Hey America! We've got a new dance, and we know you are going to love it!

We are America's first true Voodoonomics practicing government. Throw out that old definition of the term, because this is the real thing!

And we're expecting an earthquake of results from the Voodoonomics of the stimulus package and the health care bill. Has the stimulus package provided jobs? Of course it has! The employees of the bloated California bureaucracy still have their jobs, don't they? Have we added another two trillion dollars to the national debt? Well, yes, but we're going to be sticking our pins into the taxpayers and evil corporations to get it all back. You'll see. We just have to figure out more places to hide the tax increases, so you won't notice them.

We have been performing one Voodoo ritual after another, and at a breakneck speed! We're making tremendous progress in merging the Senate and House versions of the Health Care bill.

Can you say: OO-EE-OO-AH-AH-TING-TANG-WALLA-WALLA-BING-BANG?Those are the magic words that led to the assurance to union leaders that they will be exempt from the 40% tax on Cadillac health insurance plans. Because, after all, union members are more equal than others, and we plan to do everything we can to make sure they keep funneling us a portion of every stimulus dollar we dole out to them.

This is not your father's Voodoo economics. It's a whole new kind. We love this new and revised Voodoonomics over an above any other kind because its not about long term consequences. It's just about sticking it to evil capitalists, and sticking it to evil businesses, and sticking it to whitey.

We don't believe in karma, or the law of cause and effect. After all, look at us? We're getting away with one corrupt piece of legislation after another, and nothing has happened to us yet, has it?

Leninka, your glorious montage reminds me of the 60s and the back cover of the Sgt Obama's Community Organizing Band album. My favorite tune from that collection was "All You Need Is Cash", a tribute to Chicago's voter registration efforts, I think. I used to hum "Taxman" quite frequently, also.

You are perfectly correct in your assertions; our plan is perfect and our cause is just, what could go wrong? Wealth is a zero sum game after all, so we are just righting past wrongs by taking it from their pockets and putting it in ours the hands of the oppressed with hope. And if the capitalists don't like how much we are taking, what are they going to do? Produce less? Diminish economic activity? Cause a depression? So big deal, like Uncle Ben says, we will just print more dinero! It's not like the amount of money in circulation bears any relation to goods and services produced by the economy. A dollar earned by a bureaucrat harassing a businessman over some petty regulations is worth just as much as a dollar earned by an oil driller or farmer, is it not? So if we must have much more of the former and much fewer of the latter, who is going to care? Fuhgedaboudit!

[ off ]Progs believe that wealth is a zero-sum game, but that rights are infinitely expandable. Conservatives believe the opposite. This means of course that the essential mindset of the prog is that of a thief. The mindset of the conservative is that of a worker.

There seems to be a correlation, too, between the prog who cares and the prog who takes. He who getteth the most from those who have wealth simply need more because, after all, they care more.

Isn't that the policy that Pat Robertson referred to as 'cursed' because they made a pact with the devil and China to spend a trillion dollars, so as to free Amerika from the evil Bush Empire?

I have a feeling that Pat Robertson, alas, is having skull problems. As P. J. O'Rourke said of Senator Alan Cranston, "You can almost smell the nut fudge cooking beneath that thin, cracked skull."

Comrade Theocritus,

That makes me want to work Senator Cranston's glorious head in to the picture. But, then he would be bodiless.


I here that devil story is just a legend.

Earthquake aside, there does seem to be a preponderance of poverty, squalor and bad luck in places where Voodoo/Santaria are practiced. It seems to be the lack of morality and refusal to acknowledge the existence of the law of causality. This is the elephant in the living room of the Haitian dilemma, the pre-Katrina New Orleans poverty and misery, and the oppression under the living devil in Cuba.

I had a relationship with the descendant of Haitian slaves that spanned 50 years, and she taught me (and practiced) a little voodoo. To this day, if I get a letter from someone I don't like, in other words, someone I feel is a toxic person, I stick that letter under the sink with the toxic chemicals, and I feel much better.

----

Correction: the relationship spoken of above lasted 44 years, not 50, but it seems like fifty because she still visits me in dreams.

Thank Obama for people like Pat Robertson who come along in the nick of time to remind people of the MSM's favorite meme, conservatives are idiots. While most normal people are at least comfortable with the possibility that God exists (and by implication "normal" excludes angry self-righteous intellectuals like Richard Dawkins who are such there is no God because He didn't consult them when He created the universe) or are believers themselves, Pat Robertson comes along to put the right in tinfoil-hat territory again with an assertion that he knows what God is thinking. I guess what I'm saying is the old joke that with friends like Pat Robertson, enemies are redundant. Luckily for us, the Left has the MSM to obfuscate the stupidity of our idiots, and they are plentiful and plenty stupid as we all know. Our opponents have fewer idiots but the MSM exaggerates rather than covers up for their idiocy.

Czar Czar wrote:Isn't that the policy that Pat Robertson referred to as 'cursed' because they made a pact with the devil and China to spend a trillion dollars, so as to free Amerika from the evil Bush Empire?

Yes, and that freedom really feels different, or is it all the Jiffi-Lobos? I'm not sure.

[ off ]I actually heard Robertson say that in a video clip. Otherwise I wouldn't have believed it.

I think that you're right that there is a problem in places which refuse to understand causality. But then no place is exempt from that. One could say that the current American political system is victim to that. I have told people that I'm a conservative because someone has to mind the store.

Yes, I saw that same clip of Pat Robertson. It's as if the wheel is going, but the hamster is dead.

Leninka wrote: I here that devil story is just a legend.

Earthquake aside, there does seem to be a preponderance of poverty, squalor and bad luck in places where Voodoo/Santaria are practiced. It seems to be the lack of morality and refusal to acknowledge the existence of the law of causality. This is the elephant in the living room of the Haitian dilemma, the pre-Katrina New Orleans poverty and misery, and the oppression under the living devil in Cuba.

I had a relationship with the descendant of Haitian slaves that spanned 50 years, and she taught me (and practiced) a little voodoo. To this day, if I get a letter from someone I don't like, in other words, someone I feel is a toxic person, I stick that letter under the sink with the toxic chemicals, and I feel much better.

I am sure you are correct. While I think there is much more to the universe than the physical and that I and all of us will continue after our physical being crumbles, I do not place much stock in voodoo, astrology and the like. However, I rely on the old adage which states "If you don't believe in the gods, leave them alone." That being said, I think the reason for our existence here is largely educational and thus we generally reap the fruits, bitter or sweet, of our actions. In other words, our faults generally lie not in our stars, but in ourselves. That is why I get so irritated when a numbskull like Robertson comes along and says things like this or that is a punishment from God. In the first place, whatever God has in mind, I doubt He would consult Pat Robertson about it first. In the second place, God doesn't need to punish us, we do a pretty good job of screwing ourselves. This is the elephant in everyone's living room and our success or failure in life centers around to what degree we acknowledge him.

Pat Robertson told that devil story as if it were true (not a legend), and there were people who believed it, as he was telling it, and therein, he, and those who believed him, were as foolish as the practitioners of Voodoo.

Opiate wrote:In other words, our faults generally lie not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Indeed and I've never been Mercutio.

I have looked for evidence for a life after death and fine none. I'm not averse to it but it seems complicated to me. When I was a kid I was told about eternal life, or punishment, and the idea was so awful that I hoped that there was none. The heaven that I was presented with was worse than anything that I could imagine, save the hell that I was presented with.

I figure it's up to me to give bastards shit if I can, and so I do. I don't do it instantly--they have to prove themselves to be bastards--but if someone has proven himself to be a rat bastard then I put it to him as well as I can. Because I don't have any belief that he'll get it afterwards.

Do you think that, if there is a life after death, that I'll get advanced-placement credits?

Of course, you will, whether you want to, or not.

In Buddhism, it is as evil to be good to an evil person as it is to be bad to a good person. This is why I loved Dennis Miller when he said it would be a "karmic compromise" to be in the same room with Nanski Peloski.

Commissar Theocritus wrote: I have looked for evidence for a life after death and fine none. I'm not averse to it but it seems complicated to me. When I was a kid I was told about eternal life, or punishment, and the idea was so awful that I hoped that there was none. The heaven that I was presented with was worse than anything that I could imagine, save the hell that I was presented with.

I think there is enough evidence to support a reasonable belief in an afterlife. I have had my own personal experiences that validate this for me. I would not try to convince you of it and it really doesn't matter (I don't have an 800 number for indulgences or such), for Pascal's ages-old wager implies if I am right, you will say to yourself, "Gee, Opiate was not a big a fool as I thought." If I am wrong, neither of us will ever know.

Another point I would make is I think the next world will not be as we were taught, a model which frankly never made sense to me. For example, why should humans suffer infinitely for a finite number of errors? If nothing else, God seemed to me to be extremely logical, yet much of what I was told about Him did not seem to be so. So someone had to be wrong. From what I have read (this is oversimplified in order to achieve pithiness which I probably have already forsaken) this world is basically a school and we have to keep repeating grades until we get it right. Yeah, great, no social promotion when I could really have used it. But my view of death now is simply that one day I will wake up and my body won't be with me. So I don't spend as much time polishing it as I used to.

Commissar Theocritus wrote: Do you think that, if there is a life after death, that I'll get advanced-placement credits?

Probably, but I have not yet fathomed how to get them. I think the odds are nil that one can buy them like carbon credits. There will be no hiding in group identity. Each individual must do his own work; blaming someone else for one's failures will not cut it. Even in the afterlife, progressivism is a non-starter.

Twice I have nearly died and saw no white light. Not even something which might have on reflection have been the lights in an operating room.

There may be enough evidence to support a reasonable belief in an afterlife, and again I'm not against it. But then how do we know <i>what</i> afterlife? Mortiimer J. Adler convinced me that there is a god, but stated that at the current state of philosophy (this in 1978) that he couldn't prove that that god was knowable. If we don't know God, how can we figure out what he wants, or what heaven is?

I'm all in favor of 95% of Christian morality, and from what Leninka has told me, the Buddhist morality seems to be pretty agreeable too. But any sort of supernatural being which is unknowable seems to me to demand that any observances be essentially solipsistic. In which we make God ourselves.

(I know that doesn't apply to Buddhism. Or don't think that it does.)

Oh no you didn't Leninka.

Don't you know it's racist to compare a negro man from Kenya to African negroes? You know how offended they get when whites remind them of their roots. You're supposed to pretend they all come from European royalty.

btw: it's ok to use white people's faces on African natives, just not Dear Leader or Michelle.

If you don't remember that you were born in Africa, were you still born there?

Pat Robertson said the earthquake was God's punishment for the Haitian's pact with the devil...

My comrades

Please allow me to make a few progressive points.
--An Earthquake of the same magnitude (6.9 - 7.1 on the Richter scale) hit the San Fransisco area in 1989. 57 people died.
-- More than 200 000 people died in the Haiti earthquake, (Also 7 on the Richter scale)

What is the difference? The only difference between the two incidents it the quality of building structures. The quality of structures depend on the availability of money and government building regulations.

Haiti is a glorious people's paradise, that has been deprived of money and opportunities by the big Kapitalist Empire of America!

If America had distributed its wealth to their poor Communist brothers as Marx had instructed, the Haitian Government would not need to steal so much money from its people, and would be able to govern much better, therefore ensuring higher building standards and so this massive human tragedy could have been avoided.

You see my comrades. It is not the Haitians who made a pact with the devil, it is the American Devil who undermined the Haitian Government, caused the failure of the country that caused this devastating tragedy.

The Haitian disaster is one of failed government, not of nature.

Amandla

Obamugabe

What is this talk of afterlife? What is this talk of God?

What has happened to The Party that such words should be uttered by, none other than, the most equal among us? The only afterlife that we should be speaking of is voting rights. The only deity is the State! Dear Leader be praised!

I DENOUNCE ALL OF YOU WITH THE EXCEPTION OF OBAMUGABE! No wonder Dear Leader's polling numbers have been dropping. Some reeducation may be in order here.

Dr. Chicago

Commissar Theocritus wrote:Twice I have nearly died and saw no white light. Not even something which might have on reflection have been the lights in an operating room.

There may be enough evidence to support a reasonable belief in an afterlife, and again I'm not against it. But then how do we know <i>what</i> afterlife? Mortiimer J. Adler convinced me that there is a god, but stated that at the current state of philosophy (this in 1978) that he couldn't prove that that god was knowable. If we don't know God, how can we figure out what he wants, or what heaven is?

I'm all in favor of 95% of Christian morality, and from what Leninka has told me, the Buddhist morality seems to be pretty agreeable too. But any sort of supernatural being which is unknowable seems to me to demand that any observances be essentially solipsistic. In which we make God ourselves.

(I know that doesn't apply to Buddhism. Or don't think that it does.)

My good comrade Theocritus

I am impressed with your Agnosticism. It would be better though if you were a hardened atheist like me. You are a prog, for Lenin's sake!

I am thoroughly disturbed by your statement about Christian morality. Let me explain:

--There is no god.

--Therefore humans have no soul. Our perceived self is just that, a perception created by electro-chemical reactions in neurones, which are nothing but complex molecular machines consisting of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and a few other elements.

--A human differs in no way from our brothers and sisters of other species, and has no moral distinction from a lump of coal in a bucket of seawater (Which is chemically almost equivalent to a human organism)

--According to the Holy Dawkins there is only one imperative that separates the living from the dead: The survival of the Holy Gene (The selfish gene)

--Therefore, as a human, I have only one Moral Imperative: The survival of my own genetic code, firstly through my own survival, and secondly through the survival of my offspring.

--As morality has to do with how we interact with other humans, the Morality of the Selfish Gene (Some call it Social Darwinism) divides humans into three categories
1) Those who are necessary for the survival of my genetic code. These include my parents, my sexual partner, my offspring. It also includes the future sexual partners of my offspring, etcetera. It also includes those who provide food and resources to me.
2) Those who compete with me for resources. This includes about 6 000 000 000 people around the globe.
3) Those who do not influence the survival of my genetic code at all. Very few people alive fall into this category.

--Based on this it is now easy to decide how to interact with people.
1) Group one: What is good for them is good for me. We work towards our common good, as long as they don't compete with me.
2) Group two, Plan A: Gain control over them in such a way that they contribute to my good without competing. A good example is the glorious exploitation of proles through forced labour without decent pay. Slavery. Colonialism. Trade exploitation. Taxes. Etc. Etc. The possibilities for a Prog with imagination are endless. (Of course, you have to be politically correct and not use words like "slavery", but you knew that. )
3) Group two, Plan B: If you can't control them, destroy them. This is where the wonderful idea of Genocide originated, and it is a tried and tested African tradition. Of course the principle works on all levels of life: The guy who competes for your job? Destroy him. The guy who competes for the same sexual partner? Destroy him. And so on and so on.
4) Group three: This is only academic. Someone who is not necessary for the survival of your genetic code is competition.

--If you deny the existence of god, and you come to any other conclusion, you are intellectually dishonest. Most progs unfortunately are.

How to get rid of your guilt if you are not intellectually honest enough to become a Moral Genocidist like me but still want to be prog:
--Become a vegetarian, join Green Peace and Peta: Since we know that humans are the same as animals, animals should have human rights. That will make you feel MUCH better.
--Remember that humans are the same as animals, and since it is ok to slaughter animals it is ok to slaughter humans too. Just put a nice cozy and fuzzy lie around it like "It is my right to choose what I do with my body." Even though you know that your unborn baby you are about to slaughter is not your body, she is a discrete individual. Once you have successfully tried the "Choice" lie, try this one "It is for the Heimat!" and woosh, 6000 000 Jews go to the death camps. Or it is for the "Greater Good" and 100 000 000 people who oppose the Glorious Communist creed are gone!

Try these Fuzzy and Feel Good lies at least once a day, and after some years you will be like me!

Amandla!

Obamugabe

I hear the reductive theses of Dawkins; I find Hitchens more interesting, and persuasive, because he doesn't try to clothe it in Darwinism. (Personally I find Darwin convincing but rather too easy to use to explain anything.)

I am by training a mathematician, a computer scientist, although my degree is 30 years out of date and so I am susceptible to things which wrap themselves in science. I've been to Vegas thrice and have never gambled, because I know enough science to know that the casinos win.

But the Dawkins explanation seems somehow hollow. For example, I'm gay. It comes from my mother's side of the family. Why do gay people exist? We don't reproduce. In the south seas there is a tradition of raising the odd boy as a girl to help around the house, and one could use a survivalist rationale for that. And gays often do have the time to help, mother, other people because we do NOT have children and families. But still, is that sufficient?

I do not see any evidence at all for a soul. I wish I did, but I don't. I am not sneering. I just don't see it. But that doesn't mean that we ought not draw a line between humans and animals. And it doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold all human life to be sacred, or at least pretend that it's sacred. Our Declaration of Independence makes some very lofty claims about life, liberty and so forth, and I'll stand by them and defend them, but I do not think that they're innate rights. I think it's the most civilized thing in the world so far to pretend that they are innate rights and we are in a struggle with left-wing barbarians to protect these rights.

I'm a great believer in protocol and manners, which is a perfectly acceptable way to look at the world. Lots of people think that that applies just to dress and table manners and bread-and-butter notes but I think that it also applies to basic moral questions such as "Is this child human?" (The answer is yes.) And, "Is a human worth more than an animal?" (The answer is yes.)

There are people on the right who do not take the mechanistic view of life that the left does.

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who supress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futuile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools...they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator."

"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disbey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

"You therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things. Now we know that God's judgement against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you a mere man, pass judgement on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgement? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentence?"

"But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentent heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgement will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. (Romans 1 and 2)

"In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven." (Hebrews 1:3)

"The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. " (John 1 and 3)

CC, quoting the Bible without exegesis does not advance an argument. And anyway, why are you arguing with me? Conservatives need all the help we can get and I have heavy artillery, I hope, on the conservative side. And remember, that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Perfect as you define it.

And before you start quoting the Bible, you might look at Exodus 21. It tells you how to sell your daughter and a few other choice things:

Exodus 21 wrote: "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. [a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.

7 "If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as menservants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.
...
"If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.

I'm sorry. Normally I don't quote the Bible for fear of embarrassing people with whom I've made common cause, but it is obvious that the Bible is a confused book. Which is not to say that it's a bad book. There is a good deal of virtue in it but it is impossible to take it literally without self-destructive mental gymnastics, and that means that people must think on every passage for themselves.

Commissar Theocritus wrote: I do not see any evidence at all for a soul. I wish I did, but I don't. I am not sneering. I just don't see it.

Yeah, I didn't either. Then one day I met someone else's, or should I say someone else in non-physical form, a swirling orange light that passed thru the roof of my house and hovered over me in bed. I awoke with a start and thought I was having a very weird dream. A few days later a woman I was dating emailed me and said she came out of her body (she did that spontenously from time to time, don't know why) and came to my house (on the same date and time as my "dream") and tried to wake me up. She didn't know about the "dream" because I hadn't deemed it significant enough to relate to anyone. So I was faced with the choice that either this sort of thing can and does happen or else it was one of the lowest probability coincidences in history. I guess the latter is not impossible but other things that have happened over the years lead me to think it's the former.

I'm sure this doesn't convince anyone, you really had to be there and only I (and she) were. But I'm not the only nut that thinks these sort of things are real. If you have a mind to, someday read "Suddenly Psychic" by Maureen Caudill, a former scientist working on artificial intelligence and neural networks for a DoD contractor and trained in physics and math. If my pot is cracked, hers is completely demolished.

Sorry, I didn't intend to start a quasi-religious discussion (unintended consequences strike again) so I'll shut up about this now.

Not to worry about the quasi-religious discussion.

I think that there are two things here. I was close enough to Mom that we could read each other's lips. Twice she <i>knew</i> I was in a parlous situation. Once a good friend had died, very suddenly, and it turned the world upside down. She called me, in Midland, 100 miles away, in the morning five minutes after I got the news and she had never done that. We were both night people. She knew. When I was an eighth grader she picked me up at the golf course, although it was only four blocks from home. I was about to get molested by E. V. I walked everywhere. She hadn't done it before or since.

I also had a slight out-of-body experience myself sitting on a bus in Colorado when I was a freshman. I was playing cards and could suddenly see the top of my head.

But these experiences don't imply, to me, a soul. The first two prove, to me if no one else, that minds can communicate at levels we just don't understand. The last one, the out-of-body experience, could have been some sort of fugue that I had--after all, I didn't see anything that I couldn't have figured out.

By soul I mean something that is eternal and outlasts a body. As I said, Mom and I were quite close and if there was some sort of communication after death, I'd probably have gotten it.

Frankly I don't like the idea of a soul because it's so imponderable. My biggest horror when I was forced to go to church was everlasting life because it was supposed to be like church, which was just bleeding awful. Terrifying. I was going to burn in hell, and I was the perfect, disgustingly perfect, kid. Top of the school system, accomplished, polite, even, er, cute, when young. But I <i>was going to burn in hell</i>. I learned to deal with the here-and-now instead of imponderables because I figured out that anything that couldn't be proven that I believed in was essentially my projection of my desires.

Or, in the case of my religious training, fears.

Very interesting discussion, comrades. I'm afraid the religious theme is my fault, because I'm the one who brought it up in the first place. I'm as opinionated about religion as anyone.

Comrade Casserole Czar, I think you are finding out what an eclectic group we are, here. The Republican party is stereotyped as "sex-starved, gay bashing, Christian Right Wing vein poppers," and we here at the Cube, are proof that not only are we all not the same, we don't necessarily belong to the same political parties, or have the same religious beliefs, but we all want freedom from a government that dares to micromanage us in any way, and that includes imposing the evil religion of Global Warming/Climate Change upon us.

Speaking of evil religions that bring misery, mayhem and misfortune in the lands where they are practiced, in my opinion, Islam is an evil religion, and the practice of Santeria/Voodoo is an evil religion. And one can tell a lot about a religion by the circumstances of those who practice it.

Japan was as evil as a country can be, prior to WW2. They were fanatic believers in Shinto, an evil religion. Buddhism there, was more of a formality than a faith. The Kamakazi pilots were no different than Islamic suicide bombers. They died in the name of the Shinto religion.

The members of my Buddhist sect were harassed, and/or imprisoned by the Shinto government. It took a defeat by the U.S., a mostly Protestant Christian nation, to bring them freedom of religion - so I wouldn't have the luxury of practicing Buddhism were it not for the acts of a mostly Protestant Christian nation.

Oh, and there are some evil Buddhist sects, too, as far as I'm concerned, like Tibetan Buddhism, which is a primitive theocratic amalgam of lesser and greater Buddhist vehicles. I believe the Dalai Llama is a phony huckster. He doesn't appear to be enlightened, to me, in the least. And, in Vietnam, the Buddhist priests aligned themselves with the communists, so, as far as I'm concerned, they were evil, too. And don't get me started about some the evil Buddhist sects of Japan.

I hope I haven't offended anyone here with my highly opinionated rant about evil religions. I'm a Buddhist, and I believe in karma, but I don't have dietary restrictions. So send me straight to hell for eating the rear end portion of a cow.

As for you, Comrade Theocritus, between being gay and being an atheist, I don't think you have a chance in hell.

Leninka wrote:As for you, Comrade Theocritus, between being gay and being an atheist, I don't think you have a chance in hell.

There are <i>so</i> many ways to interpret that.

Casserole Czar, this is a place which HATES governmental control. Many people from all different beliefs hate governmental control. No one would ever, I hope, disdain you for your beliefs. I've been very lucky in that people seem to treat me with a good deal of respect and frankly, conservative/gay/atheist? That's not something that many people are comfortable with.

The common denominator here is that people are willing to take responsibility for themselves, which makes them loathe big government. And its pushers, like Nanski and Obowma.

You're doomed. Face it. You're already getting your hell here on earth, as it is. You are trapped in a Cube of endless dribble drivel.

Dearest Comrades,

First, let me tell you all how much I enjoy getting to know you, and how much it has meant to me to be part of the Cube off and on. I have an affection for each of you even though I have never met you! I know I'm not the sharpest pencil in the pot, but it livens up my day to join in the reindeer games with ya'll.

Theocritus, in all honesty, I was only looking for responses when I boldly typed those portions of the Bible. That's why I didn't even put my own opinion beside it. It was a heavy set of words that spoke for itself. The Bible is obviously a highly explosive book. I was pretty sure it would ignite something. It's like saurkraut...you love it or hate it. I'm sorry it seemed argumentative. I just got a wild hair and sent it off since it had some statements relevant to the topic. (A risky experiment, I know...)

However, I do have some of my own opinions on the topic of souls, eternal destiny, absolutes, etc. One would be that IF there is a truth, it would be truth whether anyone accepted it or not. Something true (like the benefits of a free market economy in light of large earthquakes) would be true even if a billion people rejected it. On the other hand...something false (that suicide bombing helps you score virgins) would not be true even if a billion people accepted it. Since the very nature of truth is inflexible and adament (and inconvenient if it is unattractive, as the Goricle reminds us) it can seem offensive. HOWEVER, if the truth is comforting and reassuring, filled with genuine hope--the inflexability of truth is an absolute treasure!

(AND, I would say that even if we disagree on what it is...we can know there IS SOME absolute truth...because saying "there is absolutely no absolute truth" is an absolute statement.)

Secondly, to me it seems silly to call a book "confused" and then to say that it has virtue in it. A book that calls itself "God's word" and then misleads in some areas and gives light in other areas is not trustworthy AT ALL. A book's value cannot depend on the intelligence/discernment of the person reading it b/c it would change with each set of eyes that read it. A book with REAL value would be reliable in every part and not depend on the discernment of whoever was reading it.

When it comes to high stakes like life/not life after death, soul/no soul/, reward and punishment...we can't risk taking ANY information into account from a confused book.

We have a great Christian TV channel in Houston, and sometimes, we watch it late at night, and I'm watching it right now. The minister just said: "Don't be so condescending with your bible quoting self . . ." Just a coincidence.

These are the people who have put life into the religion. They deserve respect, and their faith serves them well, whereas in places like Europe, the people are born into Catholic families, but they don't go to church. I hear that most Catholic Churches in Europe are empty on Sundays, and there doesn't seem to be anything to replace the old guard. But that's not true, here, especially in Texas. We are a very fortunate nation.

THOUGHT CRIMINALS!!!!

WE DENOUNCE YOU ALL!!! Here you are congregating with known suspects of a certain showtrial now in process while the Honorable Judge Commissarka Pinkie devours examines vodka stuffed chocolates! Oh what has happened to our glorious collective, the People's Director goes away on some very important peoples business and now you all are acting like Rethuglikan Riech Winging Bible Thump Evilangilists!

Dear Lenin save us from this debauchery!

Comrades,
Please forgive me if I have offended anyone. I am going to cease and desist from any further religious comments. You are right that we are here for the same reason-- to mock the living daylights out of Nanski and her troops. Down with Big Government! Down with Statism! Down with...well, pretty much everyone in Washington D.C.!
(Again, sorry guys.)

WHAT!!!!!!

WE ARE NOW FULLY APPALLED AT YOUR BEHAVIOR! HOW CAN THIS BE!?! This thoughtcriminal has talked ill of the The Party and our glorious cause once again... We'll have you know CASSEROLE CZAR that there are things you CAN say and thing's you CAN'T say, and in our tolerance we'll let you know what they are. Oh and I had such hopes for this prole.... such shame, Dear Lenin, such a shame....



No problem comrade, get back to your showtrial and you will have more luck with these type of discussions.

CC wrote:One would be that IF there is a truth, it would be truth whether anyone accepted it or not.

And that, dear CC, is why you are not a prog. To a prog the only truth is the truth du jour, or the Current Wisdom(tm). Once I saw an article in which someone talked about science that wasn't invented yet. Rubbish. Science isn't invented. It's discovered. If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to hear it, does it make a noise? Of course it does.

I have no problem with the Bible having worthy parts and also being confused. Consider its genesis. I was raised in a religion which believed that the Bible was translated with different groups of people working on every say third word and it all made sense. Anyone with any knowledge of Greek or Latin knows that that just doesn't work.

One has I think to view it in light of the times in which it was written. The virtue of the Bronze Age is not our virtue. Roman virtue is not our virtue. A Roman man had the absolute right to sleep with anyone, male, female, servant, and he could be a good Roman as long as he took care of his family. Not our virtue.

I think that there is some wisdom in the Bible, but that we have to look at it bit by bit, just as we do in any book worth considering. But also consider the Bishop who threw out the books that he didn't like; the various grudges and beliefs held by the translations; and even the fact that translations seldom get the flavor. I've read only some of the Vulgate (in Latin) of the Bible and I was amazed at the difference.

If you read Virgil or Homer you find that we don't even know what they meant by <i>colors</i>. So it's not surprising to me that some of it comes out confused.

I want to point out that according to the verses I submitted I am just as guilty as anyone and also stand condemned.

You are smarter than me, Theocritus. I am just foolish enough to stake my life on something that seems silly--that a compassionate God would serve my death sentence and give me more than I ever deserved.

I can't find any other religion with stakes quite as high. Christ's teachings were outrageous.

Best case scenario, there is no god and I have nothing to fear in the way of judgement anyway and I just cease to exist. Middle case scenario, everyone goes to heaven (or its equivalent). Worse case scenario, even though the Bible is troubling and angering at times, it is accurate in the events of history and the condition of the soul, and I am better off for having hoped in it.

To get paradise, I don't have to be perfect, strong, or even wise. I just have to have a child-like trust in a Father that is just, but also loving. For someone like me, that is a bargain.

I think that you've taken Pascal's wager.

I believe that JPII said that virtuous atheists can get into heaven, which would be a considerable shock to the religion I was raised in. According to them, since about 100 BC until 1900 BC <i>everyone</i> was going to hell.

The old joke, not told by them.

A man dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter is giving him a tour. He points out a group of people with yarmulkes. "Those are the Jews."

He points out a group of people with crosses. "Those are the Catholics."

The man points out another group of people a long way away. "Who are those people?"

"Hush! They're the Church of Christ and they don't think anyone else is here."

"...employees of the bloated California bureaucracy still have their jobs" as do are growing Viagra government employees, so there is much to celebrate.

Leninka, how proud you must be to have your Forever Picture taken with our glorious leaders... my heart pitter- patters with joy.

Fraulein, there was a Politburo meeting this morning at the Rancho. The ACLU will no longer be used in this. Instead Red Star's goons will come and take the Thoughtcriminal directly to Jiffi-Lobo, where all those troubling bits of cognitive dissonance will be sucked out of his head.

And by the way, I have been in consultation with Dr. Mengele, who tells me that he has refined his technique using a laser and the incidence of incontinence has been reduced to 60%. At one time a serious thought criminal would have to undergo complete rehabilitative therapy, for walking, talking and even peeing and pooping 99% of the time. But owing to progress in the People's Medicine we are now down to 60%.

Praise Stalin.

"Thoughtcriminal directly to Jiffi-Lobo, where all those troubling bits of cognitive dissonance will be sucked out of his head. "

This sounds MOST intriguing, at first thoughtcrime, anyway.

Wow, Dr. Mengele is bring new peace and joy to the comrades! No more quick exist at the SEIU protests! No more rushing down the hall by her greatness Nanski!

Comrade Whoopie wrote:Oh no you didn't Leninka.

Don't you know it's racist to compare a negro man from Kenya to African negroes? You know how offended they get when whites remind them of their roots. You're supposed to pretend they all come from European royalty.

btw: it's ok to use white people's faces on African natives, just not Dear Leader or Michelle.

Yes, what you say is true. The Junkyard Dog Comrade Michelle, I do believe has quite a bit of European royalty coursing through her veins, however, if you see all of us as being light skinned black people, then doesn't that make us more equal than not?

Fraulein Pulloskies wrote:Leninka, how proud you must be to have your Forever Picture taken with our glorious leaders... my heart pitter- patters with joy.

Thank you, Fraulein Pulloskies. This was the first time I had ever seen Comrades Peloski and the MTE up close, and I can't tell you how much more phoney, waxed, and repulsive attractive and warm they are in person. Nanski Peloski only twitched with annoyance only a little when my arm accidentally bumped hers.

"phoney, waxed, and repulsive attractive and warm they are in person."

I understand COMPLETELY, what you say.

She is known to be a "twitcher" . . . I think it's those phony white teeth.

I just love Nanski's chicken neck, her padded shoulders and the fact that her boobs are on her belly. And that smile--her lipstick is a proud testimony to Sherwin Williams.

She's so much more enticing than our MTE, who is nothing if not a hundredweight of lard stuffed into panty hose, quivering, quaking, shaking.

But both are willing to sacrifice OPM for the Greater Good^TM , and regulate our behavior according to their wishes. It's tattooed on the same part of their brains that give the rest of us the sense of when to mind our own business.

This is why they make the best practitioners of voodoo economics, which is based on the belief that's it's perfectly all right to control the behavior of others.

Commissar Theocritus wrote: I do not see any evidence at all for a soul. I wish I did, but I don't. I am not sneering. I just don't see it. But that doesn't mean that we ought not draw a line between humans and animals. And it doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold all human life to be sacred, or at least pretend that it's sacred. Our Declaration of Independence makes some very lofty claims about life, liberty and so forth, and I'll stand by them and defend them, but I do not think that they're innate rights. I think it's the most civilized thing in the world so far to pretend that they are innate rights and we are in a struggle with left-wing barbarians to protect these rights.

My dear Comrade Theocritus

I think you should come to Zimbabwe for some re-education. I say that with all humility and respect towards a Made Prog like yourself who shines like a beacon in the Collective.

You do not believe in god. You do not believe you have a soul.

And yet…

And yet you cannot bring yourself to abandon morality. Why should we not not (double negative intended) draw a line between humans and animals? Why should we not not hold human life sacred? Why is the American Declaration of Independence something special? Why even pretend that it is something special?

You are in fact the archetypal embodiment of what the Evil Reactionary Religionists call the Moral Argument. According to the religionists, you know these things instinctively, because you have a soul. You know it because your creator implanted your soul with a conscience.

Do they say that the moral argument proves the existence of god? Only a fool would say that. It does, however, prove that belief in a soul is rational. (Of course we know this to be nonsense. Anybody who believes in something he cannot see is irrational.)

I must confess complete ignorance of the work of Hitchens, so I Googled him, and the following came up in his Wikipedia article.

His main argument is that since the concept of God or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization.

This quote shows three critical fallacies.

The first is that if god existed, he would be exactly as Hitchens would imagine him to be: Totalitarian. The quote does not allow for the possibility that god may be different from Hitchens' idea of what god would be like, if he existed. God could just as easily be the Great Cosmic Liberator. Which may explain why Bible Thumpin' Evangelicals are generally the ones who get excited about life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness. This is of course is nonsense. I know for certain that god, if he existed would be like me. In fact, I believe I should be god.

The second fallacy is implied: Since Hitchens does not like the idea of god (as he conceives him to be), god therefore does not exist. I hate the idea of Sarah Palin. Unfortunately that does not stop her from existing.

The third fallacy is that science is a valid basis for ethics and morality. One could easily reason (validly, if you accept the premise) that since we can build atomic bombs we should use them. I personally subscribe to this idea, which is why me and my friend Ahmedinejad are tirelessly working towards that end.

Dawkins is the only person who has proposed a valid Moral Imperative based on materialistic science: The Selfish Gene. (I do not know if Dawkins actually developed a morality based on this).

Ayn Rand comes close to this: Her Moral Imperative is My Own Life. The problem with Ayn Rand is that she runs into a myriad contradictions, because much of her morality (For instance “Give me Freedom or give me Death”) simply does not derive from her Moral Imperative. If life is not absolute but has to be qualified (eg by freedom, which is not easily defined, or anything else one may arbitrarily want to qualify it with) in order to be worthwhile it cannot be the basis of morality. To illustrate: Since the life of Africans are not qualified by freedom (most would agree that abject poverty is not freedom) they should commit mass (assisted) suicide.

Dawkins' group famously advertised in on London busses: “There may be no god, so be good for goodness sake.” This is probably the most hilariously stupid thing ever said by people who call themselves “Brights”. Why be something for that something's own sake? And what is the meaning of “good” anyway? VERY non specific and fuzzy for scientists who should know that precision is next to godliness. But they should be commended for their wonderfully progressive use of the Circular Argument.

Of course I make the critical fallacy that one Wikipedia quote can summarize a man's whole philosophy.

And I denounce that putrid pommie Monckton for writing the following article.

http://sppiblog.org/news/what-is-scienc ... t-religion
<br>https://sppiblog.org/news/what-is-science-without-religionAmandla!

Obamugabe.

Leninka wrote: This is why they make the best practitioners of voodoo economics, which is based on the belief that's it's perfectly all right to control the behavior of others.

My dear Leninka

I am so glad you get it!

It's perfectly all right to control the behavior of others!

Obamugabe

There is a remedy for chicken-neckedness. Fortunately for you, Nanski P seems unaware.

Fraulein, is there a remedy for Peloskiness? Let's ask 7.62.

Obamugabe, I have a very simple answer to morality: it's a system, to some extent, quite artificial, which works. It is manners for matters of big consequences.

A moral Roman man, and there were many, could sleep with any man or woman he wanted, and could have absolute control of any slave, male or female, that he wanted, and no one thought anything of him keeping <i>concubinae</i> or <i>concubini</i> for his own pleasure.

That is not moral today. Outside some Arabic rulers' palaces.

I do not think that there is anything intrinsically immoral about killing defective children but I would fight to the end to avoid having it happen and be happy to serve on a jury convicting someone who did.

I think that it is necessary for a society to have a morality which is seen to be fair because otherwise people will not submit to that society and there will be nothing but anarchy. It is moral to think of life as sacred, even if I don't believe in the sacred. It is moral to hate lying, because a civilization based on lies will be foul, oppressive and corrupt. Ask Red.

But I don't see that any of these is divinely inspired.

Let me pose a question: if you were an actor or a recording artist, would you sign a contract with Sony? Because as you know, it's owned by the Japanese, who are likely to be Shinto or Buddhist and are not informed at all by the Judeo-Christian god. If you believe that morality comes from the western god, then it would be rash to enter into a contract with someone not informed by that god unless you believe that your god is the only god, and only you, and similar-minded people, understand the mind of that god.

I cannot prove that Jesus is not the son of god, but then you cannot prove that he is either. That's where faith comes in. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. An analysis of the first few words is that faith is what you want to happen. It is wishful thinking. It is projecting your wishes onto something which is unknowable. And unknowable this god is: how many times have you heard someone talk about the ineffable nature of god and then go on to tell you what god means for you? That's oxymoronic right there.

You've heard of Occam's Razor, I'm sure. If one believes, as I do, that some god started all this going, what is the simplest explanation of how things got the way that they are?

That god started the Big Bang and then has been ignoring us ever since.

And Occam's Razor also decrees that we develop a morality which serves us, which differs locally--even in America, even in Texas, to some degree. It is just the same as developing manners, which are a lesser form of morality.

Civilizations which are deeply immoral, and I mean immoral as in not crediting people with individual rights just for being human, always fail in the end, although sometimes, as in the case of Communism, after murdering hundreds of millions.

The simplest case I know of for western morality is that it succeeds.

Of course, and I'm going to descend into the sort of recursive semi-idiocy which I so like, if you believe in natural selection then pretty soon everything seems tautological.

Wait. That's a pretty good argument for a manufactured, and not divine, morality itself.

Commissar Theocritus wrote: I cannot prove that Jesus is not the son of god, but then you cannot prove that he is either. That's where faith comes in. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. An analysis of the first few words is that faith is what you want to happen. It is wishful thinking. It is projecting your wishes onto something which is unknowable. And unknowable this god is: how many times have you heard someone talk about the ineffable nature of god and then go on to tell you what god means for you? That's oxymoronic right there.

Faith, according to those "radical", dangerous Christian types, is known and knowable... it is revealed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It comes without doubt. And, He resides there for our lifetime on this earth and into Heaven.
Wishing is fruitless and unproductive.... rather like the liberal minded thought processes. oops, I hope the Fuhrer won't read that.

Sorry...jumping in again...I'm a glutton for punishment...And it's all my own thoughts and reasoning here--no quotes...Just philosophical meanderings. Please bear with me-- it is long, but it is sequential and builds upon itself. So no skipping around!

Say the world we live in, and all that it in it, was created from scratch by some powerful being-- then whatever that being is would have the inarguable right to impose whatever order they wanted. As owner and sustainer of their creation they alone would set the reality. And as creatures of this world, we would be born into a reality that we have no choice about.

If that being was cruel, like say, Stalin, then we would be in big trouble and live in constant fear. If the being was kind, with a sense of humor even, like say, Bill Cosby, then we would be hopeful and live without fear. But no matter what we said about it, their perspective, perogative and decisions would be final, because frankly, we wouldn't be powerful enough to stop them.

(If everything in this incredibly complex and beautiful universe was a result of a bunch of randomly successful chemical explosions and mutations, then my point is void, obviously. But let's just say it isn't. Because if it was, then everything we say and do is pointless anyway. And on some level we are enjoying this conversation, right? So let's continue...)

The intelligence of humans is impressive. "We've" figured out some crazy amazing things, like space travel and heart transplants and cloning. etc. But we still don't even fully understand how the brain works. We still havn't fully explored the bottom of the ocean. We still are discovering new creatures in rainforests. And we obviously have a long way to go in outer space.

And there are invisible realms we are naive about...mysterious spiritual things happen all the time. Stories of possible interactions with angelic or demonic forces find their way even into scores of books. Dreams also seem to often have meanings or be premonitions. And there are people who practice magic arts that are more than just tricks on the eye.

The being that created the world would have an all-seeing, all-knowing perspective (since they were big enough to make it in the first place). And if that being ordered the world with a system of values of good and evil, or it's equivalent--two opposing values/ying-yang, etc., then we would see that around us. And we (creatures) would fall into one or both categories at times.

In this scenario, it would not be the humans who invented these definitions in their own smaller systems, it would have been inside of them because the being that painted them into existence planted it in their hearts.

There is something inside of MOST humans that wants "evil" punished. We like to see rapist, torturing, murderers suffer in prison or worse (especially if they hurt someone in our family). We like to see good people rewarded with success. We are happy when they thrive. It seems appropriate. We feel thankful, relieved. (exhibit A--Scott Brown)

If the being in charge left evil undealt with, we would not respect them. We would be left at the mercy of whatever extent of evil prevailed. If the good things in the world were not rewarded or preserved, then we would wonder what is the point of doing what's "right" since there is no reward. We would live for whatever felt convenient to us, regardless of it's effect on other humans or creatures around us. And it would be ok.

The overruling being that holds our tiny fates in it's hand would be, by human definition, JUST, if they lived by the set of values that's already in our minds.

The problem might become then, wondering where the line is drawn by which we know who is "good" and who is "evil." At some point or another, each human would step across that line, no matter how small, into something that hurts other people or misses the "good" status.

Therein lies another problem. What is this being to do? All of their little creatures are falling into the "punishment" category according to the rules set up. Yet this being is not cruel like Stalin. They, in fact, by our luck, have the opposite trait of kindness. They are, by their own declaration, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and rich in love.

They must, because of their own just nature, (which we respect because it fits our mindset) punish the wrong. They must condemn evil to protect goodness. But wait! Once their gavel has gone down, and an appropriate punishment has been decided (once again, up to this being entirely b/c it is only their perogative), then this being DOES have the option of carrying out the sentence on their OWN dime, and PARDONING the guilty party b/c that is also their perogative since they were the offended party.

It might actually make this being glad to do it for the creatures because it was in line with it's own character of compassion. While at the same time, in line with it's own character of justice.

And since this being could move in and out of their own order/system as they wished. They could enter it, leave it, overcome it. That would make it very convenient to work justice and compassion and effectively communicate it to their beings.

[Whether it is the ultimate answer or not, this is the over-arching message of the Bible. Troubling passages about slavery and such are hard to understand unless we read it in the context of when it was written and who it was written to. The culture and times of the ancient Israeli people were very different than today. It would have made way more sense to them then than it does to us today. The history of the Old Testament is just that--history. It is also prophecy. The scripture says over and over that the whole point is to point to the Messiah, the one who would eventually make things right and make things make sense.]

<OFF>


".. The history of the Old Testament is just that--history. It is also prophecy." CC

It's actually much more than just prophecy, which is also in the N T; there is great truth, fact and yes, history to be gleamed from the entire book. Whether one believes it or not, takes it as 'fact' and 'God's inherent Word' is up to the individual and his personal relationship to that Creator God. That relationship can only come from believing WHO that God is, the Lord Jesus Christ.

"the whole point is to point to the Messiah, the one who would eventually make things right and make things make sense." Yes, and it does so in the Old and New Testament.
Ultimately, we should (must) realize, we're ALL sinful people, born into a sin controlled world. THAT in itself, explains why "evil" and dire things exist.

CC, the great majority of what you say may well be true. And I'm not averse to it. I would frankly think it great if there were some Supreme Being who gave a damn about me.

But I simply am not capable of believing that some Supreme Being cares about me, with utterly no evidence that He does so. In fact I take the view that anything which cannot be measured, or verified, or tested, could be a construct, something that someone made up.

Scientific theories started as a wish and became proven by repeatable and verifiable results. If I see science verifying say a soul, and it's repeatable by other scientists (and NOT University of East Anglia scientists), then I'll believe it.

I do not have a deficient sense of myself, as anyone reading my blather knows. But I cannot tell myself that some Supreme Being, whom we simply <i>cannot</i> know with any measurable or verifiable accuracy, really cares about me. And this solves neatly the problem of answering prayers.

If God answers all prayers and I'm praying for something which is the opposite of what my neighbor is praying for, how is that resolved? Some people have told me that God answers all prayers but not necessarily in the way that we would wish. That's an explanation which explains everything. But an explanation that explains everything that happens has no predictive power and is useless as a true explanation.

Again, I'm not averse. But to me faith seems to be projecting myself onto a Supreme Being and I just have no evidence that any Supreme Being cares.

It is difficult to quantify love. But think of someone in your life that you love. How do they know that you love them? What if they didn't believe you? How would you prove it to them?

Now think of someone who loves you. In what ways do you accept their love? How do you measure it? Do you believe them when they tell you? Or when they send you a birthday card? When they called just to say hi and ask how you are doing? Maybe someone held you in their arms when you needed a hug. Or went out of their way to help you with a project that was too much for one person.

I guess love is measurable in some ways. In action mostly. Talk is cheap, but loving actions can prove it. As unloving actions can show that, too. And though we can't always quantify love or put it into words, we know when we have it, and we know when we don't.

Engaging in any human love is sort of a risk, because people can change their minds or become offended and take it back, or just get selfish and stop giving it.

On the other hand, the love of a parent for a child is so profound that the parent would lay down their life in a heartbeat for the wellbeing of the child. They would endure any hardship, would swallow any pride, and would sacrifice their own comfort with barely a thought.

The Supreme Being claims that he never changes. He also claims that he loves you...with a parental type love and with a brotherly love. In his own words, the greatest love a person could show would be to lay down his life for his friend. And he is claiming to have shown his love to you in that way.

I hear you on the prayer confusion. I've had many deep discussions about that. It is a mystery. All I can say is that prayer ultimately is simply conversation--like calling someone up on the phone for the simple pleasure of talking to them and connecting with them. It's not just the asking and getting of proverbial prayer. Also, it is impossible to retain a relationship with someone if you never talk to them. Because then it dries up and you drift apart.

Say you are in love with your dream person. You think about them all day, and call them up just to hear their voice. Just to enjoy the connection between the two of you. Or to share how your day went. To complain about your boss, or to ask them for advice. In the same way, it can be a relief to pour out our hearts out to God. He isn't shocked by anything we say. He wants the good, the bad, and the ugly. The fears, concerns, and deepest desires. Like how a loving parent would enjoy a relationship with their child.

And if the child asked the parent for something, they might simply give it to them or they might know that it is not good for them and give them something else instead or just say "wait." Parents' perspectives are often different than the child's.

Somehow I always have more peace after I spill my guts to him. Even if I'm angry at him or feeling lost. I am mostly just staying close enough so that I can hear what he wants to say to me. He does speak to people. People that claim to know God claim that their heart has heard his voice. And when he does it is powerful...it is the "peace that passes understanding."

Sometime, just try praying to God without asking for anything. Some of my most refreshing prayer times have been when I am only praising God for his power and his character traits. Or only thanking him for as many things as I can think of. (Someone told me that when kids are appreciative of what we give them, we tend to want to give them more---but less to the bratty kids that always complain! ha!)

The Supreme Being cares about you. There is evidence all around you. Besides the invisible stuff, there is beautiful music, colorful sunsets, crisp mountain streams, and squishy little baby cheeks! All signs of an amiable, warm-minded artist with a sense of humor and a desire to give us things that we also enjoy.

Another benefit of prayer is that it renders us never alone. He said he would never leave us alone. He said that if human parents know how to give good gifts to their kids, how much more does he, the heavenly parent! He said that every good and perfect gift comes from him, the father who does not change like shifting shadows.

It's good stuff! There is more to gain than to lose when it comes to testing out the waters of God's love. The first step is the hardest but then it gets easier and easier until you can't imagine life without him.

CC, believe me I understand what you're saying. I was brought up that way, except when as a child I had my head under a pillow because I was going to hell. But I do understand that--I have a great number of close friends who believe that. And I do not disdain that.

CC wrote:The Supreme Being claims that he never changes. He also claims that he loves you...with a parental type love and with a brotherly love. In his own words, the greatest love a person could show would be to lay down his life for his friend. And he is claiming to have shown his love to you in that way.

There is no evidence of that. I wish there were, but there is not.

Dear Commissar Theocritus

Your progessive thinking is beyond reproach

A few thoughts:

Faith: To ascribe objective truth to something you cannot prove objectively

Examples:
--There is no creator -- There is acreator
--Abiogenensis can happen -- Abiogenesiscannot happen

Both sides in both arguments are equally based on faith. In the first decade of the 21st century there is no objective proof for either case. To state that one side has faith and the other not is simply a lie.

The Occams' Razor Fallacy: The belief that Occams Razor is always right.

Occam's Razor:
Examples:
--One god started everything, or a gazillion trillion googleplex universes (to satisfy the anthropic principle)started everything. Which survives Occam's Razor?
--Our world is a mess because god started it and then disappeared, or our world is a mess because god gave man free will, and man chose to exclude god from running the world. Oh well, Occams razor doesn't always help to decide. Maybe simple logic would: Why would a being who has the intelligence and power to create a universe do it just to disappear off into the sunset?

Why does western morality work? Because it is based on the absolute of a god given law: Love does not harm your neighbour, therefore love fulfills the law. Of course you could argue that it incidental. Suit yourself. BUT: Science does not provide this absolute. Individual life (Ayn Rand) does not provide this absolute. The class struggle or the common good does not provide this absolute.

Without a god, the only absolute is the propagation of your own genetic material.

Why does conservatism work? Because it is based on another absolute. In this case not love but god given human rights: Life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness.

Note that neither the law, nor the rights are absolutes in themselves. It is the god from whom it emanates who is absolute.

Morality only works if it is based on absolutes.

Anything else will end, if you honestly follow the logic path you set out on to the end, in Auschwitz. (As I illustrated with Ayn Rand yeaterday) Morality that is based on relativism is no morality at all. That is why liberalism fails.

I denounce myself for these thoughtctrimes. For the very crime of thinking. I will immediately send a few proles to the salt mines to atone for my sin!

Amandla!

Thoughts on Liberal morality based on relativism.

I respect your perspective and your choice, Theocritus. I hear what you are saying, that the church teaching you were under was based on scare tactics and that would be traumatizing for anyone. I remember going to a Church of Christ summer camp and them telling me that I wasn't saved because I hadn't been baptized (my parents baptized me as a baby, but they were talking immersion). I was crying at camp and very disturbed because I had already spent years of my life feeling connected to God and feeling comfortable with my situation with him.

I think the only thing I enjoyed that week was a cute guy that eventually ended up being a penpal with... =)

I'm sure that growing up the way I did had a lot to do with how easy it was for me to choose Christ. But my brother growing up in the same house has pretty much chosen to ignore God. So it still just depends on each person's response.

I went to a liberal arts Bible college and got a B.A. in Bible and in History. It was a good experience, but I definitely went through a period wondering if it was all true and if I wanted it. But my previous experiences with God and the people in my life who I loved and admired steered me toward sticking with it. And I suppose once you have God's spirit in you, it's hard to shake him...I had given myself to him and therefore became his. Also, I have sat under dozens of the country's best Bible teachers and they have made sense to me.

I do think that without God I would be divorced or dead by now since I struggle with depression and we have had our share of troubles. But we keep coming back to the commitment we made to God and each other and he seems to give us the strength and endurance to keep up.

I am not trying to convince you anymore, but for the sake of others reading, I feel like my analysis of prayer was incomplete. I spent the day chewing on it, and some verses came to mind:

(I have a friend who keeps a journal of all the things she asks for in prayer and records when they are answered. It is an impressive list. I have kept an abbreviated version of that and it has made me want to continue, but I still go long streches being distracted and not praying at all.)

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8:26)

"And when you pray do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matthew 6:7)

Jesus told a story about a widow who by persistence got what she asked for in Luke 18. She kept coming to a judge asking for justice, but he refused. But eventually he said, "Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't wear me out with her complaining!" Persistence seems to be an important attribute of effective prayer.

Finally, Jesus even gave us a format of prayer in the Lord's Prayer. In this way, it was God telling us how to pray to God. It is a short and sweet prayer that gets to the point--that God's name be honored, a request for forgiveness, and a request for daily needs to be met.

CC, I'm very sorry that you are struggling with depression. I do understand that. I've spent some time without peripheral vision, not even able to turn my head. I would hear a noise in the house and hope that it was one of the cats because I couldn't summon the energy to look. Once I spent over a year in a house with two water heaters which had gone bad and so showered in cold water because I didn't have the energy to do anything about it. I had lymphedema and head problems making all movement difficult. I got VERY good at planning trips, because I knew that if I dropped something there it would lie.

I do wish you the best for depression. I grew up in a family which didn't believe in that--we just soldier on. But that was stupid. It's real, it sucks the sapor out of life; it makes you question your very existence; it saps the joy out of everything; and the only emotion that you experience is anger.

The best of luck.

Thank you, dear friend. Having someone validate my struggle is reassuring and helps me feel like I'm not such a wreck! Meds help me maintain a reasonable amount of consistency, but my family also has a hard time accepting the reality of depression and it has created some tension.

I'm sorry for your troubles also. That sounds pretty intense and way tougher than I have had to deal with. No hot water? I would just choose to stink! =) I'm a wuss! Are things going better now? It sounded past tense to me...

Sounds to me like you may be depleted from certain nutrients, too, Comrade Casserole. This can easily happen to anyone who is beset by domestic duties. And then, with Springtime just around the corner, who knows? You might end up with a whole new outlook. Of course, I don't doubt for a minute that your prayers will serve you well in the end.

CC, the black dog, as Churchill called it, departed quite some while ago, thank goodness. I tried several head meds but none worked.

One thing which helped is my overly analytical mind. My family just doesn't believe in that sort of stuff. We soldier on. Bullshit. It's real.

From 1987 to about 1992 things were very bad. Lots of health problems too. Then all of a sudden the weight lifted from my shoulders, and I could move them. This happened over a week or so. I could <i>see</i> without grayed-out vision. I had peripheral vision.

Months after that I was driving, just for fun, in New Mexico. All of the sudden I felt that weight, and I couldn't see well again. Like flipping a switch. Then I knew that it was chemical. (Bear in mind this was before the internet and easy research.) That was immensely gratifying.

Before I'd blamed myself. What had I done to make me this miserable? It had to be me--I take responsibility for my life. I am not a prog. Obviously some actions I'd taken did this.

Was it the fact that I'd broken up with a boyfriend of years? Was that it? Was that why I was miserable? Or was it that some computer software hadn't worked? What had I done?

When you're that miserable there is no past for it is a reproach to you. You can't bear to think of it. And there is no future because you cannot summon the energy to save yourself by acting. You have to live in the present. That's when I understood how people die by giving up.

I recall my mind fleeing in panic when I got out of the present. I raged at the clock; I turned them all from me. They were tyrants. I had no past, which mocked me. I had no possibility of a future.

But when it happened suddenly, I knew it was chemical.

And in 15 minutes it went away.

I had it again for a day when a dear friend was diagnosed with (fatal) breast cancer. But since then it's not come back.

The best of luck. This sounds horrible but please do know that at such times you are not the best judge of your past and future. In my case it was possible to just wait it out.

Leninka,
What? Nutrients like personal space, free time, clothes without stains, or a picked up floor? Who needs that? Of course, these deprivations are worth it beyond the shadow of a doubt, for the sake of my wee ones, but I think you are right that it is largely a season...We have also moved 11 times in 12 years and had several traumatic things like cancer in the family, four kids in five years, lost our house, and interpersonal drama...I think that has done it to me too!

But things are stabilizing...the kids are getting older and more independant, we have lived in the same house for two whole years, and we're not on the brink of killing each other anymore! Ha!

And yeah, when I have cried out to Him in my desperate moments he has brought me relief and help in some form or another. Often other people have been the manifestations of God's hugs! I do have good days...lots of good days. So much to be thankful for...pity parties often get the best of me, but I am learning to recognize them and fight them off! It's a family trait...bah! humbug!

Theocritus,

I too sometimes blame it on circumstances, but now I think it is largely chemical, genetic, and a learned behavior. (It is in my family tree on both sides). For me, the stress of different seasons just became too much and I think my brain fizzed a bit to cope. I still have blocked out a lot of the past and prefer not to think about it b/c it is too much. We've (as a couple) made so many mistakes which caused a lot of pain and extra work (financial, personal,etc.)

But we do just have to move forward and enjoy each day for the opportunity that it is...to care for others, take our eyes off ourselves, and see beauty in the small things. In the words of Scarlett O'Hara..."Tomorrow is another day!" And from Anne of Green Gables =) "Tomorrow is fresh with no mistakes in it!" Got to love the classics...=) And I love you guys! My online buddies!

Well...back to the dishes! ...And to listen to some RadioDerb online while I do them!

I am so glad things are going better for you too, Theocritus! That is good news! (meant to mention it in my last note..)

CC, I'm very glad that things are settling down some. I live in the town I was born in, 54, nearly 55, years ago. I lived elsewhere for 11 years, but there is a definite continuity. A friend today, 78, told me that I more than she tended to see the dark side of things instantly but then I'd had a lot harder life than she did. I am nonplussed--I believe, as did the old fliers, that any landing you walk away from is a good one.

Obamugabe, I agree with you about faith. And no, Occam's Razor is not always right. But it's a very good tool for analysis.

I do think that there are absolutes. Absolutely. In fact I'd say that the moral corruption that we see today comes from moral relativism.

As I, only somewhat jokingly said, if you believe in natural selection, after a while everything becomes tautological. Or a matter of taste, I should add.

Dawkins wrote:Therefore, as a human, I have only one Moral Imperative: The survival of my own genetic code, firstly through my own survival, and secondly through the survival of my offspring.

That seems simplistic. We are after all part of a species, a group, a polity.

There are things that people do which advance the human race even if they don't procreate. Sterile people, nulliparous women, homosexuals--why indeed are homosexuals still around? Must serve some function and if you say making sure that the caves were well decorated, I'll send our Many Titted Empress over to caress you with her trotters and clasp you to her bosom.

I can see this for morality too.

As I said, I think that some god started it all but there's no evidence that this god is knowable. I think that decent people project decent impulses onto a supreme being, and I think that's a good idea. It think that's a very good idea, and I have an argument for that too.

When I was in college the Young Democrats would issue a bull before every election. I always voted the opposite--they'd done the work for me. Sentimental high-minded fools. "Vote yes on the first nine constitutional amendments, and no on the last because it would make the constitution too hard to change."

I had a Damascene moment then. These people governed by the Truth du Jour. So I like the idea of a supreme being who lays down laws <i>because it's damned hard to get that God to make an appearance and do a 180 just because some damned fool power-mad priest wants it</i>.

Whereas when progs start off, they govern in a wild, zig-zag fashion, and there is no stability there.

That's why when people pray in public places, I bow my head. If I go into a Catholic church I don't cross myself as I approach the altar, but i do stop for a second, and then go on.

Wow! 43 years? You must know that town like the back of your hand! And tons of stories of people that live there too...blackmail material galore! =) I think it would be nice to have that kind of history under your belt. I grew up in the same small Iowa town for 19 years, and that was a good season. I'm so thankful for that.

I think that decent people project decent impulses onto a supreme being, and I think that's a good idea.

It is possible that you are right. I guess we will never know for sure until we know for sure.

I believe, as did the old fliers, that any landing you walk away from is a good one.

I like this. It's better than not trying to fly at all, right?

Indeed. But also it means that I'm not reviling Fortuna for things not working out the way that I want them to.

Hmmm...that's good. My mom is contantly saying, "What if..." or "I wish I had..." and I try to tell her to let it GO! All of us have stuff that would be nice to do over again-- b/c that darned hind site is 20/20. But I try to resist that backward looking mindset b/c it wouldn't do me any good anyway. It is a waste of time, unless you are gleaning something from it that might make your forward life better. I heard this saying and I like it: "Expect nothing, hope for the best." I have revisited that many times. It won't leave you disappointed, but it may leave you pleasantly surprised.

Have you heard that saying about how a friend takes everything you say and sifts it, keeping the grain, and letting the chaff blow away? Well, I humbly ask you to do this. I am young still and know that it's easy to be idealistic when you are such. Ten years from now, I may be laughing at myself! I can take myself too seriously sometimes...actually, most of the time! So I'm telling myself now...LIGHTEN UP, CASSEROLE!

An intense personality is a gift and a detriment. I find it helpful with deep, caring friendships, but a weight when I am trying to be silly and enjoy life. My mentor told me that she believes that every strength has it's corresponding non-strength. To me that means that it's ok to be whoever we are...as long as we try to use our strengths appropriately, and to work on improving our non-strengths, so as to become happier, more well-rounded people! Or something like that...

I have the ability to worry things to death. What if, did I do that right, and so forth. But I've looked death in the face twice, or 2.5 times, and find that I'll do what I can and then simply relax.

I believe that the misery of progs is owing to the fact that they cannot control the world. It's not doing what they want, and their helplessness makes them miserable. I've found out that helplessness is the only thing that makes me angry. When I hear about a child who has been kidnapped, raped and then drowned in a muddy horse-trough, I am furious. When I hear that that bastard has been put to death--as he always is in Texas--I'm no longer angry. I feel for the child and her parents, but I'm not angry.

Life throws at you situations. Duh. If you have control over it, you can choose to do so. If you decide it's too much trouble, then to avoid reproaching yourself, you have to forgive yourself for not exercising your control. Or learn from it and decide to control it later on.

There are situations which you cannot control. You can either rage at them, for anger is the most powerful emotion, capable of driving out anything else, or you can surrender to reality and accept your responsibility--which is NOT fault--of dealing with it.

Once I heard an interview in 1991 after the Americans with Disabilities Act. A man in Washington was being interviewed when he went shoe shopping. He had paralyzed himself by riding a motorcycle in Washington and was furious that the entrance for a wheelchair was on the side of the business instead of the front, and that all the shoes weren't where he could get to them. Even though the store had deputed a clerk just to help him.

He was furious. I wanted to wheel him off the Key Bridge to stop the whining. Then I understood that he very probably had managed to cripple himself on the donor cycle and couldn't accept that his state was owing to his decisions.

Once I saw a man working for Pacific Gas and Electric who had no hands. He was an electrician who had been working on a hot line, which he didn't fasten right. He'd taken off his gloves, and it started to come toward him. He reached up, and it was hot. After four days they said they'd have to amputate his hands because of the infection.

He made a living telling people how not to have hooks for hands, and he showed his hooks. I thought for a while that he was the saddest person that I'd ever seen, making a living by mocking himself. But after a while I realized his bravery and resilience. He <i>knew</i> what had happened, forgave himself, and was leading a useful and good life.

Unlike the motorcycle rider in Washington.

Or, take Phil Anschutz. He's an oil man who was once listed as the wealthiest man in America before the days of Bill Gates. He had a couple of oil wells catch fire. It was a disaster and would have ruined him, but he got on the phone, called Hollywood, and made $200,000 by allowing them to come out and film the wells, which they used as footage for a John Wayne movie.

It was a disaster and would have ruined him, but he got on the phone, called Hollywood, and made $200,000 by allowing them to come out and film the wells, which they used as footage for a John Wayne movie.

Yes, I want to have that kind of creativity in the face of challenges. Lemons into lemonade. There's a reason why people like that get rich in the first place! They are SMART! Hmmm...we are somewhat poor, not poor enough to take advantage of Uncle Sam, but just rich enough to fall into a burdonsome tax bracket. And getting closer to a more burdensome bracket all the time, thanks to Dear Leader. How smart is that?

Speaking of Voodoo Economics, here is a rap video that pits our dear Keynes against Hayek. They gave Hayek too much time at the end. Not fair.

Wow. Love it! Thanks, Comrade Leninka. Keynes obviously is way more successful with the ladies...which is all that matters in economics. Flash some highly inflated cash to the crowds and you get to be the elite guy who gets the glam and the girls and the hangover. He knows how to live it up in the present, alright.

Who but your old grandpa living debt free in a house that he owns and loads of highly profitable stocks that he cashes in to go on cruises and buy rental property in Hawaii. He is that pitiful other guy...balding, boring and downright sober. He would cripple the economy if he had the chance. I prefer immediate gratification over delayed gratification.

[Off]

By the way, will I ever get to be CCCP again? I feel like I have lost my identity...Will I recover after the show trial? And by the way, how is that supposed to end? I need to go back and read yours...you lived to tell about it and maintained your dignity, no?

You can be CCCP right now. That's all right by me. However, I cannot at this time divulge the end of a show trial. That is top secret. Nevertheless, the payoffs and bribes you have been doling out ought to work in your favor.

Of course, be CCCP. You might even change your screen name to show it. I logged on as mere Theocritus but was breveted to Commissar Theocritus. Unlike Pupovich, I'm not a title whore and so was happy with that.

Oddly enough Keynes was successful with only one woman, the Russian ballerina whom he married. Much his junior. He had been involved with men only before that. But once he met her, all that stopped.

I think it was Bertrand Russell who said that you couldn't win an argument with Keynes, and coming from Russell that's something.

Once a man accused Keynes of changing his opinion.

"When I find I have been wrong, I change my views. What do you do, sir?"

Thanks for giving some more info about his bio. Sounds like an interesting and admirable man in many ways.

Thanks for supporting the return to CCCP. It brings me tingles down my leg. I mean warm hearted progressive fuzzies. I feel like adopting a puppy, naming him Theoninka, and singing "We are the World."

By the way, could you help me change the red lettering Leninka?

Do you mean your name, or your graphic?

I made you a casserole with a little extra decoration:

Love it! Thank you! It's perfect. Sorry to ask again, but how do I put it on?