agression or violent defense to enter in, fear has to first enter in. Our dogs are fearless for the most part. Therefore, they have no need for agressive defenses of any kind. It's a foreign thing to them.
I often wonder what happened in the early lives of narcissists and sociopaths that made them the unfeeling monsters they turned out to be. Yes, I mean reprobates like Herbert Armstrong. What was his childhood like?
It's easy to condemn the end result. Yet, I often wonder what laid behind it all. It's a long hard road to understand and hopefully change the condition of this world.
That's my thought for the day.
Earlier, we took the poms out for some shopping. That makes them so happy, and more and more people recognize them and us now and know they can let all their joy hang out to the pom's joy.
In their entire lives, those two dogs have never growled or snapped at a single human being. Of course, they've never been struck or mistreated by us or anyone else. They expect to be adored and to adore back.
What a lesson in creature relations! If all a creature knows is loving kindness, that's what they will instinctively return. For agression or violent defense to enter in, fear has to first enter in. Our dogs are fearless for the most part. Therefore, they have no need for agressive defenses of any kind. It's a foreign thing to them.
I often wonder what happened in the early lives of narcissists and sociopaths that made them the unfeeling monsters they turned out to be. Yes, I mean reprobates like Herbert Armstrong. What was his childhood like?
It's easy to condemn the end result. Yet, I often wonder what laid behind it all. It's a long hard road to understand and hopefully change the condition of this world.
That's my thought for the day.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
FEAR PARLYZES
Fear is such a corrosive thing!
Fear kept me in bondage to a cult for a couple of decades. I was literally paralyzed by the fear of being damned because I dared to think something contrary to the certitudes of those I had accepted as inspired representatives of a God I've since cast aside as a figment of other people's imaginations.
Every religious certitude I know of holds that fear of damnation, pain and horrendous punishment over the heads of its adherrants. If they're all right, then everybody is doomed to hell. Christians think muslims and other sects and denominations are and muslims have a correspondingly condemnatory approach toward Christians and other divisions of their own religion.
One of the most horrendous words humans ever invented is the word, "heretic." Thinking is made a crime -- a crime worthy of torture and death!
Religious faith isn't the only area of human life subject to the paralyzing effects of fear. Fear keeps people from taking chances that could bear very advantageous fruit if they'd just take a carefully considered or deeply desired step into the unknown. Just going to bed or getting up in the morning involves a certain level of risk. We can't play it safe all the time or we would effectively have no life worth living.
I've taken some of those steps, often with dire predictions from timid advisors about the big mistake I was making. Some were abject failures and others panned out just fine. In all cases, it was better than just sitting there, fearfully accepting the status quo.
Fear kept me in bondage to a cult for a couple of decades. I was literally paralyzed by the fear of being damned because I dared to think something contrary to the certitudes of those I had accepted as inspired representatives of a God I've since cast aside as a figment of other people's imaginations.
Every religious certitude I know of holds that fear of damnation, pain and horrendous punishment over the heads of its adherrants. If they're all right, then everybody is doomed to hell. Christians think muslims and other sects and denominations are and muslims have a correspondingly condemnatory approach toward Christians and other divisions of their own religion.
One of the most horrendous words humans ever invented is the word, "heretic." Thinking is made a crime -- a crime worthy of torture and death!
Religious faith isn't the only area of human life subject to the paralyzing effects of fear. Fear keeps people from taking chances that could bear very advantageous fruit if they'd just take a carefully considered or deeply desired step into the unknown. Just going to bed or getting up in the morning involves a certain level of risk. We can't play it safe all the time or we would effectively have no life worth living.
I've taken some of those steps, often with dire predictions from timid advisors about the big mistake I was making. Some were abject failures and others panned out just fine. In all cases, it was better than just sitting there, fearfully accepting the status quo.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
APPRECIATE YOUR GIFTS
I feel that urge to write again, and as Mark Twain liked to put it in similar situations, "You must suffer."
Hopefully, a few will enjoy my literary ramblings. Maybe, and hopefully, even profit from them.
An exchange with Janelle Hopkins, a friend who was a kid when I knew her years ago, is now a successful business woman who likes to write and exhibits other talents I pointed out to her were strong in her father, with whom I was a close friend in college and for years afterward. She was surprised to know he was a very talented writer and also a good tenor who would sometimes get into impromptu songfests with Garner Ted and others. As I also pointed out, her mother was also extremely talented in many ways, and I'm sure other close relatives were and are.
We're a marvelous genus! So many potential talents lie hidden in the vast majority of human beings. I often tell Phyllis she should have been a stand-up comic. She has that elusive gift of "timing" that is so important in that profession, and that wonderful abiltity to capitalize on everyday absurdities. I wish she would really write that book about "almost dirty words."
A few have the drive, tenacity and just plain luck to make full use of their outstanding talents, but most never do for any number of perfectly good reasons, and sometimes, excuses. For one thing, there's only room for so many outstanding people to spectacularly succeed in most fields. Many are so filled with talents that they can only develop a few chosen ones, maybe only one.
My friend, whom I've never met in person, Dennis Deahl, is exemplary of someone who should be world famous for things he has written on theology and religion, but he has to content himself with a commanding presence on a couple of blogs and earn his living in massage therapy which he describes as "rubbing people the right way." A few months back, he threatened to give it up and quit. I told him he couldn't do it anymore than I can. Bingo! He's at it just as strongly as ever.
I guess I could ramble on more, but I think my point is clear. Most of us have to content ourselves with whatever we've been able to attain. Sure is nice, though, to sometimes daydream about what might have been if we'd taken a few different forks in the road.
Kinda makes you wish reincarnation could be true.
Hopefully, a few will enjoy my literary ramblings. Maybe, and hopefully, even profit from them.
An exchange with Janelle Hopkins, a friend who was a kid when I knew her years ago, is now a successful business woman who likes to write and exhibits other talents I pointed out to her were strong in her father, with whom I was a close friend in college and for years afterward. She was surprised to know he was a very talented writer and also a good tenor who would sometimes get into impromptu songfests with Garner Ted and others. As I also pointed out, her mother was also extremely talented in many ways, and I'm sure other close relatives were and are.
We're a marvelous genus! So many potential talents lie hidden in the vast majority of human beings. I often tell Phyllis she should have been a stand-up comic. She has that elusive gift of "timing" that is so important in that profession, and that wonderful abiltity to capitalize on everyday absurdities. I wish she would really write that book about "almost dirty words."
A few have the drive, tenacity and just plain luck to make full use of their outstanding talents, but most never do for any number of perfectly good reasons, and sometimes, excuses. For one thing, there's only room for so many outstanding people to spectacularly succeed in most fields. Many are so filled with talents that they can only develop a few chosen ones, maybe only one.
My friend, whom I've never met in person, Dennis Deahl, is exemplary of someone who should be world famous for things he has written on theology and religion, but he has to content himself with a commanding presence on a couple of blogs and earn his living in massage therapy which he describes as "rubbing people the right way." A few months back, he threatened to give it up and quit. I told him he couldn't do it anymore than I can. Bingo! He's at it just as strongly as ever.
I guess I could ramble on more, but I think my point is clear. Most of us have to content ourselves with whatever we've been able to attain. Sure is nice, though, to sometimes daydream about what might have been if we'd taken a few different forks in the road.
Kinda makes you wish reincarnation could be true.
DEJA VU!
I was doing some cleanup, and as usual, when my body is busy with habitual routine, my mind takes off.
I started reflecting how similar my experience with Herbert W. Armstrong and his infamous Worldwide Church of God (his way of saying "catholic") and the USA post about 1980 is.
In both cases, intellectual midgets with a gift for salesmanship, imagination-grabbing cliches and mass trumpeted certitudes gained control, first, of a theological abortion and later, a whole nation. What transpired theologically is now hell bent for leather nationally. Unless it's checked, the same kind of disastrous trainwreck is inevitable.
Just like the elitists and sociopaths gravitated to Worldwide for the power and control they yearned to have, the same kind of warped and hypocritical people gravitated to politics and through lies, half-truths and prejudice-inspiring cliches, they have warped the United States of America totally out of any semblance of the great and respected nation it once was.
I can only hope that the destuctive, self-seeking grabs for power that doomed that original religious organization to in-fighting and fragmentation will set in the GOP and that malignant tea party.
Sociopaths usually end up savaging each other.
I started reflecting how similar my experience with Herbert W. Armstrong and his infamous Worldwide Church of God (his way of saying "catholic") and the USA post about 1980 is.
In both cases, intellectual midgets with a gift for salesmanship, imagination-grabbing cliches and mass trumpeted certitudes gained control, first, of a theological abortion and later, a whole nation. What transpired theologically is now hell bent for leather nationally. Unless it's checked, the same kind of disastrous trainwreck is inevitable.
Just like the elitists and sociopaths gravitated to Worldwide for the power and control they yearned to have, the same kind of warped and hypocritical people gravitated to politics and through lies, half-truths and prejudice-inspiring cliches, they have warped the United States of America totally out of any semblance of the great and respected nation it once was.
I can only hope that the destuctive, self-seeking grabs for power that doomed that original religious organization to in-fighting and fragmentation will set in the GOP and that malignant tea party.
Sociopaths usually end up savaging each other.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
ECOLOGICAL INSANITY
The internal combusion engine, jet turbines and all the manufacturing have provided us humans with an endless array of products and services we'd now be lost without. While we were comparably few in number, a measly 2 or 3 billion, and the majority of those were too backward and poor to even consider getting around that way, we got away with belching all those greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with comparatively light results.
That's not true anymore. All those millions of chinese, indians, etc. have gotten into the act, and our atmsphere is no longer changing at a crawl. It's now a sprint! A mad dash!
That's great for the billionaires who grow fatter and more entitled every day, but soon even they are going to start feeling the effects. They are just as dependent on the world's eco system as the rest of us are. They just don't see it yet and don't want to believe it because of everything they have riding on the status quo.
I honestly can't see this all ending well. It terrifies me! I just can't shrug it off because I'll soon be out of here forever.
Hydogen and solar, dammit! If we insist on using up all the fossil fuels before we do the sensible thing, it will be too late! You can't belch millions of years of stored carbon into the atmosphere in a few score years and get away with it!
What's so hard about that to understand?
That's not true anymore. All those millions of chinese, indians, etc. have gotten into the act, and our atmsphere is no longer changing at a crawl. It's now a sprint! A mad dash!
That's great for the billionaires who grow fatter and more entitled every day, but soon even they are going to start feeling the effects. They are just as dependent on the world's eco system as the rest of us are. They just don't see it yet and don't want to believe it because of everything they have riding on the status quo.
I honestly can't see this all ending well. It terrifies me! I just can't shrug it off because I'll soon be out of here forever.
Hydogen and solar, dammit! If we insist on using up all the fossil fuels before we do the sensible thing, it will be too late! You can't belch millions of years of stored carbon into the atmosphere in a few score years and get away with it!
What's so hard about that to understand?
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