38 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-14-12”

  1. There are some of you who have “known” me for 7 or 8 years. You have heard me whine, gripe, grumble, and occassionally be happy. It was pointed out to me the other day that someone thinks I build people up, make them better versions of themselves, and am a “cheerleader” sort.

    Quite frankly you would have had to melt me and pour me onto a football field to have me stand up in front of all those people and cheer so that struck me as funny.

    On a humorous note, we all have magnetic signs on our cars and trucks advertising the team now. Mine has my name, telephone number, and Gulf Shore Life on it. I was running late Monday afternoon for an appointment (Mr. and Mrs. B), I ended up tailgating (just a tee-tiny little bit) and passing two cars on a two lane road, when all of a sudden it hit me! They know who I am, where I work, and how to call me!!!!!!! Yikes!

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  2. It’s early-shift cop-call day so I’m sitting on the sofa, barely awake but showered, at 5:30 a.m. It is dark outside. Very dark.

    We got new, more complicated (you have to log on to them) phones yesterday. But our old headsets don’t work with these telephones so they’ve had to order a bunch of new ones. Until then, we’re stuck cradling the receiver between our ears and hunched up shoulders to type.

    My neck — which drove me into a few weeks of physical therapy a couple years ago — is not going to like this very much.

    Tess learned to ring a bell last night in class.

    Why is it still so dark?

    Random mumblings at 5:30 a.m. … Now I need to get ready to leave & feed the animals.

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  4. My husband forwarded me this link, a sweet story about a doctor who still charges five dollars for each patient. http://news.yahoo.com/5-doctor-practices-medicine-bygone-era-180340207–finance.html;_ylt=ApxarPGuG9qb0g8YRmlOSWdYhe5_;_ylu=X3oDMTIzYW01ZWZuBG1pdANIQ01PTCBvbiBhcnRpY2xlIHJpZ2h0IHJhaWwEcGtnA2lkLTI4MzIzOTYEcG9zAzYEc2VjA2hjbQR2ZXIDMjM-;_ylg=X3oDMTJqYmZhMTZmBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDNzU5NjcwOTEtMTVlMy0zMDM0LTk1MTEtMGNkMTM5YmZjMTEyBHBzdGNhdAMEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdl;_ylv=3

    Whoa, that’s a long link. Sorry.

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  5. My car is in the shop for repairs, minor I hope. My wife’s will go for what I think is a wheel bearing going when mine is returned later today. I’ve been blessed to have 2 sisters who both married good mechanics. One works for the other at his shop. I have to say, having a good mechanic, and one you can trust to not make unnecessary repairs, and at a fair price, is worth it’s weight in gold. Having two is double bonus! I’m a lucky guy. So thanks to Jeff and Mike at Approved Auto, and to my sisters, for marrying well.

    🙂

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  6. Found it!

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/14/petraeus-agrees-to-testify-on-libya-before-congressional-committees/

    “Former CIA Director David Petraeus has agreed to testify about the Libya terror attack before the House and Senate intelligence committees, Fox News has learned.

    Petraeus had originally been scheduled to testify this Thursday on the burgeoning controversy over the deadly Sept. 11 attack. That appearance was scuttled, though, after the director abruptly resigned over an extramarital affair.”

    “Fox News has learned he is expected to speak off-site to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday about his Libya report.
    The House side is still being worked out.”

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  8. Regarding yesterday’s questions about women being safer in Muslim countries or the US, since I am with them I posed the question to three Egyptian women, a Jordanian, two Indonesian womena and a Mauritanian. They all said they would love to live in a country where women are valued equally with men, whereever that would be.

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  9. Good search on that one. The country that came the closest is killing them almost as fast as they are made.

    But, I would still choose the US over a lot of what I have seen. And most definitely over a Muslim country.

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  13. In regards to Ricky’s questions yesterday, I would say, don’t mistake a system of social and moral codes for truly righteous behaviour. Jesus had a reason for favouring the publican and prostitutes over the morally upright Pharisees. The fomer were capable of understanding that they were sinners, for they felt their miserable state – the latter were completely self-satisfied in their hypocritical works. Outwardly, the culture of a religion of works may seem strict, but in reality, it isn’t sin unless one is caught doing it – and there are many ways to get around the rules. Polygamy and easy divorce for men are one example – why spend time struggling against lust when you can simply take several women to wife and discard them if they don’t please you. The concept of responsibilty for one’s actions, good or bad, to God first and to one’s neighbour second is absent in such a culture.
    Yes, the West is horribly weakened and decadent, because it has steeped in prosperity for too long, but it still retains the ideal of doing unto others as you would have done to you. One doesn’t realize how much that ideal is still a part of Western society until one lives in a culture untouched by Christianity. However, if all these concerned Christians who are restless in the current Western climate feel called to move, such cultures could always use a few more missionaries. Just keep in mind that it will get harder.

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  15. I don’t know why that posted separately with a different avatar quilt…

    Wait…it’s because the ! ended up in the address block somehow…anyhow…

    Hey Frank!

    Got away to the mountains last weekend…much needed.

    Acquired a German Sheperd from my BIL. Just what I need, another large dog to feed…

    And I turned 50 today. Virtual cakes must be diabetic friendly…

    Have a blessed day!

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  19. Happy Birthday InButNotOf!
    I was fifty once. It was a time of peak performance.

    1962 was not such a good year for me, but some important decisions were on the horizon. They worked out well.

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  21. Roscuro,

    Yes, that’s what I was trying to say. You said it well. People in the west, whether Christian or not, generally don’t realize how much of their ethic and their sensibilities have been formed and informed by Christianity. Non-Christians, such as Random Name (and Conan the Librarian and others like him on WMB) believe that we think the way the do because it’s just “common sense” or something. I suspect that notion became part of our consciousness through the secular “Enlightenment”.

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  22. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, INBUTNOTOF!
    You’ve been given the gift of fifty. Now it’s up to you to make it nifty! 🙂

    I hope Mumsee will do a Stevia cake or Nutrasweet, not Saccharin. I have heard of a Coca Cola cake. How about a Diet Coke cake? I don’t think so!

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  23. Ree, I checked out Heretics/Orthodoxy by Chesterton today. (It came in a double volume of both books together. Perhaps I will be converted to Catholicism? I saw a car with a bumper sticker promoting the Latin Mass. I never studied Latin. can I still be saved, even if I become a Catholic? Can I still be saved, even if I attend a Mass in the wrong language? Aren’t you a Protestant? Does it matter? Or if I say I believe in anything that expresses the vaguest affinity to anything Christian, even 7th Day Adventist, Jehovah’s Witness, or Mormon, does that make me a Christian?)

    Well, it all strikes me as a huge bunch of nonsense. I can’t imagine a whole bunch of squirrels sitting around arguing with each other what variety of nuts to eat. Tomorrow I will go to a small get together of the atheists on my island. As I read TV and everyone lamenting about our decline (example from roscuro today: Yes, the West is horribly weakened and decadent, I wonder. There are over 30 churches on my island (and while some are perhaps a little moribund, most seem quite active and vibrant); I expect about 7 or 8 people at our gathering tomorrow. It does seem to me that 2,000 years is a long time to wait for Christ to return. In any case, how can Christianity in America be in so much trouble, when Christians so outnumber everyone else?

    I do see that Texas is making noises about seceding from the United States. As far as I can see Texas has lots of room and lots of piety. How about a trade? All the Christians move to Texas and start a new country. All the secular people stay in the other 49 states. Then we see which country does better.

    Anyway, I will start reading Chesterton’s books and begin posting comments for Ree about the Roger Williams book and the Chesterton books. Perhaps I will be converted to something or other.

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  25. Random,

    You said,

    I’ve heard various formulations of this on wmg and tv, and it’s very old and tired.

    And yet, you still miss its significance.

    But before that, you said,

    Although religion is most likely imaginary, and ideas of good and evil arbitrary products of our physical and cultural evolution, we are struggling to evolve ourselves into better creatures.

    And then you tried to justify the validity of the categories of “better” and “worse” apart from any transcendent and ultimate meaning to existence by saying,

    I am an animal. All animals strive to stay alive. Animals with big brains say, “Not trying to kill me.” Good. We say, “Trying to kill me.” Bad, we say.

    No “transcendant category” to tell me I want to stay alive? My goodness, how dumb and ignorant of me.

    On what basis do you assume that “the longest, most trouble-free life for the most people” is a universal value for which all people strive. Because history bears out the fact that this just isn’t so. Based on your atheistic materialistic, secular humanist worldview, this is the highest value. But most people throughout history, as well as today, are not atheist, materialist, secular humanists.

    If I lived in Roger Williams’ time, I suppose if I happened to belong in the wrong Christian sect and was tied to a stake waiting to be burned, or with a rope around my neck waiting to be hung I would be greatly comforted if the executioners explained to me that they were operating off a “transcendant category.”

    “Yes! Yes! Now I understand! Light the match! Swing the ax! Drop me from the gallows!” I might cry. “Here I go to transcendant land!”

    Presumably because of your inability to understand the centrality of the idea of transcendent truth in 17th century Europe, you seem thoroughly incapable of fairly interpreting these times, so it’s difficult to know what to even respond to here. But if there’s one thing that was definitely not in dispute between Protestants and Roman Catholics, or between high church and low church Anglicans, or between Separatists and Puritans, or between any of the other categories of these people was the reality and the importance of the transcendent God as the foundation of society. And even though he had different ideas than the majority about how this should work out in society, even Roger Williams believed this. For him, the foundation of law, and the purpose of government, was to enforce the “second table” of the Ten Commandments.

    Why at this very moment, I bet some scientist is discovering some new fact about empirical reality

    Really? Is “empirical reality” in such a state of flux that new facts about it are constantly coming into being? And was it not a fact that the universe was heliocentric before it was discovered and comfirmed to be so?

    Also, just because propositions about the existence or non-existence of God don’t fall under the rubric of “empirical reality” does that make them neither true nor untrue? If the triune God exists, is His existence not a fact? And if He doesn’t exist, as you propose, is his non-existence not a fact?

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  28. Oh, dear. Sails has just informed me that I am incapable of seriously reading Chesterton. So perhaps I should not bother trying. Perhaps only very intelligent people such as you and Sails can be saved? Dumb people go to Hell?

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  29. I am no fan of abortion. I don’t consider it a desirable form of birth control. (I do consider birth control to be desirable form of birth control. However, certainly in the case of a woman’s life being endangered, abortion would be called for?

    I was just reading in Time magazine about a woman who died in Ireland after being refused an abortion when her fetus was about to miscarry.

    The woman, a 31-year-old dentist named Savita Halappanavar, died at University Hospital Galway on Oct. 28. An autopsy carried out by the hospital two days later found that she had died from blood-poisoning and an infection known as E.coli ESBL, according to a report in the Irish Times. News of her death became public on Nov. 14 following an interview that her husband gave to a newspaper. Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she began to suffer from back pains last month, her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, explained in a second interview on Nov. 14 to Ireland’s RTE radio. She was quickly brought to hospital, where medical staff told her she was fully dilated, was leaking amniotic fluid and would miscarry her child, her husband said. He said that the hospital staff informed his wife that the miscarriage would only take a few hours. Three days later the fetus died inside Halappanavar’s womb, he said. During this period Halappanavar was in extreme pain and continually asked doctors to terminate the pregnancy, her husband said. Staff refused, according to Praveen Halappanavar, on the grounds that they were prohibited from performing abortions by law and that they could not remove the fetus until its heart had stopped beating. Praveen Halappanavar told the Irish Times that they also refused on the grounds that “this is a Catholic country.”

    Rest of story at http://world.time.com/2012/11/14/ireland-abortion-scandal-death-of-a-pregnant-woman-prompts-soul-searching/?iid=gs-article-mostpop1

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  30. Ree:

    And yet, you still miss its significance.

    Guess so. Perhaps because there is no significance.

    On what basis do you assume that “the longest, most trouble-free life for the most people” is a universal value for which all people strive

    I don’t think this is a “universal value for which all people strive.” I think most people most of the time avoid death and avoid pain and seek pleasure. This is not a “transcendent value.” These are animal reactions from an animal with a big brain and the ability to verbalize generalizations.

    you seem thoroughly incapable of fairly interpreting these times, [17th Century England]. I don’t know what is a “fair interpretation.” Some people behaved fairly decently and kindly. Some people brutally killed and tortured each other. Often the people doing so did it in the name of Christianity. Throughout recorded human history some people have sometimes treated each other decently and kindly, and some people have killed and tortured each other. They have done so in the name of every religious belief and political belief. Often some people did both kind things and horrible things. We are a mess.

    In our times we are striving to behave a little better. The process is very irregular and erratic. I don’t base a word such as “better” on a “transcendent value.” We argue in circles. I don’t murder because I don’t want to be murdered (empathy). I don’t murder because I am not very good at murdering and I would be caught and punished. Most societies have such values and rules, and sanctions to enforce these rule. Societies that promote contrary (sociopath/psychopath) values have at times been successful — Spartans, Nazis, Soviets, etc., but even such societies have at times been very successful for a while, they all eventually failed. Even so, there’s no reason why such societies might not take over the earth or destroy the human race, now that we have atomic weapons, engineered viruses, etc. There’s no guaranteed “happy ending.” In the long run we will all be dead. In the very long run, the sun will go nova.

    And even though he had different ideas than the majority about how this should work out in society, even Roger Williams believed this.

    I admire Roger Williams. I don’t worship him and I don’t agree with him about everything. I agree with him that people should be free to worship and believe as they wish to and I agree with him that people should be free to speak and write as they please. I agree with him that society must of necessity set limits on behavior (no murder, etc.). I disagree with his religious belief.

    Again, we are mammals with big brains. We are a mixture of “good” and “evil.” Values such as “good” and “evil” are products of our physical evolution and our cultural evolution. There’s no reason to believe an entity called “God” had anything to do with it.

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  31. Today was a Rants & Raves sort of day — several items that could be labeled either this or this:

    🙂 😦

    I had extensive dental work done this morning. The good news is that the worst of it is done; the remainder of work I need done can be put off until next year. I’ve used up my insurance benefit for this year.

    My dentist found some pretty serious decay on a tooth next to the one I got a crown on today, which hadn’t been visible until he was doing the work he was doing today. That tooth will need a crown next year, but with the level of decay that was already present, he decided to fill the cavity free of charge to buy me a little time until we can crown it. I’m thankful for a dentist who offers to do things free of charge. He knows we’re on a limited budget, and he feels bad that I have so much trouble with my teeth when I’m trying so hard to do the right thing. We just don’t know why the decay has gotten so aggressive lately. 😦

    Then this afternoon, after the anesthesia began wearing off…one word…PAIN. It’s lessened a little tonight, thankfully, although my lower right gum is still tender where most of the work was done.

    So what’s good about the day? The Lord’s mercy and grace. I was feeling kind of sorry for myself, and grumbling inwardly not only about the dental work, but also the lack of sunshine this time of year, and how it affects me, blah blah blah…

    And then God directed my attention to a Bible verse I had copied onto an index card years ago (Psalm 84:11):

    For the Lord God is a SUN and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.

    I love how He brings to my mind just the verse I need right at the time I need it.

    And the other great thing that happened today was getting an email from a dear friend of mine who I haven’t seen in quite a while. She shared with me some sweet words of love and encouragement, and this scripture (Psalm 86:11):

    Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.

    There is nothing like friendships with dear Christian friends who build us up and encourage us in our walks with the Lord.

    Tonight I can go to bed grateful to be so loved by God that He gave His only Son Jesus to be my Savior, and to bless me with many earthly benefits as well.

    Praise God! 🙂

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  32. Happy Birthday, Inbutnotof, I hope you had a wonderful one.

    !!50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    chocolateraspberryc
    justapinchofchipotle
    chocolateraspberryc
    wholewheatflourand
    theotherkindtooand
    cinnamonnutmegan
    cardamombakingpo
    dereggsbuttercream
    cheesecoconutmilkc

    I hope this works better than the one I just made and it disappeared before I could quite finish.

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  33. Random,

    I’ve been calling you Random or Random Name for a few years, but now that I’m having regular discussions with you, it’s starting to feel kind of weird to keep addressing you as Random, so since you once said don’t mind people calling you by your real name, I decided that’s what I’ll do. I hope that’s okay with you.

    So, Steve, you’re free to read or not read Chesterton (and Lewis). I’m taking you at your word that you will, and I fail to see how any comment from Sails, who wasn’t even involved in our agreement, would have any bearing on it. But if you choose to back out of the agreement, that’s your prerogative. It’s only binding to the extent that you consider your own word binding.

    Just to be clear, though, my expectation in asking you to read it isn’t to “convert you”, and I’m pretty sure I’ve said that to you before. (Although with God, all things are possible). BothHeretics and Orthodoxy were written in response to the false philosophies and assumptions of modernism and, as far as I know, the ones who were popularizing and propagating those philosophies at the time remained unconverted–even the ones who were personal friends of Chesterton, such as George Bernard Shaw. But, if nothing else, it would gratify me to see you become just a little less smug and a little more serious and thoughtful in your interactions with Christian beliefs. Even such a modest outcome, though, seems like kind of a long shot, but if nothing else, I would be satisfied just knowing that you’ve been exposed to such a serious, yet winsome, challenge to your most basic presuppositions.

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  34. Oh 6 Arrows, ouch 😦 Hope you wake up pain-free on Thursday morning!

    What a blessing the Lord provided, though, in His encouragement through the rest of the day (and in the form of a dentist who sounds pretty wonderful in providing a free filling!).

    Still, going to the dentist even for the simplest of things can be so nerve wracking. Sounds like your time in the chair today was not a picnic.

    Happy birthday inbutnotof.

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  35. Ree, my apologies for apparently interfering with your agreement with Random. I actually thought he had read some Chesterton and that his last post reflected this. I hope he will read either Heresy or Orthodoxy and not use my post as an excuse not to .

    I agree with your view of Chesterton as a winsome Christian apologist. I consider him an even better Christian writer than C. S. Lewis, as his style has more verve, humor, and sparkle.

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  38. Ree, I don’t know how I did it but somehow managed to set up my Wandering Views account, so that my name automatically comes up with every reply. You might eMail AJ on this to find out what to do.

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