FlaSoxxJim

Holy crud. The magnitude is staggering and it is tragic beyond words to see loss of life on that scale.

Yeah, my bad and I do know the chronology - I just had a lapse. My negativity toward the NT books being seen as divinely inspired is a lot less forceful, and I think good Christians universally accept that the Spirit was upon the NT authors as they preached and wrote. And the descent from a belief in the divinely inspired word to the literally factual word in the NT, while certainly problematic, isn't nearly so mind-numbingly hard to fathom as a similar approach to the OT taken by Literal Fundamentalists. Still, 2,000 years is 2,000 years, and I'd like to think we have made some advances in gender equality during that span.

Yes. The OT was written by men in a male dominated society, and it augmented and reinforced societal laws, rules, and customs that similarly treated women as inferior to men in practically all things. It's not surprising or even upsetting that those passages exist in the OT – like CW has said, taken in literal and historical context, the OT writings in toto make spiritual sense even if they are a product of their times. Doesn't mean you should expect to have much luck using the OT as a 21st century societal mores guide. Protohominids were knuckle draggers and while I guess it would be tradition to ascribe to be a knuckle dragger myself, I choose to enjoy the full benefits of a couple million years of evolution instead. IMHO, you're committing yourself to being a societal knuckle dragger if you think that male-biased OT writings can tell you anything meaningful about 21st century gender dynamics and equality. I know this is where you and I are in sharp contrast, PA. For you, the OT writers were spiritually inspired by the hand of God, so there has to be truth in the heart of them. As long as you don't take that belief to it's the absurd (if logical) conclusion that puts you in the camp of the Biblical Literalists, I think that your views are shared by large number of Christians. Again, I think it comes down to what CW has alluded to – seeing what larger spiritual truths are revealed by the OT writings taken as a whole, and at the same time being able to recognize that the writings are a product of their times and reflect the societal inequities of those times.

Heck, there's no getting mad at this end. And I'll pop for your country skillet when I run into you at Perkins. I'm the product of a traditional family upbringing to the age of 12 or so, when economic realities forced my mom into the workplace. I have nothing wrong with a one working parent situation at all and would love to be able to do it, but I don't think the woman should, per force, be the one staying at home. The point for me is that it's supposed to get to the point where it is the choice of the individual and not a societal thing. Tradition is not necessarily a good reason for making choices if the tradition in question has been one of subjugating women. And there is equal or there is not equal. There's no such thing as 'equal but the man has the final word.' None of this is to deny the differences between males and females of the species. But we're not hunter-gatherers anymore, nor are we warring tribes in which 'might makes right' was a reasonable survival strategy. We've advanced to the point where women shouldn't be paying a pennance for the flaws and f*** ups of men. OT says if a man is going to screw around it's better that he take a wife - heck of a deal for the wife to be saddled with a guy of questionable commitment. Some self-righteous Puritans in Salem get hot and bothered by some of the women and it's chalked up to whitchcraft and the women get toasted. Sperm is cheap and natural selection has not placed a premium on male fidelity, so instead of working harder on the fidelity thing, some men decide to craft the Mormon religion because it sanctions polygamy for men but not women...

But... when do I get my wish?

Ok, just so you know... Soxy just must not have the energy to jump on you over this, and for that matter neither do I. In honor of SOXMAN's[!!!] Orwell references today, the above quote from you is so "but some are more equal than others" it's hard to believe you wrote it with a straight face. How can theer be equality between the genders if ultimately the women is fully expected to submit to male will? And, while Soxy chose not to take you to task, she did in so many words say you are welcome to find a denominational church that is equally , and also hopefully far, far away from the rest of us. But if Mis 4Life is on board with the Divinely ordained second-class status, good on ya. :headshake

Yep, this Christianity stuff is clear as mud, huh?

Thanks, my mind IS clearer now... CW, do you like Elvis Costello? One of my favorite Costello songs is called "God's Comic" off of the "Spike" album. It's got a great visual reference to a lecherous priest meeting up with God in Heaven after he dies, and God is listening to A.L. Webber's Requiem. The tag line is "He said before we'd really begun, I preferred the one about my Son..." My favorite line of the song, though, is the next one where God says "I've been wading through all this unbelievable junk and wondering if I should have given the world to the monkeys."

So the take-home message is that Bush's days at the White House are numbered, right?

My intent obviously was not personal attack on you or your beliefs. But absolutely yes - I confess a complete inability to understand where you stand in your faith, or how you can stand there for that matter. And I appreciate your sorrow over my commitment to the material world over the hereafter. I'll add you to the handful of Born Again friends who have told me how Jesus placed me in their hearts and regularly inquire as to whether I have gotten around to accepting Him as my lord and savior. They are a persistent lot. I'll give them that. All those angry OT chestnuts you posted are great. But they were written by flawed beings (ie, human) that ascribed very human attributes of jealousy and vengeance to an unseen God because they needed to make sense of their world. Ancient civilizations, living precariously at the fringes of a harsh desert are going to have a rough time of it. Drought and famine, plague, war, etc., are to be expected and of course these frequently occurred. But humans need reasons for their suffering, and what better reason than a pissed off God? Regularly happening upon the ruins of abandoned villages and cities, along with convenient and only recently explained physical phenomena like pillars of salt and chunks of brimstone on the banks of the dead sea, Bible authors had lots of inspiration for the Babels and Soddoms and Gemorrahs they wrote about. Back in the days of multi-theism, folks needed entire stables of gods to explain away the seasons, the movements of the sun, the weather, disease and death, etc. Slowly, great thinkers began to offer plausible non-divine explanations for all these physical phenomena, and we have been continually refining these explanations ever since. We still can't wrap our brains around things like apparent evil, death, our fate after death, etc., so we've still got to keep a subset of gods and devils around for good measure. None of that is to say I don't really like that Corinthians verse, because I do. I've actually used it in lectures as a warning to students to never feel too comfortable about what we think we know of the living world. The beautiful intricacy of organic existence at all levels of organization often "destroys the wisdom of the wise and "frustrates the intelligence of the intelligent."

Narrow minded may not be the right word. More like utterly, fatally flawed and homocentric. For an omnipotent Divine Agent to have as Its ultimate goal making sure Its sentient organic creations 'know he is awesome' (subtext: OR ELSE!) is the worst example of ascribing ugly human character traits (vanity, pettiness) to a caricature of a Divinity. If a person doesn't fawn and adore the Divine Agent and offer all works up to Hs Glory, the Divinity is going to get Its widdle feelings hurt and that person has effectively blown it big time in the whole eternal salvation deal – talk about holding a grudge. I very sincerely ask you, PA, get back to me on this when you adopt a construct for God that is actually worthy of the admittedly heady concepts of divinity, omnipotence, infinite mercy, etc. The version you and a lot of folks throw around is of a petty, self-centered child who insists that humanity dote on him or there'll be Hell to pay. Yet strangely, this wind-up cartoon of a God holds sway in so many lives. I always liked Bono's retort to all the Evangelists in search of their almighty Jezo-Bucks, "Well my God isn't short of cash, Mister...". In that same vein, my God isn't so petty that He's going to throw a righteous tantrum and cast me into the eternal flames if I concentrate on making this world a better place in the here and now instead of stroking his apparently very delicate ego.

Yes, Zaphod.

Count your blessings, it was not pretty. The kicker is this is the first game I was able to sit down and watch after finaly plunking down $160 for the digital cable Extra Innings package...

I think Ozzie was doing a rain dance about 5 runs into the first inning.

They're opposites. Smoke up, as in "Smoke Up, Johnny" (name the film?) and smoke out as in The Great American Smoke Out, where all the smokestacks try to go cold turkey for the day.

I hate mimes, everyone hates mimes. Mimes even hate themselves.

You youngins' are supposed to be in the know about such things. "420" is, according to most theories, a police code for a drug offense in progress. There are other theories, however

I'm a big fan of vintage New Orleans style jazz myself (had to stop making the Preservation Hall pilgrimages after the kids came along ) and am also currently really digging some of the seminal bebop stuff I haven't listened to in a long while. I've been hauling a maybe 400-LP subsample of my vinyl collection (another couple hundred still up with my folks) around for 20 years or so. I actually need to get a new turntable because my old reliable Technics finally crapped out on me. I suppose I should just go to the flea market for that dinosaur gear, huh?

I very much enjoy being able to drive into work in the morning and see alligators and big slider turtles basking in the sun on one side of the road, and maybe dolphin or manatees on the other side in our ship channel. The gators are just part of the scenery down here. But we got other stuff that can put the hurts on you too. Last year I woke up to find a coral snake on my back porch, and last week down in the keys I found a beautiful black scorpion in the living room of the lab dorm I was staying at.

OK, I don't want to hear anyone griping about roaches, mice, rats, or other wimpy vermin. Here's a couple pictures of some of my co-workers dealing with our pest problem... This is actually a scrawny little guy, compared to some of the other monsters that make their home on our research campus ("Stumpy" is a12 footer that keeps the feral cats in check – I'll have to go get a shot of him). Still, I can understand the mail delivery people being a little nervous when they found him sleeping under their cart the other day.

Any predictions on attendance for the series yet anybody?

Do not laugh at bowling. I hear it's even on educational television in Milwaulkee.

I didn't bother to read the whole thread, but unless they have taken that whole "turn the other cheek" bit out of the Bible, then yes I would say Christians are supposed to be in the forgiveness buisness.

The 'sex causes sterility' statement is WAY misleadinmg on that news piece. Sex causes unwanted pregnancy, and botched abortion procedures cause the sterility. The conspiracy theorist in me partly believes this is possibly a bit of two-fold spin by for the benefit of the Chinese government and its attempts to curb population growth. First, the message is out there not to have sex. Also, the unusually high number of 'unintended' sterilities post abortion is put on the girls as being their problem, not the clinics. In a country where there are financial incentives for people who voluntarily get sterilized, it's not a huge leap to suggest that the clinics are not too sternly dealt with if a larger than expected number of their patients 'accidently' become sterile after a procedure. Wow, I really am becoming a conspiracy person...

'May Pang' is solid rehersal stuff from the 'Rock and Roll' Sessions - the '74 stuff after Phil Spector was done with the project. It's refreshing because I have come to really dislike the Phil Spector production on most of 'Rock and Roll' but I like the music and the spirit of that release. Looking through my old bootleg vinyl there was some good stuff I had forgot about. One of the better ones is a double LP from New Zealand called "A Knight's Hard Day" and is (obviously) outakes from the studio work for Hard Day's Night. Tex was right - the Lads could have released any number of alternate takes of these tunes and they still would havee been hits. I've been meaning to get all these old plastic waffles digitized, and having someone around with some more recent authority on the Beatle boot scene ( by the way), this might just get me to get it done. Are you Chicagoland-based? If so, I assume you are a Beatlefest veteran. It seems like I grew up at Mark and Carol's affairs, with "Aunt Terri" (Hemmert of long-standing WXRT fame) hosting, Billy Preston stealing event-goers cd's (inside story), and a couple days of great Beatle bartering every summer. It's been 15 years since I've been away from Chicago, and at least that long since I've been to a Beatlefest. I amassed a goood collection during that span, but I've let the digital world pass me by as far as alternate Beatle stuff.