Good morning!
I hope all is well with you today.
Quote of the Day
“Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.”
Thomas Sowell
Wandering Views
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Good morning!
I hope all is well with you today.
Quote of the Day
“Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.”
Thomas Sowell
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Wandering Views 
Good morning. I hope all is well with you too, AJ.
Have a good one, everyone.
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Good morning, 6Arrows and everyone else!
My dad loves T. Sowell! He used to send me articles by him when I was in college. Even though I was an agnostic at the time, I always enjoyed reading them and thought he was quite erudite.
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QotD: What encouraging action have you done for someone this past week?
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Good morning all. Thank you AJ for the Sanford & Son clip. For an ol’ redneck white guy from the South my dad loved Sanford & Son and we would watch the re-runs together. Fred Sanford always reminds me a little bit of my paternal grandfather. He was always buying out the equipment from one failed business and selling it to another. The worse was when he tried to convince my mother that the refrigerated storage devices from an old funeral home were just the thing she needed!!!!!
Sowell? I think he should be required reading.
Toni’s funeral went well yesterday. So that leads me in to answering Tychicus’ question of what I have done encouraging this week. My stepbrother, Jerry, asked me to go to the florist and pick out the casket spray. I told the florist I didn’t want anything typical. Toni thought the Seminole’s played especially for her and at the funeral there was a picture of Bobby Bowden hugging her. We agreed on some big “daisy” looking flowers in burgundy and some yellow football mums. I told her I didn’t want it packed tightly, I wanted it open and airy. I told her I would almost have her put some twiggy stuff in it. She added bells of Ireland. I told her I wanted something pretty, not anything ugly like funeral flowers. She told me she didn’t do ugly flowers. We came to an agreement and Jerry called in his credit card.
Yesterday everyone talked about how pretty the casket spray was and how it wasn’t gladiolas, carnations, or roses. It was perfect. Even one of the women who worked for the funeral home told my stepmother she had never seen any like it and how pretty they were….
….So as I was driving back home yesterday I had BG look up the number of the florist on my cell phone and I called, asked to speak with the owner and told her all the compliments the flowers got and how even the lady from the funeral home had commented on them. She thanked me “so much for letting her know”. I just bet if the flowers she has delivered have ever been awful she heard about it real snappy quick like and it didn’t cost me a things to tell her they were EXACTLY what I had in mind when I ordered them.
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I’m glsd everything went well Kim.
Nobody sen Sawgunner?
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Thanks for sharing that, Kim.
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Kim, the spray sounds perfect.
“Funeral flowers,” ugh.
It’s early-early again for me today and I can’t understand how some people manage to get up at 5 a.m. EVERY day for work.
The only good part is getting out of work somewhere between 3-4 p.m., if all goes well and nothing keeps me there beyond that time.
But this getting up in the dark is for the birds (and cats).
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Good morning everyone. Another beautiful day.
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All of us, married and single, are supposed to live hour by hour by the forgiving, justifying, all-supplying grace of God and then bend it out to all the others in our lives.”
—John Piper, “This Momentary Marriage”
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Kim: I’m glad Toni’s flowers were beautiful and that the funeral went well. I’m so sorry for your loss.
QotD: I sent an email to the head of the transportation department extolling the virtues of my youngest daughter’s bus driver. She is a dear, Christian woman who has been such a blessing to my Becca. This is the second year she’s been her driver. Anyway, he (head of transportation man) forwarded the email to our bus driver and thanked me for taking the time to write it. Bus driver thanked me profusely that afternoon. It was such a simple thing and took very little time, yet had a big impact. I think it’s so important to encourage others, especially those who seldom receive encouragement.
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Another good piece by Mohler — on how liberalism really is a religion (which J. Gresham Machen also argued way back in 1921):
http://theaquilareport.com/two-rival-religions-christianity-and-post-christianity/
From the article:
“Observing the basic divide in the American culture, (Howard P.) Kainz (professor emeritus of philosophy at Marquette University) notes:
” ‘Most of the heat of battle occurs where traditional religious believers clash with certain liberals who are religiously committed to secular liberalism.’
“Kainz offers a crucial insight here. He suggests that one of the most important factors in the nation’s cultural divide is that persons on both sides are deeply committed to their own creeds and worldviews — even if on one side those creeds are secular.
“ ‘This explains why talking about abortion or same-sex ‘marriage,’ for example, with certain liberals is usually futile. It is like trying to persuade a committed Muslim to accept Christ. Because his religion forbids it, he can only do so by converting from Islam to Christianity; he cannot accept Christ as long as he remains firmly committed to Islam. So it is with firmly committed liberals: Their ‘religion’ forbids any concessions to the ‘conservative’ agenda, and as long as they remain committed to their secular ideology, it is futile to hope for such concessions from them.’ ”
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Coming upon “secular liberalism” I read it as “secular legalism.” Seems appropriate somehow!
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Kim, those flowers sound wonderful. Do you by any chance have a picture you could post here? I am thankful all went well. Maybe the florist got a picture to show what lovely work she is capable of doing when someone is inspired to come up with an original idea. I hope so.
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Encouraging action? I sent a card to a woman at church who had to leave our ladies’ gathering early and included a bookmark that she had missed getting because of her early departure. I wrote an encouraging note to her.
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Kim,
You’re welcome. I hope I was able to put a smile on your face on what must have been a sad day for you.
And I’m also happy to know that you have a brand new husband to help you thru this time. That’s a blessing.
And has anybody told you yet that your new hubby looks like a young former Assistant Sec. of Def. Paul McHale? “Cuz he does. At least I think so.
🙂
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I took the Kid to the store to shop for his Daddy’s birthday and he wanted to bring a friend. I discovered an interesting mathematical phenomenon. Two boys in a Wal Mart are not twice as much trouble, rather the trouble is squared. The encouraging action was I didn’t kill them.
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Apparently, God has given me the job of testing your faith. As far as I can tell (reading Ree, Janice, Tammy and others), your faith is holding up well. For example, (in my foolishness) I regard The Shack as a silly book and most (or all) of you regard the The Shack as a silly book, but for reasons completely different than the ones I hold. So, somebody’s wrong (though as Christian logic seems different than my logic) perhaps we are all correct or perhaps we are all incorrect. Or by Alice in Wonderland logic there is some other conclusion, a conclusion that only God understands.
However, Sail’s faith seems to be slipping. I am thinking of his faith (and I can go back and find what he wrote but I have to leave fairly soon to help split wood with my evangelical friends who are perhaps not evangelical enough even if they really are Christians – don’t your heads sometimes hurt from trying to hold so many muddled ideas in them at the same time)?
Anyway, Sail became agitated because I expressed my admiration of Roger Williams. For the wrong reasons, I guess. Sail said that Rogers supported toleration among Christians (we all agree on that) but not for atheists.
I am reading a newly published book titled Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry. Mr. Barry seems to be a very distinguished writer with several widely admired books to his credit, including The Great Influenza: the Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.
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I have not read the entire Roger Williams book yet, but what I have read seems thoughtful, well-written, and thoroughly researched. I jumped around a bit (and looked in the index) to see what Mr. Barry said about Williams and atheism. While there was not as much as I would have liked to see (being an atheist and all), there was some.
1. Williams was a Calvinist religious believer.
2. Williams knew Roger Bacon, perhaps the leading empiricist of his time. 3.
3. Without losing his religious belief, Williams was an empiricist.
4. Williams was familiar with atheism (as suppressed and hidden as it was in his time)
5. Williams shocked other people in his time (both in England and in the American colonies) by defending the right of atheists to express their opinions.
Perhaps Sail has retired from participating in this discussion. Perhaps he has decided to simply hang out at his church where he is unlikely to encounter atheists who argue with him about Roger Williams, or who undermine his (perhaps not that strong) faith.
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Alternative Question of the Day. (If Roger Williams parsing is too irritating or tedious, let’s talk about something practical and every day.) Do you have an emergency generator? For emergencies. Power going out, etc.
Have you used it? Does it work. Do you know the most likely problem you might enounter if you are not used to using generators. As I am very dumb, I have encountered (if not all) many of the ways that generators can fail.
While we are at it, are you familiar with the most likely way your “life-saving” generator might kill you?
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QoD: I took In&Out, the best burgers in America, to a friend whose daughter was in the hospital. She was rather hungry, but didn’t what to leave her daughter’s side. We snuck (sneaked) a burger and fries in for daughter too as they were threatening surgery–and so not feeding–for her while running a phalanx of testing. Surgery did not happen so the burger was not only tasty, but needed.
AQoD: Here in earthquake country we have stored non-perishable dry goods for emergencies with non-electrical cooking options. We have solar and other options (hand crank lanterns) for lighting. So no, we don’t have a generator nor are we likely to get one.
One of my college age kids recently asked me what I believe about church and state. I told him to Google Roger Williams and he’s pretty much understand my views.
Adios
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And whatever the danger to generators are, we would be highly likely to encounter them all 😉
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My daughter (Designer Girl, for those who remember her on WV) designed beautiful flowers for her wedding. The florist asked for pictures for her albums and we readily gave them to her. A couple of years later when my youngest was married, I was very unhappy with the flowers. They used carnations as a filler, when we had expressedly asked them not to use any. My daughter had told them she considered them too much like ‘funeral flowers’. When I expressed my disappointment to the florist, I was quickly dismissed and put down by the florist/owner. Needless to say, I will never go back. In this case, even though I went out of my way to accommadate the business, they did not return the favor or even acknowledge they may have made an error.
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I live in hurricane country. I have a generator. The main problem with a generator is that they are loud and use gasoline. With the cost of gas you have to determine how long you will run it. A lot of houses here are now built with “built in” generators attached to the gas line and will automatically “kick on’. My former next door neighbors had this and it would kick itself on once a month for a self check. It works here because gas lines are buried. I can see how that wouldn’t work in earthquake areas.
The main way a generator will kill you is if you are dumb enough to bring it inside instead of running power cords too it. You will get carbon monoxide poisoning! Duh, ya woulda thought people would know that but several die each year.
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Good Morning, Y’all!
I am also a huge fan of Thomas Sowell. And I find today’s quote strangely appropriate in this era of political sophistry…
annms – why would being agnostic have anything to do with ones opinion on T. Sowell? Just curious…
Jay Nordlinger is also a favorite columnist.
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Random,
Testing our faith? Hardly. Annoying us? Mostly. I think just maybe you hold yourself in too lofty a position. And if you think God doesn’t exist, how could he give you a job? You make little sense sometimes. You may think you are rattling people’s faith, but in reality, you strengthen it thru your rambling, many times nonsensical posts. You demonstrate perfectly what the other side has to say. The flaws in your ideology are obvious, and while you may think you’re leading some away from God, the reality is you help move us closer to Him. You make the right choice even more obvious. Unintentionally or not, thanks for that.
And from what I know, and have seen of Sails, again, you’re flattering yourself.
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Inbutnotof, I wondered the same thing about Thomas Sowell 😉
Kim, Keep praying for SIL, some hopefully temporary problems. He will be in ICU in Gainesville until excess fluid on the brain is resolved. Pray for Anna too, she desperately wants to get back to Pensacola. But she took the time to hear you wedding story and told me to tell you “Congrats!” As did Ruth, btw.
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What’s interesting, Random, is that we all (well, many of us) have been where you are and have become “unstuck” if you will, we’ve already worked through the questions about faith that you pose. I often think, “yeah, I remember believing that once upon a time … ” 🙂 Our faith already has been thoroughly tested by both external and our own internal critics through the years.
Interesting post at CNN about the growing prevalence of coyotes:
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Random says,
It’s not our logic that’s different, Random, but our presuppositions, our fundamental starting assumptions. The only difference in our logic per se is that we try to be consistent with ours, while you’re content with the logical incoherence that comes from reasoning from premises that are inconsistent with your starting assumptions.
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Please tell Anna she is in my thoughts and prayers. Speaking of Ruth, how’s my favorite California Girl?
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This was posted on FB by our pastor a little while ago. Should be interesting to see the comments & discussion:
“According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, the United States, for the first time in history, does not have a Protestant majority.
“Some may view this as a trivial statistic, others may rejoice. Here is my question:
“Since the unique dynamic of Protestantism is Sola Scriptura (that the Scriptures provide the sole infallible, inerrant and authoritative message from God to man), who or what will now fill that vacuum? Will it be the state, the church, a mob or perhaps a new king?
“Are William Penn’s words prophetic anticipation?
“ ‘Men must be governed by God, or they will be ruled by tyrants’
“Is Lex Rex (the law is king) on the chopping block? For whether the law flows from a collective, a church, a mob or a man the law can no longer be king if it is the mere eruption of some foggy form of royal absolutism.
“If, according to the above statistic, the Scriptures are out, who’s the new sheriff (please be specific)?”
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Donna…
I heard a discussion on this yesterday. The contention was that ythere is still a majority but that many no longer identify themselves by denomination…
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Regarding the QotD: I’ve also been an encourager to both of my children in the last week, as one of the roles I play in our family is cheerleader. I enjoy this role, tucking little notes in lunches, making a special after-school treat, preparing favorite dinners, telling them how much I appreciate their hard work at school and praising their successes while working together to understand their mistakes and correct them. I encourage them in their after-school pursuits, watching them practice (sometimes endlessly 🙂 ) week after week. Most of the time, I love this role. It’s my favorite. But, if I’m honest, there are about three days a month when I do not enjoy it. Then, it feels like a lot of work. I’m bored watching the same routine; I’m annoyed by the driving and waiting; and then, the fog lifts, and the joy returns and I’m ever-so-grateful for the chance to be so involved in their lives. I get to do what so many moms long to do these days, but can’t financially. I know not every mother who chooses to work does so b/c of legitimate need, but many, many do. And, my heart goes out to them. They have my utmost respect and admiration. I simply do not know how they do it. They rarely, if ever, have “down time” I suppose. They do all their errand on the weekends, time we get to spend doing fun stuff as a family. I don’t know; it just seems like it would be so hard. I always thought that when the kids were both in school, I would go back to work. But, this is my youngest’s second year in full time school, and I can’t imagine going back to work full-time. It might be fun to work part-time, but they’d have to be perfect hours, and in this economy, I doubt one could be so picky. So, for now, I plan to remain a stay-at-home mom. I realize this is such a fortunate position to be in and I am extremely grateful for this gift.
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I have no idea what ythere means…do you think it would be legit on Words with Friends?
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QoD: I placed an order a week ago to support and encourage my online friend Kelly in her home business. Check out her site here…hope it’s okay to put in a plug for her business. 🙂 She would find that most encouraging!
http://www.generationcedar.com/main/our-products
Also, in the sidebar at the above site, you can click on their other family businesses, Color Me Turquoise and Big Family Table to find more that they offer.
Kelly and her husband and their nine children lost their home in the April 27 tornadoes in Alabama last year. Despite all she’s gone through, she has been a huge encouragement to me in difficulties I have faced, and though I have not met her in person, she has been a true friend in every sense of the word. Being blessed with a friend like her makes it easy to want to do encouraging things in return!
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But this getting up in the dark is for the birds (and cats).
Meow. Chirp-chirp.
Donna- when you get used to it you wonder why you didn’t start doing so sooner! I now love the early morning hours!
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Random,
I honestly don’t know why it bothers you that I question your neighbor’s use the the term “evangelical” to describe himself.
Words have meanings … right? They have definitions. If they didn’t, then we couldn’t carry on meaningful conversations.
By most definitions, an Evangelical does not believe 1) that all people are saved even if they are Jewish, Muslim, etc, and not Christian, 2) that it is a-okay for homosexuals to “marry,” and 3) that all things should be approved of even if they don’t follow the Bible or God’s law.
From your words, your neighbor doesn’t really seem to fit the definition of evangelical. That isn’t a put-down. That is just what it is.
Now, admittedly, the definition of evangelical has moved into a flux state. Too many people are calling themselves that who no longer hold with the conservative, Bible-believing, Christ-following definition.
So, as I pointed out, we’ll probably end up with a new word (for awhile, until it gets watered down), of conservative, Bible-believing, Christ-following Christian.
Nevertheless, my comments weren’t intended to put down your neighbor. As I said, he is likely a Christian and, from your description, is a wonderful person. And, in fact, if he is loving and tolerating others in the hopes of loving them to the Lord, then he may well be an evangelical too.
But, if he is truly a-okay with a non-believing Muslim and a non-believing Jew coming to church and *remaining* non-believers, and if he truly is a-okay with your daughter marrying her partner, then he probably is not “evangelical” … at least by all past definitions.
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Encouraging act: Visited a dying friend (the former pastor) this weekend. Sang a solo at the meeting when asked and blessed several in the congregation.
[Whispering so as not to get the Californians upset] Saw gas price of $3.539 down South of Jefferson City, MO. Then saw $3.479 in Booneville, MO last weekend.
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Generator: yes and yes we have used it but only for running power tools in remote locations and that sort of thing. Generally when we have a power outage, it is during the winter and the wood stoves do everything needed. Keep the house warm, cook the food, melt snow, etc.
Biggest danger is to others and that is when somebody plugs it into the house with the electricity not set up for it so the power generated runs back into the lines and kills the linemen working to fix the problem.
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Got gas for 3.46 in AL the other day and for 3.22 with my Kroger fuel points…sshhhh
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Qod…put my arm around a friend last night at book club….told her we have walked the road with our daughter that she is on with her son and his drug addiction and the lifestyle that goes with that life…we cried together and I encouraged her with the knowledge that our Lord is in control…He gave our children their first breath….we can trust Him with their last…told her our girl is doing well now…and I am trusting her son will pull out of this…lots of prayer happening for this young man…she was smiling as I left last night….thank you Lord for well placed words authored by You….
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Tammy said,
They already have a word for us, Tammy. It’s bigot.
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I am pretty sure I have never used the word, “bigot” on wmb or on tv. I feel insulted. It’s almost as if you burned a copy of . . . “what?” What can Christians burn to insult atheists? A copy of God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens? Well, I am sure he and I would prefer that you recycle it, but as my granddaughter went through a period of expostulating, “Whatever.”
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Starting with the generator. We live on an island where the power goes out frequently (most commonly from wind blowing down trees – with mostly above ground power lines and occasional transformer blowouts from wind storms and snow/ice storms) and where the most likely really big threats are from
a) earthquake/tsunami*
b) forest fire.**
We have various emergency supplies***, wood heat, chain saw, and chickens****.
Our neighbors, who may or may not or may sort of be evangelicals have much better supplies and resources than we do.
It’s on my mind to make a neighborhood list of people and resources. At least one person has a backhoe and other major equipment.
When we first bought a generator, we bought a reliable brand (Honda) from a reliable sort of co-op company (Ace Hardware). When I tried to run it, nothing worked. After extensive trouble-shooting from an electrician (just out of the Navy), we discovered:
1) The generator had been wired improperly. (So much for vaunted Japanese quality control and reliability.)
2) I was doing everything wrong when trying to start it. I could blame the manual, but I prefer to blame myself. (I now am successful at starting it, so even an old moron can learn a few tricks.
3) The gas was stale. I am bolding this, as I did not see anyone mention pats pull date fuel. Who knew that gas goes stale? I didn’t. I just thought food went stale. So I presume everybody reading this knows to put gas preservative in your chain saw and generator and similar gasoline powered equipment. (Automobiles are much more tolerant, but even so, the gas in your car can eventually go stale.) There wasn’t anything in Mad Max about gas going stale..
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I just got back from word splitting with the sort of evangelicals. We had a new member today, M. While most of us are older than 60, I would guess he is in his 30s or maybe 40s. We found we had a lot in common. We had both lived in the San Francisco Bay area. We had both been immersed in black communities, though he had been much more of a “minority” than I was. He had been raised in a Jehovah’s Witness family (where he had been beaten). I have nothing comparable to that, but it’s interesting that one of the most enthusiastic members of my “atheist” group is a “refugee” from a Jehovah’s Witness family. Perhaps JV’s should be described as a “cult,” or perhaps not.
There is lots more we have in common.
I “outed myself” as a atheist. E, another member of the sort of evangelicals with a troubled background, explained that without religious belief there is no basis for morality.
I asked E if he had never known my wife or I (he has known us for years) to do anything immoral. He did some fancy footwork (rather like Ichiro, the other day) and said, That if we (my wife and I) behave ourselves, it is because we are Christians without knowing that we are Christians. That’s kind of like a knuckleball (to mix up my metaphors a bit).
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I told M about Roger Williams. (I figured I should poison his mind a bit before he falls into becoming too Christian or not Christian enough, though he assured me he was not sure he deserves to be called a Christian.) So there you go.
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I also saw L. L had rolled his tractor on himself and barely survived, but is up and about again. Perhaps that is God’s Will.
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My neighbor talked to G, who had walked most of the Pacific Coast Train by himself. G said, “I did not have a compass or a GPS with me. I admit once in a while I got lost. I calmed myself down, and sat down and rested calmly for a while. In every case, someone came along within 15 minutes.” I thought (but did not say), Boy, this is a long way from the days of Daniel Boone. Or should I say [this being on the West Coast and all], Lewis and Clark. Well, didn’t Pocahontas or someone come along? No, I am thinking of Sacajawea. Anyway, we are a long way from Little House on the Prairie. In any case, this is all God’s Will. Perhaps everything is God’s Will? Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?
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Granted, Random, you’ve never come on here and called us bigots, and I appreciate that. But those of us who hold to the tenets of orthodoxy Christianity and whose worldview is informed by those beliefs know that we’ll be branded as bigots by plenty of people when our beliefs are known. And it’s not even necessarily as a complaint that I’m saying this. It’s just a statement of fact.
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After we got back to the church, we met two people who were not at the woodsplitting.
J had injured his leg. (Something to do with stepping into a hole while parking by the mall.) He is going in for arthroscopic surgery.
And W who had retired as the woodsplitting crew chief. After he retired, a tree fell on his house. Barely missing him. He had just gotten out of bed because his dog needed to go outside. Just before the tree hit his bed. So the dog was in touch with God?
Speaking of which, L told me he had studied to be a veterinarian surgeon’s assistant but was blocked because of his criminal background. So tell your kids not to get in trouble with the law. And K (who has diabetes but is still skiing once in a while) told about a donkey (or maybe it was a mule) that had died, and his companion dog was very sad and mourned. And my friend said that many donkeys and mules kill dogs and coyotes, and some people keep them for that purpose. I didn’t say anything about the lion lying down with the lamb. If it weren’t for TV, I would no doubt irritate my sort of evangelical friends much more than I do you, as you stopped reading eleventyseven comments ago.
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Time to go saw some wood before my wife saws me. Pray for me.
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Yes. And no. In different senses. If you’re interested in a theological explanation for that answer, I could point you to some sources. Sources of which Roger Williams would heartily approve.
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Sure, Ree. Though I plan to finish reading my Roger Williams book before I read anything else. And you know the old saying about horses and water. Now ducks and water . . . (I took care of my neighbor’s hen and ducks while he (and wife) were gone. The ducks are henpecked.
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I can’t speak for what Sails was referring to, but the main difference I see between Roger Williams and you is that his support of religious tolerance was based on the conviction that one’s beliefs about, and relationship to, God is so supremely important that the state should not be given the authority to bind men’s consciences in regard to religion. While your support of religious tolerance is based on the assumption that metaphysical beliefs are a kind of make believe world in which a remnant of poor benighted grown-ups still indulge for some undiscernible reason, and as long as they don’t take these daydreams too seriously, they’re harmless enough.
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I mean, “are so supremely important.”
Also, strike the “and” in the last sentence after the word “reason”.
Sheesh, as soon as WMB finally gets an edit feature, I leave there and come over here where there’s, again, no edit feature!
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Ree,
I have an edit feature!
Let me tinker and I’ll see what I can do about that. I’m thinking about an upgrade for a few things to make it more user friendly.
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Now that I think about it, AJ, maybe I don’t have access to the edit feature because I’m not actually registered. I just type in my email address and name every time I post. When I went to register, it didn’t seem to want to accept a three letter name, and since I could use my own name without registering, I didn’t see any benefit to registering. Also, I see all the problems other people keep having with having their names post correctly, etc., and that also dissuaded me from registering. But if other users can edit their posts, that might be enough incentive to go ahead and register.
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Ree, I don’t know if those of us who are registered can edit, but the problem with the names is easily dealt with (or at least it seems to be). You don’t have to “register” as Ree. Choose whatever name you want (but be sure it isn’t a name you don’t want to have show up here accidentally from time to time–for example, I chose cherylandmisten rather than using my first and last names), but then when you sign in, put “Ree” and not that name in the second box. You should then come up as Ree each time. Apparently it logs people out occasionally, or fails to recognize you from a different computer, but generally it isn’t a hassle. I couldn’t log in from my husband’s computer, but that’s probably because of his extra levels of virus “protection” on it.
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Part of the problem I see is when certain posters, like Chas, are using a different computer like when he’s in Virginia. It gives the number thing instead of his name. Not sure why. I think Coyote may have something similar happen every now and then. My devices work fine and show the nameas the same, but I think if I’m on a different network, for some reason it’s different. Maybe IP address affects it. It’s weird.
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Tammy:
I honestly don’t know why it bothers you that I question your neighbor’s use the the term “evangelical” to describe himself.
Words have meanings … right? They have definitions. If they didn’t, then we couldn’t carry on meaningful conversations.
By most definitions, an Evangelical does not believe 1) that all people are saved even if they are Jewish, Muslim, etc, and not Christian, 2) that it is a-okay for homosexuals to “marry,” and 3) that all things should be approved of even if they don’t follow the Bible or God’s law.
From your words, your neighbor doesn’t really seem to fit the definition of evangelical. That isn’t a put-down. That is just what it is.
I don’t know that “bothers” is the correct word. “Amuses” or “entertains” is certainly closer. Just as in very basic math 0 multiplied by 7,148,239,712 (or whatever) equals 0, arbitrary nonsense dressed in very fancy clothes (and perhaps defined as “The Bible” and/or “God’s law” is) still just your opinion. If millions of other people share your opinion, well let’s go back to 0 multiplied by (number of Christians) or (number of “evangelical Christians”) or whatever.
I thought about telling my neighbor and/or his fellow “sort of” evangelicals that some evangelicals I sort of know consider them not really (or whatever) “evangelicals” because they don’t hold with the conservative Bible-believing, Christ-following” definition. But they weary of my fairly forward atheism, as it is, so I try not to push it too much. I think it would be better for you to walk into their church and tell them yourself. Roger Williams (Mr. Barry’s book tells me) was a very sociable, friendly individual. Nevertheless, he kind of ended up a bit on his own, without a church to belong to. But that was kind of his choice, made of his own “free will,” was it not?
Nevertheless, my comments weren’t intended to put down your neighbor. As I said, he is likely a Christian and, from your description, is a wonderful person. And, in fact, if he is loving and tolerating others in the hopes of loving them to the Lord, then he may well be an evangelical too.
I would never refer to you as “wishy washy,” or “muddled.” If those words drift through my mind, I swat them away vigorously.
But, if he is truly a-okay with a non-believing Muslim and a non-believing Jew coming to church and *remaining* non-believers, and if he truly is a-okay with your daughter marrying her partner, then he probably is not “evangelical” … at least by all past .. But, if he is truly a-okay with a non-believing Muslim and a non-believing Jew coming to church and *remaining* non-believers, and if he truly is a-okay with your daughter marrying her partner, then he probably is not “evangelical” … at least by all past definitions.
All “past definitions.”
Well, there you are. A myth that is 2,000 years old (say Christianity) is just as much a myth as a myth that is a less than 200 years old (say Mormonism). It’s just that Mormonism’s “slip” (well, let’s say Mormon underwear) is showing a little more than Christianity’s. Nevertheless, a careful examination by someone without a huge stake in the game, tends to find a lot to doubt. (Say, Bart Ehrman, for instance. He’s someone who hardly started out as an atheist or agnostic, and hardly someone ignorant about Bible scholarship.)
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I will be pretty busy tomorrow. So I don’t know when I will get around to posting the “big news.” If a person is evaluated by the quality of those who criticize and argue with him, I am rising in the world. My letter to the local newspaper brought a (very polite) letter of rebuttal by one of the most distinguished people on our island. Well, perhaps not someone YOU (almost everybody on TV) would consider distinguished. But I certainly do, and a lot of people on this island also do. I will copy the letter and identify the name and identity of the sender tomorrow or the next day or so.
Prepare for steam to rise from your ears. This person claims to be a believer. Amazing the people who claim to be Christians. It’s so confusing, one might think Jesus Christ himself would get confused trying to sort out the sheep from the goats, or the mules from the donkeys, or the coyotes from the dogs. Or the chickens from the ducks. (By the way, in our neighbors’ chicken run, the ducks are henpecked by the chickens. Perhaps I should attach sharper beaks to the hens, to even out the situation.)
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21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
-Matthew 7:21-23
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