64 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 10-16-12”

  4. Hmm. Well once upon a time I was working at the Columbia Mall in Columbia, MD and a group of strangely dressed younger than me teen were strolling through. I made a comment and this little bitty pixie of a Jewish grandmother drew herself up to her full height and said, “Honey, there is nothing new under the sun, I (bold and underscored) was a bohemian”.
    I enjoyed knowing both Bill Bennerty – a field commissioned officer under Eisenhower and Wes Strauley-a Pearl Harbor survivor – for their stories of WWII.
    My Uncle Charles and my father, James, were quite the rascals in their own day. They put a smoke bomb in the preacher’s wife’s car. They put snakes in a creek where a baptism was going to happen that afternoon, they fought over their football-one wanted to go inside the other wanted to stay outside and play, so they used their new pocket knives to cut it in half. My Uncle’s right pinkie finger is drawn up where my dad shot it with a BB gun. I need to go see my uncle and hear those stories again.

    Last week at my step-sister’s funeral two of my step-mother’s nieces were up from South Florida. They both told me how much they enjoyed my Dad, they said he always listened to their stories of growing up and really seem to enjoy hearing them. He always asked them “then what happened”. I laughed and told them he was just checking to see if they were better or worse than he and my uncle were. I told them the Baptism Story and they laughed until they had tears on their cheeks.

    Yesterday, Cal talked to me about taking on a different role on the team after the first of the year. It would be a salaried position. I told him it was definately something I would consider, but I needed to master the job I am currently doing. My “newbie” agent is about to write his first offer. I am pleased as punch!

    Just to put things in perspective, Guy I USED to Work With STILL hasn’t paid me for the last week I worked.

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  5. Good morning. The time will be shortly here when I will drop off your holiness enhanced radar as we embark on our trip across Canada and back across the United States. My wife wonders if I will be able to go cold turkey without Internet access. I guess I will see if I can memorize every peak in the Canadian Rockies, or bore every other person I meet on the train to death.

    AQOD: Yesterday, I asked about interactions with mental illness. Some people channeled my question for today and talked about senility/dementia/Alzheimer’s – whatever label you want to use. We are large-brained animals with “higher functions” we are increasingly coming to understand. When young, our brain capacity increases and we collect and hold information and think we are smarter, though our emotional impulses override our rational capacities and restraints, so we are prone to risky behavior in areas such as violence and mating.

    As we get older, our higher brain functions (as well as the rest of our physical operating) gradually deteriorates. Our genes play a role as well. I feel dread. As my father died at 43 of his 2nd heart attack, I thought I would croak in a similar fashion. For whatever reason, I am alive and fairly healthy (physically) at 68. Better luck at the genetic lottery? Better medical care and nutritional choices and exercise choices?

    My mother died with Alzheimer’s. My father’s oldest sister died with Alzheimer’s. As I get older, I forget more, get more confused. My wife works as a volunteer with dementia patients. I feel the brain power oozing out of my cranium like air going out of a tire.

    My youngest sister, probably a bit short of sanity, is a Christian crazy person (different than sane Christian people like everyone reading this) took care of my mother in her last years. She talked to Mom incessantly about Jesus. Probably Mom nodded pleasantly and said, “Yes, yes.” Sis thinks she saved Mom’s soul.

    If a crazy person is brought to Jesus, does that really count with God? If a demented person is brought to Jesus, does that really count with God. I have my doubts, but perhaps I will go senile right before your eyes, and still have just enough mental ability left to type “Yes, yes, Jesus, Jesus.”

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  6. His eye is on the sparrow and he loves all of his creations.

    My husband has certainly captured my heart and my intellect for the last 40 years. Does that count?

    Of course there are challenges being married to an exceptionally interesting person! 🙂

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  7. Random, you can never tell what’s in a person’s heart when they’re under stress.
    Senility usually only exaggerates what a person is.
    The issue of trusting Jesus is something you need to settle now.
    Not when you return from Canada, now.

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  8. Moring all. Sorry I was not around yesterday; I was in the green room, totally tubular, as the dudes say. We had mild offshore winds–read Santa Anas–yesterday. Not only does that give us warm days, technicolor sunshiny days, but shapes great waved. As they roll in a mist blows off the lip that makes them gorgeous, but that also gives the face some incredible hang time. When it finally breaks it is usually a great barrel. Subline surf day.

    QoD: Omar Bradley the WWII 5 Star, not the former mayor of Compton. Bradley was a humble gentleman. One of those rare officers that was so other-concerned you wonder how he go so high up in the Army.

    AQoD yesterday I think 😉 I have two good friends who are bi-polar. As Longfellow would say, when they are good they are very, very good . . . thanks to drugs . . . but when they are bad . . . well, it’s tough. The one thing I find fascinating is that when they are manic they are at turns “crazy” and so clear thinking on some things you want to take notes.

    Adios

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  9. As far as most unusual person I have known, I think of two people. First, I continue to think that Donna Weistrop, the astronomer/cosmologist I knew in high school before she graduated from Cal Tech and then worked on the Hubble Telescope project is the most interesting person I have ever known.

    In perhaps another direction was the murderer, Mindi. When she was a high school student of mine in an alternative program I helped teach in Oregon, I spotted Mindi (and half a dozen of her friends) as sociopaths, though she was the dumbest and laziest of the bunch. They scammed their way into the program (which was intended for unconventional students, not nasty ones.) We tried to encourage the students to do unusual, creative, altruistic, and beneficial projects and prepare for a changing future (which is now here) The program was called Alternative Futures. The sociopath crowd just wanted to get drunk, get stoned, have sex, skip class, and do the usual “bad” adolescent activities. The students were allowed to do individual projects of their own choice.

    The other young sociopaths were disciplined enough to do their school work and do some sort of mildly constructive project while the plotted and organized naughty projects. Mindi never could. She had no discipline. She could not function without structure and fell apart in our loosely structured program.

    I met her once after she graduated. Driving a hot pickup truck, she gave me a ride home from a bus stop. She looked good (not very attractive as a high school student) she had blossomed. She told me she was now married and everything was wonderful. I had my doubts, but I thanked for the ride home and thought no more about her.

    A couple of years later, while working a different job, I saw a headline on a Portland, OR newspaper. Mindi and a boy friend were on trial for murder. They had conspired to kill Mindi’s husband. (BF had done the deed, but Mindi was the person behind the project, if I remember correctly.) They had foolish talked about the deed on the telephone, not realizing the spouse is the first suspect in any murder of one member of a couple. The police had legally tapped her phone. Even for a murder trial, the verdict came quickly. Mindi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in an Oregon woman’s prison.

    I thought That’s Mindi. Never could carry out a project properly. If I had been a better teacher, maybe she might have gotten away with it. Maybe that was one time where not being a very good teacher turned out for the best.

    Then a couple of years later, I read another article about Mindi. Many of the prisoners were uneducated and illiterate. Mindi, as a prisoner, started a project to help other women in prison learn to read. I thought, Well, Mindi always did need structure. Where do you get more structure than when you are in prison?

    I wrote about Mindi on a blog, thinking If she has a life sentence, she will never come after me for using her full name. Then I got a few comments from people who knew Mindi. It’s hard to know how accurate the following is, so take it skeptically. Despite a “life sentence” Mindi was eventually paroled or released early. (Good behavior?) On an Internet “white pages,” I found what appeared to be her street address in Oregon. Then someone (who appeared to be a brother of the man she murdered) made threats because the state had not finished the job. Perhaps never executing her? He indicated he was going to finish the job.

    I don’t know what “justice” would be in Mindi’s case. If you believe in God, then at some point it would be up to God. As a secular person, we have a justice system with many flaws, but we do the best we can to deliver justice. No matter how awful the grief someone feels in regard to a murdered loved one, we do not permit individuals to take justice into their own hands; we do not permit lynch law.

    I sent a warning message to what appeared to be Mindi’s address, suggesting she remove it from public view. (Our street address is not on the white pages, BTW.) I also wrote to the Sheriff of that county and to the Washington State Patrol, suggesting they look into the matter. I never received a reply from anyone (nor expected one), but the next year the maybe Mindi’s address was no longer on the Internet white pages listing. There was a slight indication that she might be working for a winery. It’s mostly a mystery, as is all of life.

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  10. Chas, thank you for your concern. As I often point out, Pascal’s Wager is full of holes. Basically, you are saying if I don’t turn to Christ right now before I might die on my trip (certainly possible) then I might go to Hell. Your thinking is so full of flaws I would have to write as long a comment as my last tale, and they have been pointed out by many other people. You are correct that people get more as they were as they get older. I presume you are getting more and more religious and I am getting more and more atheistic.

    Not only do I believe God does not exist, I believe the God described by Christians would be an evil monster. As I believe I am a moral person (even though that makes no sense), I believe it would be my duty to suffer for eternity in punishment to oppose God.

    However, although I don’t look forward to dying, it’s simple and obviously true that I am an animal, a occurence in a random and pointless universe. Just as my brain is oozing away, my body will die and I will no longer exist. Before 1944 I never existed (1943 if you obsess about conception date). After I die it will be just as it was before I existed.

    We had thunder and lightening last night. God giving me one last warning? I will go meet with my atheist congregation this afternoon. Obama the sort of black man will debate Romney the sort of Christian tonight. What a confusing choice. Perhaps you should stay home and pray for guidance instead of voting.

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  14. Does this thread have room for this? You asked the question.

    Joe Fusco was a radio operator in Arabia, and a friend. Joe was a jazz guitarist. He was the first person I knew who had smoked marijuana. An unusual character, but a devout catholic and a good guy. He visited me once while I was at USC and he was on his way from Mass. to Cal. We corresponded by letter for a while, but lost track of each other. Last I heard of him, he was still in tha AF, and playing in a jazz band in the evenings.

    While at Carolina, in my second year, I met a guy named Al Tolley. Al asked, “Are you a Christian?” I assured him that I was. He said, “Great”, and invited me to attend an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship meeting. I did, and liked the people, and kept going.
    Not part of this story, but while I was driving from North Charleston to Columbia one Sunday afternoon, I was listening to The Old Fashoned Revival Hour. Charles Fuller out of Long Beach. It occurred to me that if I was really a Christian, I wasn’t much of one. So, at that time, on US 176, I made a commitment that has directed my life from then on.
    Al became a best friend, he was a “go getter”. He arranged for our team, Him, me, Slim Roberts, Margaret Smith, and later Elvera, to do evangelistic work at the USO and Victory Serviceman’s center. He also got us on the campus radio station with a 15 minute religious program every Wednesday. (In those days, WUSC-AM beamed across the campus at 50,000 millawatts. Today, it’s a powerful FM station.) I lost touch with him when I moved to Fort Worth, but visited with him a couple of times when I moved to Spartanburg. He had lost some of his zeal. Al, Margaret and Slim are all gone now.
    Al had more influence on my life than any other single person.

    At the Defense Mapping Agency, I had a guy working for me named Jesse Schreiter. Jesse had a physical disability that caused him to shake a bit, but perceptually. He wrote slowly and printed in large letters. He was older than I and the others in our branch, unmarried and something of a loner. This was likely due to his condition. A first impression was that this was a dumb guy who couldn’t handle himself.
    Jesse was the smartest person I have ever known; including my college professors.
    Jesse was just a thesis short of his doctorate at Columbia University. He never completed it. On a technical matter, Jesse was the last word. .
    I discussed spiritual matters with him once. He said he used to think about such things, but not anymore. He died a few years later, probably in his sixties.

    Bobby Joe was a hippy and druggy who got married and tried to settle down. It didn’t work. He was from a gypsy family. (They have a name for that, but I’ve forgotten.) He had traveled all his life, never went to school and never learned to read. According to him, his life was a mess and he wanted to kill himself. He and his wife went to our pastor for marriage counseling. The pastor pointed him to John 3:16 and he got “miraculously” saved. Bobby Joe learned to read, cut his hair and trimmed his beard and he and his family became an important part of our church. Lots more could be said. According to the report I heard last Wednesday, he is ordained and has a prison ministry.

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  16. As Adios said, it’s been unseasonably warm out here over the past several days (although it’s not entirely unusual to have these hot spells during October — or even, sometimes during November).

    When I woke up this morning — after a glorious 10 hours of wonderful sleep! — it was to the sound of the fog horns in the harbor. There is no fog here, about a mile up the hill. But the water must be somewhat socked in.

    So that’s good news, perhaps, that cooler weather could be on the way. Or maybe not. A friend of mine is going to Disneyland tomorrow and it’s supposed to be very warm there.

    I’m back to work today; I finally rounded Annie up yesterday for her vet visit, but I will have to bring her back for a teeth cleaning probably next week when I’m off again, it’ll be the first she’s had in her 5 years of life presumably (at least the first she’s had in the 4 years that I’ve had her, at any rate; but I doubt the feral colony she hung around with when I adopted her or her first owners – she’s friendly enough that someone must have adapted her to humans early on – would have seen to it).

    I just scheduled a bunch of bills online to be paid. How convenient is that? I still can’t get over how I can pay bills — even schedule my monthly donation to ligonier (I still use checks for the church offerings) — in literally 1-2 minutes now; no checks, no stamps, no dropping anything off in a mail box.

    I’ve met lots of interesting people, hard to narrow it down. But I may think of a few to highlight as the day goes on.

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  18. Thunder roared and lightning struck last night. When my wife to be was very young and threw herself out of her house (well her mother WAS a pill) and got her first apartment, a lightning storm struck Los Angeles. I called her and after a bit a tiny trembling voice said, “Yeesss?” “Are you OK,” I asked. “Yes. I was hiding behind the curtains.” She still doesn’t like lightning, but she didn’t crawl under the bed. She wondered if the chickens has been scared. They seemed fine; this morning. Lucy, the sociopath mouse-killing chicken told the others, “Don’t worry. It will be very muddy and grandpa will slip and break a leg and we can then peck him to death.”

    I spread straw on the mud so I wouldn’t slip. The hens immediately began to scratch in it with delight. Partly because scratching is something Noah told chickens to do and partly because the find stuff to eat, and partly because it makes it more likely that I will slip and croak before I am saved.

    No trees fell on our house, but there’s always another opportunity. My wife is off to volunteer with demented people, practicing for when I have disappeared into the fog. I will go have pizza with the atheists late this afternoon. I wanted to form an atheist church because that idea amuses my excessively mirthy temperament, but calmer heads suggested we form a non-profit. “Sounds fine to me,” I say, but I am not sure I am the right person to do all the paperwork. The trouble with being a despot is everyone expects him or her to do everything. God must get tired. Perhaps that’s why He is erratic about answering all the prayers.

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  19. You know, I actually think my mother lived a fairly interesting life, although I think she would be surprised to hear me say so. She didn’t have a terribly happy childhood (that’s her story and not mine and I won’t tell it, but it is a story nonetheless), and then after college she moved to Africa in her mid-twenties as a single missionary, expecting to stay single (since single-women missionaries outnumbered single-men missionaries by either 25:1 or 100:1, I forget which), but she married, largely because she was lucky enough to be a redhead and the region’s one single man had a thing for redheads. She used to ride horseback from one village to another; she and Dad married in a grass-roofed church, with the only one present who understood English being the pastor who married them and his wife. A record was their wedding music.

    Each of her first four children was born in a different state (or country, in the case of the firstborn, born in Nigeria). They lived in great poverty in Kentucky, raising chickens and goats and trying to plant a church. Eventually they moved to Phoenix, where the last three of us were born. Then Dad died and she spent several years alone. (Lonely years since she was rather a loner.)

    In her later years she traveled the world quite a bit, in various tours. Eventually she married again, married a widower; she had known the couple before she ever met Dad, and their daughter was named for two of the missionaries their church sent out, including Mom. So Mom had a stepdaughter who had been named for her, many long years before they were stepmother and -daughter. (Mom’s first name was the woman’s middle name, but the younger woman went by her middle name, so once Mom took the last name of her new husband, she and her stepdaughter had the same name.) She and her second husband took several tours as well. And then she was alone again when he died.

    But she lived in three distinctly different regions of America (New England, the South, and the Southwest), as well as Nigeria, West Africa; was fluent in several languages (English and Hausa primarily, but she also knew French comfortably and German less well); married twice and bore seven children; lived long enough to see four of her children married and more than a dozen grandchildren born, and to see three of her children write and publish books. (Because of translation delays, she didn’t live quite long enough to see my first book translated into French; she had looked forward to being able to read a French copy.)

    It has been nine years (and two weeks) since we buried her, and life has moved on: several more grandchildren (including two adoptions) and four great-grandchildren; death of one daughter-in-law; marriages of three children (a second marriage for one of those) and four grandchildren, various moves and career changes and new books. But she was 78 and she was old and tired and lonely, and now she is with Christ. I do wish she could have met my husband and stepdaughters, and they her, however.

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  20. California City: No Smoking in Your Condo

    http://www.newser.com/story/155894/california-city-no-smoking-in-your-condo.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_3_2

    Um, sorry, but this is beyond the government’s purview. What if people on both sides of a duplex are smokers? What if a smoker wants to buy your condo–did you just lose a sale?

    At some point, Americans are going to put their feet down and insist that what we do in our own houses is our own business and not the government’s. Aren’t we?

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  21. How do, all. I’ve met lots of people, but the most interesting? Can’t say for sure. Perhaps my current pastor/friend. He graduated from high school at age 16, got his BS at 19, has a master’s in physics and chemistry, and taught at community college and high school for 47 years. he can quote just about the whole NT, knows 100s of hymns and just about every country song from the 50s and 60s. He also remembers minor details like no one I know. Pauline can vouch for some of this, as she met him when she and her husband visited in the summer.

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  22. Chas, I just caught up with yesterday’s Daily Thread and saw your question.

    I never made it to the Air & Space Museum in DC, but we did spend several hours on Saturday afternoon at the other location near Dulles, and we did have a late lunch at the McDonald’s there. Were you there? I would be delighted to hear that you recognized me and very sad that I came so close to meeting you and missed it!

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  23. Chas,

    You can make your post as long as you like, We enjoy hearing what you have to say, You can learn much from wise elders That’s not meant as an insult to your age either. In fact, it’s meant as the sincerest of compliments Sir.

    Cheryl,

    😯

    Even I can see the errors in that sentence, and I’m one of the worst grammar offenders out there.

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  24. I am quite amused about the duplex/smoking comment. Been there. Done that.

    First house we bought was a duplex. We bought it in conjunction with my daughter and her partner. My daughter suffers from asthma, so smoke and smoke residue is a big deal for her. We forced the residents (perfectly nice people) out for no other reason than we bought it from the owner and we wanted a duplex so we could live next to each other.

    Residents on the side where daughter/partner moved were heavy smokers. The house reeked. My daughter/partner spent a small fortune “fumigating” and repainting (hiring a very expensive painting firm specializing in “covering up” walls and ceilings from houses with toxic problems (smokers, meth dealers, etc.). We weren’t crazy about the pain scheme they used, but that was to their taste. (Kids!)

    On our side before us was a divorced man and his teenage kid. They had a not very well house-trained cat that peed down the heating ducts. Took us about two years to get the cat urine smell out. Starting with destroying every carpet in the house. Then spraying gallons of chemicals supposed to eliminate cat urine smell down the vents.

    After daughter/partner bought their own house (which took lots of cleanup, but that’s another story), we decided to move to an island and we spent considerable money and trouble fixing up the duplex (so it was in better shape than when it was built). My wife could not stand the daughter/partners’ paint scheme, so we repainted it all ourselves. (She also was sure no one else would buy it. All the lavender trim! Well, what do you expect from a pair of lesbians?

    When my wife and I sold the duplex, we got a lot more than we expected. Because we were smart and virtuous? Of course not. We just happened to hit the market at the right time when the market for buying rentals was hot. A man who owned many houses and apartments was going on a buying spree. We were just lucky.

    Moral? There is none. Life is not fair. Once upon a time (not now, of course) quite a few people would not sell or rent to a homosexual couple. If you are a Christian and you don’t want to live next door to such – what should be the word to use? Unnatural people?

    One of the reasons people believe in Heaven/Hell/Karma.

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  25. AJ said, You can learn much from wise elders That’s not meant as an insult to your age either. In fact, it’s meant as the sincerest of compliments Sir.

    I am quite sure that no one is confused or in error in this matter, but I am a foolish elder and do not resemble that remark. It’s certainly wise to imagine that there is a Hell and that I am going there. Though you can never really tell for sure, canyou?

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  27. Phos sighting! Phos has arrived in our bush village. She has a new name and is getting settled in. She did get a nice “Welcome to The Gambia” as the boys (MKs and Gambians) playing football (soccer) in front of her house broke her bedroom window soon after her arrival. One of the MKs was sent to fix the window and screen and the rest of the footballers were sent home. Hey, we try to provide a memorable welcome! Others have had car accidents on the ferry on their first trip. We take seriously the motto, ‘Start as you mean to continue.” So right from the very beginning the rule is be ready for anything!

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  29. As creatures with big brains that take a long time to develop, our offspring our much more dependent on us than other creatures. As we have to take care of them for so long physically and psychologically, a big question becomes Who gets to decide how they are treated and what they are taught. Although there are various possibilities, the most common alternatives are the state or the parents.

    For religious believers, increasingly in conflict and disagreement with the state (especially in the United States) the choice becomes painful and acute. Many conservative Christians (and plenty of secular people) choose options such as home schooling or religiously operated schools.

    For example, I consider the theory of evolution the most likely explanation of how life (including human beings) developed. Many conservative Christians abhor the theory of evolution. Many human beings dislike arguments that humans are animals. Thus, they try to make their children conclude that evolution is a [dangerous and harmful] myth. Ultimately the goal of separate education systems to get children to become Christians before they are old enough to be likely to conclude otherwise.

    As much as I prefer my sort of evangelical neighbors and friends (because they are more tolerant and empathic than some Christians I could mention (and more realistic about evolutionary theory), they remain deeply committed to forming children’s minds at a very early age. At my friends’ church, they have their own school and I have seen them having role plays of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection with children 2, 3, and 4 years old. I conclude they are very insecure about letting children grow up enough to (in my opinion) have a reasonable chance to make up their own mind about whether to become believers.

    In my secular group there are a few parents (who feel a bit beleaguered in being surrounded by so many believers) and who clearly prefer that their children not grow up to be believers. (Some grew up in oppressive religious families; some in secular families.) I wondered if they would try to shape little minds to be atheists as I observed with my sort of evangelical friends. As far as I can tell, the secular parents are content to educate their children in a “normal” way (reading, writing, calculating, basic civility and non-sociopathic, non-bullying behavior, etc.) without a lot of positive or negative communication about religion. This reminds me of the thought exercise I wrote a while back about children raised without religion (though not as “pure” as what I envisioned). In any case, religious believers, I conclude, are much more insecure about the solidity of their belief system than secular people.

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  30. I should add that although I deplore and dislike some of the education practices of many religious parents and schools, fundamentally children are the “property” of their parents. With the exception of violations of what I call basic morality — that is, no murder, no torture, no rape, and no slavery — reasonable grounds for state to interfere with parental “rights”, children have to be treated as parents’ property. Therefore it is your right to educate your children in nonsense, I respect your right to do so. I think Roger Williams (who had something like 8 children, I think, the randy old goat) would approve.

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  31. Your thinking is so full of flaws I would have to write as long a comment as my last tale, and they have been pointed out by many other people.

    *****You do this a lot, Random. You *claim* that people’s arguments are full of flaws, but you don’t name any. You have no facts, you simply spout a lot of opinions. 😦

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  32. NOT educating one’s kids spiritually is just as much indoctrination as educating them spiritually. That’s just plain common sense.

    And, of course, parents educate their kids to what is right. They don’t wait until they are older to teach them right from wrong, safe vs. unsafe, kindness vs. meanness, or countless other important life lessons. Why in the world would they choose to abandon their child’s education on THE most critical and important issue there is? That would certainly be falling down (pretty badly) on the job, and rather like failing to teach a child not to drink poison or not to look both ways before crossing the street … until they’re old enough to decide for themselves that they don’t want to be seriously injured or dead.

    SIGH

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  33. Random, if a parent potty trains a child at two, is that insecurity about the importance of potty training, or is that, maybe, a sign that potty training is seen as important for everyday life? If the same parent teaches a child how to use a knife and fork, is the parent showing insecurity that is not present in the life of the parent who throws a McDonald’s take-out bag on the coffee table and figures the kid can help himself when he gets hungry?

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  34. How pathetic is Random’s ingrained atheisticc pessimism about life compared to the faith and hope of a Christian, to say nothing of his boring exposition of his assorted travails and the amusing irony of a village idiot railing against the against established authority.

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  35. Another fun afternoon! Yesterday, I went to band class to help son focus. I arrived beforehand and he was shocked to walk in and see me. He did not have his glasses on or with him. Apparently he has not been wearing glasses in school for some weeks. Anyway, I asked him this morning if he thought he might have them on if I popped in, he said he would. Today I went in halfway through and he did indeed have his glasses on. He was attentive throughout class so the standard has been set, he is without excuse. I have no idea how I can expect him to succeed with all of the disorder around him there. The children have long ago learned to not attend to authority so the band teacher, a new guy, has his hands full. I was sitting there watching and wondering what kind of homes these children came from that they were so disrespectful, and then I remembered to pray for them. Slow learner, I guess.

    Anyway, the folk in the office were again delighted to see me, as though they had never heard of a parent coming in to deal with the problems.

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  38. Tammy, every time I trip and fall, I encounter the fact of gravity. Very few people argue with gravity. If they do (like guy who plummeted from the stratosphere a few days ago), they usually have a very careful fact-based plan. Most people who have big arguments with the facts of gravity are dead. Consider the people who jumped from top floors of the World Trade Center as flames licked at them.

    I have never known anyone to be born of a virgin, though it would be difficult to prove it has never happened. So if you consider that a “fact,” I guess you do. I have never known anyone to rise from the dead, though I keep my cpr certificate up to date. I have talked to at least 15 people who have used cpr. The odds are not good, but once in a while it saves a life, especially if a defibrillator is nearby. There’s nothing miraculous or supernatural about it. But if you consider God raised his Son from the dead thousands of years ago to be a “fact,” then I guess you believe that.

    In the quote you accuse me of not providing “facts.” I was talking about logic, and I explained the logic already today. The logic is Pascal’s wager depends on your religious version being correct. That’s an opinion. The logic depends on there being a Hell where people go who don’t believe as you consider correct. That’s not a fact. That’s an opinion. No matter what I say, we disagree. Now that’s a fact.

    As regard to evolution, it is not an obvious fact in the same way that gravity is an obvious fact. There are lots of factual pieces of evidence. In my OPINION those pieces of evidence support conclusions about evolution. I don’t expect you to agree. In my opinion, I will die. In my opinion, I will cease to exist. In your opinion, I will die. In your opinion, I will go to Hell.

    When you have more facts to back your opinion, let me know.

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  39. Sails, good to see you. I trust your faith is strong in spite of my pessimism. Although the factual evidence is thin, I believe you are incorrect about Roger Williams. I found a quote where he referred to “anti-Christians.” (Deserving free speech.) I think that was his way of referring to atheism.

    I am an optimistic pessimist. I am optimistic because I am having a good day and my body continues to function. I am cheerfully resigned to the knowledge I will die some day. Are you SURE you won’t go to Hell? If I believed what you seem to, I might worry a bit. If Christians really believed what they say they do, wouldn’t they want to go to Heaven right away? But maybe you are not that sure?

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  42. Ajisuun,

    Great news about Phos. If you have the chance, tell her I said hello.

    Mumsee,

    We just can’t go lettin’ in people with such good qualities and intentions. It might be contagious. We can’t have that.

    🙄

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  44. Mumsee at 6:03 pm : Anyway, the folk in the office were again delighted to see me, as though they had never heard of a parent coming in to deal with the problems.

    In my experience as a former public school teacher, usually if a parent came in to deal with the problems, it was to deal with “the problem teachers” who put their perfect angels on detention for heaven only knows what. Disrespect? Disruptive behaviors? What? “Not my kid.”

    Keep up the good work, Mumsee. You’re doing well.

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  45. Trying to make it back here real soon! It has been an awfully busy week: our son was home for a few days for Fall Break; income tax extension deadline was on the 15th; and, finally, I finalized the magazine article for submission yesterday.

    The article is about two ministries which accept used Bible and book donations for distribution to needy populations. Perhaps some of the items even end up in The Gambia? Let’s sing, “It’s a Small World After All.” 🙂 Congrats to Phos for making the leap of faith to engage in another culture. Awesome move showing trust in God!

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  46. I should add (to my 9:38 post) that the above-referenced parents had children at the junior high level. This happened regularly in the first school district in which I taught, where several parents were in denial about their children’s behavior and blamed the teachers when we tried to hold the students accountable for their actions.

    In the second and final school district in which I taught, in a K-6 position, I only recall one time out of five years of teaching that a parent exhibited a blame-the-teacher rather than blame-the-student attitude toward me when one child had a problem in my class.

    If kids know their parents are going to go to bat for them, defending them when they get in trouble at school, they have no motivation to be respectful of anyone there (and they’re probably accustomed to being disrespectful toward their parents at home, too, if they’re not experiencing any consequences there).

    A tough situation all around when limits aren’t enforced. 😦

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  48. Ree at 7:02 asked me if I had read an article (she linked to) by Comelius Van Til, Ph.D. It’s late, we have company tomorrow (our sort of evangelistic neighbors), and my wife is very high strung (as she always is just before we have company).

    So I skimmed the article. The tone and style irritated me, which is not a fair evaluation. It struck me as condescending and unctuous at the same time. If I have time – we are pressed with responsibilities and tasks for our trip – I will try and read it more carefully. So my superficial and cranky response is I find nothing very impressive or convincing. It’s basically, “Why not believe?

    For example: So true is this, that I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything..

    There is no meaning in anything. That is why some humans commit suicide (essentially the only animals to do so). Why don’t we all commit suicide? Well, for one thing, we are animals and all animals follow two basic “rules”: reproduce and survive. All animals follow these rules. They are essential to evolution. Animals that don’t reproduce, don’t make more of their kind. So they don’t continue to exist as a species in competition with animals that reproduce. And animals that don’t strive to survive . . . don’t continue as a species. I don’t commit suicide because it entertains me to read you unconvincing arguments and argue with them.

    So we create meening. Maslow called it a hierarchy of needs. Once we have made some babies, found some food, and dodged the leopard, we think what else is there to do? We study our environment and solve puzzles. Presto! We invented science. People who like to solve puzzles pass on their genes. One day we have Richard Dawkins talking about a selfish gene. We make pleasant sounds. Presto! We invented music! Talented musicians pass on their genes. We daub colors on cave walls (combining it with the idea that it helps us catch animals we paint).

    We fret about dying. We see seeds sprout in the spring. We invent imaginary super beings. We invent the idea that just like seeds sprouting, we will return again. Presto! We invented religion.

    God is erratic and unpredictable. Sometimes crops grow. Sometimes storms, floods, earthquakes, plagues kill us. We try to placate God. We offer sacrifices. We figure we must have done something wrong, so we invent guilt. Nobody is perfect; everybody makes mistakes; everybody does things they should not do. So all sensible people feel guilt. Into the religion hopper it goes.

    Eventually we come up with a perfect man, a “son of God,” who sacrifices himself for everybody! Wow! We have invented the world champion of religions. That keeps us busy and motivated for thousands of years. Of course, it falls off the rails from time to time, and we argue about the right version of God and kill people who don’t worship the right version of God. About that time, Roger Williams comes along and says, “I believe in God, but nobody really knows for sure what God wants, so let’s be as kind and sensible to each other as we can in this mysterious world and let God sort it all out.” I think, “That’s pretty darn good thinking for a person steeped in religious nonsense. If RG was alive today, he would be a very kind, constructive, positive atheist.”

    Maybe not. But it makes a lot more sense to me than The Rev. Cornelius Van Til’s argument for belief.

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  49. I met with my group of religious believers. While they are all kind, pleasant people, I found myself in the somewhat surprising position of being the most moderate person at the party. People wanted to debate with religious believers. (Well, I admit, I cheat. I do it here on the Internet.)

    I’ve been a little uneasy about upsetting Grete Cammermeyer, a lesbian nurse viet Nam heroine. A new person (fairly young, just out of college) who attended the meeting tonight turns out to be a nephew of Grete Cammermeyer. I asked some polite and discreet questions. Nothing shocking, nothing negative, but a couple of comments he made surprised me a bit. Anyway, she allowed the polite comment I made to her about our disagreement to be up on her web site. So I guess we are at peace, if not complete disagreement.

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  50. That Obama is sorta Black and Romney sorta Christian is not why I vote. I vote by the economic platform of the party.

    That sounds fairly sensible. I would do the same (substitute atheist and/or homosexual). Now if Obama were running against a “real” Christian (who had a wacky economic platform) would you stick to your policy?

    For that matter, any person who is not himself or herself wealthy who thinks that Romney is going to implement an economic policy that much helps people who aren’t themselves in Romney’s “1%” economic class strikes me as a person willing to buy a very expensive bridge. But that’s just an opinion, not a fact.

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  51. Very funny story today about sex scandal involving D’Souza and World Magazine and Olasky at The New Republic. Absolutely hilarious. Who wants to spin this for me? I’m surprised some people’s brains don’t burn out. Well, anyone who thinks Newt Gingrich is some kind of advertisement for Christian family values . . . well, we’re all sinners (true) and as long as someone spouts the right nonsense, it’s all good.

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  53. ‎”We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously He once waited for us.” — Charles Spurgeon

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  54. Random, I don’t understand what you think is so funny about the D’Souza article.

    What kind of “spin” are you looking for? I find it rather sad.

    As to the author’s snide comment in the last paragraph, it’s no secret that Olasky was not always a Christian, and I don’t see how bringing up something that happened before he was a Christian has any bearing on the D’Souza matter.

    Even sadder was the comment you posted to that article:

    World Magazine has had a huge schism and a large number of their (faithfully evangelical) participants have hived off to a new web site (which so far has let me participate, much to the horror of a few people).

    Your “schism” is a complete fiction. Did you assume that, not knowing what really happened? Or did you intentionally make that up for the entertainment of more like-minded friends at The New Republic?

    You don’t enhance your credibility with nonsense like that.

    (If anyone else wants to look up what Random is talking about, it’s at http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/108694/the-right-wing-rivalry-behind-dinesh-dsouzas-sex-scandal)

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  55. Kevin, thank you for your comment. If there was no “schism” (huge or teeny tiny) leading to the founding of this blog, that is nice and I stand corrected. If there was no schism leading to the Protestant Reformation, and all Catholics and Protestants are pretty much on the same page, I am glad to hear that also.

    Roger Williams (were he alive) would be glad to hear that also. The Catholics and Protestants who killed each other during Roger’s time would be glad to hear it as well. Assuming the killers and victims are all celebrating and hugging each other in an (imaginary) place called Heaven, they are glad to hear it also.

    You don’t enhance your credibility with nonsense like that.

    The only way I would gain “credibility” at this web site would be to adopt your variety of nonsense. I talked about insanity and mental illness over the last couple of days. It strikes me a fairly crazy to be an atheist who reads a conservative evangelical web site regularly. Is there any reason I should continue? I was kicked off World magazine’s blog. As an addicted participant, I was irritated, but I survived somehow. So I can survive. Bye.

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  56. The Reformation schism has nothing to with the events leading to the creation of this blog. Trying to relate every current event to your pet rants about Christian history is part of what I mean by “nonsense”.

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  58. Kevin, with Random we are essentially dealing with a snake in the grass.
    He regards evangelical Christians as simple-minded fools and gets his kicks from taunting them. Since getting booted from World Mag blog and being placed on notice by AJ, he is playing a sly game of faux friendliness. Unfortunately, some on this blog have fallen for this and harbor the futile wish that he is a potential Christian convert.

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  59. Sails, though Random’s rants can be tiresome, there’ve been times when he’d engage in discussion of other subjects and be quite clever and funny. I’ve enjoyed exchanges with him about common experiences and interests. That was true before he got booted from WMB, and was true for a little while when he appeared here.

    I suppose anyone is a potential convert, but that’s not the only reason I converse with Random. As with others on the blog, I have considered him as much of a friend as I can have in cyberspace.

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  60. Thank you, Kevin. You are a Christian. I am not a Christian. Tonight (in less than half an hour), we are having our sort of evangelical Christian neighbors over for dinner. They consider it perfectly fine for homosexuals to get married. Most people at Wandering Views do not.

    Tuesday night, I met with a small group of secularist people. They (and I) consider our view of the universe to be more accurate than ours. It’s hard to know what times were like hundreds (or thousands) of years ago, but I think that there is plenty of evidence that Christians killed Christians in Roger Williams’ time. I consider him a hero who set the United States on a course where now people of widely differing views and religious beliefs live in peace with each other most of the time.

    We have snakes in the grass on our five acres in the woods. As they are not poisonous, and my wife delights in the, perhaps you can regard me as a non poisonous snake in the woods. If you still dislike snakes (as some people do), best avoid me and ignore me. This, of course, is addressed to Sails. I don’t regard evangelical Christians as simple-minded fools. Christians include a wide range of people. Some are very intelligent. Some are not so intelligent. As with a large group of people. And even very intelligent people can be in error.

    I don’t think of myself as a “troll.” I am not a creature from Scandinavian mythology who lives on a bridge. Of course, in modern parlance, a “troll” is a person who person who spreads and stirs up discord on a web site.

    So, I hope that everyone here is getting along with each other and not falling into discord and disagreement, even if I point out contradictions and incoherency in your belief system, and shameful episodes from Christian history. It’s a price that comes along with the values of free speech and toleration that Roger Williams struggled so energetically to promote.

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  61. Random,

    You can read the Van Til article or not. But if all you’re willing to do is to skim it, you may as well skip it altogether. You certainly won’t understand it by reading bits and pieces. And your response to it so far confirms that.

    Also, there’s been no schism from World Magazine. They’ve simply changed their format so that it’s no longer a blog, and there’s no longer a discussion format. Also, only paid subscribers can even comment at all.

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  62. I am waiting for a sign from God. Well, I am still waiting. I presume you consider that a sign? If I am struck by lightning, that’s a sign? If I am not struck by lightning, that’s a sign? Let’s see . . . whatever happens or doesn’t happen, you are correct? Correct?

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