I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. – M. Cole
I’ve been going through some items my aunties have given me, old craft supplies, a LOT of beads, and Christmas ornaments. Most of what I got was circa early 70s.
Now I just have to wonder what some poor Chinese man or woman had to be thinking when asked to make the manger scene. Look below. I do love the happy face Jesus. The ornament was probably about the same time the proto-emoticon made its first appearance.
There appears to be a happy cow, a hyena (I think it is supposed to be a sheep) and one random duck. Not sure what Joseph is doing, other than winking at the camera about the whole nonsense that some god got Mary preggers (spouse says he has partaken of the weed). Mary herself looks like she’s about to be sick.
An opinion piece in the Washington Times caught my eye. “American’s new religion: Fake Christianity – stop calling yourself a christan if you don’t believe in Christ” It’s by a rather sad little fellow, Everett Piper, PhD. Now, what the phD is in is a mystery since I can’t find what it is and I’ve only found a vague reference that it might be from Michigan State University. Now, who gets a doctorate and doesn’t want anyone to know what it is in, not even on their own website? It seems that Piper might have a secret to keep.
Unsurprisingly, he is a conservative Christian and Trumpee, He was supposedly a never trumper, but surprise! he shucks his morals whenever convenient.
But let’s see what Piper has to say now about Christianity and Chrisitans. I do enjoy some Christian vs. Christian action.
In the beginning he mentions the “Western Journal”, this is not a professional journal, it is simply a conservative Christian rag and website. Its “reporting” is as trustworthy as the rag that Piper writes for, the Washington Times. He also is all about the “biblical worldview” code for “only my version of Christanity, e.g. Christian nationalism, is right”. Of course, every chrisitan thinks that they and they alone have a biblical worldview. Alas, they can’t agree on what that is.
Every Christian calls the others fakes, or misinformed, or Satanists or pagans or heretics, etc. This is nothing new. In this article that Piper mentions, we have an intern deciding she can declare who is a Christian and who isn’t. She is of course sure that her version of Christanity is the only true one. This certainly underlines lack of education she has, which of course is at a Christian (Southern Baptist) for-profit university(aka diploma mill), Grand Canyon U which carefully doesn’t mention that on their TV ads.
She mentions George Barna, the fellow who does some religious research and it’s great to see in black and white just how compromised he is when it comes to that. When a researcher says “Christianity in this nation is rotting from the inside out” one can tell that objectivity is not on his mind. He even goes on ““The moralistic perspective is we’re here to be good people and to try to do good…The therapeutic aspect is everything is supposed to be geared to making me feel good about myself, ultimately to make me happy. Deism is the idea that God created the world but has no direct involvement in it. Basically, according to MTD, there is a distant God who just wants everyone to be nice, and the purpose of life is to be happy. American ‘Christians’ who have adopted this philosophy have… elevate personal definitions of right and wrong above any objective standard of Truth — like the Bible.”
hmm, and all Christians claim that this bible supports their “truth”, and is objective. Now how does that work? As we can see, each Christian, Piper, Barna and Bratton included, have elevated their personal definitions and claimed that their god is agreeing with them.
Each Christian is sure that theirs is the ““the faith that was once and for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude v. 3)”. Piper also chooses to lie about what the founding fathers said about the US too. Patrick Henry never said this “it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!” Gee, the tell is the term “religionists”. It comes from a 1956 issues of The Virginian magazine. Poor modern Christians putting their words in others mouths and then found out to be liars. Thanks, Piper, for showing again how Christians ignore their bible when convenient.
Poor Piper, he wants to feel so special. He finds he must lie again about how his version is the only right one, ever-so “stable, this historical, this enduring, this deep, or this true.” The poor “doctor” also has no idea what solipsism means. Tsk. It doesn’t mean “don’t worry be happy”.
Of course, Piper and his minions are desperately afraid of anyone not like them. They promptly lie about BLM and the LGBTQ community. ““That’s why so many are siding with [neo-Marxist atheistic] groups like Black Lives Matter and the LBGT movement. They’ll listen to the loudest voice on either side. Enter the screaming woke mob; [those who] promote sin under the guise of ‘loving everyone.’” Hmm, Christians all claim that they and their god love everyone. I guess that’s a sin now. Alas, Christians don’t’ agree on what sin consists of either. So again we have humans insisting that they and they are god’s best buddy and he agrees with them only.
Unsurpsingly our christiansn cite Frank Turek, notorious bigot and conservative Christian failure. Frank wants to pretend that Jesus agrees with him on everything. Alas, per the bible itself, Jesus doesn’t. It’s just another human trying to pretend he’s special.
Alas, no one Christian has a lock on Chrisitanity. They all claim the same things and they all fail, even the ones who aren’t so nasty as those mentioned above. Since none can do what is promised for True Christians, Piper, Bratton et al are frauds per their own holy book.
Thanks, guys, for showing that yet again, Christianity splinters, lies and fails. This is going to a heck of a dent in the numbers of Christians anywhere since they are sure each other aren’t really Christian. So much for a “Christian Nation” thanks to numbers or Christianity being a major religion.
Good morning world! I’ve been doing Noom (a weight loss program based on psychology and calorie counting) for three weeks now and I’ve lost weight, 182 to 178. I’ve also started exercising, doing various dance workouts I can watch on YouTube and I bought access to an older Zumba program for about US$10.
My goal is to be down 40 pounds by the end of the year. We’ll see if that happens, but heck anything is good for me right now.
Thanks to utterly incompetent gym/physical education teachers in elementary school, high school and college, I have to surmount the hate they instilled in me for exercise. They never taught *how* to do exercise or sports, and if I wasn’t good to begin with, they had no use for you at all. I was just a problem for them that they simply were too lazy or incompetent to deal with. The art teachers did much the same, too lazy to teach how to draw, how to think like an artist, etc.
I was very uncoordinated as a kid. I was put in a special class for learning coordination. That was hard since I was very smart for my age (reading at a 6th grade level in 2nd grade), but my physical skills were a bit delayed. So, I was the “other” in so many ways. I also simply would rather read a book than jump rope, and ooooh that was just not “normal”.
So, years later, my husband taught me *how* to throw and gee, I’m not bad at it! I had to learn that damn few can do a 30 minute aerobics routine at the beginning, and after an exertion induced headache that knocked me to my knees and made me sure I was dying, I learned that I have to slowly build up to that.
I still do hate that ignorance and laziness from teachers that I trusted to know what they were doing. It held me back for decades. Happily, I’m now an artist, getting paid for my work, and now I’m working on being as physically able as I am mentally.
Try things even if you are sure you “aren’t any good”. This helps cast off the shackles put on you by others who weren’t worth the time or respect you gave them.
“This patient underwent his own speech neuroprosthetic study via the use of electrodes which were implanted over the area of his brain that controls speech. A computer was then able to analyze his brain’s patterns in saying words such as “good,” eventually becoming able to differentiate between 50 words that could create over 1,000 sentences.
Eventually, the man was able to answer basic questions such as “How are you today?” with words that appeared on the computer’s screen roughly three to four seconds. “
Both my grandmothers had strokes and lost their ability to talk. I’d like to think this stuff will eventually help people like them.
This is just awesome. I’m a big fan of secret agents and supervillains since my mom introduced me to my first James Bond movie. My Myers Briggs type is INTJ which I’ve seen described as the “supervillain” (believe in MB or not, it’s accurate for me).
Well, here I am waiting for the big storm that is supposed to descend upon us on Wednesday. We’re supposed to get between 12″ and 30″ of snow, 30.5 to 76 cm for my friends out in the world that use a sensible measuring system.
So, I’ve laid in things to cook with. Hmmm, pierogis? Chinese dumplings? Some kind of cookie definitely.
Now, everyone in Pennsylvania, no matter if they are getting 2″ or 30″ will be madly getting eggs, milk and bread. Does that happen in other states/countries?
